h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've decided to broadcast this poem of mine, hitherto part of a thread. It was prompted by the sight and sound of a man on a bare bed in an vastly overcrowded hospital in Gaza, covered in blood and probably dying, screaming out in pain for Allah, there probably being a limited supply only of morphine, as well as other necessary hospital equipment, owing to checkpoints on the Israeli border.

It's not by any means an easy poem, but its heart is in the right place. If you have difficulty with it, cleave to the heart. It was inappropriate to write a smooth and accessible poem, I'm afraid, after seeing what I'd seen.

No alterations have been made, except for two typos.

Jabs.


Israel bombs cluster bombs eyeless in Gaza sure
2009 make a new uphill your batch secure
Hopes high paybill for warcrimes wooing
Old year an oscillate passing dewing
Friends/ family/ cement wish stress
Stop renewed madness
With warm and year cards send them
Straight into the fire send them
New accommodation with fate unpaid
As yet In 2009 as dogs of war play fusillade
Few hospitals, death on flame,
Preventable deaths of the mad and the sane
Lack supplies. Man screams for Allah in mortal pain.

It's a lovely poem, Jab

I've never been convinced that anyone really *deserves* to be in so much pain. And, if it turns out that I am wrong, I say that whatever karmic principles you believe in will handle the matter of doling out appropriate amounts to the perpetrators and victims.

There was a movie called "The Band's Visit" this past year, about an Egyptian band on its way to a gig, who got lost and ended up in an Israeli section of Gaza. An Israeli woman and her family were running a diner that they stopped at, and the film examines the growing empathy among the different characters. I can't remember whether I saw it or not. It seems too vivid in my mind to have registered only in previews.

Thanks for that Jabs. It is most appropriate that the poem is not 'comfortable'; goodness knows there is precious little comfort in the middle east right now. Whether the conflict is really one of religious intolerance or purely territorial is a question that's fast becoming lost in the mists of history and complicated by the political alliances now involved. Two peoples of Abrahamic descent and beliefs should be able to understand each other but it seems unlikely that they ever will I'm afraid.

In the meantime the innocent continue to suffer.

Paul and el D, thanks for your responses.

- I tried and tried to answer you, but could say nothing at first in view of the horrors perpetrated on Gaza by Israel. I'll try again. Even if Israel's correct that Hamas started it, the immensely superior firepower of Israel has led to a world-condemned unmeasured response - 100 Palestinians for each Israeli, and thousands and thousands of injuries. And we haven't evolved past the illogicality of some innocent's, or innocent family's, or innocent child's tooth (or guilty - there are no trials here) for an innocent's tooth - and feeling justified in doing it. When they most probably have no link at all with Hamas. (no trials here).

An Israeli spokesman felt very justified.

But the question of hospital supplies. These are being deliberately slowed down by the Israelis, who govern Gaza's borders, leading people like the man I saw to die in unimaginable pain and overcrowded squalor. There was no one available even to hold his hand. How can that be right? People are flocking to Egypt's border not just for asylum, but to try to get into their hospitals. Forget Israel. Their borders and their hospitals are closed to their victims. This is wholly indefensible.

I am not Jewish, and I am not in the slightest degree anti-Jewish. I think those in the West, at least, are an intelligent and gifted race who have enriched society considerably. Freud? Einstein? But Israel? Who could support Israel at times like these?

Jab

How correct.

But - think. We have been bludgeoned with tales of 'bale outs'. But there has not been one bleat, not one small cry from the arms industry needing financial aid to sustain jobs. Business is fine.

Who controls the arms industry?

Jab it is a very well written and thought provoking poem and the very sad thing is about the arm industry is that they always peddle the excuse for their trade is that someone else will do it. It is also the same excuse used in why torture equipment is sold. I hope that one day this conflict will end.

You have hit on a very pertinent point, PBS. Support for the arms trade is far wider and more insidious than we might at first think. As a Quaker I am involved in identifying public bodies that invest *our money* in arms manufacturers. We are currently lobbying local authorities who invest in this way - including our own here in West Dorset - to withdraw and invest more ehtically.

So whether we like it or not - and I suspect it is mostly "not" - we indirectly control the arms trade!

