roachboy

one thing i have figured out in my real life role as a historian is that cause-effect relations are fictional at best in a complex social-historical situations.
there is no way to predict how events will play out.

there is not even at this point any way to know what is going on--even on the question of whether arafat is really ill or kind of ill, or whether he is getting adequate care either way---no way to know.
maybe the israeli press prefers to publish worst scenario stories for reasons of wish-fulfillment in the wake of sharon carrying the parliamentary vote to dismantle settlements in gaza.
maybe al-jazeera is carrying an equivalent set of wish-fulfillment stories because the plo leadership want to play for time.

if you cant even figure out at this point what is happening, what sense does it make to screw about with scenarios?

the israelis have been blaming arafat for violence while at the same time acting as though the settlements do not play a role and as if the brutality of the occupation is not an issue in itself for years--why should anyone believe them?

similarly, arafat has been using israeli disengenousness to prop himself up in power for years as well. why should you believe anyone around him?

the other thing i have learned in my real-life role as historian is that ex post facto, whatever happens will be understood as necessary. or as the opposite of that. what will be covered over--what is always covered over--is period of uncertainty. this is one.

a third thing i have learned is that reference to "centuries of conflict between arabs and jews" in this context is meaningless--this is a particular conflict underway in earnest since 1948, with a sequence of definable parameters and turning points, that has been undertaken and maintained by both sides in their own interests.
the grand historical pseudo-understanding operates to erase what is happening in real time.
with the result, here as always, that the people who are fucked over remain the same: the palestinan people.
you know, regular folk---not unlike you---jammed into situations of complete desperation.

these people matter even less if the body count is measured in terms of nationalism (daswig's fine posts).
they matter not at all if the conflict is understood as endless, as eternal, as insoluble.
because all that functions only--and i mean only--to let the parties off the hook that in fact, in real time, maintain this ridiculous and brutal conflict.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite