Euforisme

Palestin telah diiktiraf sebagai sebuah negara, kalaupun hanya sebagai sebuah negara pemerhati. Itu lebih baik daripada menjadi satu wilayah yang tidak punya sebarang kedaulatan yang diiktiraf oleh dunia, wilayah yang menjadi mangsa pendudukan dan penjajahan oleh negara asing-Israel-yang tidak mempedulikan tentang anak watan Palestin, melayani mereka ibarat mereka boleh diketepikan begitu sahaja. Setelah bersabar puluhan tahun akhirnya warga Palestin boleh meraikan kemenangan yang begitu sukar dicapai ini, dengan sokongan dunia dan juga dengan keimanan dan keyakinan mereka terhadap satu daulat Palestin yang merdeka.

Tapi kita tahu dan senantiasa gusar bahawa apa yang kita capai hanya buat sementara sahaja. Ada sahaja masalah dan faktor-faktor yang boleh menjadikan harapan kita untuk satu daulat Palestin menjadi satu lagi hasrat yang dihampakan, sama ada oleh keganasan bergolak, kebencian mendalam, kegagalan diplomasi ataupun kedegilan ekstremis dari kedua-dua pihak. Segalanya boleh berlaku dan kerana itu, aku cuba untuk tidak terlalu optimis dengan proses mencapai keamanan yang stabil dan hakiki. Aku hanya seorang yang berada di luar konflik, aku tidak boleh berbuat apa-apa. Apa yang aku boleh lakukan hanya bantuan kewangan yang sedikit dan terhad kepada aktiviti pro-keamanan, doaku yang barangkali tidak didengari kerana keraguanku, dan luahan-luahanku, sepertimana yang tertulis ini.

Jangan ada peluru dimuntahkan dari mana-mana senjata.

Breathe

-After slightly more than a week of bombing, the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel takes place. That's good news.

Gaza on Fire Tonight

The bombings of Gaza has been going on for a week. No signs of truce; Benjamin Netanyahu and Khaled Meshaal both are right-wing politicians who distrust and hate one another, and the chance that they are going to have the political will to stop this madness is slim. No truce means more rockets fired from Gaza-more wasted rockets that doesn't do any damage on Israeli military force, as it keeps on getting intercepted by the Iron Dome, just making the life of Israelis miserable, with incessant sirens, and civilian premises targeted, angering the Israelis more-and more of Israeli shelling of Gaza-with the population of Gaza being 1.5 million, compacted in a tiny piece of land just around 10 km(more or less) wide, the inevitable civilian casualty is going to be heavy and heartbreaking-and more of the bad news that make up the majority of my information source.

Israel, with its heavy-handedness that is apparent each and every time, tries to smack Hamas out of Gaza and out of the equation; a very 'original' and 'great' solution (they tried that last time in 2008...or 2009?) which can be greater if not for the fact that Hamas has been really dedicated towards serving the Gazans, and thus enjoys considerable support from Gazans especially, not to mention their allies who can be found all around the world, in the form of al-Ikhwan. Israel, as usual, mentions that Hamas is a terrorist group (this is an ambiguous term at most-but I don't argue that Hamas can be really murderous, racist, extreme and bigoted sometimes in their actions and rhetoric) that fires rockets at Israeli cities non-stop since 2001 (so effing long ago, and as it happens nearly all the time, it's not even newsworthy) , and that according to them, justifies the bombing of Gaza.

Hamas, of course, mentions the Israeli siege on Gaza (I did one post about Mavi Marmara, you can find it yourself; my political position has changed a lot since then) that has been really suppressing the Gaza people's way of life; no mobility, no supplies, no money for the last I-don't remember-anymore-how-long-it-has-been few years. And that justifies firing rockets as a sign of protest and resistance against the bloody siege in particular, and the Israeli occupation in general. Yeah, that's how Hamas sees it; "We didn't start it, it has been Israel's fault all this time, for Allah's sake, are you blind?"

