HUMANITY GONE LEFT

 

Ms. Evis, my first grade teacher who delighted in having her students dance around the Maypole and other Irish celebrations I’ve long forgotten, would violently snatch the pencil out of my left hand. 

"It’s a right handed world!" she’d scold forcing the pencil into my right hand. 

But this world ain't right.

Day after day, week after week we watch in horror as 2,000 pound bombs are dropped on civilian populations in Gaza: homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, historic monuments, refugee camps -  often live and in 5G. The New York Times estimates there have been 200 such bombs dropped on civilian targets by an army which boasts some of the smartest and accurate weaponry on the planet. 

Trauma porn: I can’t look away.

In 2011 I planned a trip for Egypt to see the pyramids. A bucket list type of trip for sure. 4 of us were scheduled to go but the other 3 dropped out for various reasons so I went alone reasoning I might not ever get the opportunity again. Alone amongst the myriads of other tourists I would look at the majesty of the Great Pyramids and Sphinx and ask aloud to the oblivious crowd: Is anyone seeing this?

Is anyone seeing this?!?

Upon his release from his Robben Island prison after 27 years, the Great Freedom Fighter, Nelson Mandela – to whom a statue was erected in Gaza - stated about the Palestinian situation “We are not free until we all are free!” Nelson Mandela become the President of South Africa from 1994 – 1999 and was paraded around the world, rightfully, as a hero. Interesting to note that he was still on America’s “Terrorist List” during his tenure as President and wasn’t removed from said list until 2008! 

America is never if very rarely on the right side of history.

There’s a book series where they teach you the basics of a given subject: Computers for Dummies, Writing Business Plans for Dummies and so forth. I suggest a new title for the series: Humanity For Dummies. An early chapter would read something like this:

It is wrong to systematically kill children for any reason, regardless of the “reason”;  shooting pregnant mothers waving white flags on their way to the hospital to give birth is both wrong and reprehensible;  making videos of yourself bombing refugee camps and civilian buildings leaving folks to sift through tons of concrete rubble barehanded often with nothing more on their feet than sandals is not a good look.

You know, the basics.

Maybe I care so much because their story of colonialism is so familiar. I see MYSELF digging through the rubble for my child. Interestingly, when Michael Brown was killed in the US a few years back, it was Palestinians who reached out to Black Lives Matter activists giving them suggestions about how to handle the effects of tear gas and other ways of coping with an oppressive regime. And I feel we’ve let them down, the world collectively as we witness their merciless onslaught.

The New York Times wrote an article about a week back that stated:

How could anyone just go on as if nothing had happened? A common conclusion is that people just don’t care. But inaction isn’t always caused by apathy. It can also be the product of empathy. More specifically, it can be the result of what psychologists call empathic distress: hurting for others while feeling unable to help.

But another product of empathic distress that the article didn’t touch on is RAGE. I stay pissed off. At my friends for seemingly not caring enough, at the UN for being the UN – completely fucking useless, at the United States – specifically an administration I voted for! - for supplying the weapons used to slaughter civilians, at myself for seeing the carnage and just scrolling past and commenting on some light-hearted story where my biggest concern is which emoji to use (insert eyeroll emoji).

So I make myself feel better by donating to places like Doctors Without Borders and hope beyond hope that somehow, in some way my couple of dollars will make a difference while scrolling to the next story pretending that everything is fine. But like Marcellus’ character in Pulp Fiction said to Bruce Willis after that horrific pawn shop basement scene “nah man, I’m pretty fucking far from OK.”

This past weekend I turned 54 years old and much to the chagrin of my late teacher Ms. Evis, I still write with my left.

It’s just the world that remains far from right (insert broken heart, crying emoji).