Inner-search
I am not being persistent these few days in writing my thoughts or feelings on the blog because I am giving myself time to manage my contradictory feelings and thoughts that I am having since the start of this bloody war.
Thoughts like just and unjust war, thoughts like war and peace, thoughts like friendship and enemy.
Feelings like hate and love, feelings like love of a country and love of the people.
Then, someone (that I hope I will have the chance to meet one day) wrote to me these lines: “conflicts take 4-5 generations to heal from.The “loser” keeps on striving to revenge, and the “victorious” never enjoys its victory as it needs to constantly protect it by force and war”.
What can I say? This thought made me stay sleepless for two days
At which generation are we now in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
From 1948 till 2008, let us look at the generations on the losers’ side (Palestinians and Arabs)
1-The first generation witnessed the creation of Israel and fought the first Arab-Israeli war.
2-The second generation (kids of the first generation) witnessed their parents’ bitterness and loss and tried to rectify the “mistake” by engaging themselves in several wars.
3-The third generation (kids of the second generation) kept on hearing their grandparents’ stories about the injustice.
4-The fourth generation (kids of the third generation) are reading about the injustice from the history books.
So, if I am not mistaken in my estimations, currently we are at the 4th generation in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the violence is continuing and the voices of peace on both sides are fading and becoming inefficient.
I need your comments on these thoughts, Am I correct in counting the generation? Am I missing something? I want to know when are we going to be ready for peace in this region?
Thoughts like just and unjust war, thoughts like war and peace, thoughts like friendship and enemy.
Feelings like hate and love, feelings like love of a country and love of the people.
Then, someone (that I hope I will have the chance to meet one day) wrote to me these lines: “conflicts take 4-5 generations to heal from.The “loser” keeps on striving to revenge, and the “victorious” never enjoys its victory as it needs to constantly protect it by force and war”.
What can I say? This thought made me stay sleepless for two days
At which generation are we now in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
From 1948 till 2008, let us look at the generations on the losers’ side (Palestinians and Arabs)
1-The first generation witnessed the creation of Israel and fought the first Arab-Israeli war.
2-The second generation (kids of the first generation) witnessed their parents’ bitterness and loss and tried to rectify the “mistake” by engaging themselves in several wars.
3-The third generation (kids of the second generation) kept on hearing their grandparents’ stories about the injustice.
4-The fourth generation (kids of the third generation) are reading about the injustice from the history books.
So, if I am not mistaken in my estimations, currently we are at the 4th generation in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the violence is continuing and the voices of peace on both sides are fading and becoming inefficient.
I need your comments on these thoughts, Am I correct in counting the generation? Am I missing something? I want to know when are we going to be ready for peace in this region?
posted by Laury Haytayan at 12:44 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Laury,
I have read all of your blog, not only with great interest, but also with great sadness. Not that I could ever comprehend what it is that you suffer, but the story of your 3 year old son and watching the cartoons really touched me, as a mother of 3 children myself.
I can't imagine your feelings of fear and what it was you had to say to your child about his Daddy being in Beirut and being unable to join you in the safety of the mountains.
Despite your concerns in your first post, your English is excellent. In fact you are obviously a well educated person, as your grammar and punctuation are far better than many who have English as their first and only language. I applaude your courage and passion in not only maintaining this journal of your thoughts as a citizen of Lebanon, but also doing it in a language that is foreign to you.
Your articulation and passion are still very evident even as you translate from your initial thoughts into English.
I look forward to hearing you on the radio in Canberra, Australia. We have watched and listened in horror as thousands of Australians have been rescued from Lebanon.
I have heard the views of a Jewish woman from Jerusalem who defended the acts of the Israelies, as they were only killing 'soldiers', only to hear several days later of the deaths of innocent children. It's heartbreaking. Yet my heart still felt her pain, and her passion as a Jew at the atrocities they suffered, and her beliefs that have also been instilled in her over the last 4 generations.
When we learnt history at school, we heard of the events that led to World War 2. It was so far removed from anything that we could possibly imagine, and certainly we would never expect that in the 21st Century, we are still witnessing the bloodshed of human beings with different political and religious beliefs.
If we all love our children and our families, if we love our country, if we know that life is short, then why must lives be lost because everyone's beliefs are not the same ?
I will continue to read your blog with great interest Laury. Keep going with it!
Actually, the "Arab-Israeli" conflict is over.
I mean this in the sense of its secular dimension. With the demise of Arab "secular" movements, it may even have become be a tribal conflict; essentially a Jewish-Moslem conflict.
We would be the first generation to witness that.
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