DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra
This is just the sort of stuff nobody reads because nobody wants to face their role (or complete lack of it) in doing nothing to make the world a better place…ergo ,the satire sails into the distant horizon unnoticed and unsung.
Went visit Peace in the ICU. He was all bandaged up and had tubes sticking out him and was on artificial respiration and could hardly speak.
Isaid, how are you, that being the only thing I could think of saying.
So, he gave me a filthy look and said, how am I, is that an astute thing to ask, look at me, I am battered and bruised and about to throw in the towel.
You can’t do that mister, I said, you have to fight man and get up, you can’t just lie there and surrender.
Easy for you to say and all those 6 billion idiots like you who let the world burn and do nothing but tut tut their disapproval, look at the mockery of Gaza, you know what, you guys deserve it, I am about cash it in and quit.
You can’t, I urge, you must come out fighting.
I am Peace, he says, I don’t fight, I end fights and no one is listening anymore.
The nurse came in and said, he’s tired and you only have another minute.
What have I got to fight with, he said, a flipping dove and a handful of olive branches, what do I do with them, wave them against $600 billion worth of gunfire and cordite and violence and death in a shell, here stop, I am waving a white flag but who will listen.
You want facts, he rasped, his breathing getting heavy, you really want facts, okay listen up.
There are currently 45.2 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, the highest number of its kind since 1994, the year of the Rwandan genocide and civil war in the former Yugoslavia. There are 34 conflict zones on the map.
The total figure includes 28.8 million internally displaced people, 15.4 million refugees who have crossed borders, and 937,000 asylum seekers. This year alone, 1.1 million people fled across international borders while another 6.5 million were displaced in their home countries.
This means one in each 4.1 seconds. So each time you blink, another person is forced to flee.
You want me to put up my hand in a V sign, he said, showing his fractured limb in plaster, huh, you think that will help.
At which point the machine started beeping and the nurse threw me out.
All that firepower and all peace has is a bleeding dove, a dried up olive branch and a v sign it cannot raise…hmmmm, it is a thought.
How can we give Peace a chance with that equipment.