[pathos worldview] Cry out for Qana

Man carries body of girl killed in Israeli air strike in Qana (AFP)

BBC News: Israeli air raid in Qana; Quoted throughout.

My mother sobbed today.

She sobbed because she saw a dead girl, her arms stiff in front of her, carried by a man who stumbled on, dazed with shock. She cried because of the bodies, wrapped in the same blankets they had wrapped themselves in. She cried watching fathers cry while dead limbs reached out desperately from the rubble.
And I went and wrote a blog post.

There was a TV screen between her and the carnage. There is a computer screen between me and this post. We're distanced from both, hoping to touch something with either, hopeless when we realise that neither tears, nor words, nor even blood, has managed to do anything thus far.

A rescue worker moves the body of a girl killed in Israeli air strikes on Qana(AFP)

Reporters in shock manage to put forth, "There were no rockets. This was a building carrying only refugees." No, there aren't any rocket pieces. Only body parts.

Condoleeza Rice will flash her toothy smile and pretend she is "saddened". I say pretend, because saddened people cry. Saddened people say, "That's enough. Stop this senseless killing." Saddenned people don't let other people die, while they say, "Let's wait a while."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier that Israel was not in a hurry to agree to a ceasefire until it achieved its goals in the area.

So I'm pleading, yes pleading to everyone, please look at what's happening. Maybe you're Muslim and you've been bullied into such a corner that you're afraid to utter a pipsqueak of protest. You may be loyal (or afraid) of your Arab governments, but governments don't come before humanity. Maybe you're Jewish and have been taught that Israel can do no wrong. You may hate Hezbollah, but this is the worst way to deal with the situation. Even if Hezbollah is wiped out through this, another group will rise up from the bitter young boys who watched their mothers die as bombs destroyed their houses.

Red cross workers remove bodies of children killed in the Israeli air strike in Qana (AFP)

The ones paying for this are the children. More than 400 civilians are confirmed dead; the true number will likely top 600. Today, in a refugee shelter in Qana, the unthinkable has happened.

Sunday, 30 July 2006

More than 40 people, including 20 children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese town of Qana.
Displaced families had been sheltering in the basement of a site which was crushed after a direct hit.

Maybe you live in North America, and don't know what's happening. You've been saturated with half the story. You've probably seen interviews of the mother of the captured soldier. You haven't seen the despair of the mother of the murdered child. You've seen citizens of Haifa hunkering down in bomb shelters. You haven't seen craters where houses used to be. You've had days where the news of a dead Israeli soldier has blared on for the whole morning. Have you had days where the news of 100, 200, 300 dead civilians, has been mentioned outside that ticker-tape hastily crossing the screen? Have you heard IDF claim they do not intentionally hit civilians, although they only use precision-guided missiles and smart bombs, given to them kindly by the U.S?

Witnesses said the early-morning strike flattened several sites on top of sleeping residents.

One survivor said the "bombing was so intense that no-one could move".

Or perhaps you're ready to dismiss human lives like Haim Ramon (Israeli justice minister) has done and say:

"These places are not villages, they are military bases in which Hezbollah people are hiding and from which they are operating." (Globe and Mail, July 28th)

Please don't come to this issue with a pre-set opinion. Your heart will become cold that way. Just like you would want the world to grieve over a suicide bombing in Haifa, I want you to grieve over a pile of dead children in Qana.
And if you do, cry out.

"May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting"

Qana survivor

[Edit: 57 dead, 37 children (CNN international, 12:15 GMT).]
[Edit: Realities, absurdities of Israel-US policies.]

Mind of a beta-Microbiologist - #3

Clues that Microbiology is sinking into your neurons:

When you see pink streaks in a tub of old yoghurt and you don't think "ewww," you don't think "whoa,"  you think,

"Oh. Serratia."









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Huh? Icky-link :)
Bacteria of the genus Serratia are often pigmented pink-red. Although some non-Serratia species can be pigmented too. Meh, Serratia are the only ones I know :P

[pathos worldview] In the fire, crouching cold

I mentioned in a previous post that when I am truly upset, I can't write a sensible thing. It certainly held true this time.

I tried to compose a post on the war on Lebanon. I tried to write a poem. I made a promise to myself that I would not write another post unless I had first written one about this inane, heart-lacerating issue. I would not be like the rest of the world: cold, indifferent, draping the sheets of barbed politics over the scenes of horror and devastation. And yet I wasn't just going to post some drabble; no, I told myself, it would provide yet another excuse to disregard or belittle what was really going on. I wouldn't rant because there was no place for that - to sprawl my emotions over the screen would be to undermine the very essence of what I was writing about.

