Nothing Rhymes

Today I received a letter from my nephew Mahzan  which jolted me back to the real world - one I've been trying to evade for the past few weeks.

Dear Mahzan,

Thank you for your poignant, despairing letter on the state of our world, especially the plight of the Palestinians.  I can't find the words or the heart or the spirit to articulate the same pain, the same grief, and the same injustice inflicted on the Palestinians.  I looked through the labels  on the side of my blog - Gaza (13), Israel (7), Palestine (7), Zionism (23).  What more can I say?

Years ago in Leicester I saw a sickening news clip showing young seals being clubbed to death in Canada, supposedly to conserve fish stocks.

 Check  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/10/23/seal-cull-canada_n_2006442.html

Israel, with the collaboration and blessings of the Judaeo Christian Western nations (and some Arab-Muslim nations as well) are carrying out the same culling every few years to conserve and expand their racist and racial stock.

Like you, I feel helpless and useless, and like a coward I switch off the TV news whenever the massacre on Gaza is shown on the screen.  

But you're a healer, a doctor, and not just a specialist in Occupational Health and you are giving what you can of  your rezeki  to help  others who are working and helping in Gaza.

Most important of all, you're teaching your children  to feel for the grievous suffering of the Palestinians and to try and do what little they can.  Hopefully - because of your influence - as Nadia, Nabilla and Adam go through  life, they will be inspired to ask their teachers about the woeful fate of the Palestinians just as children today, especially in the Judaeo-Christian world, are taught about the Holocaust - and to  say, for the Jews, " Never Again".   Who shall toll the bell for the Palestinians?  InsyaAllah it may come from a child in Johor Baru because of  his/ her Abah's persuasions.

And maybe, they will also, one day, ask their Ustazs and Ustazas and  Ulamas why the Muslims are demonizing and slaughtering each other.

My sleepless nights?  It's old age 'Zan, the world (and its inhabitants), at times, is too much for this septuagenarian to cope with.  I think of my first ( and second-hand ) MG Midget which I bought in 1967.  It was a small two-seater sports car ( which my Abah and your Mak and Abah also loved to drive)  with a 948 cc engine and twin SU  carburettors and  spoke-wheels.  I recall how the engine would purr beautifully as soon as you turn the ignition.  Well, my engine does not purr like that any more and it takes a lot of igniting to get it going - especially to sleep.

You're doing a good job with your children and if that commitment can be multiplied millions of times all over the country, then maybe I will have fewer sleepless nights.

Take care and salam to you, Sabrina and the 3 monsters.

Love from Unc and ma'ngah

 PS   See?  No posting on Palestine!




Will I glance at my screen and see real human beings starve to death ( pounded to death in the case of Gaza)  right in front of my eyes.