The misery of human destiny [Archives:2005/904/Opinion]

It seems as time goes on, human beings are getting further and further away from having really much control over their destinies. This is even more so, in the Third World of “developing countries”, where it seems that that the only hope for most people is will they be able to find enough to eat, or survive any conflict that might be brewed up by all these various forces that have come to take control of people's lives and the course of human events, that will engulf their already tested existence, beset by an ongoing stream of challenges. Yes, it seems that even for the best of people, who can manage to go through the early stages of life and prepare themselves for a career that will sustain them, or a livelihood that will help provide the essentials of life, it seems that they really have no control over their destinies. Surely, they are unable to guarantee that whatever they have achieved can be guaranteed to remain sustainable for any length of time. The world is getting more complex every day and with rapid communications moving information across thousands of miles in relatively miniscule time frames, people cannot help become affected by events that can turn what may appear to be a hopeful existence into an eventual demise of anything that can be considered as good in life. On top of some of the fantastic natural calamities that are now bringing death and destruction to large agglomerations of people, such as the Tsunami of late last year and Hurricane Katrina has shown that nature is unable to differentiate between the rich and the poor or between the powerful and the meek. Surely, nature must be telling us something when whole regions are obliterated by a sudden earthquake that can transfer the somewhat tranquil existence of an already impoverished people of one region, into a horrific nightmare of having to spend the cold and unmerciful winters of the Central Asian Highlands in the barren lands without shelter, as is the case in Pakistan and Kashmir. As if that was not enough, the ground again shook last week with another Earthquake. But such tragic consequences of the force of nature are now receiving secondary attention in the world, as the power brokers of the world find their own ways of making the misery they bring to the world capture the headlines of newspapers, with explosions that shake the hustle and bustle of modern urban life. For close to a decade and a half, Lebanon has managed to achieve a relatively quiet climate for the Lebanese to come out of the miseries that a “civil war” has filled the gentle green hills and valleys of the Lebanese landscape with. It almost seemed that Lebanon was going to show the world that it is possible for a multi ethnic profusion of culture to coexist in peace. But alas, when one of the architects of that temporary solace became a victim of one of those mysterious explosions that defy all normal explanations, Lebanon again becomes drawn into a new era of intrigue and regional pull and push, with strong international juice brought in to heighten the tension for the observer. Rafiq Al-Hariri's explosion was only the start of a series of mind boggling horrific blasts that take away the lives and flesh of their victims and leave an aura of mystery and fear that the end is far from being near. The next victim can be anyone: a Minister of State, a member of Parliament, a cleric, a journalist, etc. It is not what you do that counts anymore, it is what role can you play by your death to set the grounds for others to implant their influence, so that they can control the destinies of those who might have found great comfort in your deeds or found hope in the words you wrote. No matter. People are not moved by what people can eloquently express anymore, because the evil forces that are working hard to control the destiny of mankind are doing all they can to dictate their views of all that is happening in this world to suit their own whims.

A lot of fanfare was made of the opening of the Rafah Crossing in Gaza, as if the dark days of Israeli occupation have been all of a sudden turned into a masterful media campaign of the wonders that politicians can produce. Howevver, many of the open eyed observers from the maverick reporting of many a “mainstream” newspaper have shown, the truth will always reveal a reality that politicians have managed to shield themselves away from as they marvel at their staged mini-scenes of bliss for their successful achievments. For the people of Gaza, in general the opening of the Crossing at Rafah will hardly dent all the misery of an occupier, who still controls the air, sea and land roads that lead to or come out of Rafah. What is worse that the new authority that will man the abandoned posts of the former harsh occupier, will be no medium for hope for the residents. The opening of Rafah Crossing was just a nice show of ceremonial glorifications for those who claimed themselves success in bringing the Israelis to be replaced by sometimes even harsher Palestinian or Egyptian authorities, who have never believed that public service really means that: serving the public. Public service nowadays is no more than an ego trip. These authorities are not finding it easy to explain why Palestinians need a Palestinian visa to leave Gaza to be able to see their long separated relatives on the Egyptian side of the border.

This brings us back to the farce that politics has become in our region, as Presidents and Kings continue to explain the great achievements they have made for their people, when statistics still tell you that more than half of the population of the land are at the poverty line or very close to it while they and their kin are living in luxurious elegance, all paid for by the funds that could have been used to improve the lives of thousands of people. A region rich in the resource that can bring the entire Western economy to kneel, if used assiduously, as a political tool, or prudently as a source of investment to upgrade the lives of all the people of the land, yet half of its population will end up looking for the way to bring full nourishment to their malnutritioned kids for the day, let alone for the year.

Humanity is also progressing on the freedom trail. Journalists are being targeted everywhere, if they start to get on the nerves of all those who have brought so much misery to their own people and to people of other lands. They will be blasted to pieces, beaten around street corners, spend months or weeks in terrible prisons, just so the few people, who thrive on the misery of the masses can have their field day in the warm beaches of the country, without some nosy reporters poking their cameras at them as they applaud their great achievements and set the grounds for bringing more misery in the future to the majority, who have lost control of their destiny.
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