The Politics of Motherhood

I'm not going to begin to rant on the actual politics of the "conflict" (fuck that, it's a WAR and if CNN and FOX can't call it that, I will) in Israel and Lebanon because I'm just not informed enough about it yet. It's not simple, it's not black and white, and if there was a simple solution to the whole muddle, I have no doubts someone far more intelligent than I would have thought of it already.

One could spend a lifetime trying to understand why the divisions of humanity there hate each other; the wounds are so old and run so deep, it would probably take another lifetime to be able to make sense of it all.

The one thing I can talk about with some authority is the humanity of it all. T posted this video on his blog yesterday. I finally got around to watching it this evening, and I nearly threw up. Be warned, it is graphic. This is not the stuff they're showing you on the major news networks; these are the gritty, bloody photos and many of them are of children. Specifically, one of them is of a tiny, broken body with a face that could be Jack's.

Whatever your politics, whatever your sympathies... the basic truth that sticks in my brain and will not be dislodged is that the innocents caught in the middle (and make no mistake, there are many of those on both sides) will bed down tonight not knowing if they will wake in the morning. I know there is suffering all over the world, but it's a lot easier to marginalize that fact, mentally, when those people have very little in common with you.

Not so in Israel and Lebanon. These people are modern; a photo I saw of a young mother in Lebanon with her baby and small girl could have been of any of the women in my neighborhood - save for her head scarf. I think I own the same pair of jeans. These people, the ones who were simply born into that unfortunate part of the world and of the "wrong" denomination or nation, are intelligent, modern, and very aware of the trap in which they now find themselves.

And tonight, half a world away, they are dying. Some are dying quickly in a rain of fire and ash. Others will die slowly, as public works and supplies of basic necessities are cut off. Mothers will bury children who will die from lack of shelter, clean water, and medical care - as well as from scalding death that pours from the sky.

As the pundits and the talking heads debate the politics of this war, the justifications from both sides, and how this will effect the effing GAS prices, this young mother feels the crushing sadness of the families who have no where to run to and no place to hide from the storm that rages around them.

It's past my bedtime, but I can't lay my head down tonight until I hug and kiss my boys and thank providence that we are all safe under our roof tonight. Our world may be, at times, an uncertain one - but at least tonight I will rest without the fear that at any moment all of our tomorrows could be swallowed up in one instant of white-hot destruction.