Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Destruction without a Cause or is there?

In an attempt to clear some of the murkiness in my mind, around the ongoing Israel/Hamas stand off, I have been reading and trying to crystallize my own amongst the vistas floating around the virtual space.

Am sharing this and this and this and this which were the latest reads in my endeavour to clear the smokescreen (not the white phosphorus one though)

19 comments:

white_angel said...

So, what is your conclusion of this whole mess?
Has the smokescreen lifted or it still prevails?

CAT said...

http://www.stratfor.com
/weekly/20090107_hamas_and_arab_states

The above added a new dimension!!

white_angel said...

phew, too many dimensions to this issue...
but I dont understand why we all are bothered so much about this when it least affects us, hope we had better issues to discuss about..

CAT said...

YES there is ample grist to grind with issues closer home. But when remote conflicts manifest in terrorism(Chabbad House,Bombay) at home or protests of solidarity et al,it is but natural to get some sort of perspective by burrowing deeper...how deep is totally dependent on the individual.

A.I. said...

Why should a hungry child in Ethiopia concern me less than a hungry child in our neighborhood? Really depends on how big my well is!

CAT said...

Altruism,humaneness has no limits or boundaries!

Having said that ,its also true that benefaction and tangible manifestations of concern are more weighty than just the philosophical ones!

A.I. said...

And why must either be limited by any boundaries?

CAT said...

Why does the question even arise?

If one is in that position of competency where assistance/relief can be rendered to the hungry child in the neighbourhood as well as to that malnourished child in Ethiopia,it is indeed fortunate.

Though it would be unrighteous to ignore/sideline the inequities /deficiencies in our immediate environment for those which are afar.

A.I. said...

Certainly...but wasn't this merely an "effort to clear the smokescreen" from over a far away issue...which, like you very correctly pointed out, turns into a closer to home issue by default sooner than later?

Or was it an effort to "to ignore/sideline the inequities /deficiencies in our immediate environment for those which are afar.?"

I thought it was the former. Wasn't it?

A.I. said...

The reaction...to clarify ..was to 'why are we and bothered'...and 'better issues to discuss'

since all we can do in our limited capacities is bother and discuss...unless we're in a position to act and achieve results within a respectable time frame...again...keeping the topic and contents of the blog in mind. :)

Peace!

CAT said...

Two unrelated issues have completely got entwined.

There is not much that one as a concerned global citizen, with limited influence, can do to unravel the complexities of middle east situation, except perhaps try fathom,have a stance and express protest/solidarity.

Which is not necessarily the case where societal deficiencies, underdevelopment, privation issues are concerned!

My previous 2 comments were in response to yours questioning limits of the sphere of concern.

white_angel said...

what i am really trying to understand here is, what is it about this incident that makes many of us want to discuss. Even I have written about this in my blog but, we never discussed when russia intervened in Georgia v/s South Ossetia and 1500 were killed, neither in kosovo, bosnia nor chechnya issues. All humanitarian mind you. And I am also wondering if Israelis and Palestinians think and write about our situation with Pakistan, quite a thought.
Another thought: what does australians write in their blogs? They dont have terrorism or poverty or such issues to discuss.

A.I. said...

I personally have never followed politics anywhere till very recently. I knew from the time I was a child that Palestinians were in trouble because I saw a lot of them in Saudi Arabia when I visited. Now that I have Israeli neighbors, their issues have come into sharp focus too.

As far as 'concern' is concerned, violence and disrespect for human rights anywhere is/must be a matter of concern IMHO.

Maybe the fact that foreigners were victims too in the Mumbai incident has brought Israel into sharp focus suddenly for Indians?

Since Australia has been mentioned, I'd like to present this link without meaning to be racist. Parah 4 and the secondlast one are particularly interesting and may shed some light on why every issue involving Muslims around the world has become everyone's issue.

http://www.islamicpopulation.com/australia_muslim.html

CAT said...

white_angel...

Perhaps it is the predominance (globally) of this ongoing conflict or perhaps the brutality or perhaps the history of ties of Israel/Palestine with India or perhaps as mentioned earlier heightened awareness of Israel brought about the 26/11 attack in Bombay. Most of us view global news as data that gets relegated to some corner of our minds till some incident closer home goads a reaction out of us....surfeit of discussion,blogging,media blitz...dunno!

Am sure the intelligensia in Israel/Palestine have their views about the Indo/Pak issue,have not actively googled for them ,so..... Their own domestic issues I guess are of greater importance for the regular bloggers?

Australia has its own domestic issue like illegal immigration,envirornmental degradation,drought,anti terrorism laws,education, politics ,BEER, sports etc etc to discuss...so no paradise on earth so far

CAT said...

A.I. .awareness/concern are hallmarks of a intelligent /humane/righteous human beings. So no confusion there!

I am not sure how to interpret the contents of the link u mentioned. While it is a right and perhaps a natural tendency of every individual to be proactively concerned about the welfare of their community globally,I get distressed as well as irritated when it exists within confining limits of concern for coreligionists. We need to get away from circumcribing our outlooks and gravitate more towards viewing ourselves as humanity at large minus the blinkers of religion,color,race et al

A.I. said...

My point exactly, Cat.

The Palestine Israel conflict undeniably has a big element of religion in its roots and I think you've grasped perfectly what I'm trying to convey by posting that link.

Animesh said...

I saw a great piece on Democracy Now yesterday on this. If you get time, have a look at it. [link].

Animesh said...

Also, a great post on it at mutiny is here.

CAT said...

Thanks animesh, will go thru the links at leisure!