WE are the problem

The people around me astound me many a times. Why do we behave like a bunch of idiots? Why do we attack others? Why do we want land, gold, money, food, water..., so much that we are ready to kill for all of it?

Over the past few days I watched a few documentaries regarding battles. The one issue that caught my attention was the Palestinian issue. No, I am not going to speak on that topic, It has been already spoken about enough. I want to find out the reason behind such occurrences.

The Arab-Israel fight over Palestine, the India-Pakistan fight over Kashmir, the Srilankan LTTE issue... the list is endless. And it exists from time immemorial. Even epics go on the same lines. Ramayana was the fight for a woman, which started with the greed over the throne. Mahabharata happened because of the ego of one man, who wanted everything to himself.

Everything points to one reason, in my eyes- self fulfilling prophesies.

Let’s take a look at the Arab-Israel issue, as that is fresh in my brain. Originally, the Jews lived on that land. Judea, home of the Jews in ancient times, was conquered by the Romans and renamed Palestine. Palestine was later conquered and inhabited by Arabs for over a thousand years. The Zionist movement arose to restore the Jews to Israel, largely ignoring the existing Arab population. Then World War I happened. Following the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Palestine was granted to Britain as a League of Nations mandate to build a national home for the Jewish people. The Arabs resented the Jews coming in to take their land. Led by Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, they rioted repeatedly and later revolted, creating a history of enmity between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Britain stopped Jewish immigration to Palestine. Following the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, pressure on Britain increased to allow Jewish immigration to Palestine.   In 1947, the UN partitioned the land into Arab and Jewish states. The Arabs did not accept the partition and war broke out. The Jews won a decisive victory, expanded their state and created several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees. The Arab states refused to recognize Israel or make peace with it. Wars broke out in 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982, and there were many terror raids and Israeli reprisals. Each side believes different versions of the same history. Each side views the conflict as wholly the fault of the other and expects an apology.

In one of the documentaries I saw, the narrator showed how much the Israelis have terrorized the Palestinians in their own homeland. When the guy questioned one Israeli official about what justification they had for it, he started the same old monologue about terrorism. Without actually saying it, he implied that those Arabs are terrorists. "And after 9/11, the world should be ready for a new kind of terrorism", he said, “Nuclear terrorism”.

The documentary showed how the Israelis are treating the Palestinians as if they were animals: stray animals that have stranded into your private land, and you’re forced to keep them there. Horrifying stories about pregnant women not being allowed to get to the hospital to deliver the baby, forcing them to do so in the vehicle they arrive in, forcing them to watch their babies die, were narrated in the documentary.

You do all this, and expect them to keep mum? Would YOU do the same in this situation? 

You speak of protecting yourself from the terrorism, and thus justify your acts of oppression. Aren’t you driving them into doing the same?

In psychology, there is a concept of ‘self fulfilling prophecies’. To understand this concept, we should know something called “schemas”. Everyone has certain theories, pre-conceived notions about everything, in their head: these notions are called schemas. One of the flaws of these schemas, is that they tend to be self fulfilling. 

Suppose I perceive a certain person to be aggressive, in reality he is not. Due to the schema I have, regarding his aggressive tendency, I act in a certain way towards him. I talk to him as if he is a lowly creature, because I don’t like his ‘aggression’. I try putting him behind bars, to prevent any harm to myself. Such acts will simply push him into doing the exact thing that I was worried about in the first place! And at the opportune moment, he might take revenge for all the trouble I put him through just on a mere notion that something existed, when in reality, it did not.

This is exactly what is happening, not only in Israel, but throughout the world. We think we know everything. We create our schemas and act in a certain way. Country Y positive, without an inkling of doubt, that X country is a threat to them. So they arm ourselves in anticipation of an attack. Looking at them, the poor country X feels threatened and arms itself too. And Y then carries a smug smile, saying “I told you so!”

No. You did not. You created the god-damn monster! Your acts, your words, your propaganda, your torture, your oppression, your stupidity, YOU.

The cycle is a viscious one. It HAS to stop. There HAS to be a break in chain. The link must be broken at SOME point. What the human race needs today is that point in time when we break the circle, break the link. Let us not kid ourselves with the illusion that we know the solution to everything. By our actions, we may in fact be creating that very problem which are 'solving'.