Portishead on the iPod, beloved is asleep in bed. It’s midnight. Where does the time go? What happens to all the days and years, when every minute is so eventful? What happened to yesterday’s wars, and how come the same one is happening now? Oh Israel, oh Palestine, you’ve been down this road before. How many more will you wage, how different do you think it will be? How many more children do you need to sacrifice before you learn to accept the fact of each other’s existence?
The years go on, and the people you could kill are dead and gone. Their graves speak, but who is listening? All you hear are today’s words of anger and hate. As if they haven’t been spoken before. Oh, you’ll say, but that’s just it, we’re avenging those words, those speeches delivered between grenades and bayonet thrusts and missile launches. The dead don’t want that, surely. The dead, surely, are saying Enough.
The only other playlist on the iPod is Totally Sad Music. Really, it’s true. The beloved doesn’t know, because he’s asleep in another world, and another life. But this music can go on forever, and does. That’s what Totally Sad Music does, it reminds you of forever, and brings back the days and years. Israel, turn down that music, Palestine too. You’re bringing the world to its knees for a fight that’s been over a long time.
Sons of Palestine, embrace civil disobedience. Refuse to cooperate. Sit down in the streets and let the old women cry and point. Let them remember for you and bear witness with their tears. The world is watching, too.