NefeshBarYochai
2024-07-27 12:56:10 UTC
by Selcuk Bayraktar
Chairman of the Board and CTO, Baykar Technologies
Addressing a joint meeting of the United States Congress on Wednesday,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against
international criticism that Israel has been committing war crimes and
crimes against humanity in Gaza, where approximately 40,000 people
men, women, children and babies have been killed to date. He also
doubled down on his governments policy of genocide and extermination,
refusing to signal that the bloodshed will stop soon. He received a
standing ovation from some of Americas leading politicians.
Had Satan and his minions descended on Earth and performed a ritual,
even they would have been less audacious.
Scientific evidence suggests that the Almighty created the world four
billion years ago. Since then, it has been destroyed and rebuilt many
times over. Over the last 200,000 years, humankind has established
institutions, organisations and agreements to maintain peace and
promote order by learning from past mistakes.
Indeed, this is what distinguishes us from all other creatures: We are
uniquely capable of accumulating knowledge and passing it down to
future generations unlike the beaver, for example, which has been
building the exact same dam for millions of years.
Therefore, it is unsettling that Antonio Gramscis words from 1932,
preceding World War II, remain remarkably pertinent today: The old
world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the
time of monsters. A century later, humanity has come full circle.
Despite the establishment of institutions like the United Nations and
acceptance of documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
aimed at promoting peace and justice, we bear witness to the first
livestreamed genocide in history.
The kind of suffering currently unfolding in Palestine is
unprecedented. The Palestinian people, who have been resisting
injustice for 75 years, are now daring to survive in front of a global
audience. The Palestinian peoples resistance is emblematic of a
broader human struggle for justice, as captured in one of my favourite
poems, Soon the Sun will rise, by Erdem Bayazit:
You are the heroes of humanity resisting amid steel gears.
It is an undeniable fact that the struggle for justice and the fight
for a better world are perennial themes that resonate deeply in our
collective consciousness. As one particularly poignant line from
another favourite poem, Ismet Ozels Life My Darling, relates:
What I know is that
living
means fighting under a clear sky
for the love of children.
This imperative is not just a theoretical ideal but a practical
necessity that humanity must embrace to avert the recurrence of
historical atrocities and to ensure a just and peaceful world.
Some 20 years ago, when I was a research assistant at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a group of students came
together to raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle. We would
put up posters, screen informative films, and distribute brochures.
Apathy, which stops the international community from taking meaningful
action today, manifested itself then in the form of the following
questions: What is this going to change? Will this help stop the
bleeding after decades?
This scepticism was understandable but ultimately misplaced. The
impact of seemingly insignificant actions is not always immediate or
visible, but they contribute to a broader movement of awareness and
change. Indeed, thank Allah, protests have swept through the United
States and Europe, including the worlds most prestigious schools like
Harvard, MIT, Columbia and others.
Our actions, whether through organised events or individual efforts,
contribute to the broader struggle for justice. We are not merely
passive observers but active participants in shaping the moral fabric
of our society. The changes we seek must begin within ourselves. As I
told my friends two decades ago, the resistance and struggle are not
just for the heroes on the front lines, but for the rest of us, to
transform our own indifference into action.
The ultimate goal is to foster a world where our children can grow up
in safety and dignity. This requires a collective effort to uphold
justice, challenge oppression, and promote peace. The poem continues:
For if we do not fight,
the loaf we split at mealtimes,
the warm bits of my childhood,
would, like most wounds,
spread across the soil,
our flesh would rot
and make the entire sky stink.
Unless we act now, this will be the result. So, what will it take for
humanity to abandon laying the groundwork for such an apocalypse? Let
us keep reciting the poem:
The world
is turning with incorruptible stubbornness,
as stars are being spread beneath us
and my face rushes to the water
And the Revelation
The Palestinians are fulfilling their duty by resisting. It is the
rest of us that need to change. All of us not just the handful of
people already standing up for justice in Palestine. The world cannot
be saved unless and until the rest changes. Let us today take the
tiniest step towards doing the smallest amount of good so that, in two
decades time, we can tell our children that we stood up for what was
right for a fair world.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/7/26/for-a-fair-world-stand-with-palestine
Chairman of the Board and CTO, Baykar Technologies
Addressing a joint meeting of the United States Congress on Wednesday,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against
international criticism that Israel has been committing war crimes and
crimes against humanity in Gaza, where approximately 40,000 people
men, women, children and babies have been killed to date. He also
doubled down on his governments policy of genocide and extermination,
refusing to signal that the bloodshed will stop soon. He received a
standing ovation from some of Americas leading politicians.
