“Ring a-ring o’ roses, / A pocketful of posies, / A ti-shoo, a ti-shoo, / We all fall down!” This is the nursery rhyme that all English mother-tongue children learn in kindergarten. As you may have noticed from the title of this article, however, I write “the World falls down”; The reason is that this nursery rhyme is also learned by all children in Italy, but the wording is slightly different: Ring-a-ring o’ roses, / The world falls down, / The Earth falls down, / We all fall down!
If we look at the world in the eyes of children, like the rhyme references, we are able to see that it is no game: the world is imploding, crises are getting worse, new outbreaks of violence are ignited, and we are all destined to fall. The severity of the current crises are a serious and immense matter: China’s military maneuvers with live fire around the island of Taiwan were in full swing, the emerging spike of a new and explosive military tension in the Far East, when the engines of the Israeli jets started in the Middle East and began the raids on Gaza. The bombings lasted for three consecutive days until a new fragile truce was signed. In the previous days, no missiles were launched from Gaza against Israel, which is why the Israeli authorities justified the raids as “preemptive attacks.” Too bad that “preventive defense” does not exist in international law, indeed it is called “aggression”.
It is curious that all those who in the West have outstretched to repudiate the preventive military action initiated by Russia against Ukraine, have had nothing to object to the pre-emptive Israeli attacks that killed 45 people including 16 children and adolescents. Alaa Qaddum was the five-year-old girl killed in the air attack on August 5th that opened the Israeli air offensive against Gaza, the latest victim was Hanin Abu Qaida, 10, who died in hospital.
It is no surprise to find out that for politics and the media system, there are Series A deaths and Series B deaths. Still, we persist in thinking that the pain of Series B mothers is the same as that of all the others, and it produces disturbance in spite of general indifference. This umpteenth outbreak of violence in the Middle East certainly did not cover the further exacerbation of the conflict in Ukraine.
After fears of a nuclear disaster due to artillery exchanges around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, another step has been placed in the never-ending escalation of this war. At the beginning of August, there were numerous explosions inside the Saki air force base on the west coast of Crimea, which destroyed a dozen planes and blew up an ammunition depot. It is the first time that the Ukrainian armed forces hit so deeply within a territory considered by Moscow to all intents and purposes a part of Russia. For this reason, President Zelensky’s attitude should be of great concern. He declared: “the war began in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea by the Russians and must end with its liberation.” This means that the war must not stop. Ukraine, strong on NATO supplies, not only wants to recover the territories occupied by Russia, but intends to go further. The questions that still remain unanswered are: Until when? How long will this organized massacre continue, and to achieve what objectives? How are we going to get out of this war, because, if we don’t, I’m afraid we will “all fall down.”
Featured image by: The Telegraph
