This week has taken me on a journey, as Of course, this hasn’t come just ‘out of nowhere,’ but out of a concern, a fear, at the tensions between Israel and Iran, the widening involvement of the Americans and a layman’s fear of an apocalyptic end to it all. Few of us can reach out and speak for the man on the street and stop this violence; and those that do, appear intent upon using death and destruction to bring peace to the region; and that, far from being oxymoronic, is just moronic! I can be disenchanted, almost disinterested, about the outcome for myself, but what of our youth and our younger generations? Again, I find it incredible that there are those who would use the aforesaid death and destruction, to rain even more death and destruction. There can be no comfort in such pronouncements or actions, there can be no hope and no affirmation of faith in the taking of life; and this widening circle of death does no person, society, or culture, any credit.
I know so little of either of the protagonist’s way of life. It’s not an embarrassment to me, but quite simply I have never felt the need to venture into zones of conflict and uncertainty. I value my skin! There is a part of me that always held the rather juvenile opinion that, “As long as they’re only hurting each other, I shouldn’t care.” However, we all mature and the absolute senselessness of war today horrifies and angers me.
I don’t have the solutions, or the answers, but maybe there is a chink in the nationalistic armoury of the combatant leaders. All countries have their national anthems, stirring songs, hymns, or marches, patriotic and devotional, that exude a national identity, faith, or vision. Maybe, we can make someone in power at least hesitate... before they ‘push the button.’ I considered both nation’s allegiance to their national anthems and ask myself, “Are they being true to their very public and international devotions? For example, my New Zealand anthem asks God to defend us, from “the shafts of strife and war,” from “dissension, envy, hate and corruption,” “preaching love and truth to man,” as part of “Thy glorious plan.” Now I ask you, who could not be inspired by and feel an obligation to that vision? The National Anthem of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a short, beautifully melodic offering by Hassan Riyahi and Syed Bagheri which was formally adopted in 1990, which speaks to the “light in the eyes of the believers in truth” and also the line, “Bahman,” being good thought, “is the zenith of our faith.” The truth referred to can only be that one thing that means more to any culture, civilisation, or society, than any other, its faith, which needs the good thoughts of its disciples to achieve the ultimate in faithfulness.
Within the wistful Israeli anthem, set to music by Samuel Cohen in 1888, ‘Haktivah’ and its omnipresent themes of hope, drawn from Naftali Herz Imber’s 1877 poem, is the sentence, "As long as a soul still yearns and an eye still watches, our hope is not yet lost, to be a free nation in our land." In such hope, treasuring such pragmatism that prioritises hope over faith, is almost certainly a hesitation, an olive branch recognising that there is more than one faith within their society.
As far as the third wheel in this current conflict is concerned, the United States President should perhaps reflect, being a God-fearing individual, the simple phrase from his own anthem, "In God is our trust" and keep his own heavy hand at bay? The protagonists are two nations just trying to survive, when they and their leaders, an Ayatollah and a Prime Minister should be, growing. Their people don’t deserve to be pawns in this wanton ‘game’ of survival they almost certainly just want to live and let live.
Each of them is almost certainly no different to me as, selfishly, I want to see my daughter and granddaughter become all they have the potential and opportunities, to be.
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