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The Gaza Flotilla: Grasping At A Tiny Straw Of Hope
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May. 28th, 2010 | 05:43 am
mood: 
contemplative
It's such a small thing. A few hundred people taking aid to Gaza, a small patch of our planet that holds the distinction of containing the most human beings per square foot, mile, meter, your pick, beating out even longtime champion Tokyo in the population density event.
Gaza also holds the record for atrocity victim density.
We could easily call it The World's Largest Concentration Camp, too, if it weren't such a tiny geographical area, and if we had more deets on the unknown number of serious contenders are broiling across the sprawling Sahara.
Killing, maiming and torturing the men, women, and children crammed into Gaza is the de facto favorite sport of Israel, which someblogger used to call "the USA's fat little pitbull," assigned to the "very important job of guarding America's oil in the region."
That's just a colorful, bloggerish way of pointing out that every grisly crime committed against the residents of Gaza, and the Palestinians as a people and as a nation, is nothing but the implementation of yet another business decision, no diffferent from Darfur, from Occupied Iraq, Occupied Afghanistan, Occupied, Pakistan, all the various countries in which business decisions are being implemented.
The world has become so enured to these business decisions, and the impact they have on human beings, that a few hundred people setting out to take aid to a group of atrocity victims, it gets in all the papers! It's news!
Just as a drowning man will grasp at a straw, an unreasoning, instinctive reflex, so do the few of us who dare, in thought, word, deed, or any combination, to oppose the implementation of these business decisions grasp at the Gaza Flotilla.
It is our straw of hope. If there can be a few hundred of us who have the resources - and the will to apply them - to take aid to one group of victims, can we apply the cockroach in the kitchen rule?
Could that mean that there are at least a few hundred more of us who wish we were on that Flotilla, but are too old, too infirm, too poor, to go anywhere?
Could there even be a few hundred who just needed a light turned on, a head-bop with a clue stick, an example set, who might go on a subsequent Flotilla?
Could there be subsequent Flotillas, even if US-funded Israeli gunmen turn this one, and those several hundred people into red mist?
The people on the Gaza Flotilla are not heroes. In recent years, especially in the US, it has become standard practice to label as a "hero" anyone who exhibits even the most basic common decency.
If you saw someone bleeding on the side of the road and stopped to help, if you saw a child being assaulted and chased off the attacker, if you shoved an old lady out of oncoming traffic, rescued a kitten from a burning building - you will very likely be called a "hero" in the media of any country who picks up the story. If the US media picks it up, you can count on it.
It's just another odd conundrum of our topsy-turvy world that in a culture molded by such sustained and successful marketing efforts, the same "hero" label is just as routinely applied to he who caused the bleeding, attacked the child, ran over the old lady, or set fire to the house - provided, of course, that the perpetrator's actions were taken in the context of the implementation of business decisions, so that rich men might obtain more money.
People taking aid to atrocity victims are not heroes, and should not be news.
That the Gaza Flotilla is news, that this is what our species has come to, is the really big story, and the people on that Flotilla, though not heroes, are nevertheless much more than just decent human beings, though they are certainly that.
They are undeniably courageous, unarguably selfless. They are risking their own lives to help their brothers and sisters, but what they represent goes way beyond even that noble goal.
The Gaza Flotilla is a straw of hope, for any and all human beings who, even as we drown in the bloody waters of our own destruction, continue to oppose doing harm to others, even in the name of business.
Gaza also holds the record for atrocity victim density.
We could easily call it The World's Largest Concentration Camp, too, if it weren't such a tiny geographical area, and if we had more deets on the unknown number of serious contenders are broiling across the sprawling Sahara.
Killing, maiming and torturing the men, women, and children crammed into Gaza is the de facto favorite sport of Israel, which someblogger used to call "the USA's fat little pitbull," assigned to the "very important job of guarding America's oil in the region."
That's just a colorful, bloggerish way of pointing out that every grisly crime committed against the residents of Gaza, and the Palestinians as a people and as a nation, is nothing but the implementation of yet another business decision, no diffferent from Darfur, from Occupied Iraq, Occupied Afghanistan, Occupied, Pakistan, all the various countries in which business decisions are being implemented.
The world has become so enured to these business decisions, and the impact they have on human beings, that a few hundred people setting out to take aid to a group of atrocity victims, it gets in all the papers! It's news!
Just as a drowning man will grasp at a straw, an unreasoning, instinctive reflex, so do the few of us who dare, in thought, word, deed, or any combination, to oppose the implementation of these business decisions grasp at the Gaza Flotilla.
It is our straw of hope. If there can be a few hundred of us who have the resources - and the will to apply them - to take aid to one group of victims, can we apply the cockroach in the kitchen rule?
Could that mean that there are at least a few hundred more of us who wish we were on that Flotilla, but are too old, too infirm, too poor, to go anywhere?
Could there even be a few hundred who just needed a light turned on, a head-bop with a clue stick, an example set, who might go on a subsequent Flotilla?
Could there be subsequent Flotillas, even if US-funded Israeli gunmen turn this one, and those several hundred people into red mist?
The people on the Gaza Flotilla are not heroes. In recent years, especially in the US, it has become standard practice to label as a "hero" anyone who exhibits even the most basic common decency.
If you saw someone bleeding on the side of the road and stopped to help, if you saw a child being assaulted and chased off the attacker, if you shoved an old lady out of oncoming traffic, rescued a kitten from a burning building - you will very likely be called a "hero" in the media of any country who picks up the story. If the US media picks it up, you can count on it.
It's just another odd conundrum of our topsy-turvy world that in a culture molded by such sustained and successful marketing efforts, the same "hero" label is just as routinely applied to he who caused the bleeding, attacked the child, ran over the old lady, or set fire to the house - provided, of course, that the perpetrator's actions were taken in the context of the implementation of business decisions, so that rich men might obtain more money.
People taking aid to atrocity victims are not heroes, and should not be news.
That the Gaza Flotilla is news, that this is what our species has come to, is the really big story, and the people on that Flotilla, though not heroes, are nevertheless much more than just decent human beings, though they are certainly that.
They are undeniably courageous, unarguably selfless. They are risking their own lives to help their brothers and sisters, but what they represent goes way beyond even that noble goal.
The Gaza Flotilla is a straw of hope, for any and all human beings who, even as we drown in the bloody waters of our own destruction, continue to oppose doing harm to others, even in the name of business.
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