ONGOING devastation in Gaza Strip jogs people’s memory back to what Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot claims. It conveys the absurdity of illogical and unjust wars that lead nowhere and are always meaningless. Beckett’s portrayal of desolate and barren land of World War II seems very much like the barren Gaza Strip at present. Isolation, alienation, mysterious beatings, displacement, despair for food and living and anxious waiting for some saviour brings in people of war zones nothing but metaphysical and existential anguish. Beckett has creatively expressed the emotions and deeply sensed the feelings that anyone can have about the wreckage caused by war and therefore communicated distinctly the message how the world can ever move on after such a trauma. Though it is Hamas’s attack on Israel, or the Israel’s war frenzy through air strikes and ground attacks on Palestinians, within vehement turmoil and horrendous demolition have decimated women and children the most on both sides. In reprisal of Hamas’s attack on Israel, the Palestinian civilians are fronting the repercussions and women – the first target of any war, amid their crucial roles as doctors, soldiers, armed personnel and journalists are being killed more in number on both sides. As the UN Chief also stated in the wake of current obliteration in Gaza strip, “where war rages, women suffer”. Israel and Palestine should learn from Iraq and Afghanistan that after a decade of bloody wars, these are the nations of widows and orphans living in despairing poverty and sobbing vulnerability.
No matter where and at what time, at home or across the borders, wars have impacted women enormously as members of the civilian population. Wars always bring social, political, economic and, above all, humanitarian crises. In war zones, first and foremost, truth dies, facts are swayed and humanity vanishes. Furthermore, huge scale of sexual violence, rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and forced impregnation are common weapons in war times and have become an undeniable part of the vocabulary of war. Arguably, it is done with a purpose as sometimes with the broader political vision of ethnic cleansing or overcoming people. However, the acts of degrading women are always outrageous that call for full implementation of international laws to save humanity. The act of rape is not only an attack on woman’s self, but it is serious violation of the Article 27 of Fourth Geneva Convention that states: “Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault”.
Recent war in Ukraine also showed a heavy toll of girls and women at risk of sexual exploitation, gender-based violence, loss of livelihood resources and consequently a rise in poverty level in the country. Before that, war (an armed conflict) in Tigray, Ethiopia has also documented horrible violence, sexual assaults, famine and human rights violations.
Equally, in Yemen, women are forgotten victims of the long-lasting war; nevertheless, amid war, they have been working to develop Yemeni society by escalating women’s political power. Racked by war and with dearth of resources, Afghan women have also not less suffered the destructions despite George W. Bush’s claim that it was a “fight for the rights and dignity of women”. In its place, they have survived violation of human rights – a substantial denial of health facilities and education, violence and imprisonment.
Yet, in Syria also, more than a decade of uncertainty and displacement in Civil War have added an abrupt surge in women’s vulnerabilities to multiple forms of violence. Similarly, in Iraq, women lamented the ‘2003 US invasion of Iraq’ since the deteriorating situation of women’s rights was not altered. Plight of women in Jammu & Kashmir war is not much different where war has given them new errands in the form of female-headed houses, psychological traumas and deliberate misconducts. Sexual exploitation is also rampant in the region making it clearer that war brings similar perils ubiquitously.
Coming to the current scenario in Gaza, Israeli warplanes are decimating not only lives, but hospitals and schools also. Whether it is Orthodox Jews, Zionists, Muslims, or the disputes among Arabs, turning Gaza into mass grave is irrational, unjustified and deplorable. This current brutality of Israeli forces and the fuelling statements of their political leadership shows that it is not a war, but genocide since killing women and children is equivalent to wiping out a nation. Hamas’s attack does not mean that whole Palestine should endure the wrath of Israel.
Despite Israel’s adamant and brutal policy for a long war, I urge for immediate humanitarian truce. I also question to the global human rights champions that does war make sense when mothers lose their daughters and sons, innocent children are coffined and women are abducted and sexually abused? How many mourning widows, sisters, daughters, parents and children will it take to bade farewell to wars? Do we not only need compassion and humanity?
—The writer is Lecturer in English Literature at Government College University Faisalabad.
Email: farkhandashahidkhan@gcuf.edu.pk
Views expressed are writer’s own.
