Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Will there ever be peace?

Its one of those questions that we've grown up asking. One of those questions that envelops the human intellect day and night; one of those questions similar to "Does God exist?" or "Why do we exist?" Now the question I pose shouldn't have the same gravity or existentialist connotation to it, but it seems to be one of those questions that deserves its place in the panthenon of questions about humanity and the divine.

All this pondering began as I was stranded in the traffic rush hour of Istanbul. Enveloped by automobiles of all sort, I flipped through radio channel after radio channel hoping to find something decent. It was one of those days when every song on the radio sucks. I then landed a channel that was playing a pretty groovy Mediterranean beat. I was satisfied and left the channel on for a while. After my ear began picking up the deviance of the lyrics from Turkish, I realized that it was Greek song. What a second...I'm in Turkey listening to a Greek song. Weren't these two nations arch enemies less than a century ago? Don't I always get a look of disappointment whenever I tell a Greek friend that I'll be traveling to Turkey?

As the channel returned to the Turkish commercials, I thought to myself... Will I live to the day when an Israeli song will be aired in Egypt? History seems to blow the sands of time no matter how stagnant they are...Change overtakes all. But will this ever be the case in our region? Its seems that this is one of the questions that the world's greatest intellectuals have failed to answer over the millenia... So do we really have to passively submit to the test of time to answer this question?

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