Oh Children of Gaza
Ah, the wars they will be fought again. The holy dove, she will be caught again, bought and sold, and bought again… — Leonard Cohen
Amid a war pulverized Gaza, on a dusty road in soul searing heat, emerges a barefoot tattered and torn young girl, maybe seven or eight years old. Laid across her shoulders is her unmoving injured younger sister.
Perhaps among the Palestinian poets, whose prose tells the tales of the unending suffering of innocents, her story of heroism may one day be told. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, if they survive this ongoing slaughter, she herself, or her sister, may pass down this tale of courage to generations not yet born.
A story of how, amid an unholy war, a little girl carried her injured sister on her shoulders for hours, first to a hospital, then back to their home, among the rubble, to the shaky shelter of a displaced people’s camp.
Or maybe the twist in the tale will include that one or both sisters grew up to become the next generation of freedom fighters who swear an oath on the blood of their fallen sisters and brothers that revenge will be fierce.
Perhaps only Allah knows their future story. But maybe it will be different, and they will become a dynamic peace-seeking duo. The sisters of Gaza, whose legacy becomes, they use the shattered innocence of their own childhoods to lead their people back to innate dignity, freedom, and peace.
Inherent dignity is the very birthright of every human being on earth. This is a core principle of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dignity denied, and dehumanization goes hand in hand with oppression and war. For dignity to be restored and peace to flow like a river, freedom must flourish, and oppression must end.
The Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama said:
Both war and peace require imagination. But peace requires more.
Who knows, perhaps one day in an imagined future when the cycle of bloodletting eventually leaves everyone broken, an age of innocence and peace in a Palestinian land may spring forth.
Maybe someday, in a blessed imagined future, the loss of innocence may get restored, and the children of Gaza now caught in the crosshairs will again be free to listen to tall-tales and gaze with playful wonder upon poems about a time when hungry, barefoot, homeless little girls had to be heroes.
Oh Rascal Children of Gaza,
You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window.
You who filled every morning with rush and chaos,
You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony.
Come back –
And scream as you want,
And break all the vases,
Steal all the flowers,
Come back,
Just come back…
Oh Rascal Children of Gaza, by Palestinian Poet Khaled Juma
– Cormac Stagg, author of The Quest for a Humble Heart