Empty Words

In the context of an ongoing genocide, many words ring hollow

My heart sank when I read the post of a Palestinian friend who wrote about World Mental Health Day 2024 yesterday, October 10th.

As we witness the ongoing genocide in Gaza, how can we fathom the mental health of people in Gaza as so many are being killed and maimed? I can’t begin to imagine the level of sheer terror they’re experiencing.

The focus of this year’s Mental Health Day was Mental Health in the Workplace.

How does that work for journalists in Gaza who are being targeted and killed? What about doctors and health workers in hospitals that are being bombed? And aid workers under fire? Or kids parenting their siblings because they’re the only family left? Or kids and adults who’ve had to have limbs amputated with no anesthetic?

On another grim note, what about IDF troops who routinely torture and degrade Palestinian prisoners? What kind of mental health issues do they have in order to be able to do this, and brag about it online?

Here at home, how hollow have land acknowledgements become? We’re willing to acknowledge the horrors our ancestors inflicted upon indigenous people where we live, but as an actual genocide is taking place, funded with our tax dollars, many remain mute. This is what our ancestors did to indigenous people, but the genocide in Gaza doesn’t count? The cognitive dissonance is deafening.

Or harassing and imprisoning reporters, especially if they’re letting us know what’s actually going on in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and other militarized areas.

Our politicians who say they are concerned about racism, but do their best to keep us from protesting by accusing us of being anti-semitic. Even when many of these protests are led by Jewish people who say genocide violates everything their religion stands for.

What kind of a sham have our so-called democracies become? I just read about this town hall meeting and it demonstrates how staged, and how lacking in real democracy things are these days.

And what is Israel doing to international law? The Genocide Convention was created after WWII to prevent future genocides, yet here we are with Israel violating international law every chance it gets, it seems. And the USA and its allies support it at every turn, despite their claims of red lines. If you’ve been paying attention you can see that those red lines are non-existent.

What does the widely touted ‘rules based order’ even mean? To me it looks like the USA makes the rules and gives the orders. We are fed senseless word salads to justify brutality, and naked power grabs of land and resources.

What is this constant dishonesty doing to us?

Thanks to Diane Engelhardt (whose recent post I highly recommend) for this quote from Hannah Arendt:

This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.

How do we address this cognitive dissonance?

To start with, by making sure the news we listen to is accurate. And that can be daunting. A good source to start with is Consortium News. I’ve been reading it for years, and have so much respect for its high level of honesty and accuracy.

And by rejecting the forces that insist that we be complicit with this genocide. It violates every value of decency there is, not to mention international law. Even if genocide is not our leaders’ red line, it should still be ours.

When our words are empty, our lives lose their meaning. What can we base our choices on when we don’t know what’s true?

I hope we can all navigate this terrifying period and steer ourselves in the direction of fairness and honesty. When we do, our lives will be rich in peace and meaning.

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Here is an upcoming event that is specific to Canada but may be helpful to others called The Many Can Defeat the Money.

I love the BDS campaign and the effect it’s having on Israel’s economy.

Here's an excellent list of products from Israel: https://boycott.thewitness.news/browse/1

Here's a way to help others not in your bubble to boycott Israel: https://www.cjpme.org/stickies_2024_en

And here's where you can support Palestine by buying a keffiyeh: https://www.hirbawi.ps/