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RE: My Open Letter to Israel & the Remarkable Response from an Israeli Reader
"people who were victims not long before ...doing the same things to another nation" - sadly, too true. As a half-jew (ostensibly, the wrong half, i.e. paternal) and an immigrant - it breaks my heart to watch so many who'd fled persecution for who they were turn into bigots once they land on these shores. It never made any sense to me, but always, it breaks my heart.
Here's hoping for wisdom indeed. The return to innocence kind. I wish I had your optimism, Yahia. Hell - I wish I had some of my old idealism left. But the nature of man in all its ugliness, in its always seeking the otherness in their fellow men - it feels pathological.
Thank you, for your typically sensitive response, @authorofthings. What to say, my friend? There is pathology at play, here, a perversity of human nature so deep that it is almost a law, which Auden sums up, here:
"I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Hence, those who ought to know better proceed to defend the indefensible and repeat the vicious cycle...
But, what to do? One cannot live without hope (this one, at least). Past the violence, I see profound woundedness and murderous fear. Repeatedly, I must remind myself that where there are demons there is something precious worth fighting for... human dignity.
As a fellow immigrant (and Muslim) living in the US, I'm well aware of the 'ugliness' you speak of, the dark shadow of xenophobia creeping into even the hearts of otherwise decent people... But, I tell myself that 'we are responsible for our so-called enemies, and compassion is to figure out the role we play in their creation.'
Thank you for indulging me. For selfish reasons, I wish you some of your old idealism back. Love, Yahia
‘Children afraid of the dark
Who have never been happy or good’ - hope I’m not misquoting it.... But we are that, the recent election just a symptom of the disease, and I believe xenophobia is just that - the deadliest sort of sickness. I am, however, unconvinced one can truly be decent and xenophobic... One can, of course, be a coward.
Love right back. Not all is lost for as long as there poets and intellectuals like you to keep us in check :-)
Yes, you quote correctly (here's a reading I did of this tremendous poem, https://soundcloud.com/yahia-lababidi/september-1-1939-by-w-h-auden)
I agree this dark mood is a malady & we're all battling for our souls... Yet, viewed differently, these might be the last throes of the old world & these cries the birth pangs of a New World (it's just that the old guard are afraid of change and, in turn, noisily, terrified of letting go...)
Incorrigible optimist that I am, hopeless Idealist if you will, I don't believe much in evil people, per se... cowards, yes. But, those can be show the Light and made to follow it.
All is never lost, my dear @authorofthings Here, are the words of Auden, once more:
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.