Genocide Blog 23 – Christmas Under the Rubble and a Message from The Pope
26.12.2023
In Ragoo Lane all is well, this Christmas-time. Heavy rain Christmas Eve, but with cracks of loud thunder and bright lightning ripping through the sky, as if warning of turbulent times to come. Or reminding us of the horrors right now, elsewhere, especially where a colonial genocide is being perpetrated live on TV screens. But, meanwhile, all is calm in Ragoo Lane.
Our neighbour, Guy, who whistles so beautifully, tends his roof vegetable garden. Another neighbour also makes me happy, when she sings, though being tone deaf, she sings out-of-tune. But she sings anyway. Yes, she sings and brings happiness.
I have found that another couple nearby in Ragoo Lane feed the birds – the cardinals, Cape Canaries and pigeons – not just the one neighbour I wrote about in a previous blog. So, the sight of the concentration, in turn, of the red, then the yellow, then the mauve, all over, is getting even bigger, more beautiful. Not only that. We have found that both these same neighbours, and another one, too, in their general love of all things living, feed Lock and Down, our dogs, when we are not looking. Caring for the living. Loving our neighbours as ourselves, as part of the age-old ways of ordinary human beings all over the globe.
A neighbour from across Ragoo Lane came around with a beautiful clutch of bright red litchis – even when the giant fruit-bats had eaten most from their tree, defying the nets they had put up. We have had our rusay tree bearing its fruit, so bursting with shockingly beautiful taste you can’t believe it. I offered it as a balm for a friend weighed down, this festive season, by troubles. As you bite into one, everything else but the taste, leaves you. Maybe even the cause of your worry slips away from you. And we have had mulberries, sweeter than most years. And from a miniature frisiter tree, given to us as present by yet another neighbour up the road a few years ago, has borne one fruit a day, for the past two months. Frisiter that in turn we share with others. And all the avocadoes are about to be ready to pick and put into second-hand pages of Le Mauricien to ripen and to give to our neighbours in the broadest sense of the word.
And then, the young man, father of three, who I told you about, falling so dramatically, as he did, out of the mango tree in the vacant lot next door from 20 metres up and who I, together with other neighbours, tended and cared for, as he waited for his Mom, who I went to fetch, and the ambulance men who came very quickly, not only survived his fall, cared for by the ambulance men and the Jeetoo staff, but popped around the other day, looking fine, to express his appreciation of our care for him, or, as he put it, for “sap mo lavi”, saving his life. I noted that he was carrying a big bag, indicating that he is still in the “informal mango-picking sector”, as the euphemism puts it, his drug dependence driving him on. He and I shared words about how he, having survived a life-threatening fall, might now consider preparing his mind and body for, one day, taking a decision that only he can take, to break the habit. He will, he said, think on it.
So, life goes on in Ragoo Lane. Neighbours caring for neighbours. As usual.
But, in Bethlehem, not so. Not “as usual”.
In the town where Jesus is said to have been born, there are not the usual celebrations. The Palestinian Christian community living there, in solidarity with other fellow-Palestinians of all faiths and of no faith, who live in Gaza, cannot bring itself to celebrate as usual. Not in the face of a genocide of their people. Not in the face of the continued slaughter of babies. Not in the face of the assassination at point-blank range of Palestinians, and even of Israeli prisoners, by the IDF. Not in the face of the USA funding Israel to bomb Palestinians, to shoot them, to starve them, to cause them, intentionally, to suffer from epidemics and to die. Not in the face of the tanks that desecrate even the cemeteries where the already dead rest in non-peace. Not in the face of the US representative again raising her hand at the UN to veto a ceasefire. To say “Go ahead, more slaughter!”
In both Bethlehem and in Gaza, there are the oldest Christian communities that live on. So far ...
Could the Catholic Church hierarchy of Port Louis, a rather new community, not be humble enough to learn from them? From their Bishop, say? From their parish, say? Could the local Church not call on its followers, at this time, to stand in solidarity with them? Not call on the Government of Mauritius to break off diplomatic relations? Not call even for a ceasefire? Not call for an end to the bombardment, to the state of siege, and to the imposition of starvation as a method of war? Why this deafening silence? All those interviews the new Bishop has given over the past week, and he does not say a word about his views on the genocide – genocide happening on his watch? A once-in-a-lifetime moment to take a stand, and then, until the slaughter stops, to keep taking a stand? No reporter even asks him what he thinks? Not that we are aware of. All the Pope’s own brave stands against this Israeli State terrorism, and still, here, the hierarchy remains silent? As it did on South African Apartheid until the very day it was overthrown. The Church here was on the wrong side of abolition of slavery. Similar wrong stand on universal suffrage, then on Independence. How can it be so consistently on the wrong side of history? Unless we deduce it is still controlled by the colonial settler mentality, so strong in the Mauritian ruling class? Who will break this control? Father Filip Fanchette signed the Common Declaration of Solidarite Morisyin ar Lepep Palestinien. He has stood up and been counted. But, the others? Even in face of genocide, they turn a blind eye?
