By Ranjan Solomon
There is so much conflict around the world accompanied by brutal killings and destruction. Often these conflicts are simplistically dismissed as religious rivalries, competing ethnic claims, caste-based oppression and racism, Some of these conflicts make the headlines; others are frozen wars/conflicts in which those who die, and what is destroyed is a mere statistic. At the root of war and conflict is the uneven competition for resources where the powerful manage to steal land, rich minerals and precious resources below the land – as in the case of African countries and indigenous lands everywhere in the so-called Global South. Those who would acquire riches that do not belong to them are the butchers of war. Colonial and imperial powers are filled with greed and do not ever stop craving for more.
The world is in need of Movements for Justice which will defy the war mongers and thieves. There is a narrative in the Bible where Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants “Get your things out of here! A common interpretation is that Jesus was reacting to the practice of money changers routinely cheating the people. Marvin L. Krier Mich, a renowned proponent of social justice in both the Catholic Church and civil society, avers that a good deal of money was stored at the temple, where it could be loaned by the wealthy to the poor who often fell deep into debt for profits. Jesus did not preach a sermon and counsel these bigots. Instead, he used the whip to scare them away.
This is not to advocate or propose violence. But to remind the oppressor’s that their ways are wrong and they must transform their lives from one of greed and oppression.
Gaza is clearly not about Hamas and its fight back after 18 years of being forced to live in a concentration camp. October 7th was the day they chose to resist which was the legal right to do against an occupying power who ruled lethally and illegally over their lives. By comparison to Israel, Hamas’ victims are a mere drop in the ocean.
Piers Morgan persists in all his interviews with the question: Did not Israel have the right to fight back? The answer is an emphatic NO. Israel must end the occupation and pay reparations for their wild animal-like treatment of Palestinians. They must return all the land and other resources to those they stole it from. This is the only possible peaceful solution.
The time for that is NOW.
Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator
25 December 2024
Source: countercurrents.org