{"id":197825,"date":"2021-10-25T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=197825"},"modified":"2021-10-18T10:56:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T09:56:25","slug":"pity-the-nation-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/10\/pity-the-nation-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Pity the Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poetic Reflection – 17 Oct 2021<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whose citizens do not have time to reading\u2026 especially the serious reading that can make a difference
\nWhose leaders care about their villas and privileges and not their people
\nWhose young people of affluence and do not know the meaning of hard work
\nWhose middle class has no kindness\u2026 not even to their family
\nWhose healthcare system is falling apart while its police forces are armed
\nWhose poor are angry but feel helpless to change
\nWhose children are not connected to the land
\nWhose elderly are not valued
\nWhose education system is a regurgitation system<\/p>\n

Pity the nation<\/em><\/p>\n

Which produces waste and damages its environment
\nWhich eats junk food packaged in plastics or sprayed with chemicals
\nWhich cares to build houses of worship more than houses of education
\nWhich does not teach the value of time, the values of respect (for ourselves, for others, for nature)
\nWhich lives in concrete \u201cjungle\u201d while not protecting its forests
\nWhich does not know the taste of real freedom<\/p>\n

\u2026. Freedom from oppression
\n\u2026. Freedom from guilt
\n\u2026 Freedom from hate
\n\u2026 Freedom from self-pity
\n\u2026 Freedom from powerlessness<\/p>\n

Pity the nation<\/em><\/p>\n

That has more cars than bicycles
\nThat is crowded but has so much loneliness
\nThat has more houses than homes
\nThat imports its food, cloths, and tools
\nThat does not know how generous is its land
\n\u2026if only it is tended
\nThat has few bird watchers and few hikers
\nThat has many talkers and few listeners (to nature) and doers (of good deeds)<\/p>\n

We must chose to be different<\/p>\n

\u2026to rebel
\n\u2026to fight
\n\u2026to work
\n\u2026to love
\n\u2026to respect ourselves, others and nature<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, author of <\/em>Sharing the Land of Canaan and <\/em>Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem.<\/em> http:\/\/palestinenature.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 popular-resistance.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poetic Reflection – 17 Oct 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":185157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[868],"class_list":["post-197825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}