January 2024
Kam Zarrabi

For this first article of 2024, I was planning to write another lighthearted, and pun-loaded piece, but I couldn't remain aloof or blasé and forget about the horrendous human tragedies of the year we have just left behind.

Natural disasters have taken their toll, from earthquakes, floods to droughts and the resulting famine that have taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings. Of course, we cannot blame nature for doing its thing, even though our own contribution to global warming has been at least partially responsible for some of those catastrophes.

Somewhere around ten to twenty thousand Libyans were swept into the Mediterranean due to the collapse of a dam and the ensuing floods. We don't know exactly how many, and we don't even care that much; do we really? Millions are displaced and dying of diseases, wars and famine in parts of Africa; but a very few among us know exactly where in Africa, or why! More to the point: should we even give a damn!?

But, we do know quite a bit about the ongoing war between Russia and the Ukraine, because it is actually costing us a lot of money in the hundreds of billions of our taxpayers' dollars; plus, we are told, if we don't stop Mr. Putin there, we'd have to confront him here. And, of course, we are flooded with the news of the events in the Middle East, because, as we are led to believe, a close friend and an indispensable ally is fighting for its life and needs our military, diplomatic and financial support. Nikki Haley, the lady presidential candidate, declared in her town hall appearance on CNN the other night: "Israel doesn't need America; America needs Israel!" She seems to believe that our investment is well worth it. By the way, that financial investment alone has thus far been over a trillion dollars since 1948. We cannot, of course, tow our de-facto 51st. State of the Union behind a giant tugboat over 6,000 miles to New Jersey shores to keep it safe from the Barbarians' continuous attacks. It would be nice if that were possible; and then the new State would even have to contribute its share to federal taxes instead of being forever the recipient of it!

By the way, when I say "we," I am only referring to a tiny percentage of our population, mostly the older folks, who actually use their televisions for more than background noise around their living rooms or for casual entertainment. Ask anyone younger than sixty what they know about the Second World War, for instance, and the response more than likely is, first, that they never cared much about history and hated that subject at school. Then, they might scratch their head and say something like: Wasn't it about a nutcase named Hitler wanting to kill all the Jews; and we went to stop him?! Do we, or should we, blame them; and to what end?

I think we should continue to blame nature, again, for not just the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, storms and the like, but also for the human caused deaths and devastations across our planet throughout history. As the extension of our animal ancestry, our wild heritage is permanently engrained in our DNA, and our religious or spiritual teachings and our cultural sophistication can only pull a thin veneer over those primitive impulses; a veneer that is too transparent to effectively hide the truth beneath.

Let's look, for a telling example, through the pages of the world's most widely published and read book, the Holy Bible, especially the Old Testament. It's a no brainer that we are not looking through a history book that covers the events of some six-thousand-years from the supposed creation of the world to sometime around 600 B.C.E., when the so-called Five Books of Moses were written and compiled. What we are looking through are orally transmitted stories, myths and legends, some borrowed from older sources, and others reflective of a certain group or tribe's, that is the Hebrew's, trials and tribulations, hopes and aspirations, all embellished in tones and colors that best show the instinctive wishful thinking of how the events must have expired.

No doubt many, of course not all, myths and legends do have their roots in some actual episodes the details of which have long been forgotten, but their psychological and cultural impacts have been kept alive in peoples' minds. These stories, passed from one generation to the next, go through modifications and acquire necessary embellishments to best accommodate the wishes or aspirations of a people.

In the story of Exodus, an Egyptian ruler (Nobody knows which pharaoh!) plans to do the hard working enslaved Hebrew tribe great harm. The Hebrews' God, Yahweh, turns the table and inflicts great devastation against Egypt, and facilitates the tribe's escape by parting the Red Sea and drowning Pharaoh's pursuing army. Here, the moral to the story is quite clear: The mere threats or plots against the tribe had angered Yahweh enough to unleash catastrophic damage to a nation, including the wholesale death of all the innocent first-born sons of Egypt! But, isn't that heavenly mandated genocide?!

This kind of scenario is repeated in the Book of Esther. An evil man, Haman, upset about the audacity of a Jewish man, Mordecai, who refused to bow as the mighty General was passing through, plots to have all the Jewish people living in the Persian Empire killed. Esther, the favorite wife of the Persian Emperor, who happens to be Mordecai's cousin or niece, appeals to her husband, who reverses that plot and orders all those who planned to do the Jews any harm to be killed by the Jews, assisted by the Emperor's army. With Esther's persistence, the Emperor, allows more time to finish the job; and some fifteen to seventy-five-thousand, (Depending on different versions of the story.) enemies of the Jews were slaughtered: And all that before any Jewish blood was ever shed! Of course, the entire story is detailed much like a theatrical comedy/tragedy, but lacks any historicity whatsoever. To this day, the Festival of Purim is celebrated annually in commemoration of this fictitious event by the Jewish people throughout the world.

In Deuteronomy, as the Hebrews head for the "Promised Land," they encounter towns and villages along the way, some of whom do have a problem dealing with an invading population. The instruction to the traveling tribe is to first send messengers to warn them of your approach. If they welcome you, treat them fairly, but if they refuse:
"Deuteronomy 20:13-14/ When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. 20:16/ However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them: the Hittite, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites…….."

In Samuel 15:3, we read Saul is given the following instructions:
"Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. "

Please note that Analek or the Amalekites have little or no historicity. But the word Amalek refers to any evil entity or individual whom the Jews consider as enemy, be it Haman of the Book of Esther, or today's Palestinian leaders or the Hamas, and even Iran as a nation!

So, is that a surprise that the current Israeli leader, Netanyahu, openly invokes the memory of the Biblical Amalekites, sited above, to justify his genocidal policy in dealing with the Palestinians as reprisal for the Amalek (Hamas) terror attack on Israel: He is playing the modern day Saul; isn't he?!

But here is my point in all this; I am simply exposing the realities of human nature. We humans have inherited our genetic proclivity to "appear" congenial, peaceful or compassionate. We pride ourselves for being conscientious, even when, down deep, we may not be. This psychological dichotomy must have served our species as an advantageous cultural trait creating the necessary harmony in group dynamics. However, our inborn senses of self-righteousness and advantage-seeking continue to lurk underneath all that façade. Just admit it: it is very natural to wish your antagonist and enemy to be dead, even though it is much more appropriate or civilized to say you wish that they'd change their ways. You might wish, at least subconsciously, for the debt collector to have a fatal accident on the way to your home; but you'd never admit it. Down deep, you wish your political opponent standing in the way of your success to simply drop dead; but you might just whisper it quietly to yourself rather than say it out loud!

And when, in defiance of all religious, legal and ethical restrictions and cultural taboos, these well-hidden impulses we all share manage to get out of our control and break out into action, we condemn them as unconscionable and evil, without a second thought as to the very natural fabric of our existence.

So, be happy and keep on pretending. May the Force, whatever the hell it is, be with you in 2024.