The Story of Our TIME

Last month, after a decade-long gap if I'm not mistaken, I resubscribed to TIME magazine. After reading five issues, I have realized the wealth of information I have lost out on the last ten years by not being its weekly consumer. Such superlative reportage. That's the key: it's uninflected reporting, plain and simple. No opinions, no agenda, no ulterior motives. It is refreshing to be given the facts and then the room to interpret them per my own constitution.

That being wrote, reading these issues has left me unspeakably demoralized. Look at these two covers:

What is the point? What has been accomplished by the instigators and perpetrators? And (un)surprisingly enough, the Israel-Palestine conflict never made it to the cover. Perhaps the editors were concerned the magazine may be accused of having become redundant, rehashing the same story over and over.

Putin must surely be the most brazen celebrity in the world at the moment. That is not an error on my part. He may be a politician by profession, but I can no longer picture him walking into a meeting. "Putin swaggered into the room" is what my imagination compels me to write. Check out this gem:

Without a doubt, the state over whose territory this happened bears the responsibility of this frightful tragedy. 

That's his statement following the mid-air bombing of the Malaysian Airlines plane over Ukraine. Say what? You have pro-Russia Ukrainians fighting their own fellow citizens with weapons provided by your country and backed by your national army and you accuse the people battling your fighters to keep them from taking over their country of blowing up the plane? I look forward to reading your therapist's book.

What is your objective in behaving the way you are? Are you in denial of the global impact your ego-fueled (in)actions are causing? I believe the answer to the second question is no. You're too intelligent to be in denial. Here's my request: let it go, dude. You're so mired in the past, you relate to people and territories and countries for who and what they were before who and what they are today. And, tragically, your steadfast refusal to join us in the here and the now has resulted in your being a relic of the past, which has caused you to become even more stubborn as you stampede your way around your 'hood obliterating any semblance of progress and harmony, which you probably perceive as threats to your rule. I encourage you to watch Rush Hour. Somewhere near its midpoint, ask yourself, "What is war good for?" You'll get the answer.

Writing of war, here's what Joe Klein wrote in his column titled "In Gaza, a Just but Bloody War":

Hamas provoked this round, and Israel had no choice but to respond.

Poor Israel. Left with no alternative. What is a righteous nation to do when attacked? Not stand idly, that's for sure. No point initiating any kind of conversation either. History, after all, is for humans to learn from. 

Don't make me laugh, PK. 

So what happened? Palestine kidnapped and killed three Israelis. Israel retaliated. And off we went. Sequels get boring after a while. And characters jaded. After a point, the performances stem more from muscle memory and reflexes borne out of familiarity than from active curiosity and understanding and a desire for exploration and investigation. Roger Ebert, in his review for Incendies, wrote:

 People who were not murderers in their nature killed others and justified it, on both sides, in the names of their gods. And when enough people had died, they no longer needed their gods, because they sought personal or tribal revenge. A season of murder by fanatics broadened into years of retribution by bystanders who take up their guns.

That is the reality of any and every war. To avenge the violent acts of a few individuals, entire countries are mobilized with the aim of the enemy's annihilation. The Director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights called "it the stupid war. It's aimless." You said it, brother. Retaliation by the attackee only emboldens the attacker, and a never-ending cycle is born. Of course, attackee and attacker are words invented in language. It's only a matter of perspective. In essence, everybody and nobody is innocent.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." For Gandhi and Mandela, the "right" thing to do would have been to react. It'd've been the "just" response. How can any self-respecting entity take "unfair" abuse silently? Hindsight being 20/20, reader, I invite you to consider: what would it have gotten them? Where would we as a people be had these leaders succumbed to their emotions and resorted to the easy route of violence? Has their nonviolent approach not brought everlasting peace (so far) as far as that specific issue is concerned? 

It would have been the human thing for Gandhi and Mandela to lash out for the sake of standing up for themselves. However, they were wise enough to know the difference between short-term satisfaction and long-term resolution. The former is brought about by giving what's given. The latter by being inclusive and initiating conversation. The brand-new threat of ISIS is a direct product of the fiasco the US has caused and been entrenched in the past ten-plus years in Afghanistan and Iraq. And ISIS' indirect lineage can be traced back to, I opine, the US' decision to abandon the Afghan soldiers in the late '80s following the departure of the Soviet army. (Watch the superb Charlie Wilson's War for details.) The US has left so many dead bodies in its wake around the world, its moral authority and standing, as cogently argued by the eminent Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat, has consistently been declining the last three decades. 

Look at the epic disaster in Ferguson, MO. Admittedly, I don't know all the facts. The case does not seem to be as clear-cut as the Eric Garner death. Regardless, it's hard to imagine how an unarmed teenager with no history of violence would be a grave threat to an adult on-duty police officer. In any event, no point speculating. The underlying theme here is emotions boiling over without pausing to examine the facts and understanding the persons involved. We as a people have programmed our psyches to conveniently categorize the players as victims and aggressors and swiftly resolve incidents so we may resume watching Netflix without taking the time to really study the matter and its causal motivations. 

We live in a frighteningly litigious society. Suing our fellow humans is a knee-jerk response to any conflict or disagreement, be it real or perceived. One of the most prominent examples of this is the woman who sued McDonald's following the spillage of hot coffee. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Where is the room for understanding, for empathy, for conversation, for forgiveness? Where is the chance for humanity to shine? Where is the benefit of the doubt? Litigation is an American pandemic. 25% of the world's prisoners are in the US, which has 5% of the world's population. Teenagers who committed nonviolent crimes are serving 20-, 30-, 40-year sentences. Here's another sobering statistic: 98% of Americans are within 10 miles of a gun dealer. Compare that with 71% being within 30 minutes of Emergency Care. Shameful.

We have become so consumed with furthering our agenda, peddling our self-serving ideas, protecting our territory and property. We have become exclusive, no longer welcoming and tolerant. I fully realize illegal immigration and terrorism are real problems. However, tackling those issues with sense-numbing force will accomplish nothing, as has already been proven. What is missing is the creation of the appropriate context around these realities. All these ostensibly disparate issues hampering America are tightly intertwined on a subterranean level. Initiating communication between various caretakers of the US, recognizing each other's points of view, listening with the objective of understanding as opposed to responding, establishing a common ground, getting a good look at the big picture to understand how the various pieces of the puzzle fit are some of the things that are the need of the moment. Pulverizing one's way through issues only exacerbates them, it doesn't eliminate them. 

Being empathetic, kind, open-minded when tackling the realities of our world is what will lead us eventually toward true solutions. The world is too interconnected today for us to have the luxury of operating with an isolationist, piecemeal mindset. Every problem facing us today is multifaceted. None of these problems is easy to solve. At the same time, none of these problems is unsolvable.

Let's regain our greatness. Onward and upward.