The Children of Gaza
‘Every beauty
and greatness in this world
Is created by a single thought
Or emotion inside man.
Everything we see today,
Made by past generation,
Was, before its appearance,
A thought in the mind of a man
Or an impulse in the heart of a woman.’
Say rightly Walter D. Wintle.
Is created by a single thought
Or emotion inside man.
Everything we see today,
Made by past generation,
Was, before its appearance,
A thought in the mind of a man
Or an impulse in the heart of a woman.’
Say rightly Walter D. Wintle.
And war, too with all its
Sprouted in the mind of a man
Or germinated in the heart of a woman.
We are living in a world of war and terror,
Led by uncanny narcissistic type of leaders
Who have shut in drawers dead
The sophisticated, elegant
And balanced view of geopolitics.
Sprouted in the mind of a man
Or germinated in the heart of a woman.
We are living in a world of war and terror,
Led by uncanny narcissistic type of leaders
Who have shut in drawers dead
The sophisticated, elegant
And balanced view of geopolitics.
Think of the raped and the displaced,
The buried and the betrayed,
The castaways and the uncared,
The ills of poverty and maladies
And those who cater to their boats
In tempestuous seas of time.
Think ………
Think for a while, o man!
The buried and the betrayed,
The castaways and the uncared,
The ills of poverty and maladies
And those who cater to their boats
In tempestuous seas of time.
Think ………
Think for a while, o man!
And today, think of the children of Gaza,
Who lost their lives
With blood and sweet
Who lost their lives
With blood and sweet
Trickling from their innocent foreheads.
Think of the sizzling anger
In their mother`s hearts
And the fire of rage flowing
In the veins of their fathers
And think of the hearths and homes
Deprived of the songs of children
And the rays of hope in their smiles
Think of the sizzling anger
In their mother`s hearts
And the fire of rage flowing
In the veins of their fathers
And think of the hearths and homes
Deprived of the songs of children
And the rays of hope in their smiles
Today, let our tears flow
For the children of Gaza,
Let theses tears break those frozen silences
Of the whole human race
And dispel the dense dark smoke
For the children of Gaza,
Let theses tears break those frozen silences
Of the whole human race
And dispel the dense dark smoke
Of ignorance smothering their
eyesight.
Allow these tears to show
Our human story which looks
Like a family saga
Full of hate and revenge.
Allow our tears to bring back
The purity and sanctity of mankind
In love and peace.
Allow these tears to show
Our human story which looks
Like a family saga
Full of hate and revenge.
Allow our tears to bring back
The purity and sanctity of mankind
In love and peace.
`
--Valentina Primo
Walter D. Wintle (perhaps a pseudonym) lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but almost nothing is known about him except that he wrote "Thinking" (better known as "The Man Who Thinks He Can." The poem has been often published, in various versions, but perhaps the one closest to the original intent appeared in 1905 in "Unity," a magazine published by the Unity School of Christianity. The Unity Church was founded in Kansas City, Missouri, in the US in 1889 by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore and began publishing "Unity" 2 years later. It is part of the New Thought movement and is focused on "Christian idealism," with the Bible as one of its main texts, although not interpreted literally.
ReplyDeleteIf you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost a certain - you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost;
For out in this world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you're outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win the prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can!
Gaza, the world's 3rd-most-densely populated city, was known as Ghazzat ("prized city") to the Egyptians as early as the reign of pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt in the 15th century BCE. In the 12th century BCE it was conquered by the Philistines, who imprisoned Shimshon (Samson) there, blinded him, and forced him to grind grain; with his tremendous strength he pulled down the pillars of the temple of Dagon (the divine discoverer of grain and the plough), killing himself in the process. Gaza was the last city to resist Alexander the Great during his conquest of Egypt in 332 BCE; after a 5-month siege, all the inhabitants were slain or enslaved. The city was also the burial place of Muhammad's great-grandfather Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf al Mughirah, named for his feeding of the people of Makkah (Mecca) during a famine (or because he initiated the practice of providing crumbled bread in broth for pilgrims). Hashim was born with his leg attached to his twin brother's head until their father separated them with a sword, beginning a cycle of inter-tribal conflict that continues to the present. Israel took the city from Egypt in 1967 but withdrew its troops in 1994 and evacuated the rest of the Gaza Strip in 2005. Hamas (an acronym of Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, Islamic Resistance Movement, founded in 1987 as an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood) took over the city. Since then its Israeli and Egyptian borders have been closed and Israel has imposed an air and sea blockade. In 2008 Israel launched a 22-day war on the city, killing between 1,00 and 1,400 inhabitants; in 2014 Israel launched a 2-month war that killed between 2,125 and 2,310 and wounded between 10,626 and 10,895, including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled. In 2018 the conflict was resumed when Gazans organized a 6-week Great March of Return to demand restoration of their lands in Israel and an end to the blockade; the Israeli response led to 155 killed (of whom 23 were under 18) and 17,259 injured (including 3,279 children).
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