Hearts and Minds

[SULEJMAN Brkic]

                                                                  Hearts  and  Minds

   
         I found this article in The Japan Times , Friday, September 3, 2010: Hamas leader rejects tradeoff deal with Israel.

In it, the end part says: The West has rejected Hamas feelers, insisting it first renounce violence and clearly recognize Israel’s right to exist. In other words the right to keep what it has stolen.

It’s not the first time I’ve come across such a preposterous demand from the West. It is just plain ridiculous to ask a victim to stop resisting.

How come Israel, the darling of the West, the invader, has not been asked to do the same?

So the Palestinians have to accept negotiating under the Israeli gun? Throughout History, resisting oppressed peoples by the West have been asked by the West to lay down their weapons, renounce violence, renounce armed struggle, renounce violence…renounce resisting Western oppression.

But why? Has the West renounced violence? Will it ever?

The West made itself filthy rich through the application of systematic violence wherever it plundered throughout the world. The violence of some small resistance groups pales in comparison with the military, political, economic and cultural violence of the West. It can’t even be compared. Sometimes, even by just doing nothing the West is more violent. Remember Rwanda, Srebrenica, Palestine….among others?

And on top of injuries, there are insults when I hear of the West’s talk trying to win hearts and minds of the peoples that it’s plundering and killing.

What would the West do if it were the other way around? If the West were under occupation and being robbed (of what it has stolen)?

The statement I quoted here above by the West is exactly the kind of statements that make people resent, angry at, hate the West. September 11 is approaching with its innocent question in the air: Why do they hate us?

They, we, hate you, the West, because you kill our people, our families, steal our natural resources,  exploit us, support our dictators, fund our misery, poison our waters, fish, animals, trees, plants and air…..That’s why we hate you. And you do all this for the sake of your comfort. Is this how you want to win our hearts and minds?

What is wrong with hating someone like this? Wouldn’t you, the West, hate such a person?

As I said, September 11 is around the corner. I am going to mourn Chile’s September 11, Allende and the tens of thousands of Chileans killed by the regime of the dictator Augusto Pinochet whom the West supported.

 "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." -Matthew 7:12

Brkic Sulejman  8/9/2010