There is a silence on the genocide in Gaza, around kitchen tables and in workplaces, and perhaps this is because there are, quite literally, no words.
What can you say? Dreadful; horrific; atrocious: do any of these adequately describe the maiming of a child and her entire family, and her home, her pets, her toys?
Perhaps naively, many adults believed that a thing like this, an unbelievable violation of a people could happen in the same age that we could watch it on our phones.
It isn’t the first attempted annihilation of a people in recent years; we can recall the abuses against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, or the detention of the Uyghur people in China.
We could absolve ourselves in the western world of these tragedies, perhaps, being something of an internal violation within their own country and in lands quite far away, geographically ‘out of our control’.
This genocide in Palestine however is closer, geographically and spiritually.
It is tacitly approved and supported by the US, our friend and economic ally. Is it embarrassment, or shock, that we welcomed so heartily the former President Biden, who visited Mayo to such celebration?
Now we have his predecessor or rather, we have his successor’s trade threats.
The Palestinian people, on the other hand have something infinitely worse: his successor’s plans for a Riviera on their graves.
Now the Palestinian people face a ‘famine’.
We are aware here in Ireland of some debate in corners about the use of the word, some preferring the term ‘Great Hunger’ because of course there was food, just not for the Irish and poor.
Imagine, just imagine, trying to choose who in the household should get the meagre amount of food you have and who should not, and thinking that in 180 years’ time they’ll be debating what word to call it.
When it comes to Gaza, this fatuous ‘debate’ is being held in real-time, whether the starvation of a people is a ‘weapon of war’ or not. Who cares what it’s called? These people are being starved, deliberately.
At this point, what does the Occupied Territories Bill mean for the 17,000 pregnant women who are acutely malnourished, and the 71,000 children alongside them?
It’s so tempting to despair, and yet people take to the streets and march week after week, as we are reminded by the people in Skibbereen, to empower themselves and empower people half a world away living in a nightmare and to hope for some solace to both.
God only knows if this will end soon, or at all. All that’s left it seems is hope, and solidarity.
With love, from me to you
To lighter reflections, and the people who visited the Bantry post office on William Street last Friday, for the last time.
Heartening, The Southern Star witnessed a small queue outside of the new premises on Monday morning; one wonders what they were doing.
An anonymous love letter perhaps, to a forbidden beau, or a birthday card to a niece in Australia. A letter to the editor maybe.
To those that scoff at this romantic vision, may we remind you that most bills needs to be by direct debit so there is actually a good chance that those waiting eagerly for the post office to open were there with affection on their minds.
The post office and its employees are small sparks of joy for people, as Joe Duffy reminded viewers on The Late Late Show last Friday.
He told of a lady who confessed she would post a letter to herself – blank pages within – so she would be visited by the postman a few days later and so have some human contact.
To do justice to the people in Palestine, especially the children, we owe it to them to embrace life and to be grateful for everything we have that they don’t, and won’t, and everything they’ve been robbed of.
Send a letter, perhaps, or just say hi to the lady living alone.
We can’t stop the bombs but we can make our own little patch as bright as we can, and more urgently, we owe it to those children.
