In a previous blog, Humour Verses Violence: Your Say?” I touched upon the ongoing situation in the Middle East, and received a couple of responses. One here and one to follow. Each tackling a different aspect of a difficult situation.
My friend Lynx wrote: “I so wish that the Jews and Palestinians could live together in peace, but history has proven that Jews and Muslims do not make good neighbors most of the time. It's not that the people can't get along, it's their militaries and politicians that cannot. There is no clear or simple solution to this, except as you say, except for the violence to end on BOTH sides. The Palestinians have to quit sending suicide bombers and missiles over, and the Jews have to quit retaliating tit for tat. Only once these things happen can peace truly happen, and negotiations for permanent solutions begin. And the US has to get out of the negotiations, as everyone knows we're biased. A more neutral party needs to step in and hold BOTH accountable.”
To which I replied, “Lynx you are so right again, but just right now I can’t see how both sides can live together. The Jews say they are happy to live in peace with everybody who will accept their existence and their boundaries, and the Palestinians refuse to accept either. Until there is an acceptable compromise on both sides, there will never be any winners except the Arms Industries. As for the Americans handing over their place at the negotiating table for someone more neutral, I would agree in principal, but then would struggle to find someone truly neutral to fill their place. It is rather pointless replacing one biased party with another biased party, isn’t it?”
I then concluded with: “I wasn’t really wishing to be drawn into this issue at all, but I saw the message behind the e-mail as being that Humour will get a bigger and longer lasting audience than Violence ever will. And humour will make people a little less tighter, where as violence works the other way, and makes everything harder.”
I would again like to make that same point here, that we all need to Lighten up every where. Not just in the Middle East either, but everywhere we are, and no matter what we are doing or engaged in. We also, as Lynx rightly pointed out, need to stop playing the blame Game and playing tit for tat, because no one will even win that way, as each will always want to have the last whack at the other. So forgetting the real Middle East for the moment, what is “your Middle East” today? And how can you come to terms with your enemy, before you beat each other to death? Something for you to think on I hope?
1 comment:
You are right, it comes down to picking your "fights" wisely. You can't pick a fight that you're going to lose, only to lose and then retaliate. Perhaps someday we'll all get to that point. Some days it's just smarter to keep your mouth shut for a moment. Laughter really is the best medicine, both for illness and anger. I just don't see it happening anytime soon on a global scale. That's why everything starts locally. Laughter is contagious yanno!
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