In

In the course of the work I do here in NS, I’ve come across news related to the fighting in the Gaza strip, so ever often. I actually can say in the most straight an uninterested manner that the Israeli’s have just had a dozen Qassam Rockets showered on them, or the the Israeli Airforce have just airstriked a settlement killing 6. Its a strange thing, how one becomes desensitized when over exposed to something so gruesome. Just like the neurosurgeon who told me that eventually he left his practice because when he failed to save a patient, all he sees is but another failed body. Its perhaps a self preservation mechanism, such that one does not become lost by being overtly emotionally invested. Yet do we really want to be but a machine built to survive? Humanity, is what distinguishes us. Yet often enough we commit sacrileges acts against humanity, so much that even a non participant, such as myself can glance over the atrocities going on, and be desensitized. However whilst listening to Jason Mraz’s album I came across this passage: I’m building the world myself and putting new hats on everybody one by one…Before I go out I’m gonna have people in tutus, Cops wearing Sombreros, Stockbrokers with viking hats, Priest with panties on their heads. In the world I’m building, everybody shouts hello to everybody else from their car windows. People have speakers attached to their chests that pour music so you can tell from a distance what mood they’re in, and they wont be too chicken to get naked when the rain comes. Wondering who could be so naive to write such a thing I Googled her and stumbled across the Rachel Corrie Memorial Website. There upon I spent the next half an hour devouring her letters and email correspondences. And this girl whom I had judged naive, did nothing to change my view. The words were naive. But it did light a torch that had died in me. I thought about the people there again. This time, it was not another Qassam rocket, it was not just another number, it was two boys and a woman shot by Israeli soldiers whilst firing at Hamas militants. I hear the pain, a silent sort of pain. One screamed so far away from me, divided by space, divided by a reporters lag and delivered by Reuters. It pops into my head that we can choose to walk away from it like the Neurosurgeon chose to walk away from it. It strikes me that I can’t not for two years anyhow. But more so, can we choose to walk away from it knowing the situation there? Knowing, that a person hasn’t even got the right to go to school without fearing being sniped? Than again what can we do? We can walk away or we can stay where we are and know the suffering. We can of course choose to walk away from the comforts we have been bestowed with, but how many of us can?