“A strange darkness has come upon the world today…” – Jibanananda Das (Bengali poet); Translated by: Clinton B. Seely.

French Philosopher Paul-Michel Foucault used to believe that the State’s power is both an individualising and a totalising form of power. The concept of power remains somewhat similar as far as global geopolitics is concerned. What has been going on in the Gaza Strip for the last one-and-half months indicates that the Palestine crisis has become a collective issue (from an individual or national one) for the international community.

Earlier on October 7, 2023, young people participating in a music festival and aged Holocaust survivors were killed indiscriminately by the Palestinian Hamas Movement. Thereafter, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) crushed hospitals, schools, community centres, etc. in Gaza, without caring much about the lives of children and women. The current scenario in West Asia has helped us realise the essence of the term Inhuman. No amount of brutality can come close to what human beings can do, keeping in mind that humans had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Christopher Columbus (born between August 25 and October 31, 1451 – May 20, 1506), who discovered the mighty United States of America, was reportedly a cruel person. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) mentioned that the cruelty of Columbus and his followers had resulted in total genocide. However, Cortés massacred the Aztecs in Mexico on a larger scale than Columbus, while Pizarro tortured the Incas in Peru and the British colonists exterminated the Pocahontas and Picts in Virginia and Massachusetts. As cruelty may have been somewhat embedded in their genes, no wonder many from Britain and the US would support the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. They also maintain close ties with Qatar that is dubbed as a safe haven for the senior Hamas leaders. At the same time, these two world powers enjoy the Israel-Hamas War on television screens, without paying any respect to the deceased. While one is seen picking up the telephone to show the dead bodies of Israeli women, another would go on highlighting bloody corpses of the Palestinians in order to justify the murder as a result of retaliation by the Israelis.

Perhaps, the world is guilty today as it has seen people, after labelling all Jews as aggressors, are shouting: “Gas the Jews, Kill the Jews”. The world has also seen that all Palestinians are labelled as terrorists and deprived of their right to use the toilets! Neither the US nor Britain (or Russia and China) has made any attempt to stop this carnage by providing Israel with a small piece of their huge territory. One should remember that the Allied Powers were responsible for creating the Palestine crisis by establishing the Jews State in the Palestinian territory. Apart from all these, the world now sees innocent people dying.

So far, no statesman has said that the deceased deserve due respect after their painful death. Instead, they are preoccupied with their personal (read national) gain. Some of them are happy to purchase crude oil from Russia at a cheap price, taking advantage of the Ukraine War. In Sophocles’ Antigone, Creon ignores the King and gets involved in a war only to bury his brother because he knows that the deceased has the right to get a bed beneath the ground. Water, soil, sky, etc. are all divided in this world. However, one should not disrespect the deceased. Let the courage of Antigone makes us conscious of our conscience.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das