do you too
feel that bliss when you
wake up and the sky is blue
grass under your feet glistening with dew
with that burning hot tea
you sit on the couch with glee
pick up the remote, switch on the TV
watch the world burn, the montage dreary
and you slump
feel that energy plunge
feel that heart only barely thud
feel that heaviness, in the throat that lump
“Is this the moment?” Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. “OI! There’s a war going on here!”
dichotomy of feeling bad
of being lucky, of being glad
of being horrified, of being scared
of happenings from this world of strange lands
Is it really necessary?
Can’t turn away from the reality
But can’t keep looking at the world so blurry
Those eyes, those faces, those hearts, those feet, oh so weary
It’s been difficult to put into words the raging emotions lately, watching images of clouds of dust, of trails of orange. As if from the distant past and yet an actuality. Listening to the sirens invokes a sense of dread making the heart sink and then the realization hits, it’s miles away and we’re here, safe and… privileged.
does it also remind
makes your brain rewind
to some episodes in the history behind
and some that continue to date, these appalling deeds of mankind
Keep going on, do you?
Or are tangled in feelings blue
Trying hard to hold on, be pure and true
Asking and asking and asking — “What can I do?”
One of the biggest fears a person in a position of power and authority has is losing control. Could be the head of a family or someone running a country. And the consequences range from a lifetime riddled with anxiety, self-doubt, and other psychological problems for a child, to a completely blown out war. A significant change in the balance of powers is a sufficient cause, in the sense that its occurrence is a cause that is enough for a war.
‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ — Plato
Because the living suffer the consequences of it. After all the peace deals are signed and the politicians go home, the violence that started on the field seeps through the continued actions of the perpetrators to the insides of families.
Trigger warning: Following paragraph is a graphic excerpt from the book — War is Not Over When it’s Over by Ann Jones.
“Charlotte had become a leader in CFK, working on the cases of young girls who had recently been raped, not by militiamen but by civilians right there in Kamanyola. A twelve-year-old girl was raped by her teacher. A nine-year-old was raped by a young boy. A seven-year-old was raped by a middle-aged man. An eleven-year-old was raped by her father. A seven-year-old was raped by her pastor. Charlotte was one of the women who visited the parents, persuaded them not to compromise, and helped them take their child’s case to court. But the rape of these young girls by civilians — by teachers, pastors, fathers — this was something new in the community, since the war, and the women of CFK were struggling to understand it. Later I told Charlotte and others about the way the habits of war carry over into peacetime, the way the habits of soldiers are taken up by civilians. I told them about the civilian rapes of little girls in Liberia, snatched even from church, and in Sierra Leone. Unknown before the war, civilian rapists and child rape in Kamanyola — like gang rape — were becoming normal.”
Wars and sacrifices are valorized, ceasefires are celebrated and little is known of what follows for the ones who had no part in igniting the war in the first place. Such stories are rarely heard, rarely read, rarely told, rarely known. Sometimes such graphic images and tales of violence could be disrespectful, could be harmful, could be derisive to the ones suffering. But sometimes, they are necessary to evoke passive hearts into action. Sometimes they are necessary to show what is not known, what carries on behind the veil of apathy seeking a peaceful life; they are the tools to voice out injustice, take a stand and send out powerful messages to the ones who aren’t listening.
But the rolling coverage of war pulls us in due to our sentimentality, care and our inexplicable need to see images of forlorn victims and their destitution, either to empathize or to revel in our own luck or both. This coupled with the absolute abundance of information on different platforms worries me — what if it desensitizes us to violence, abating its impact? Too much of it and we’re tired, too much of it and we want to move to the next thing, too much of it and we get used to it.
