Believe/Remember
January 2, 2024
If you believe one atrocity is best avenged by another, remember; an eye for an eye
leads to all being blind
If you believe “surgical” strikes on hospitals, schools and homes won’t kill doctors,
patients, students, and civilians, remember; surgery is best practiced by those
doctors, not soldiers.
If you believe the hospitals, homes and schools might hide tunnels, remember; bombing
destroys the evidence.
If you believe the facts of war must be reported, remember; journalists are being
slaughtered. We lose their eyes while they lose their lives.
If you believe in the right to protest the actions of your own government but not those it
supports, remember; your taxes are supporting both.
If you believe students protesting a war are more dangerous than the politicians funding
it, remember; the students are marching, not killing.
If you believe in education but not in the freedom to learn others’ beliefs, can you
remember being taught how and not what to think?
If you believe one side should stay on their side, but you and yours may cross your
bridge at any time, remember; that is how to form a prison, not a homeland
If you believe one side are “settlers” and the other side “savages,” remember where you
are living, how you got there, and how you manage to remain.
If you believe others should wander in the desert forever but not you and yours, that
desert has desiccated your soul.
If you believe you are David, remember; you too can grow into a Goliath
If you believe what you believe is all anyone should believe, remember; that is not belief
but dogma.
If you believe you remember, but the other side does not, you have forgotten your
shared humanity.
If you believe I am talking only to you, that you are a target, remember; when we say
“you” we really mean “we.”
If you believe others’ beliefs led to this war, remember; the way out might be the bridge
you are guarding.
©️ 2024 Jeff McMahon