This weekend I saw Munich, I was really touched to see these people fighting for land, a never ending futile war. Below is a particular dialog that really made me stop and think, it is between Avner, an Israeli-born Mossad agent of German descent and Ali, an Arab who is fighting to get back Gaza from Israel, which he thinks of as his mother
Avner: You'll never get the land back.
Ali: You'll all die old men in refugee camps waiting for Palestine. We have a lot of children. They'll have children. So we can wait forever. And if we need to, we can make the whole planet unsafe for Jews.
Avner: You kill Jews and the world feels bad for them... and thinks you are animals.
Ali: But then the world will see how they've made us into animals. They'll start to ask questions about the conditions in our cages.
Avner: You are Arabs. There are lots of places for Arabs. Tell me something, Ali. Do you really miss your father's olive trees? Do you honestly think you have to get back all that...that nothing? That chalky soil and stone huts. Is that what you really want for your children?
Ali: It absolutely is. It will take a hundred years, but we'll win. We want to be nations. Home is everything.
I really found it weird, it is not a melodramatic speech, people all over fight for land, closer home, Kashmiris want to get away from India, there are fights from completely barren useless piece of land all because it is what they call "home". The way we are born and brought up, we really look at this piece of land as ours, and I am sure if there is a need tomorrow most of us would be ready to kill or die for this. Weird, but true. And while I was thinking about this, I see this video, believe me, I could actually feel the emotions within, goosebumps is too mild to express. Watch it, its a 2 min clip really worth watching if you are an Indian.
Avner: You'll never get the land back.
Ali: You'll all die old men in refugee camps waiting for Palestine. We have a lot of children. They'll have children. So we can wait forever. And if we need to, we can make the whole planet unsafe for Jews.
Avner: You kill Jews and the world feels bad for them... and thinks you are animals.
Ali: But then the world will see how they've made us into animals. They'll start to ask questions about the conditions in our cages.
Avner: You are Arabs. There are lots of places for Arabs. Tell me something, Ali. Do you really miss your father's olive trees? Do you honestly think you have to get back all that...that nothing? That chalky soil and stone huts. Is that what you really want for your children?
Ali: It absolutely is. It will take a hundred years, but we'll win. We want to be nations. Home is everything.
I really found it weird, it is not a melodramatic speech, people all over fight for land, closer home, Kashmiris want to get away from India, there are fights from completely barren useless piece of land all because it is what they call "home". The way we are born and brought up, we really look at this piece of land as ours, and I am sure if there is a need tomorrow most of us would be ready to kill or die for this. Weird, but true. And while I was thinking about this, I see this video, believe me, I could actually feel the emotions within, goosebumps is too mild to express. Watch it, its a 2 min clip really worth watching if you are an Indian.
2 comments:
It just reminded me of the recurring theme in the Amartya Sens's book I read - Identity And Violence. In a very commonsensical and everymans tone, it states how our "singular" identities overpower us during the clash of cultures/civilizations, while we choose to ignore other myriad identities within each of us...To quote from the book: "(thus)...a Hutu laborer from Kigali may be pressured to see himself only as a Hutu and incited to kill Tutsis...he is not only a Hutu, but also a Kigalian, a Rwandan, an African, a laborer and a human being."
And so because each one of us contain multitudes, we choose & emphasize the one among our identities that we share with others rather than those we do not.
This way Amartya attacks 'Solitarist Approach' - of a man's identity formed by and bounded (to) only one social group.
Something you, me and everybody's somebody would relate to.
Post a Comment