BENGALURU: In the last three weeks, one has been reading, and watching with horror the genocide in Gaza after the brutal Hamas attack in south Israel on October 7 during a music festival in which thousands of Israelis and some foreigners were killed; some held hostage. Where and how they are is a nightmare not only for families but for all of us, who dread a similar fate at some point in time. The unleashing of carnage since then has been such that the blood and gore are spilling across the continents and have soaked our conscience.
I would dither from saying collective conscience because there’s no letting up of bloodshed. Killing and destruction is insane but it must go on till no one is left to kill. The ceasefire will be on the rubble and stench of death and mass-scale devastation. In this holocaust, the only heroes are the doctors, medical staff, and aid workers, who are working beyond their call of duty.
Even as scenes of air strikes that end up in a huge plume of destruction and of blood of doomed civilians, the hospitals are abuzz with hope. There are doctors who are attending to the injured and maimed amid reports of acute shortage of water, medicines, aid supplies, no electricity, and no hope. Shocked and numbed, children watch the dance of death till the bombs suck their lives out in one stroke of power. Ambulances offload the injured and the dead, people mourn the lifeless bodies wrapped in shrouds. The burial grounds are full. Inside the hospital, the faceless doctors are trying their best to heal.
In the face of hopelessness, they give hope or at least the promise of it. Theirs is a unique story; of the white coats, who will not sit back; flee, or abandon the injured. What material have they been cast in? Certainly not humans because humans kill, and suck the blood of innocent people, children, to revitalise their manic desires of conquest and revenge. It was doctors and the medical staff who stood and reached out to millions across the world during the horrible pandemic years. It was them, who healed the debilitated and the ill and gave hope to us, who had cowered in terror of the killing virus.
It is them, who are standing out in the face of the looming carnage. Many of them would have faced the loss of their families and homes. Many of them would have been killed in the process. But the more the hope sinks the more the heart beats for the medical and aid fraternity. I wish I could be them.
I wish I could save the children from death, destruction, loss, and hunger. What do children born in conflict regions know? What is their worldview? What is their perception of family? Homeland? How do they process homelessness and hopelessness? There are a million questions that sear my heart. I have answers to none. My little understanding tells me that the oppressed are vulnerable to turn oppressors because they know no other way.
This generation of children, who are suffering the bloodshed will not be ‘normal.’ But if they were to learn resilience, they will, from the doctors, nurses, medical and aid supply people who work beyond the 24 hour clock and their human capabilities to reach out to millions of people. If children are taught to build bridges so that they and others can cross over towards peace they will uphold hope.
Last night I read a poem by the late Palestinian poet – Mahmoud Darwish – “Out of my ignorance, I called you a homeland and I forgot homelands are taken away.” With this, I would take your leave, dear readers.
(The writers’ views are their own)