| My Duty |
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My Duty
New York Dr. Cesar Chelala
As a citizen of the world
I bear a sacred duty:
to try to understand what
seems like an unsolvable
problem,
one that has caused
and will continue to cause
a tapestry of human suffering
and potentially wreak havoc
across a great land.
A conflict that has lasted for decades, if not centuries,
And that doesn’t have any prospect
of being solved.
A conflict in which one side is demonized
as barbaric,
although both sides have behaved in a barbaric way.
A conflict that has uprooted thousands
from their ancestral land
to make room (so it is said)
for a beautiful Riviera in the Middle East.
A spectacle of magnificent views
built on the bones of children
tens of thousands of children
buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
They are a quiet echo of Milan Richter’s words:
“—But what about your mother, your father, brothers,
grandparents, where are they buried?
—Over there, in the air over Auschwitz,
they’re buried in the air.”
Dr. Cesar Chelala is the New York correspondent of The Middle East Times International (Australia). |
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