Meanwhile, being the slow, ineffective peace-broker as they usually are expected to be, the UN has tried to bring a not-going-to-last-for-long temporary ceasefire between both sides. The post-revolution Egypt, under the leadership of President Morsi, has tried for a few days to moderate between the two sides, but is troubled by the fact that Egypt can't do as much as it would like to do, given the agreement between his country and United States, also the peace agreement between his country and Israel that he has (being forced to) pledged to uphold (if not, no foreign aid that your desperate land desperately needs from the States). Also, United States has also expressed their belief in Israel's rights to self-defense (it's so routine, it's to be expected), but cautioned against further escalation (you know that Obama is not much of a friend to Netanyahu).

And hence the bombing should continue for a few more days. That's the routine, that's the ritual. More casualties, more hatred, a harder way to peace.

(Update; as of now (11/21/2012, 1.49 am Japan Time), there seems to be an agreement on ceasefire between both sides)

This may be offensive to many of my friends. Sorry for that. Freedom of speech is exercised here; bear with it.
Perpetual violence is what the right-wing politicians at both sides need to stay in power and stay popular. The right-wing hawkish politicians, like any other politicians, need to be relevant to be revered. They are most relevant at times of conflict. Then the right-wing, being generally

 militaristic, can show that they matter by bringing out their rockets, showing their prowess, all in the name of 'defense of our people'.
Some might then say, "It's the religion." I have read both the Bible and Quran thoroughly, and well-people pointing out that religion might be at fault is pretty justified; some verses in both books justify violence in the name of God, for the defense of the name of God, sanction holy wars and total hatred towards the enemies. And plus Abrahamic faiths all have some sort of eschatological beliefs (Messiah, Second Coming, Antichrist, Four Horsemen, Final War) and that doesn't help; the Messiah that everyone-Jews, Christians, Muslims-believes, needs a very destructive war in the Middle East as a prerequisite for him to manifest; of course religious Jews would love the Messiah to redeem his people, the religious Christians would be eager to witness the Second Coming of Jesus, and religious Muslims would love the Imam Mahdi to appear; what wouldn't the believers give to witness the human representation of God's Truth, the One True God's ultimate Sign? Armageddon is a highly self-fulfilling prophecy, which is the reason I really wish it isn't true.
But maybe it isn't the religion, it is just the people fighting over the (obviously worldly) residential, economic and political rights over the Holy Land, which is not any different from any other effing land, except that it is the land of the Prophets of God, and both sides say they are equally native to the land, and of course they both would want to keep the Land of the Prophets pure-from the other side's influence, of course.
Or maybe it is that scores have to be settled. The famous 'one eye for an eye' rule, which is both Biblical and Quranic. Jews killed Arabs, Arabs killed Jews; Jews chased out from both Europe and Arabic countries, Arabs chased out of Israeli territories; As long as scores aren't settled, there'd be no peace.
Or maybe it is the nationalist aspiration of both sides; Greater Israel versus pan-Arabic caliphate, and both require the whole Holy Land under its control. And Israel have to be a Jewish state; Palestine have to be a Muslim state; Zionists wouldn't want Jews to be a minority again, as minorities are always at risk of discrimination, and Muslims being the historically dominant one, would not trust the Jews to be the dominant ruler.
It's so pathetic, it's so laughable. And yet it's so sad, no one would laugh. People are killed. Doesn't matter which side suffered more casualties; for every soul killed, the path to peace becomes harder.
Or maybe the politicians, they don't want peace; or they define peace not as two nations living side by side harmoniously, but as one nation covering the whole Holy Land, and another nation can go fly anywhere, for they couldn't care less.
Is there any compromise possible? If one follows either holy scriptures literally, it seems not possible. Bible said that the enemies of sons of David should be wiped out and not be made peace with; Quran said that Jews will be the Muslim's archenemy and should not be trusted. But there are lots of ways to read both the scriptures and perhaps one can pinpoint at the positiveness as a way to peace.
Compromise is made possible only when both sides recognize the fault within their own selves and not just pinpointing the fault totally at the other side. But maybe it is too late; maybe my voice won't matter. Maybe I'll even be chastised for being critical of religion or nationalism.

-In remembrance of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, and their failed Oslo Accord-

Anti-Messiah

-Messiah is antithetical to modernism, humanism, liberalism, pacifism, globalism, progressiveness virtually everything that should be fought for; equality, justice, positivism. Why would I say so?

