Hard times are behind us, and the wind of sadness cannot change its direction.
Murders of women because they are women, wars, hunger and climate change. What is more difficult? What’s worse?
Climate change is all around us, and we, more or less aware, certainly do not pay attention. We don’t know enough about them, and they are ubiquitous. Too hot summers, monsoon rains, warm autumns. And winter is coming.
A winter that carries the smell of gunpowder from the Far East – from Gaza and the West Coast – from where we hear terrifying news about killings, confiscation of land, attacks every day. Hospitals that run out of fuel to run generator sets, sea desalination pumps that will soon shut down. They say: “Water is life”, “Stop the war”, “Peace negotiations”. Without water, soon there will be no more mouths to call for peace.
What does war bring? Anytime, anywhere? Who benefits from war? The inhabitants of which country experienced prosperity after the war? And who can think that they will be happy in the ruined lives of others? And who supports people who can take pleasure in destroying all those who are not like them?
The patriarchy has won again! Under the umbrella of patriarchy, nationalism is used as a tool to preserve male privilege and control. Colonialism and war are the language of patriarchy to suppress changes that could threaten the power of individuals.
The experience of us who lived through the horrors and terrors of war, 28 years after the war, shows that we are still surviving the consequences, looking for the bones of the dead, living with PTSD that we pass on to the next generations, living in a vortex of violence, poverty, anger and hatred. Each side the same, no matter how different they are, no one is happy.
A few have profited, but they are not satisfied either, the hunger for power and the fear of losing the power stolen on the happiness of others makes them even more cruel. They worked out the shock doctrine and they are winning.
Now we can’t say we don’t know what’s going on, the war has become virtual. And what happens while the world watches the results of war, murder, destruction? Are we being recruited? And what are they recruiting us for? What times are upon us?
We feel fear because we know what every war brings, we know every emotion of fear, hopelessness, disappointment that war brings. We feel fear because no one is safe.
The patriarchy is coming to take our freedoms and lives, it’s just a matter of the tools and language they will use, the freedoms they will take away and forbid or whose lives they will take away.
We don’t know how many Palestinians will die before the killing stops. But we know that this is not the end because we wonder if anyone will systematically work to heal the memories and traumas of those who survived and lost loved ones, lost everything, those who watched and those who participated.
History repeats itself because people forget the lessons learned.
We go around in the same vicious cycle of hating others over and over again, and then marvel at the results.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, working to promote ZERO tolerance to violence, we know that the system has failed.
Now we know that the world has failed.
We feel the sadness and mourn all the losses. We feel grief because the world has failed.
We have no direct contact with female activists from Palestine and Israel. Via the networks of which we are members, we indirectly receive information about the appeals they conduct/request from women from Israel and Palestine and women from all over the world, and we symbolically join in. Only when we are united, our voice resonates.
We follow the news through social networks and major media services. The image of a woman, an activist from Egypt, yelling “Show the truth!” to a reporter from a major cable media company is what connects us. She is us, and we want to be like her – brave and determined.
From the context in which we find ourselves, in which we live and count the days, we can hardly do anything except raise our voices and stand by all the appeals and initiatives to stop war conflicts.
Wherever we turn, we see a dysfunctional society that tailors its priorities to the political elites. There are those who “have” and there are those who are leaving for better tomorrows. We no longer have the nerve to tell anyone to stay.
In the country that survived the inferno, there is still no Ministry of Peace. Peace is not a compulsory subject in school, peace is not the topic of our cultural events.
While we still have a voice and reason, we want at least a little of the strength of the Egyptian activist, we want to express our disagreement, our resistance, our pain with our screams. Stop the war in Palestine! Investigate war crimes! Water is life – protect innocent lives!
