Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Why I disagree with Arabic media’s demonization of Israel by By AHMED ABDEL-RAHEEM
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Let’s stop demonizing Israel. The new analogy I invite Arabs to use can be rendered: “Israel Is a Sister.”
Photo: Courtesy
Two days ago, Al Ahram published a cartoon in which a child angel asks another:
“Were you too killed by an Israeli fighter jet?” The other victim replies: “No,
by an Egyptian train,” a reference to the tragic collision four days ago of a
train and a school bus, which killed 50 children. What’s wrong with the analogy?
As a researcher in cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis, I can
say that the reason bad analogies are so dangerous is that they can constrain
and direct our policies. The above analogy, for example, highlights that Israel
is a killer of innocence, suppressing the fact that Hamas fires rockets at
innocent Israeli civilians. Importantly, depicting Israel as a demon implies
that there can be no peace with it. If this were the case, how can Egypt play
the role of peace broker between Israel and Palestine?
Another prominent cartoon
appeared in the Jordanian newspaper Al Rayi. In it, Israel is depicted as a
serial killer fond of collecting skulls. Again, this analogy hides the
fact that in Israel there are innocent civilians, women and children who know
nothing about killing. Furthermore, it suppresses the fact that Israel wants
peace with its neighbors, as evidenced by its 32-year-old peace treaty with
Egypt.
Strikingly, the same analogy (i.e., Israel as serial killer) has
been employed by the Egyptian news outlet El-Masry Elyoum, though in a different
form. The outlet ran a picture in which a smiling Israeli soldier asks another,
while pointing to the word “Gaza” written in skulls, “isn’t my handwriting very
nice?” The message here is that Israeli soldiers kill for fun, ignoring the fact
many of them are wounded or killed. Furthermore, the message is that the
soldiers of Israel are irrational. But are they?
Israeli soldiers have to defend
themselves, their children, and their wives against Hamas attack. Furthermore,
they dream of same things everyone else does: to be able to spend a nice weekend
with their families, for security, for a calm life. In short, they’re not
demons.
A fourth striking example can be found in the Saudi economic
newspaper Al Iqtisadiah. In it, the Israeli flag is planted on the corpse of an
Arab drowning in his own blood. This implies that the Jewish state must be
demolished if Arabs want to live, which is another way of saying Israel has no
right to exist.
The photos of innocent Palestinian victims made my heart
bleed and left me for some days unable to think or write. But viewing Israel as
a demon is dangerous and doesn’t fit the facts very well.
As a general
finding in cognitive science, if a mental framework doesn’t fit the facts, the
facts will bounce off and the framework will stay. As such, we need to pay more
attention to our metaphors and analogies, especially because as we have seen,
demonization of Israel works against peace.
Finally, I recall some
important words said once by deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in a TV
interview: “We Egyptians went into wars with Israel, but in the end we sat down
together around the table and solved our problems. Importantly, only
negotiations can bring peace to the region, as can be read in the book of
history.”
On this account, let’s stop demonizing Israel.
The new
analogy I invite Arabs to use can be rendered: “Israel Is a Sister.” More
importantly, the Palestinian people suffer, and so does the Israeli people. In
other words, both sides need and want peace. Jerusalem Post
The writer is an Egyptian
artist and a PhD student.
