“Alcimus is here now, I have to go. Alcimus, my husband. A bit of a fool, perhaps, but as Achilles said: a good man. And, anyway, there are worse things than marrying a fool. So I turn my back on the burial mound and let him lead me down to the ships. Once, not so long ago, I tried to walk out of Achilles’s story—and failed. Now, my own story can begin”. (Barker, Pat. The Silence of the Girls (p. 291). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.)
?When will our story begin
Yet, We have Knowledge
“Alcimus is here now, I have to go. Alcimus, my husband. A bit of a fool, perhaps, but as Achilles said: a good man. And, anyway, there are worse things than marrying a fool. So I turn my back on the burial mound and let him lead me down to the ships. Once, not so long ago, I tried to walk out of Achilles’s story—and failed. Now, my own story can begin”.
I wonder when my story, our story, the women who fathom the horrors of war can begin. When will we walk out of the stories of violence and revenge, and counter revenge. When we walk out of stories of the smell of burnt corpses and eyes wide open in horror. From stories of perpetual war and the cheapness of human life.
But we women, what do we even understand? We are emotional and do not think with cold and strategic logic. Our hormones are raging and our uterus, according to some social media trolls, is messing with our minds and making us think that human life – men, women, children, and girls – is something precious.
Some of us carried boys and girls in this womb. Some of us didn’t. Some of us don’t have a uterus. Some of us are men, who identify with the concept that motherhood is a political and moral position grounded in compassion, care and deep concern for all children and the world in which they live in.
But in the toxic public discourse that surrounds us, compassion, and a deep concern for human life – the lives of the hostages languishing in Hamas captivity and the lives of civilians in Gaza – is an expression of weakness, of naive and delusional thinking.
And sometimes we ourselves get caught up in this story that diminishes who we are, our beliefs and values. Sometimes the doubt creeps into us that maybe we really don’t understand, and only gnarled generals who have seen death in the eyes understand and know something that we don’t.
Then silence envelops us. Because it is hard to extricate ourselves from the stories of burning hatred and revenge and death, so much death. It is difficult to tell a different, more complex, and delicate story, when the noise of the missiles and bombs is so thunderous.
Yet, we must remind ourselves that we have knowledge, and plenty of it. We have knowledge of how to make peace. We have knowledge of how to chase away fear and how to heal a broken heart. We have knowledge of how to build strong partnerships that endure the fiercest of storms. We have knowledge of how not to think in terms of total victory or loss. We have knowledge of how to speak and listen even when it is unbearably difficult. We have knowledge about how to rehabilitate after trauma. We have knowledge of how to see the transparent ones whose voices are not heard. We have knowledge that is currently so critical.
We have knowledge, patience, and deep compassion and concern. We have a vision and a glimmer of hope. We believe a better future is possible. A future free from prophecies of doom of perpetual war.
We have another story to tell. And now is the time to tell it.
Illustrations by Daniel Gouri De-Lima
Hamutal Gouri 