I was going to write of the City of the Dead – a vast necropolis in Cairo that actually now houses far more of the living. But with the spiraling Middle Eastern conflict not only did the title seem macabre, I feel it is bizarre for me to be in the Middle East without mentioning it.
My mission is to present another side of the Middle East and the Islamic World – the daily lives of people, the art, the culture, the musicians, the taxi drivers, the ‘real’ people. The politics and the consequences of those politics of the region are all we ever see and I did not want politics to overly intrude into what is a very political part of the world. But I was supposed to follow Ibn Battuta to Gaza and when it seemed best to delay that portion, I thought to fly to Beirut and backtrack. Yet now I sit quite safely, like millions of others around the world, watching the latest conflict unfold from my television screen. Given that the violence of movies and interactive video games looks the same and comes from the same screen as the real violence of the Iraq war and now in Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, it is not surprising that at the end of the program we switch the TV off and go to bed – movie over. But the bloodshed and bombings, the mayhem and madness are real and real people; men, women and children - are gone, lives destroyed, homes bombed, livelihoods gone.
I wonder where it will end? Some people here tell me matter-of-factly, “it will never end”, inured to the endlessness of it. I wonder what kind of world we live in that large numbers of its people have no expectation that a conflict can or will ever be resolved - why is that acceptable? And I wonder what kind of politicians and leaders we are cursed with who think more violence is the answer? Where are the statesmen, the visionaries? Nobody anywhere comes out of this with anything but loss – if not now, later.
As children we are taught that violence achieves nothing, that to resolve conflict we must try to understand the other’s point of view and to accept that in trying to get what we want we must expect to give and take until an acceptable point is reached for both parties. Clearly the lesson is lost on us as adults since we are so spectacularly unable to follow this very sound advice. Violence does breed violence and if nothing else the failed Middle East policies of the last 50 years highlight this all too vividly, and yet we keep on; conferences, Road Maps, peace plans, bi-lateral talks - what for? It has all achieved nothing - Israel is no more secure than it was on day one, the Palestinians are still stateless with many living in refugee camps almost 60 years on, and the Lebanese - a people who have borne the brunt of the region's failed policies with hundreds of thousands killed in a 15 year civil war, now see hundreds more dead and their infrastructure, only recently re-built, pulverized.
The Middle East conflict is a complex and highly emotional issue and each new conflagration raises the bar of hatred and revenge just a little bit higher, views become ever more entrenched and bitterness too profound to respond to negotiation, while external forces swirl around the edges de-stabilizing the region and throwing up issues that are linked to but discrete from the reasons for the core conflict.
I will continue to write about the conflict because my journey is affected by it, and I will give the views of the people where I am traveling who are also affected by it. But for those who wish to learn more about this conflict I suggest you read Lebanon's Daily Star www.dailystar.com.lb and most especially editorial writer Rami Khoury who writes with great lucidity on the Middle East. I also suggest you read the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz. www.haaretzdaily.com
