Before I start this entry I just want to say that I feel really disgusted right now. Tiffany has a cousin who lives in Beirut and who has been writing everyday to update her relatives on the war and what is happening to them. I feel like leaving this internet cafe and throwing up around the corner.
I try to keep a relative distance from speaking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I don't know enough about it-- though to be honest I know more than most. But sometimes I just think that half the world-- or rather more like a fifth-- is completely blinding itself to the fact that so many people live such wretched lives because of Israel's military policy. Yes, countries do have a right to defend themselves and yes, Hezbollah is a group which uses violence and other illegal means, but this does not mean we should turn a blind eye to the rampant bombing of residential areas carried out by the Israeli armed forces.
One thing that you learn when travelling is that information is an incredibly precious commodity-- and so many people are incredibly ignorant. I remember a conversation I had with Ike Okonta at Oxford. Ike is a scholar and journalist from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria-- he authored a book with a lawyer who defended Ken Saro-Wiwa, the activist who founded MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People) and who Abacha has executed along with 8 others-- while Shell stood by with its head barely in the sand, its eyes eagerly peaking out at the mounds of oil lying below the surface of the mangrove swamps in the region. Ike and I were talking about racism, and he told me it is all about experience, all about what people know. It is true. Racism is due to ignorance. Having knowledge and listening to people is what solves such problems. Ignorance also expains other things-- how people in countries like the US will not know about the hundreds of Lebanese citizens being wounded and dying and therefore listen to their president patter about in his office and wimper about countries having to defend themselves (by starting a war that will only strengthen Hezbollah's support and weaken the government???).
Information-- being in other places, talking to people, reading the newspapers, you realise the extent to which this world is structured around the hegemonous power of the elite in the west-- and the elite the world over. This is not surprising-- power and money have always structured the world. But what you realise is that the life is incredibly unfair and causes incredibly anger. If you sit quietly on your porch wondering why Hezbollah guerrillas would kidnap Israeli soldiers, go and do your research.
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Ok. I think I need a new entry now.
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