Flowers for Lebanon
Bombs in Qana
Scores of small bodies --
One man tallies his losses,
Tears a branch of blooms
To toss at soldiers nearby:
"We will not be made monsters!"
In CNN's report on the aftermath of a bomb in Qana, Lebanon, that killed 56 people (37 of them children), one Lebanese man described what had happened and detailed the family members he had lost. I couldn't hear his voice, but his face clearly conveyed his outrage and grief. His words, unfurling in the captions, pleaded for an end to the violence. Then he had the camera follow him as he ripped a stalk from a nearby flowering plant and threw it in the direction of Israeli soldiers standing several feet away. "They bomb us, and this is how we respond! We will not be made into monsters!"
I couldn't think of anything more necessary to this war: a simple refusal to ignore our common humanity.
I don't profess to be an expert on the Middle East, by any means -- and even experts don't have good answers to these extremely complex problems. Best as I can tell, neither side has had the moral high ground for quite some time.
Perhaps that's why this image from Qana stays with me: it's one man's refusal to let his broken heart also break his soul.
Scores of small bodies --
One man tallies his losses,
Tears a branch of blooms
To toss at soldiers nearby:
"We will not be made monsters!"
In CNN's report on the aftermath of a bomb in Qana, Lebanon, that killed 56 people (37 of them children), one Lebanese man described what had happened and detailed the family members he had lost. I couldn't hear his voice, but his face clearly conveyed his outrage and grief. His words, unfurling in the captions, pleaded for an end to the violence. Then he had the camera follow him as he ripped a stalk from a nearby flowering plant and threw it in the direction of Israeli soldiers standing several feet away. "They bomb us, and this is how we respond! We will not be made into monsters!"
I couldn't think of anything more necessary to this war: a simple refusal to ignore our common humanity.
I don't profess to be an expert on the Middle East, by any means -- and even experts don't have good answers to these extremely complex problems. Best as I can tell, neither side has had the moral high ground for quite some time.
Perhaps that's why this image from Qana stays with me: it's one man's refusal to let his broken heart also break his soul.
posted by Lindasusan at 7:34 AM
1 Comments:
That was really horrible. I just hope with the flowers offered to them, they'd realize that there's still beauty in life despite the havoc.
Post a Comment
<< Home