CHRISTMAS | EMPOWERMENT

‘Give Unto Caesar’ While Babies Cry

Reflections on Christmas in the second year of genocide

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Many around the world today, exasperated by the industrialized genocide we are witnessing in Gaza, feel like tearing up the documents comprising “international law”, “human rights”, and the charters of the UN and other ineffectual organizations. The tablets bearing them appear cracked beyond repair. As one of my readers, Abdelhamid Chaabani, put it,

“All those cheap things have always been and are just lies. Illusions to make us sleep and dream of an equitable world order that will never come. I am angry because we have been colonised and later cheated with their false values.”

I visualize a wrathful Moses, with his white flowing beard, smashing the tablets at the sight of the Golden Calf.

“As much as we are angry at the flawed institutions that perpetuate injustice, we have to continue to work for a just and equitable world,” I replied wistfully, but how?

The “user agreement” you have to sign to open an online account or use some software is an epitome of these times. You give your consent, but you really have no say over its language. So are most of our interactions with government and multi-national corporations.

You have little choice over anything of substance today. Electoral ballots feature two equally corrupt and destructive parties. Lobbyist money buys influence no ordinary citizen can afford. Monopolies are pricing everything out of reach. No one, it seems, can stop the corporations from fueling total climate collapse, and the whole world is impotent in stopping a genocide.

The image of Pope Francis before the “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” only emphasizes that even the Pope is unable to stop the infanticide (Photo from the official Vatican release).

Divine Law, as expressed in the tablets Moses broke, is clear. “Thou shalt not kill!” There is no equivocation, no “self-defense” exception. Non-consensual acts like murder or seizing land are banned.

Moses received the Law directly from God, just like Hammurabi received his law from Shamash, and the Pharaoh from Ra. The law was the membership agreement of ancient communities. You belong to a group and live among them provided you consent to the rules handed by their god.