Hayyan Salim Haidar
One month Two weeks Three days
since the 7th of October
I watched, heard, read. I followed with awe, sorrow and sorry. I witnessed, helpless, unbelieving the “events” “executed” (literally) in this world, the so-called our world. During these monstruous times, horrified, mortified, disgusted, I refrained from writing, while scrutinising acts, actions and reactions, but mainly because of a refusal in the deeper me to express, or react at an early stage,… in quest, and in request, of Reality and Truth.
Then?…
Then came a lull and…, I decided to write… in English, in that, actual, global language, most suitable for reaching out… where it should and is meant to reach most. The very language, in the name of which, these human horrors were thought of, designed, made, meticulously manicured, “signéed” and executed, and at first condoned, then condemned, and finally condoled. The very language in which this shred of writing will trigger (literally) an episode in the saga of the never-ending series of human barbarism.
And we go.
“ How many kids did you kill today ? “
– An episode in the continuing Nakba –
Gaza.a.a…!
Where humans become numbers, where massacred kids become statistics, where, in a savage barbaric “première” in the History of Humanity, children, of Palestine, are orphaning their parents, at the bloodied hands of the fascist colonial “powers” blindly backed by their aides, and subserviently supported by their lackeys.
These words are not meant for leaders of the various states across the globe, not the Arab ones, not the “masters” in the West (for more information as to who is meant by the West kindly refer to the list of states that, in the UN, voted lately against a cease-fire or a stoppage of the ongoing massacres in Palestine).
These writings are meant for people, aimed at those people, the genuine humans who, finally facing the Truth, are voicing their anger at what is been inflicted on other humans, in the name of humans, and refusing it, condemning it, protesting against this “Silence of the Lambs”, that evil residing deep in the “souls” of their rulers.
A huge and hearty THANK YOU is well due and hereby duly addressed to all those true FREE CONSCIOUS HUMANS who, day in day out, are vigilantly streaming the open spaces of the World, and some of the closed ones too, voicing their solidarity, showing their sympathy, crying their outrage and indignation, recognizing the suffering of their brethren. Continuous thanks, heart and soul, are sincerely expressed for this AWAKENING.
And to remain in line with the “official” jargon of the various languages, be it clear that Crimes of all Sorts (CoaS) were and are being committed every second, minute, hour, day, month, year, decade and now century in this land, in historic Palestine, on the historic Palestinian people.
The CoaS crimes include war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing (a very unfortunate term to use in this instance, since there is nothing clean about it), crimes against humanity, Human Rights crimes, to name the salient and most commonly used terminologies. And compared in time, magnitude and per capita Hirozaki (or is it Nagashima?), holocaust, Dresden, Dien Bien Phu, My Lai, Soweto or Algeria, to name the few, famed through intended repetition, ongoing crimes in Palestine make the latter and many other appear as kids’ war games.
Since WWII, the so many, various and varied organisations: UN, Nuremberg, WHO, UNICEF, and the whole UN series, International Law, HR Commission, NATO, EU, ICC, from a list that never ends, all have lost credibility and thence their raison d’être, the very sense of their existence. And alongside, the various and varied Rules of Law, Conventions, Treaties and the like drafted, convened and signed under the location names of Geneva, Rome, Vienna, The Hague, UN and Co. now only confirm the original intention to apply double standards on the weaker, on the “Wretched of the Earth”.
The various NGOs (both Non-governmental and what has now become New– Governmental ones) now turned BONGOs (Business-Oriented NGOs), Agencies, Institutions, Study Centres, Think Tanks…together with all the major ill-intentioned, much-advertised and well-financed programmes of the type of Women-Empowerment, Child Care, Capacity-Building, Youth Whatever…, Freedom of Association, Dialogue, Crisis-Diplomacy, Problem-Solving… proved to be tools to blind the common follower of what GREED is planning for them and for the world, the ever-growing battle between the Haves and the Havenots.
Facts: barbarians, in your name, are indiscriminately (carpet) bombing to death and destroying to oblivion hospitals and schools, mosques and churches, homes and shops, factories and farms. They are, in your name again, savagely slaughtering doctors and nurses, teachers and students, whole families, workers, clergymen, worshippers, and … flora and fauna, anything that is there… that still moves, that still lives in Palestine. Yes… IN YOUR NAME.
For each and every bomb, for each and every one of those massacred peoples and destroyed sites, you are to be condemned unless you raise your voice, unless you stop paying the taxes that finance these crimes, unless you protest and condemn your leaders and make them accountable, unless you force your decision-makers to repent, act and stop this carnage and remunerate for the damages inflicted.
Each and every one of those bombed is a war crime, and the doer and perpetrator, the follower and silent witness are war criminals, together with all those who support them in any way (weapons, finance, political support, lies, media tricks, etc…) and you could be one of them as well if you do not voice loud your opposition and challenge your leaders into taking position with who and what is right.
In your name every hospital, school, mosque, church, house, gathering is being bombed. In your name each of the persons is massacred, maimed or orphaned. Every one of them, now in the tens of thousands, every day of their life, now adding up to what has become centuries of lifetimes is shortened in your name
There is urgent need for an “End of a Lesson”, as Anthony Nutting (now Nothing) repented some 70 years ago..
This dramatic panorama is reminiscent of my early London University years, in the sixties, when, protesting the Vietnam war, crowds in the USA and around the world filled streets and places with their iconic chants: “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” (LBJ being the then US president Lyndon Baines Johnson) and still…it took them a whole decade to stop, defeated, that, yet another, criminal war.
In this lull period, let us all, in the thousands, rise again. Let us all, in the millions, keep the pressure on and try to stop impunity and the mere possibility of any resumption of the crimes. Let us take further the facts of these genocidal acts to the highest courts of justice, national and international, where the now known criminals can be made responsible, and when refused access, let us form our own People of the World’s Highest Criminal Court and try them, for all these crimes against humanity.
Repeatedly, with my sincerest thanks to all concerned, the real freedom fighters of the Rest of the World.
Hayyan Salim Haidar. Lebanon, North of Palestine,
On UN Palestine Day, November 29th. 2023