In the Middle East, the day after tomorrow is today
By Alfred P. Doblin
Today is the day after tomorrow in the Middle East. Forget the 2004 apocalyptic film with that title. Today is neither a piece of celluloid fiction nor a cautionary tale about climate change. Today is the day after an extraordinary step toward peace was made in the Middle East.
There are people smarter than I who can and will opine on whether lasting peace is possible, people with a deeper knowledge of the politics and emotions that have swirled above the Middle East like waterspouts above a warm sea.
The images of the final living hostages returning to families in Israel bring tears to anyone with a heart and the belief that we can experience moments of joy so intense that they are proof of the existence of God.
The devastation in Gaza, is tearful, as well. These are not tears of joy. There is little left there except for the hope that refuses to die in all of us that something better is on the horizon – tomorrow.
The Gaza images are reminiscent of photos of bombed-out Warsaw after World War II, a city left in ruins waiting for someone to rebuild it. If you visit Berlin, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is an unsettling reminder of what much of Germany’s capital city looked like following the war. The ruined Kaiser Wilhelm Church remains as a testament to the consequences of war. But it is just a building.
Relatively few of the millions of people who lived through World War II as adults still live. And when we, collectively, say “never forget” and “never again,” we imperfectly believe that we will do just that. Yet, history shows us otherwise. Part of the problem is Time, uppercase “T.”
Time does not heal all wounds. Time propels us forward; we have no choice in the matter. We remove the rubble. We rebuild. And we believe we will never forget and never allow such a thing to occur again.
The Holocaust is unique in its horror and its sheer explosion of evil. What we are seeing now in the Middle East is horrific enough, but it is not that. But there is a lesson from the 1940s that must not be forgotten: we can rebuild houses, offices, and roads. We can infuse economies with billions of dollars in aid. But we cannot infuse innocence lost into the survivors of horror. It is when we think we can – or even worse – when we think that we have, that we backslide into the same patterns we profess never to return to.
My dad never talked much about Berlin in the early 1930s before he fled. He did speak at times about an encounter with what he believed was the SS. He was brought into an office on an upper floor of a building and was gradually being “pushed” toward a window. Exactly, how he escaped that fate was never made clear to me. I’m not sure if he remembered all of it. He was damaged just like the Kaiser William Church.
Like that church, my dad continued to exist in an everchanging world. He adapted as best he could, but he remained damaged for the rest of his life. When we rebuild a structure, we replace what was there. When people rebuild their lives, their damaged structure remains part of their foundation.
That foundation is what kept them from crumbling during the conflict, so there is much good there. But it has been altered forever and nothing can change that.
The day after tomorrow holds the promise of the future. That is magnificent. But it also holds the scars of the past. That is challenging.
The freed hostages will be forever changed. Their families will be forever changed. The people living in fear and devastation in Gaza will be forever changed. Most people do not deserve the fate that befalls them. They are entangled by events bigger than any one person. How to untangle them, or untangle ourselves – well, there’s the rub.
Smart people will study the politics and the generations of conflicts responsible for what has recently unfolded in a vast region that gave birth to the teachings of the Gospels, the Torah, and the Quran. The Middle East is a holy place. Perhaps that is why the forces of evil can never resist staining it with blood.
Celebrate the day after tomorrow. Something good has happened, something that offers promise. But do not celebrate too much, because the day after the day after tomorrow – well, that’s the future. The work ahead is the hardest.
Until next time, Alfred with a P