Unless you have been living under a rock, in case you hadn't noticed, the world is teetering on the edge of the abyss.
Wars, Genocide, Terrorism, Climate Change, Hate Speeches and intense Hate-filled Emotions—and some relief with Mahua Moitra winning Round 1 of the Rottweiler bout.
Your brains are fried;
your fixed ideologies turned on their head.
And the future is bleak—or is it really??
So, as a rather dimwitted observer, I keep asking myself questions.
Answers to which I have none.
1. The barbaric Hamas atrocity on
Oct 7, in all its televised horror, shook us to the core.
No question.
And without a doubt, Hamas must be obliterated. A knock-out blow.
But if Hamas is the Government of Gaza, is this response by Israel a War against a state that pulled the trigger first??
If Hamas is a terror outfit, why isn't everyone asking Hamas to surrender unconditionally, lay down arms and save the hapless, devastated Palestinian citizenry from annihilation.
And if Hamas signifies freedom fighters...well?? You must be kidding, right??
2. The righteous Jewish people who, whatever the arguments to the contrary, have created a complete miracle in the desert named Israel.
Green, high-tech, R&D, agriculture surplus….
Love them or Hate them, the Jewish race is easily the most incredible, ingenious and intrepid race in history.
However, being the descendants of Solomon the Wise, one would expect better.
Their sheer fury and existential threat is perfectly understood.
But this level of destruction of innocent civilians??
Does humanity count for anything??
And the constant, daily humiliation of Palestinian Arabs in the occupied West Bank is appalling for any decent government to indulge in.
You already have your heavy boots on the ground.
The least one expects is to govern a population with heart!
When you walk through history, you always feel despairingly for the plight of Jews down through the centuries—because they were always powerless.
So when they are in power, the right to question must be accepted—even if it comes from a lame-duck UN Secretary-General.
So is Israel completely a victim or complete aggressor??
Or is it something in between??
3. All of us are sickened to the gut, by the sheer banality of war, whether in Ukraine or Gaza, especially as it plays out daily in real time on our hand-held devices.
But have we ever questioned our fascination for war and war heroes through the trajectory of history.
Alexander the Great,
Richard the Lion heart,
Suleiman the Magnificent,
the incredible Pharoahs,
Akbar the Great,
Ashoka the Great, (though he had a change of Kalinga or Kaleja),
Genghis Khan the magnificent Mongol Emperor.
Have we ever reflected on whether these "Great" and “Magnificent” warriors in history, revered as demi-gods in today's cultures won wars by a touch of love and a sprinkling of fresh air??
Did they not shed blood??
Did they not butcher, maim, cripple and destroy entire civilisations??
In many ways, they have transformed into our eternal heroes.
And who knows, if Israel pulls this off, the PM may be recorded in history as BiBi the Beautiful.
So if we glorify and justify wars of the past, why do we have the moral right to be offended by the wars of the present??
4. Coming to this tiny enclave of Goa, which needless to say is bombing itself into oblivion,
I noticed a minor incongruity in a huge and successful meeting on preserving Goa's communal harmony at Margao recently.
The BJP-RSS were unapologetic for their Hindutva.
And we rightly opposed it.
But when there is a massive infusion of Congress bad blood into the BJP,
does it make the Mauvins, Vshwajeets, Babushes and Digambars, who have a stranglehold on the minority votes in their little strips, communal??
Or does it make the BJP secular??
Or is this communal-secular trope, at least in Goa a tiresome distraction—for the birds??
The singular goal of all these Congress-BJP czars is simply the annexation of Goa to their personal kingdoms.
Even Putin could learn from these guys, how to annex land without firing a bullet.
5. Pope Pius Xll was deathly silent during the Holocaust.
Russian Patriarch Krill failed to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Worse, Arab leaders are fuming and frothing at this “genocide" of innocents but they are strangely silent when a venomous Iranian regime murders its own women or the Yemenis massacre their own fellow Muslims.
Or Pakistani jihadis bomb out the infidels.
No outrage then.
No breast beating.
Why so??
The last few weeks have turned us into a bunch of cynical, brain-dead zombies.
All the Gods and Wise men and women of the world can do absolutely zilch, nada, nothing to cease this sheer carnage and barbarism unleashed in Israel-Palestine, Ukraine-Russia, as well as the off-the-radar wars in Africa.
Wars that are essentially being fought in God and Nation's name.
India has thus far been spared the madness gripping the planet but at the level of hatred we are capable of unleashing upon each other in cyberspace or in a simple conversation, the time is not far off when we will be out on the battlefield ourselves, baying for real blood.
You can smell the stench of that blood already!!
DR. OSCAR REBELLO GOA