Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 30/Jul 03:07

Consider the birds

THE EDITOR: Have you ever noticed dead birds? On the pavement between your car and office, perhaps? Some are bloated, like the stuffed animal your godchild dropped, others are crushed, and others are mangled beyond recognition. Why don’t we notice them? Perhaps it is because we are deaf to the living birds who sing around us. We ignore them in life, so of course we overlook them in death. I wonder if the birds of Gaza sing. Or, as metal-winged machines rain death through their skies, do they fall through clouds of dust? Perhaps the people of Gaza have learned to look past dead birds, to the dead children they must shroud and pray to paradise. Can you notice the birds? Can you hear the ones that still live? The wise corbeaux, harbingers of death, tell me: "The others are dying, and death is coming here." Whatever we allow for Gaza, we allow for ourselves. If we let Israel annihilate a people ostensibly for their "security," what prevents another nation from doing the same to us? If we let Gaza die, we sanction death here, too. We are already dying. As Palestinians fall, our humanity dies with them. How else can we scroll past their stories and pleas, protecting ourselves, and our relationships with the powers that kill them? The others are dying, and death is coming here. Oh God, that we would notice the birds again! Oh God, that we would revive the human compassion slowly shrivelling within us! Oh Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar and Minister Sean Sobers, that you and Caricom would enact sanctions on Israel to stop their siege and blockade of Gaza! Many Caribbean civil organisations have asked this of you. Heed their pleas. Consider the birds. GABRIELLE SAMUEL San Fernando The post Consider the birds appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.