Al-Qalam 
Who can forget Benjamin Netanyahu’s memorable speech to the US Congress earlier this year? Laced with poisonous rhetoric, he contextualised the genocide in Gaza as a ‘clash between barbarism and civilisation.’
In one sentence, the dehumanisation of the Palestinians was complete. By simply dividing people into two distinct groups, Netanyahu and, by extension, most of Israel forced the world to make a choice to belong to the former or the latter group.
The word ‘barbarian’ denotes a people who are primitive, savage and warlike. In ancient times, barbarians were always invading and pillaging, unleashing their fury on the Greeks and Romans who considered themselves to be more civilised. Historically, the word ‘savages’ was used by the European colonisers to describe the natives whose land and resources they plundered and whom they enslaved.
These European colonizers often considered themselves to be ‘emissaries of light’, bringing light to countries whose non-white, non-European inhabitants, cultures and customs were deemed to be barbaric and utterly primitive.
This great undertaking by the European colonizers to ‘civilize’ the native inhabitants was often seen as a moral duty for the greater good of mankind, but it was often carried out with ruthless brutality, underpinned by racism and a complete disregard for human life. Indeed, these ‘emissaries of light’ were, in fact, nothing more than White traders scrambling for riches in the countries they colonized.
In Joseph Conrad’s book, The Heart of Darkness, which tells the introspective story of Charles Marlow, a steamer captain for a Belgian company in Congo in the 19th century, he astutely observes that European colonizers had no intention other than to ‘tear treasure out of the bowels of the land with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there are burglars breaking into a safe.’
In fact, in the pursuit of attempting to civilize the native population, the Europeans revealed themselves to be capable of cruelty, oppression and injustice beyond anything the savages they sought to tame were capable of. Thus, the parallels between Conrad’s book, the genocide in Gaza and the words of Bibi Netanyahu are apparent.
Implying that it is the emissary of light sent to bring light to the world by occupying Palestine and ethnically cleansing the ‘barbarians’ in Gaza, Israel and, by extension, its allies, reveals their colonialist and white supremacist mentality.
The West has always cloaked its colonialist nature by masquerading as the bastion of democracy, justice, equality and, yes, civilisation. The world admires the West for its developed infrastructure, beautiful cities and booming economies. By all appearances, it is undoubtedly civilised. But the truth is that behind this glittering façade of progressiveness lurks rot, corruption, violence and moral decay that is far more insidious than that of its enemies.
In its attempts to save mankind from the barbarians, Israel and its allies have become what they allegedly seek to destroy. Nietzsche’s words ring true: ‘And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.’ Only real barbarians bomb hospitals, vaporise children, torture civilians, starve a population, carpet bomb residential neighbourhoods and then record these atrocities and upload them onto social media. Only real barbarians steal land from its rightful owners and use religion to justify displacing millions of people. Only real barbarians have a complete and utter disregard for the sanctity of human life. Conrad was right: Israel’s war in Gaza has no more moral purpose to it than burglars breaking into a safe.
Israel is no emissary of light. It is a dark and stubborn stain on our collective humanity which must, must be removed before it is too late.
Z khan
