“healing is resisting oppression”
the film ends.
get hurt, heal, get hurt, heal, get hurt, heal.
Not something I would wish to follow.
I’d rather prefer to carry the wounded body, the soul, blood
swept palms, everywhere and anywhere, to rant the pain, anger, guilt, to let
out the cries, the screams that tear the still nights.. to run around, laugh
out loud, yell, live and die, whatever I feel like, but all the more, refusing to
heal..
‘five broken cameras’ – a powerful film about Emad, his son
Gibreel, five broken cameras, a village named Bil’in, occupied lands, burnt
olive trees, barbed wire fences, and a concrete wall. If you want to use fancy
words, it’s a film on Israeli occupation, oppression, settlements on the west bank, Palestinian
resistance, non-violent protests, demonstration, and violent confrontation of
non-violence. It’d be a fancy way of describing a not-so-fancy film. I wonder, how
is it that I sit through a film on Bil’in, while refusing to watch the Channel
4 documentaries on Sri Lanka, and turning away from any news or reports on war,
state violence in SL.
It started to pop up suddenly on my facebook home page.. all
thanks to most of my friends. Hope you know what I mean, in case you didn’t,
google is your companion. Search for Sri Lanka + war crimes, and Voila! I refused
to click the links, tried to hide the posts from newsfeed. Not a gesture of
turning a blind eye to things, or refusing to accept that it happened. But I don’t
need the hindu, the ndtv, the channel4 or the Colombo telegraph to tell me that
it happened. Because I know. I know it’s how things happen here, there, and
everywhere. This is exactly how it happens, every single time. You think it’s a
deviance, I think it’s the norm, of all wars. There are no justifiable ways of
waging a war. There are no right or wrongs. share it with people who believe in
‘wars that bring peace’, ‘wars that destroy terrorists’, ‘wars that save the
world, the kids and families’.. no, sorry, not me. Leave me alone. show it to
the immigration officers, the politicians, the human rights commission, the
amnesty international, the whatever whatever, the unbelievers, or believers (of
‘good and evil’). But not me. Leave me alone.
To some, it reaffirmed their stance – aha, that’s a war
crime; now that’s a solid proof. Yeah right, now what? It feeds the ego of
some, ignorance or guilt of the others, then what? Don’t tell me you never knew
it. Don’t tell me you expect the bombs, shells, snipers, the AK47’s and T56’s to
demarcate – between the young and the old, between men and women, between
civilians and soldiers, between you and me. above all the institutions or
anything that we’ve ever created, they are the ardent followers of equality. They
don’t discriminate. Now, don’t tell me you didn’t know that already. Or don’t
tell me, whoever/whatever you worship – the US, EU, UN, Amnesty, Human Rights,
Democracy, Humanity, Peace, Geneva, Non-violence – weren’t aware of that
either.
It happens too often, the killing of a 11 year old child
becoming a spectacle, in Palestine, in Syria, in the streets of the US, and of
course in Sri Lanka. On the television, computer or theatre screens we watch,
we read, we hear, we feel, the anger, distress, guilt, in the comfort of our
own worlds, very far from bombs and bullets. We discuss and scrutinize, about
the snack he had, why and how he was killed. The drama of the spectators.
I sit through a documentary on Bil’in, watching Palestinian
children getting killed, with trembling hands and tear-filled eyes, wondering
why I couldn’t open a single link on facebook or stare at a picture of a
murdered Tamil child. It is much easier to talk about the Palestine, the
hypocrisy of the survivors of holocaust, or to admire the resilience of people.
It’s much more convenient when you’re at a distance.
The spectacle!
five year old Gibreel asks, “why did they kill Phill? What did
he do to them?”
Anger that is hard to contain, and pain that is written all
over our bodies.
It’s a constant negotiation, a struggle between a self that
is hurt, and an intellect that leans toward logical reasoning.
Yet I hold onto a self that refuses to heal, to forgive, to
forget. As if that’s the very last possession of mine, the only priced possession.
