By Nneka Aroh
My Note: She is such a bright mind
My Note: She is such a bright mind
JULY 26, 2014
JULY 25, 2014
JULY 24, 2014
The conflict’s devastation has left bomb craters and impassable streets.
Smoke rises after Israeli tanks shell a neighbourhood during east of Gaza City, Mohammed Saber/EPA
Ahaa! I knew it! How could Nigerians not die for a conflict playing out in faraway Gaza? Is it that we do not have enough of our own headaches? Already, we are competing with Israel for casualty figures.
Meanwhile, the Israeli-hamas conflict reminds me of a fierce fight between two neighbourhood boys in my childhood days. That fight has stuck to my memory like a blob of glue onto paper. Incidentally, the boys involved were buddies, who were bound not only by amity, but by name. They were both named Obinna.
One of the two was short and stout- that kind that is difficult to bring down- very stable on the ground and extremely strong, too. The other Obinna was taller and wiry. He was the type you were sure you could pick up from the ground with casual ease.
The fight lasted many hours, drawing a crowd. I remember some elderly women rising from their meeting and attempting to broker peace. At every round of the fighting, Obinna the strong emerged resoundingly victorious, but the lanky one refused to budge.
I remember the lean Obinna’s sister dragging him into a room and locking him in, but to the chagrin of the older spectators and the amusement of the younger ones`, he broke the door, came out charging at the Strong one, like he had new plans, new strategy. He hadn’t any new plans and his strategy was same. For as many times as the weaker Obinna came charging, the stronger one easily picked him up and casually dropped him on his back, even taking extra care not to inflict serious injury.
At that point, not many of us knew the crux of the disagreement. As it were, the ‘fight’ took the shine off the ‘issues’. As the hours wore on, we all began to wish that the fight would end. Even the younger ones who were previously entertained were no longer amused. Eventually, some women took the strong Obinna away.
Till date, I have wondered about that fight, about the lanky Obinna, who had no new strategy, no stronger defences, but who insisted on fighting. Maybe he was truly wronged. Maybe we would all have taken sides with him if he communicated his grievances calmly, articulately. All I can think of when I remember him now is how stupid he was, suffering defeat after defeat to prove a point that no one eventually got.
When Hamas kidnapped a young Israeli soldier in 2006, they knew what was coming. After the 2008-2009 ‘Operation Cast Lead’ campaign embarked upon by Israel, you would think that Hamas will be more reluctant to throw rockets at Israel. In 2012, Israel staged ‘Operation pillar of defence’, pounding Gaza effortlessly, while all the time shielding their own civilian population. Some of us thought, surely Hamas will never fight again without a brand new strategy , without protecting its over 1.6 million people, squeezed, almost stifled in a 146 square miles space. When they killed those three Israeli teenagers quite needlessly, a sound mind may have assumed that they finally have their own sure and almost impenetrable ‘Iron Dome’ against Israeli reaction.
But no. It was the same old strategy of launching rockets from residential areas, play grounds and mosques, deliberately exposing their own people, striving to extract the world’s outcry with the nightmarish scenes of bleeding civilians, smothered children, limbless men and a macabre mound of corpses.
I don’t get it. Why insist on physically confronting someone stronger than you, without a shred of plan B? Why pile up bodies of your own innocent people as a chip for bargain. Why awaken a sleeping and hungry lion, except you were cast in iron? Why not explore other peaceful but more eloquent means to get your grievances across?
Maybe Israel has unjustly blockaded Gaza for years, making life frighteningly arduous? Perhaps there is dispute around ancestral lands? Perhaps Israel has overreacted, killing over 800 Palestinians and injuring over 5,000?
I am certain Israel will have their own compelling arguments, chief among which may be the right to defend themselves from ‘terrorists’ who are bent on wiping them off the map. They would likely argue that Palestinian civilian casualty is so high because while Israel struggles to shield their civilians from the Hamas missiles, Hamas shields its own missiles with their defenceless civilians.
But how can we ever hear their distinct voices, when they are so overwhelmingly drowned by the rockets and the warheads?
In the meantime, is it possible that Nigerians would stop crying more than the bereaved? And I am not suggesting that we do not empathize with whichever side we choose. We should just not make a dress out of this conflict and wear it about. I don’t know how many demonstrations took place in Gaza or in Israel since Nigeria has been burning.
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