And Jews were selling shields and swords to both sides in the crusades. Nothing has changed.

You might be interested in this group. I have friends who have been involved and we regularly host their gatherings and workshops at The Quaker Study Centre where I sometimes work.

http://www.eappi.org/

No1. My respects to you Jab on your verse/poem

a good few hootoo'ers should by now know my character/persona, as it's exactly the same here as in real life. I can quite honestly say (without wanting to hurt anyone's feelings)that a percentage of the "humans" on this planet, make me ashamed to be human.

I am a atheist, but I respect every single living person for their own none violent beliefs, I respect everyone and I treat everyone as my friend, until THEY prove different - If I can can do it -

heads need knocking together

My dear late mother used to threaten my sister and I with "banging our heads together" - the threat was always enough! Would that it were so with the Palestinians and Israelis.

a wise lady - my respects El D

I remember Mum (all 4' 9" of her), standing on a chair and making my brothers (who towered over her) stand in front of her... Then banging their heads together!

My brothers were in their teens at the time!

As did mine - although my mum was 6 feet tall.You'd probably get locked up for doing that today.

Pedantic, to back up your excellent point about the arms industry in Post 5, this from the lead column in today's Private Eye magazine:


"While Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for an 'immediate ceasefire" in Gaza and Gordon Brown stressed the need to "stop the supply of arms" to Hamas, the Foreign Office has been licensing increasing arms sales to Israel. These include just the kind of kit the Israeli Air Force needs for its bombardment...

...According to the latest Foreign Office figures, Britain exported £18, 847, 795 - worth of weapons to Israel in the first three months of 2008 alone. This was a sharp increase compared to the £7.5m of weapons sales to Israel in the whole of 2007."



Jabs

Quite!

And whose money is it?

This is totally unacceptable.

It's not just the fact that our money is being used to inflict murder on innocent people, it's also that our name as a nation is associated with this barbaric conduct. In that respect, it's Iraq all over again.

Iraq used to be England's problem in the early/mid-20th century. before that, it was the Ottoman Empire's problem, and even earlier it was occasionally part of the Roman Empire. I believe that the idea of air strikes on civilian targets was a British one when they were troubled by Iraqi uprisings.

How many of these empires were ever kind and gentle with the people the subjugated? My guess is that none were. What I know of history is that when a Roman-era power (usually Rome itself) went to battle with an enemy state, the men got killed or enslaved, and the women were enslaved. Slavery was a norm that many (but not all) people accepted as the way of the world.

We no longer enslave the people we defeat. The Israelis are not enslaving the Arabs they are currently fighting against. So, one form of barabism that was once a norm (slavery) has been deleted from the roster of horrors. Torture was once a standard tool. I grant you that it still exists, and yet we now have the Geneva conventions and Amnesty International, and a lot of media attention so that people get away with less. I submit that on these two fronts we *have* made advances.

As a fairly cynical person with a grasp of history, though, I don't think *any* form of barbarism can be counted out long-term. Throw a horrendous famine at the world, and you'll find people eating their pets, even other people. Get rid of global controls and scrutiny, and you will probably see slavery in places where the perpetrators won't get caught. Torture goes on behind closed doors, and only gets revealed occasionally.

Civilization is fragile, and paper-thin. I don't want to lose it, but a couple powerful volcanic eruptions could tip the balance.

Playing Devil's Advocate is not really my thing, but when watching the various news reports I can't help wondering, were all the rockets that Hamas has been firing into Israel harmless? Were no Islaeli citizens, women or children, ever harmed? If a fanatical group in France declared they wanted to exterminate all Brits. and persisted in firing rockets into England, how would you react? There is no right side in bigotry. There is only insanity.

As a great man is quoted as saying to a raging sea....

Peace...be still!

With you all the way, Lew. To my way of thinking Hamas is every bit as wrong in its attacks on Israel although the disproportionate scale of Israel's response make it harder to sympathise. This, together with its stranglehold on the Gaza strip, shows Israel in a very poor light. Their latest action, the daily 3-hour ceasefire, seems almost derisory in real terms. How are the Palestinians supposed to trust it?

while mankind breathes! "he" will kill indiscriminately under any excuse "he" can think of - no cure in sight