The Mauritian mainstream Press – by which we mean L’Express-5-Plus, Week-End-Le Mauricien and the Le Defi group – has clearly found difficulty breaking free from the settler colonial mentality on the issue of Palestine. It is a mentality that clearly still grips the Church.
But, there is good news. In Week-End’s Christmas Eve edition, there is a Jean-Claude Antoine editorial where he, as a journalist with his own column, stands up and takes a clear stand against the siege of Gaza – which he rightly compares to the Warsaw ghetto – against the bombing and starving of the people of Palestine living in Gaza. He also, rightly, denounces the USA for not only arming Israel, acting in the interests of the arms-producing bosses, but also for using its veto so as to green-light the continued slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. He, too, has stood up and been counted.
He, Jean-Claude Antoine, has shown that this bravery exists. A journalist can take a stand. He has. Filip Fanchette, too, has shown that a priest, too, can.
We will have to see, in the coming days, how many of their colleagues do. And maybe even the top men in the Church here will find the courage to face the undeniable facts that not only speak for themselves, but cry out to be heard? Every political party in the country has taken a stand with the Palestinians. Except perhaps Roshi Bhadain’s?
And maybe the Prime Minister, who has the power, will do the two things that will work: break off diplomatic ties, and cancel all existing and future contracts with Israeli firms, starting with the CEB and, in Rodrigues, the CWA? The President of the Republic could also take a stand, as the Head of State, against the genocide that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people. His message was silent on the genocide. Even when the Government’s own politics is to denounce the Israeli State?
People with power manage to remain silent. This, even as ordinary people, world-wide, already take the lead. They demonstrate. They block bridges and factories. They care for the living. They love their neighbours as they love themselves. And do this as part of the age-old ways of ordinary human beings. The very opposite of what Netanyahu has threatened, as he quoted from the Bible, his intention to “now go and smite [the people of Palestine], and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” And the Bishop says nothing. Nor does the Anglican Bishop?
Listen to the genocidal intent from Prime Minister Netanyahu, himself, using God for his quotations, and see if you, or anyone with a heart, can still remain silent:
1) “Destroy all that they have”. Then we see all the housing in rubble in Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and you can judge for yourself. The hospitals wrecked and ruined, the CWA there bombed to smithereens, the schools and social centres bombarded even when being used as refugee shelters as we use them after cyclones. The sewerage plants and desalination plants alike blasted to bits, the cemeteries defiled.
2. “Slay both man and woman” – even as you read that of the over 20,000 people slain in Gaza, some 14,000 were women and children. There are another over 50,000 people who the IDF tried to slay, but instead only maimed. And we don’t know how many smothered to death slowly under the rubble.
3. “[Slay] infant and suckling” – in Gaza the number of infants slain, even sucklings born prematurely, even sucklings so tiny they are unable yet to suck, is shocking.
Do all this, instead of loving your neighbour, sharing your letchis, frisiter, rusay and avocadoes?
4. “[Slay] ox and sheep, camel and ass” – kill, instead of feeding the birds and taking care of the neighbour’s dogs?
This is the plan that the Israeli State apparatus, under the leadership of the fascists who have come to power. This is the plan of Washington, under the leadership of the neo-con Joe Biden, who provides the armaments for the genocide, provides the money for the Israeli State apparatus, provides the veto at the UN, and generally provides the dishonest justification for the continuation of the slaughter of the innocents of Palestine.
What the Pope so wisely said, while the Bishop remains silent
The Pope began his Christmas message with Palestine. “The eyes and the hearts of Christians throughout the world turn to Bethlehem; in these days, it is a place of sorrow and silence ...” and “They are the little Jesuses of today, these little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war.”
He says ‘no’ to war, calling war “an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly.”
This brave Pope goes further and denounces the arms industry and military bases. “To say ‘no’ to war means saying ‘no’ to weaponry. The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them. And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?”
He also says, again speaking to power with courage, “Today,” as in the time of Herod “evil ... hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many!” It is this silence that we, too, are denouncing.
He goes directly on, saying: “People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.” Yes, he is right.
And he quotes the wonderful hope of Isaiah that one day people will live in peace, “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks,” and “let us make every effort to work for the coming of that day!”
He goes straight on: “May it [peace] come in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples. I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza, the parish of Gaza, and the entire Holy Land. My heart grieves for the victims of the abominable attack of 7 October last, and I reiterate my urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage.” Importantly, he says, calling for more than a ‘ceasefire’, “I plead for an end to the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims, and call for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid. May there be an end to the fueling of violence and hatred. And may the Palestinian question come to be resolved through sincere and persevering dialogue between the parties, sustained by strong political will and the support of the international community.” The whole message of the Pope is worth reading on the Vatican site.
It is, in effect, a call for everyone to break all the remaining silence, to end all the remaining inaction, in the face of the genocide against the people of Palestine.
Lindsey Collen, for LALIT
