We Gotta Go Grey Folks
This Black & White World is Gonna Be The Death of Us (Literally)
Sitting in London writing, there are helicopters hovering over the house. Walking home earlier, police were cordoning off streets, preparing for another day of protests. Today, it’s the pro-Palestinians who are out in force, with thousands of police added to the streets after fears that last weekend’s calls to ‘jihad’ might be taken a tad too literally. Yesterday, in London, Rome, Sydney, and New York’s Time Square, long Friday Shabbat tables were laid out with more than 200 empty chairs seats, and a photo of each still-held Israeli hostage.
The people who attend the one are unlikely to be the same as the ones who attend the other. Why not?
How is it that we cannot hold two obvious truths in our heads and hearts? That the killing of Jewish children and civilians is heinous - and so is the killing of Palestinian children and civilians. In all the extreme complexity of the situation, surely we could agree on this simple truth? Why are people around the world taking such black and white simplistic sides? Even on university campuses, where you’d think education would encourage a touch of nuance.
Why aren’t there demonstrations against both the Hamas attack and the Netanyahu government’s response? Against the killing of innocents? Against the use of civilians for political purposes? When did we become so either/ or? Can we truly not find Palestinian and Israeli voices to stand together against the tide? Not put a seat at the Sabbath table for Palestinian babies, or signs denouncing Hamas atrocities in a pro-Palestinian march? Are we all robots avant l’heure?
It might take women - who are strangely absent from the screens in this conflict, except as the hapless victims of bloodthirsty men on both sides. The wonderful Annette Young of France24 television shows the way. Her show, the 51 Percent, brought two brave women peacemakers together: Palestinian activist, Nivine Sandouka from the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) who speaks of the ‘third voice’, not pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, but pro-peace. And Yael Braudo-Bahat from Israel’s Women Wage Peace. “We need to go back,” says the former, “to the basic humanisation of one another.”
Esther Perel agrees. She is, like me, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, and the sense of a genetic deja vu is pretty horrifying. We know only too well where this stuff can lead.
“We need any inkling of compassion, curiosity and empathy to stay connected. Not only to the humanity of others - but to our own.”
Esther Perel (hear her LinkedIn post)
A final link and light of hope, The Prayer of the Mothers, a video sung by Yael Deckelbaum, for the Women Wage Peace movement, featuring mothers of all religions walking together across Israel.
The UK government (and the world) is dancing a delicate demographic line. There are less than 300,000 jews in the UK, or 0.47% of the population. There are almost 4 million muslims, or 6.7% of the population. And there’s an election in 2024. The need to be skilfully inclusive of two peoples, two dreams of homelands in the heart of a geopolitical storm is more than most of us can handle. We need leaders able to wade through grey.
But the odds are startling if we all take automatic sides. It’s the world’s 15 million jews vs. almost 2 billion muslims (a quarter of the globe’s people).
Will we grow grey enough to resuscitate the concept of two people, two homelands and the need for one peace deal? To have seen enough of the world playing political cat and mouse with this decades-long conflict. Who does this chaos serve? Because they’re winning. And the Israelis and Palestinians are paying the cost. But this one won’t end there. “This moment,” writes The Economist, “will define not only Israel and the Middle East but America and the world.”
Hamas’ 3 Traps - In a New World Order
If you understand French, I recommend a powerful interview with former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin who calls Hamas’ game, laying 3 traps for the West:
The Maximization of Horror: Hamas does the unthinkably, sadistically ghastly so Israel and its allies get caught in an escalation of military violence as the only possible response. As if armies could settle fundamental political problems. Or respond to terrorism.
‘L’Occidentalisme’ or Westernisation: the idea that the Western powers (and the alignment of the West with Israel’s dubious government) that have ruled the world for five centuries can continue to do so, when a young, growing part of the world is increasingly questioning their legitimacy. Resulting in a polarised, two-sided globalising war of religion.
Moral Double Standards: A big part of the world starts to complain of the unfairness of the West’s double standards in defending Ukraine but not the Palestinians… comparing the incomparable and putting in opposition the memories and traumas of one people against those of another. Leading to generations of passed-down hatred.
“Are we going to assassinate the future?” asks de Villepin. He (passionately) argues that we must recognise - and avoid - these traps. Acknowledge the secular, political cause of the Palestinians. Distinguish it from the religious war of Hamas. For all Arabs, despite years of relative silence, the Palestinian cause remains the “mother of all battles.” This issue will not go away. Who will address it? Will the international community design and accompany a sustainable solution for a geopolitical quake? Let Israel be the scapegoat for a larger issue? Will this moment at the edge of the abyss open cracks of light in the darkness? Or will we fall into Hamas’ triple trap?
Will Biden have enough (much-derided) grey for the Sysiphean task he’s up against? The Economist devotes this week’s cover to his challenge.
The World Divides Between Old and Young
The world is changing before our eyes. While one quarter of the world is Muslim, another quarter will be African by 2050. More than a third of the world’s young too. With a good dose of intersectionality and overlaps between those two themes.
An astonishing article in the NYT gives a very graphic overview of how the world is splitting in two. Something I also heard this week at an excellent conference on Global Ageing held by America’s AARP (more about it here).
There is the rich/ old/ shrinking world. Mostly yellow.
And the poor/ young/ exploding one. Mostly blue.
We need each other. Instead, we fear each other and build walls that create hate, instead of bridges of care and mutual support. It’s like a self-destructive global family where the grandparents are suspicious of their grandchildren and trying to write them out of their wills. There is no writing them out of our global wills. They are our future.
Different countries are at different stages of the ageing spectrum, with very different needs and challenges. Niger has the highest fertility in the world. Nigeria is growing by 5 million new people each year. While China is shrinking as of this year and India begins to age. The oldest countries in the world are shrinking and multiplying - Japan, Italy and Spain are fighting for top spot.
Some countries are beginning to design some innovative solutions. Germany and Morocco, for example. They have signed an agreement for safe, legal forms of migration and labour exchanges. Will these multiply? Can we stop the boats, the walls and the fear by organising and managing a mutually beneficial solution so the young world can find jobs and hope, the old purpose and support?
In September, the African Union joined the Group of 20. A continent with a median age of 19 now sits at the family table, along with the much older EU (median age 44). They haven’t been well treated by the older folk. Now they’re growing up, and will soon be bigger and taller than their elders. “Demographics is destiny,” said a French philosopher, Auguste Comte.
We desperately - and quickly - need some global family therapy. Could we become good grandparents to a world on fire?
As for the middle aged… it’s not just the young who want and will need to work. I promised I’d write more about the OECD conference and report I mentioned last week. Here’s the FORBES article, which I’ll repost on elderberries shortly (in the meantime, it was chosen as a FORBES Editors’ Pick). It’s sobering proof of ageism in the workplace, by both hiring managers but also by individuals themselves. There’s a chasm between what employees value (decades of experience) and what companies do (training, upskilling and credentials). It would do us all good to understand the difference and address it, rather than suffer the consequences.
There’s some good news too. The reality is that the older deliver. We perform as well or better than the young - if only someone hires us! We just really need to lean in to pushing our way into relevance, engagement and commitment.
In conclusion, the world needs its older. They just don’t know it and don’t want us. Up to us to change that.
I just hope that they will stop before being too late for everybody.
An excellent piece Avivah. Thank you for writing this.