AS we bid farewell to 2023—one of the bloodiest years in contemporary history—with a sigh of relief that the year is over but not the chaos, mayhem and bloodshed. It seemed like the world was spinning out of control, with natural disasters, pandemics, political instability and barbarous attacks dominating the headlines. It was a discouraging and frustrating year, one many would never want to relive. The worst, of course, is the ongoing war in Palestine. Hamas may have provoked Israel by launching a massive rocket attack but the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have gone berserk in revenge, killing more than 22,000 innocent civilians, including babies, women, old persons not even sparing the sick and wounded in hospitals. The Gaza Strip is facing some of the deadliest fighting to date in the present war as Israel expanded its offensive just days after the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for more aid and urgent steps for a sustainable ceasefire.
Highlighting the painful symbolism in one of Christianity’s holiest sites, Qatar based News TV Channel Aljazeera reports: “This year, Bethlehem is sombre and quiet. There is no Christmas tree, holiday lights or tourists to see them. Instead, the city of Jesus’s birth – which is in the middle of a war zone – is marking Christmas with a powerful and poignant message: solidarity with Palestine. Surrounded by rubble and barbed wire, the Virgin Mary embraces the baby Jesus, while Joseph embraces her, offering solace. On one side of the family, the Magi holds out a white shroud. On the other side, the fourth shepherd carries a bag, a symbol of Palestinian displacement.
Angels, suspended around the rubble, represent the souls of children who have been victims of massacres on Palestinian land throughout history: the murder of children in Bethlehem by Herod at the birth of Jesus; various colonial attacks against the Palestinian people and their ancestors; and current massacres by Israel in Gaza. Around the scene, multilingual panels call for a ceasefire and an end to the massacre against the Palestinian people.”
Ironically, while the Christian world celebrates Christmas with a message of peace, the birthplace of one of the messengers of God, Jesus Christ, has not escaped the wrath of vengeful IDF. According to the above quoted Aljazeera story, Tarek Salsaa, the artist of the sculpture, with its political, religious and national symbolism, draws a comparison between what happened more than 2,000 years ago and what is happening today. Just as Christ was tortured and children were killed by King Herod then, today, children and women are being slaughtered in a clear act of genocide. He elaborates that the scene cannot fully express the immense destruction and systematic genocide against the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation. What Palestine is going through today is reminiscent of the years of colonialism, with all its allies throughout the ages and various historical epochs.
2023 began with a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in February that struck southeast Turkey near the Syrian border, killing tens of thousands of people and flattening wide areas of cities in both Turkey and Syria. Towards the year’s end, in October, Afghanistan was rocked by two 6.3-magnitude earthquakes. According to Kabul’s Ministry of Disasters’ Spokesperson, the death toll had increased to 2,445, in a country already facing economic collapse. While the world had rushed in aid to Turkey, Syria and Morocco, which had also suffered a devastating 6.9 seismic tremor in September, there was limited response to Afghanistan’s tribulation as immediate international aid failed to reach the country due to governments wary of dealing directly with the Taliban. The war in Ukraine persists with no end in sight owing to the obduracy of the main protagonists, Russia and the Occident. Their proxy war is taking a huge toll on precious human lives. Somalia and Ethiopia are facing an unprecedented drought and hunger crisis. Thousands of people have already lost their lives to starvation and both countries are on the brink of famine because they used to depend on Russia and Ukraine for their food grain. Yemen, Syria, Congo, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Haiti continue to grapple with civil war.
In Pakistan, the situation continues to be grim. Heightened terror attacks, unprecedented triple digit inflation, acute power outages, political uncertainty and sustained victimization of political opponents, truth seeking media personnel and outspoken critics of the establishment has made life miserable for the Pakistanis. According to data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Pakistan witnessed 517 fatal terror attacks from 01 January to 25 December 2023 —the highest in 8 years. Significantly, the number of security personnel killed in the attacks is the highest in 10 years.
We look toward the New Year with great expectations and a yearning for the hope that things will be better. 2024 will see fresh elections in over fifty countries, including the USA, India, Brazil and South Africa—each one of them is contentious. Elections have been announced in Pakistan too on February 8—but the question average Pakistanis are asking is “would they be free and fair?” In the United States, more than 160 million voters are registered to choose their 60th President. The incumbent President Joe Biden hopes to secure a second term in office, while former President Donald Trump is hoping to win a second, non-consecutive term if the US Judiciary will give him respite.
In India, Narendra Modi is seeking a third term as Prime Minister. He leads a belligerent regime, which has put the opposition on the mat silencing any or all criticism of the ruling junta, controlling the media and judiciary (sound familiar?) If it was a defeating year, it might feel as though there’s no possible way for things to be better. But we must each choose to move forward and put the past behind us, learning from our mistakes and not letting hope’s skirt slip from our hand. In the words of Allama Iqbal, Don’t grieve, for millennium and aeons more still lie ahead for man in store: The ever spinning heaven blue is not devoid of planets new!
—The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
Email: sultanm.hali@gmail.com
views expressed are writer’s own.
