"Akram Awad - The Siege on Gaza: We Share the Blame
As an international community, we all share the responsibility for the ongoing brutal siege on Gaza, and not until we utilise all possible means of peaceful and nonviolent resistance shall we hope for a close end of that siege. international community, we all share the responsibility for the ongoing brutal siege on Gaza, and not until we utilise all possible means of peaceful and nonviolent resistance shall we hope for a close end of that siege.
There is not much to say about the Holocaust of Gaza’s people - assuming that the reader has at least followed the media coverage of what is happening in the traumatised Strip. It comes as no surprise that Gazan’s have resorted to euthanasia to end the lives of thousands of newly hatched chicks, for even Gazan birds would prefer dying with honour over being victims of starvation. There is nothing exceptional about Gazans keeping their children alive with animal feeds, because even those who know the least about Gaza are aware that this is only one of the means used by its people to save the whole region from a definite explosion. The only shocking aspect of the whole current scene is that as much as Gazans are trying to convince their children that this life has at least some goodness that makes it worth clinging to, as much as the world strives to disprove such theories, and establish in the minds of those children that this life and world deserve no more than the curse of Gaza.
So as not to let the reader imagine that the world above belongs to another planet, I must make it clear that the world I’m referring to is actually “Us”: You and me. It’s easy for us to mourn Gaza’s people, and it’s easy to pray for their patience and persistence, and it’s easy to condemn the Israeli slaughter of 1.5 million people in Gaza. What seems impossible, though, is our confession that we are the ones besieging Gaza, and that all our condemnations, protests, prayers and writings - unless accompanied by genuine acts on the ground - are a bashful reflection of our insouciance toward the ongoing massacre against Palestinians in Gaza, and the lack of any desire from our side to take serious and practical actions to break the siege on the strip.
A reader may wonder: “genuine acts on the ground! Me?!” Their wonder will disappear as soon as we come to a realisation that peaceful and nonviolent resistance to injustices throughout history has been as effective as armed resistance – if not superior in many cases.
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