The Human Cost of the Iran-Israel Conflict:
Dr. Nawa Raj Subba
The Human Cost of the Iran-Israel Conflict: A Plea for Shared Humanity. The sky in our modern world is no longer the pillar of softness of morning dew; it pours the lava of destruction. Across the landscape stretching from Iran’s Persepolis to Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, and into the calculated strategies of Washington’s White House, the bitter scent of gunpowder lingers as a global threat. Civilisations built over millennia have been choked by modern missiles. Being both a writer and a student of public health, I have to pose such a question: Is this the ultimate of scientific development in the 21st century or just the high-tech, more brutish form of barbarism of the past, primitive?
Downfall to Innocence and the Pride of Kings.
War is not just anything, and it brings destruction. The ugly mockery of the world’s conscience is the inexplicable Iranian tragedy when 168 innocent schoolgirls died in the moment of violence. These children ought to have held pens, they ought to have nursed dreams, and they ought to have turned smiles. Rather, these young blossoms were burnt in the fires of war.
As the mothers in Tehran are holding the empty school bags of 168 of their 168 girls in an unintelligent silence, war rooms in Washington and Tel Aviv are gossiping about the strategic victories. Will the 168 deaths ever be justified in any way by the security or retaliation of a nation? These are mere figures to rulers. They are across-generational bleeding wounds to a society that are incurable.
The three-sided shot of destruction: Israel, America and Iran.
It is not just a mere border conflict between Iran and Israel. It is a confrontation of a powerful military coalition, the one dominated by the United States and Israel, with the interests of the region of Iran. The geography of the Middle East is turned into a bloodland when high-tech armaments and billions of dollars in American aid are pumped into the system known as the ‘Iron Dome’ and sophisticated strike mechanisms.
Tyrants perch in their fortified safety in their bunkhouses and fantasise about a new world order. They lose sight of the fact that no pawn is ever safe in this chess game of geopolitics. As one bomb drops in one city, its reverberations shudder human feelings in Washington to Tehran. Those 168 girls would save lives today had these mighty nations invested in saving humanity as opposed to the profitable arms business.
Mundhum: Public health and the philosophy of calling.
War is the most frightening anthropogenic pandemic in terms of public health. Whereas viruses such as coronavirus devastate the physical body, war destroys human compassion and solidarity as well as hope for a future. The loss of 168 schoolgirls is not merely the physical loss but the social and mental inability of a whole generation.
My perception of Mundhum, the living and oral philosophy and indigenous worldview of the Kirat people, shows that life is a sensitive balance with nature. It is our ancestral conscience (that thinks of divinity in stones, soil and water) that works to remind us that all things in the cosmos are conscious (chetana). But now, because of the destructive technology, humankind has become so callous that we gauge the security levels of our borders in the blood of others. This is a Maha-paap – a great sin against the natural order of things.
Stop This Madness!
We should select the spring of human empathy instead of the flow of blood on this path of blood between Tehran and Jerusalem. The aroma of gunpowder will have to be changed by the smell of humanity.
An Appeal to America and Israel: Force and technology should be used to promote peace in the world and not destruction.
To Iran and Regional Powers: The vengeance fire never enlightens any household; it just burns the future of everyone concerned.
To the World Citizen: Irrespective of our location, we are all members of the same religion: humanity. We should do something to stop this war, just so that we can honour the silent shrieks of the 168 children.
Epilogue
The songs of victory, sung after the triumph under the influence of intoxicating emotions, are much less truthful and strong than the songs of lament, sung at the defeat in silence. The blood of 168 innocent buds will forever leave a terrible mark on this history, which will always answer one thing: will any geography, politics, or ideology ever be greater than humanity?
Borders can be reinstated with weapons and nothing more. The world is no longer in need of smart bombs but smart human empathy. Failure to rekindle that primordial beat between nature and man, as taught by Mundhum, will eventually end up suffocating in this smoke. Washington’s and Tehran’s rulers need to realise that peace is not a luxury good; it is a necessity that must be obligatory at all costs to the existence of the human race. In the name of the half-complete dreams of 168 girls, we should put the fires of this war out – never again.
Stop the war! Let us discover the man in the clouds of gunpowder. The floor is sinking in the blood of 168 children and is asking us a question: it is, ‘Did you think our lives were less than your ego? ‘Unless we come to a stop to this lunacy, our posterity will accept us as the stock that dug its own cemetery.