I could have, for example, posted pictures of dead children. But I did not want to disturb the more kindhearted readers. I could have posted video of devastated buildings, airports, bridges. But that would simply be showing the obvious. I could have linked to articles on the current humanitarian crisis, detailing how these attacks have only managed to damage civilian infrastructure that will take years to rebuild, blanketing parts of the region in darkness, whilst stripping part of the people of shelter. I could have rattled statistics on how many civilians had been killed, how many billions of dollars it would take to restore countless towns, how many people were displaced, how many were left homeless, how many evacuated and how many were too poor to do so, too unfortunate to not be citizens of Europe or North America, and have the military pluck them out to safety.

But at this point, frankly, there would be no point. Find out for yourself. If you can't grasp the severity, the cruelty, the magnitude of what's going on, I'm too sick of it to tell you. I've lost faith in a large chunk of humanity. What kills me most is the cold, cold indifference. It's become apparent that people don't care enough for certain lives. "Over 300 Dead Lebanese Civilians" maybe isn't as glamorous a heading. Watching a favourite team lose in the World Cup can wring tears from the most stoic of hearts, but thinking of a bomb ripping the limbs of an Arab mother isn't as moving.

Maybe, I've realised, I've done a lot in this post that I hadn't set out to do. Maybe I've seen things that have curdled my blood. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable. It should. Your silence supports it.

We live in a world where being humane is taxing. Being supportive of your government, no matter how much it errs, no matter how much suffering it inflicts on others either directly or passively by ignoring what is right and delicately masking what is wrong, is considered tantamount to civility. But don't do the dismissive thing and brand me as "political." I'm not a vigilante. I'm a daydreaming student who won't kill an ant crawling on her keyboard even though she's allergic to ants. And no, I'm not a "terrorist." Funny word, that. How some people can put on veils and be called terrorists. And some other highly equipped people, with very large bombs, can crash them into villages and be "spreading freedom." Or "defending themselves."

It appears that I've poured out a great deal of words. I suppose it's been cathartic. Perhaps it was necessary. Perhaps it's better the dam bursts in this calm and sensible way. It's odd, I set out with this post explaining how I couldn't write. And I couldn't write, I couldn't watch; so I drew. Without much thought, my hand moved across the notepad and I looked at what I had done, puzzled. It was almost as though it was telling me, "You're sad, but it's ok." And right there and then, I redrew the sketch quickly, scanned it, and told myself, "This is what I will post." I knew it was hopelessly drab and not worth sharing (it did nothing justice), but it was what I could do at the moment, it was a testament to the confusion of my current state, and it would save me from wrenching words out of my system. I ended up writing after all, but I wouldn't have typed a single letter, had it not been for this paltry sketch, the one I took one look at and thought: This is what it is. In the fire, crouching cold.

[pathopoetry] Recovery

You've fooled her, love.
This is her scar, superficial wound
bone-deep.

Inflammation
Of the heart's blood
and pain

The fever breaks
She wonders;
Had it been latent?
Self-inflicted?

Suffering;
But it's her own
Immune response.



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©pathopoet 2006

[µstory] - What to be (excerpt)

“µstory” (“mu-story” or “micro-story”) is a categorization I use to designate a very short story, a prose-poem, or an excerpt from one of my stories/works-in-progress.
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He had his palm on his forehead, leaning his head heavily on it, wisps of hair jutting out miserably from the crevices of his fingers. "I want to do something...spectacular," he breathed, gazing at the table as though the furrows in the grain shared with him some muted understanding. "But am I someone that can do something real? Something good? A person can do a collection of nothings and be elevated into the recognition of the world. Even be infamous if you can't be famous, notorious if you can't be notable. But I - I don't want to be anything to the world. Just to be nothing, but do so much that it's worth something. So later, you'd look around and say, ‘See, something good has happened, we don't know why or how, but it’s wonderful, it's changed.’ Yes, that’s…”
- He buried his hand deeper into his hair, furrowing his brows, closing his eyes as though the table had blinded him. "Nothing seems to be enough for people to notice the world now. It's no longer important enough, no longer severe enough, compelling enough to hold our attention. No, for that we have fiction. Blink at it, oh yes it’s happened, let’s turn to a far richer experience. A whole, real life isn’t enough, isn’t even worth a sentence; awful, wretched it is! So I can’t… I can’t just put forward some simple amount of good as all the rest like me, some small offering that will sink away… insignificant. To really do something, to shake the world and say, “Look!”, to – to help, it must be more than surreal, it must be greater than turning away, so strong it’s worth being a part of, so unimaginable it fills volumes. I don't want my deeds relegated to the prelude of a novel.”

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- Excerpt from a 'novella-in-progress' (for the pathopoet, everything is in progress!), "London Avery"