Had Satan and his minions descended on Earth and performed a ritual,
even they would have been less audacious.
Scientific evidence suggests that the Almighty created the world four
billion years ago. Since then, it has been destroyed and rebuilt many
times over. Over the last 200,000 years, humankind has established
institutions, organisations and agreements to maintain peace and
promote order by learning from past mistakes.
Indeed, this is what distinguishes us from all other creatures: We are
uniquely capable of accumulating knowledge and passing it down to
future generations unlike the beaver, for example, which has been
building the exact same dam for millions of years.
Therefore, it is unsettling that Antonio Gramscis words from 1932,
preceding World War II, remain remarkably pertinent today: The old
world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the
time of monsters. A century later, humanity has come full circle.
Despite the establishment of institutions like the United Nations and
acceptance of documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
aimed at promoting peace and justice, we bear witness to the first
livestreamed genocide in history.
The kind of suffering currently unfolding in Palestine is
unprecedented. The Palestinian people, who have been resisting
injustice for 75 years, are now daring to survive in front of a global
audience. The Palestinian peoples resistance is emblematic of a
broader human struggle for justice, as captured in one of my favourite
poems, Soon the Sun will rise, by Erdem Bayazit:
You are the heroes of humanity resisting amid steel gears.
It is an undeniable fact that the struggle for justice and the fight
for a better world are perennial themes that resonate deeply in our
collective consciousness. As one particularly poignant line from
another favourite poem, Ismet Ozels Life My Darling, relates:
What I know is that
living
means fighting under a clear sky
for the love of children.
This imperative is not just a theoretical ideal but a practical
necessity that humanity must embrace to avert the recurrence of
historical atrocities and to ensure a just and peaceful world.
Some 20 years ago, when I was a research assistant at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a group of students came
together to raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle. We would
put up posters, screen informative films, and distribute brochures.
Apathy, which stops the international community from taking meaningful
action today, manifested itself then in the form of the following
questions: What is this going to change? Will this help stop the
bleeding after decades?
This scepticism was understandable but ultimately misplaced. The
impact of seemingly insignificant actions is not always immediate or
visible, but they contribute to a broader movement of awareness and
change. Indeed, thank Allah, protests have swept through the United
States and Europe, including the worlds most prestigious schools like
Harvard, MIT, Columbia and others.
Our actions, whether through organised events or individual efforts,
contribute to the broader struggle for justice. We are not merely
passive observers but active participants in shaping the moral fabric
of our society. The changes we seek must begin within ourselves. As I
told my friends two decades ago, the resistance and struggle are not
just for the heroes on the front lines, but for the rest of us, to
transform our own indifference into action.
The ultimate goal is to foster a world where our children can grow up
in safety and dignity. This requires a collective effort to uphold
justice, challenge oppression, and promote peace. The poem continues:
For if we do not fight,
the loaf we split at mealtimes,
the warm bits of my childhood,
would, like most wounds,
spread across the soil,
our flesh would rot
and make the entire sky stink.
Unless we act now, this will be the result. So, what will it take for
humanity to abandon laying the groundwork for such an apocalypse? Let
us keep reciting the poem:
The world
is turning with incorruptible stubbornness,
as stars are being spread beneath us
and my face rushes to the water
And the Revelation
The Palestinians are fulfilling their duty by resisting. It is the
rest of us that need to change. All of us not just the handful of
people already standing up for justice in Palestine. The world cannot
be saved unless and until the rest changes. Let us today take the
tiniest step towards doing the smallest amount of good so that, in two
decades time, we can tell our children that we stood up for what was
right for a fair world.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/7/26/for-a-fair-world-stand-with-palestine