Al-Qalam 
Karam Taher in 'Farha'. [TaleBox/Netflix]
The Netflix movie Farha is a graphic account of what the Palestinian people endured during
the 1948 Nakba. Their immense sufferings continue today on an immense scale that defies
logic.
The scope and depth of their pains continue unabated as a careless world allows their brutal
subjugation to continue without International legal sanction.
The evils of war are great in their endurance and have a long reckoning for ages to come.
Peace remains elusive in Palestine as the grim battle for survival and supremacy rages on.
The psychology of killing and witnessing of such raw violence will affect young Palestinians
for decades to come. The horrors of this war will never recede from their collective
memories.
War demolishes the progress made by mankind. It is a retrograde step in the development of
humanity. As the sword of Damocles hangs off Gaza and the West Bank, the world watches
on silently. History will not be kind to us. It will judge us harshly.
This war is about killing people, and it is executed with inhuman beastliness. When civilians
suffer in war, it is often a shocked deliberate act. These are the strategic decisions of political
and military leaders who make civilians their targets to gain the upper hand in battle.
Women and children in the conflict zones who played no role in the conflict are the people
who have suffered the most. The rule of law is a basic tenet of civilization. The world is in a
state of selective political coma unable to solve the daily killings in The Middle East.
Its conscience has been shaken by reports of systematic brutality that has enveloped the land
mass of Palestine. The United Nations has been confronted with inexplicable brutality
committed in every corner of this war-torn area. It remains paralyzed because the powers that
have their own interest; they view innocent deaths as collateral damage. The gripping movie,
Farha, has laid bare the West’s hypocrisy, piercing its tattered cloak of righteousness and
morality.
What is happening there reflects the barbarity of our time and we have a collective
responsibility to put a stop to them. Remember Judge Jackson’s words during the Nuremberg
trials in 1945.
“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant,
and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot
survive their being repeated.”
Yours sincerely,
Farouk Araie.
Johannesburg.
