The wanton slaughter of the people of Gaza may be the death cry of humanity itself-- of the civilization we have built, struggled for, and even died to protect. In full view of the world, we watch as an entire people-- and any who support them-- are killed indiscriminately by a nation that should know better. A nation filled with people whose own history is marked by suffering, by atrocities inflicted upon them-- though not in full public view. And yet, some act as though that suffering grants them a dispensation to do as they wish to others.
There is no religion, no god, that could condone this-- unless we regress to the old gods of vengeance and destruction, red in tooth and claw, the gods of pre-civilized brutality.
And we are all complicit. We in the United States provide encouragement and support-- spending public money and wielding the power of the richest and most influential nation on Earth-- not only to finance these atrocities, but to run interference for them. We go so far as to criminalize protest within our own country.
In doing so, we begin to resemble past regimes-- those who rationalized inhumanity in the name of power, sacrificing human decency for dominance. When the lust for power overwhelms our moral compass, we devolve into something less than human.
The cry from Gaza is the sound of humanity dying-- dying in plain sight. Even if we try to stop our ears and shut our eyes to the images of destruction, suffering, and death, the heart cannot ignore it. Our shared humanity cannot remain untouched. This is the cry of the sacred center of human existence, strangled while we sit and watch.
This cry should rouse us. It should move us to resist with everything we have-- even bare hands if we must-- to confront and overwhelm those who support, excuse or permit such inhumanity. We must bring the full force of our remaining humanity to bear. We must refuse to let the heart of our species be ripped out and replaced by mere power, economics, ideologies, systems, and technologies that leave us zombielike-- stripped of intelligence, creativity, courage, and compassion.
It is a warning bell, tolling the end of a once-promising species called humanity.
This is a call not only to save Gaza, but to save what is left of the human spirit.
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(See also, "Saving Democracy: From the Warnings of 2016 to the Urgency of 2025" or visit .perspectives-bobpassi.org.)
