Our world is growing increasingly bizarre and grotesque. The surrealism that once pervaded the world of arts has apparently entered the world of reality to influence political leaders and thinkers, journalists and newspapers, mixing reality with myth and truth with falsehood.
In the confusing rush of events all around, we are at a loss to distinguish the oppressor from the oppressed, aggressor from the aggrieved. Colors and shades are intermingled. Judgments are muddled. Thus, a defender of his motherland, honor and property is labeled a terrorist while the thieves who stole the land, destroyed innocent people’s houses and murdered their children are being called victims. Dispossessed and oppressed Palestinians or Chechens are called criminals according to the prevailing international law that passes judgments in favor of the strong, neglecting the basic rights of the weak.
Did anyone ask the dead Chechens in the Moscow theater what drove them to so desperate an act? Can we read the answer in their eyes that will see no more or on their tongues that are now forever mute? Who will tell us the story of Chechen women’s toilsome journeys from their distant hamlets and villages to the heart of Russia and explain to us a plight that made them leave their dear ones and the warmth of their homes and approach their enemy?
People may ask: Did those men and women go crazy with no reason at all? Were the Palestinians and Chechens born with some rare genetic imbalance? Or are they driven to madness by their intolerably oppressive circumstances?
How can we arrive at the truth amidst the maze of falsehoods? How can we distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed? Let us seek the help of figures because figures do not lie. In the world of facts intertwined with unreality, figures are the only dependable source of information.
How many Palestinians and Chechens were killed and what were the number of Israelis and Russians killed? How many Palestinian and Chechen homes and farms were destroyed and how many Israeli and Russian homes and farms? How many Palestinians or Chechens are being held prisoners in Israeli or Russian jails and what are the numbers of Israeli or Russian hostages being held by Palestinians or Chechens?
The figures show that the dead Chechens at the Moscow theater were not terrorists but ordinary people whose sons were unjustly killed, jailed or tortured and their homes and farms destroyed. They had no option but to leave their land, go to Moscow and cry to the world of the unbridled Russian repression and to protest on the international stage the way they did in order to draw the attention of fair-minded people of the world.
The arrogance of the imperialists and the greed of the colonialists dominated the world during the past two centuries. They left behind their colonies devastated, keeping the people poor and backward. The 21st century will be marked by the revolt of the oppressed. The century will be known for the revolution of the poor. The victims of the past and present centuries will anoint the future of the world with their blood. They will soak the future world in the blood of the oppressors. Let the usurpers take note!
(Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer. She is based in Jeddah.)