Somewhere, in the smoke and rubble, is sanity – though well-hidden.
Somewhere someone is quietly reminding us, ‘When the children must die, it is insane.’
I heard it said in a Palestinian/Israeli collective.
Quietly.
The first truth, and the noisier one, is reaction – the taking of sides, the waving of flags, the proving a point, the demonising, the reasoned justification.
‘Do we stop? No, we carry on and on and on!’
The second truth, struggling to be heard, is response – the awareness that when children must die, it is all quite mad.
No flags here, no reasoned justification – just the bare facts, the assault on innocence…the bare-faced lunacy of the participants in this game.
Insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting a different outcome.
And it is how the world will end.
God bless the leaders who dare leave the asylum. God bless the leaders who offer something different, something beyond knee-jerk, dog-whistle politics.
For as someone somewhere is quietly reminding us, between the ear-shattering and life-destroying explosions, ‘When the children must die, it – and everyone involved – is insane.’