-Because Messiah is the reason for our backward-mindedness, racism, religious discrimination, wars, killings, conflicts, proselytizing, suppression of religious freedom, suppression of free speech, suppression of free thought, dictatorship, religious right-wing ideologies.

-It is so evident, how the belief in Messiah has generated wars, fueled authoritarian regimes, led to prejudice, suppressed attempts at much-needed reforms, given rise to xenophobic attitudes.

-Why would then people believe in Messiah anyway? The answer is not something I can say right away.

The One Who Created The Mirror

Palestine. Israel.
From the time I began to remember things, they have always been in conflict, war, hatred against each other.

Frankly, I am tired of that fucking conflict. Seriously, who in their right mind can keep on this hatred, this conflict for so long? Perhaps, both sides are crazy. They have suffered too long, being in war for way too long, that the idea of peace is scary to them. No, it is not the peace that scares them; it's the realization that they are in fact mirrors of each other. They refuse that, and keep on smashing the mirror, hurting themselves in the process; but the mirror is unbreakable, for it is not a mere objective mirror, but Reality itself; How can one then have peace?

We the spectators don't help at all. We try to help, but in doing so we fall into the trap of 'I am doing the right thing' and become a part of the problem itself; yet refusing to help, the problem keeps escalating. Because everyone has lost himself in the eye of the storm, no one knows who are they fighting against; they keep on yelling 'God destroys the enemy,' but with everyone shouting the same thing at the same time, can God help anyone and still be a fair God? After all, He made promises to both sides.

Maybe the problem lies with that God Himself. He was the one who created the mirror...

Stranger In Your Own Land

-Was it totally my fault, that I am now a stranger in my own land, where people talk of religion as if everything that is touched by its near-sacred fingers turn to solid gold signifying happiness, where people who choose to be idiots rule over people who have no say in their choice of being idiots or non-idiots, and where a few people trying to assert their rights to be less idiotic gets oppressed like they're a bunch of stink-of-hell heathens?

Liberalism Is My Path

-As a liberal, I am always afraid. I am afraid of living in a world full of conservatives restricting my freedom on everything. I am afraid of all the rules that dictate my life, the rules that I have absolutely no say in, the rules that wasn't done with my consent. The rules that are enforced in the name of the so-called 'God', the rules that are enforced in the name of tradition, the rules that are enforced in the name of religions-I am afraid of them all, for the effect they have on my life, my intellect and my spirit.

-But I think sooner or later, there will be one day when I can declare my real faith, my real conviction, my real honest confession without fear. And how I wish I can be part of the progress myself, how I wish for friends who will help me toward this goal, how I wish for change that will progressively improve my life and expand everyone's freedom in their intellectualism and passion.

-I long for a day in which a Muslim can pursue his or her dream as a musician or an artist, without fear of censorship or judgmental crowds. I long for a day when a Malay and a Chinese can marry without the issue of their offspring being neither. I long for a day when people will value others the way they should be valued; by their compassion towards each other rather than by their individualistic and judgmental piety. I long for a future in Malaysia, where people won't ask about race, religion or beliefs; where one can really decide for themselves what is the best for them without any unnecessary bindings of religion and tradition. I long for a Malaysia that is progressive in its truest form; secular, liberal and dynamic.

-Malaysia without multiculturalism is no Malaysia. Malaysia without tolerance is no Malaysia. Malaysia without progression is no Malaysia. Malaysia has to be liberal. Malaysia has to be intellectual. Malaysia has to be secular. Malaysians must stop dividing themselves along the lines of race and religion, as both are superficial; instead, everyone must be allowed the chance to be true to themselves, not being pressured to join or participate in anything. Just because one is born Malay, doesn't mean he or she has to be a Muslim; that is totally up to the individual oneself, and there should be no limitation as to how one chooses to follow his or her path, as long as the path doesn't involve intolerance, bigotry, discrimination, bullying, peer pressure, or infringement of one's rights and privileges.

-There has to be a future for Malaysia. And that future involves lots of changes.