When one lives in a war torn country...

I asked a colleague who is a Palestinian, "Do you still have family back in Palestine? Did they evacuate to a safer place with the war going on? I'm just curious and want to hear from someone who is from the country instead of relying on the media"

His reply: "There's no war in Palestine, it's between Israel and Lebanon. If there's a war, where can the people evacuate to? It's their homes, it's their land, why should they evacuate? How long can they stay in another country if they can evacuate? 1 month, 2 months? That's the most. Everybody thinks it's easy to evacuate, but it's not. I have been asked this many times.

People who hold passports from the middle east cannot just get into another country, they need visas. Nobody wants them. Unless it's people who have citizenship in another country, then they can go. Unlike Malaysians, you can go anywhere you like, but still, you cannot stay in another country forever.

My meek response : "I see"

He continued in a matter of fact, "Last week, my Uncle and his family all died - his wife and seven children. 2 survived, but one is critical. My uncle is a lecturer in a university, and a bomb hit his home at 3am in the morning. Where can they go? If you survive, you are lucky, if you don't, too bad. I grew up in Palestine, I survived.

I squeaked another weak response, "I see". I was too shocked to see that he spoke of his relatives in such a 'fact of the matter' fashion.

He added on, "My father left his land 50 years ago when the Israelites came. We never got out land back. My father died, without setting foot into his land. We will continue to fight and hope to see our land one day.

Who can say? You see, who are the bad people? The Palestine say the Israelites are bad, and the Israelites say the Palestinians are bad. So, you can see how it is."

Towards the end of the conversation, he broke out into a smile, and said, "We live in a holy land, there will always be war, if today it's with Lebanon, tomorrow may be with Syria, and then next may be with Egypt and so on. No ending. Let's hope the war will never come to Malaysia, but they are all watching muslim countries now..."

Throughout the conversation, he was to the point and spoke easily without much display of emotions. I expected anger, or perhaps some form of anguish, but it never came. How very true, 'they are all watching muslim countries now'...

I will never forget the look in his eyes - all hardened with the endless years of wars - one after another. Death is so 'common', and he accepts it so well. After that, I paused to think that I'm so sheltered from all these, and I think I would be completely crushed and not being able to verbalise my relatives' death. How painful this is...

I spent a few minutes of silence after that for the dead who did not survive the wars. I remind myself once again, to count my blessings eventhough I face hardships because I'm still sheltered from harsher things in life, such as 'wars'.