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:: Saturday 25 January 2003 ::
Psycho -tic, -sis, -hosebeasts
Have just seen a show called 'Shaheed' (not a great link I am afraid) on the Discovery Channel on Foxtel (get it if you have not got it already. 5 news channel and Italian teevee alone make the whole thing worthwhile. And World Moofies and of course Discovery). It was all about Palestinian suicide bombers or, as the prefer to call themselves, martyrs (Shaheeds).
That together with this piece from today's Fin Review is depressing stuff. These folks are really deeply mired in a philosophy of death and hate, or so it seems to me. And they have managed to construct a way of observing their faith that will not let them change or even challenge the deathcult business.
I have read contracts where a customer tries to set in stone the price regime for buying off his supplier. "No price rises ever. Whatever changes may happen over the life of the contract the maximum sum we agree up front is all that will ever have to be paid." Blah Blah Blah. You can sign up to that, if you wanna, as a supplier. But you are not being sensible. In fact, you are being roundly taken advantage of.
Now young Palestinians are the suppliers. And Hamas and Hizbollah, and Al Aqsa and Islamic Jihad are the acquirers - the customers. And what the Discovery show presented was bloody awful. Those videos that they take of the explodey before he sets himself (or her- I should not discriminate) alight are a death warrant. They are the contract. No chnages may be made by the supplier. Try to change the arrangement so you can keep yourself alive - ie try to go back on the video - and you are done for - like a big fat breach of contract action, only with the penalty being death or shame. How bloody awful is that?
The young people they get who volunteer, because they are idiots, are fed a steaming pile of bullshit and obfuscation from dawn til dusk. And if they (and it is a big if, I know) get some conscience and want to get out of the deal, they cannot do so without the most awful repercussions.
This whole thing about how you have to celebrate Shaheeds/Shahids - got that? you have to celebrate them, as in you cannot criticise them - just sets the whole thing in stone all over again, for everyone left behind. If you gotta celebrate them, you cannot even be indifferent to them, much less than critical. So it just goes on. The cycle of violence ain't Arab Israeli. It's the freakin' Arabs on their own.
These bullshit practices of their faith are just that - bullshit. There is some obscene rubbish written in the bible old and new testament about what to do, how to dress and behave. It is possible to set the wording aside and go with the emphasis on the faith. It is possible. Christians have been doing it for ever, it seems.
Having now read Tariq Ali's Clash of Fundamentalisms and seen too much news about Palestinian imbecility, and then these two lengthy pieces today, I reckon I have reached a conclusion. That the whole concept of the martyr is disgusting. Because the martyr has no concept of living well. To be martyr there must be some force against which some resistance, some struggle, must be undertaken. To live well, you have to have your eye on the good stuff, not on the struggly stuff.
That is the difference between folks like me who would not martyr myself for anyone. And folks like the Palestinians who, if we just wait long enough, will all martyr themselves. That is the end point of their awfulness.
They have got to get it together. And stop it. Themselves.
And before anyone writes getting shirty about me not mentioning Israelis in this picture, and settlers and stuff, I do not need to. This whole suicide thing is not an inevitability. It is a choice. Taken by Palestinians. And not taken by hundereds of other peoples who feel themselves oppressed rightly or wrongly. Tibetans for example.
Urgh. This brings me down. Need wine and good conversation with clever buddies. About to get that in spades. Living well, you see. It can be done as cheaply as sitting in your own home with some cheap plonk. Living well. That's the key.
:: WB 2:11 am [link+] ::
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