After finishing all the bass tracks for the record last night I decided to drive home for my day off. Sleeping in a proper bed was a relief, to say the least. A little laundry, a lot of not moving, you get the picture. Tomorrow I’ll head back into town to start on guitars, which I’m looking forward to.

Counting The Dead

I once believed that history was the study of past human affairs and their relation to the present and future. But to be honest, I am beginning to believe that it is just the academic practice of counting the dead.

The more death, the more momentous the historic event.

Which is studied more – the civil rights movement or the Second World War? The suffrage movement or the crusades? Religion’s messages of love and compassion or its intolerance of others?

We are vile little creatures with a predilection for death. Unless, that is, we are the ones being killed. Only then does it becomes devoid of fascination.

Some 900 people, penned up in the world’s largest ghetto, have been killed over the last 17 days by a nation that possesses an overwhelming military advantage. The full measure of that military’s might has been unleashed on 1.5 million people unable to escape the 139 square mile strip of land in which they are trapped. There is no where to run, not even the sea offers the possibility of escape.

What is happening in Gaza right now is basically akin to placing a boat in a large tank filled with fish and then lobbing grenades into the water and watching as their carcasses rise to the surface. There are numerous types of fish in the tank, some rather unpleasant, some that gnaw away at the hull of your boat, but targeting them does not preclude killing the others. Being that they’re in that tank, and they’ve nowhere to go, their fate is the same.

Hamas has been lobbing cheaply made missiles into Israel for some time – that fact is the cornerstone of Israel’s current grenade fishing expedition. Never mind that those rockets have killed less than 30 people in 20 years, the death of hundreds of innocents in Gaza, many of them children, is justifiable because the word terrorism is in play. Thus, to kill terrorists the death of innocents is unfortunate, but necessary, collateral damage.

Were every member of Hamas in Gaza to commit suicide simultaneously, how long would it take for the face of everyday life in Gaza to change? A month? Six months? A year? Five years? Would Gaza become a world financial center? Would job opportunities for its 60% unemployed suddenly materialize? And if they did, how many of those jobs would be working in Israeli houses, on Israeli farms, or in Israeli factories? Would Gazans still have to endure the humiliation of passing through Israeli checkpoints every day, their every move monitored? In short – at what point would the people of Gaza actually be free?

If history is the practice of counting the dead then hundreds of Gazans have been freed over the last two and a half weeks. Thus, they no longer have to worry about the future.