A few weeks ago Palestinian supporters gathered a few blocks from my house to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza, which have escalated over the last couple of weeks. During the protest, a supporter of Israel came and tried to provoke a fight with the protesters. He yelled “stop hiding behind your children!” as he raised his fists. Thankfully, no one ended up fighting him, and he was pulled away.
He isn’t an isolated case. One look on Twitter or Facebook and I can see people who support either side of this conflict going at each other as if they were fighting their sworn enemies. Some of them have relatives or friends in the conflict zones, and they certainly have a right to feel angry. But so many more have no more connection to this conflict than what they read in the newspapers and in opinion pieces on the internet.
To those people, I say, this isn’t about you. This isn’t about your chance to show your oh-so-well-formed opinions about a complex topic which not only show how educated you are but also how socially aware. This isn’t a chance to show people that if they only listened to you, an almost century-old conflict could be resolved by breakfast tomorrow.
This is about the people dying right now. Last I checked the death counts were over a thousand, with thousands more displaced. This is about people losing their mothers, daughters, brothers, fathers, husbands, and wives. This is about the need for peace, or at the very least, a ceasefire.
I’m not going to pretend I don’t have opinions on this subject. But this is not an appropriate place to broadcast them. Even if it were, I don’t think my voice can add much to this conversation from the proverbial armchair I’m sitting in.
Nothing will be gained from us shouting over each other about our opinions. Nobody will benefit when we show the same kind of determination not to hear what the other person is saying. This doesn’t mean we should submit to another person’s opinion and forget our own. What it means is we should be willing to listen as much as we talk.
Most people, I bet, if asked, would say they hope the fighting ends soon and a ceasefire or peace talks start. What we need to realize is that can only happen when two sides, with opposing views, are willing to tolerate each other’s views long enough to start a conversation.
If we can’t even seem to be civil with each other here in Canada, where we don’t have to worry about our houses being destroyed or our family members getting killed in a sudden rocket attack, what hope is there anywhere else?
— Oliver Sachgau
fifth-year journalism and linguistics
