During the time of the Caesars, arenas in territories under the Roman Empire witnessed bloody and unequal battles. These arenas were often used by the wealthy and influential as a stage to showcase their power, secure their influence, and gain popularity among the public. At that time, the poor, prisoners, and the weak were forced to fight in these arenas as gladiators, often to the death – either as punishment or as a form of entertainment.
Violence has been a part of human behavior since the dawn of history, but it often took excessively brutal forms. To curb this brutality, humans sought to confine violence within the boundaries of an arena. However, even within these arenas, the fights were typically unequal, with the poor or the condemned forced into combat to the death, while the noble class observed these spectacles as mere amusement. Over time, humanity sought to mitigate this violence by creating rules for combat games to ensure fair fights and by inventing new forms of competitive sports.
The remnants of humanity’s violent legacy seem to have converged in a single arena. Here, the strong fighter — backed by the wealth, influence, and power of a global system — fights an unequal battle against a prisoner armed with nothing, lacking support or allies. This violent legacy has been carried forward by the Israeli occupation and unleashed upon Gaza. Gaza has become the arena, and its people are forced into a collective punishment – an unjust battle inflicted on an unarmed population that has endured occupation for 75 years.
The original concept of the arena was to confine violence within its boundaries, providing a measure of safety for the world’s poor and weak. However, since Oct 7, 2023, violence has expanded beyond the arena, turning the entire world into a stage for brutality. Violence has become the dominant strategy of the strong to oppress the weak, while the powerful watch in silence – or even amusement.
For fourteen months, civilians in Gaza have endured relentless violence as a form of collective punishment. During this journey of suffering, they have faced indiscriminate bombings with highly explosive missiles never used before, unleashing a level of violence unprecedented in human history. Gazans have suffered hunger, displacement, destruction, the loss of loved ones, deprivation of medical care, and lack of food. They have braved the harshness of winter, the heat of summer, and the fire of Israeli missiles in horrifying scenes that seem to encapsulate all the violence humanity has ever known.
Gaza has become a modern-day arena for immoral battles. In this arena, the Israeli occupation, backed by the support of wealthy and influential powers, relentlessly wages war. The US Congress and other bodies continue to approve the supply of weapons, missiles, aircraft, bombs, and drones to the occupying forces. Meanwhile, those who facilitated these deals watch as Israel’s war machine uses these weapons to annihilate an unarmed population.
In ancient combat sports, the arena symbolized a microcosm of life for the fighters. Inside the arena, there was misery, hunger, imprisonment, blood, and an uncertain fate. Yet for Gaza, the arena is no longer a microcosm; it has become life itself. The people of Gaza find nothing in life, but injustice, hunger, displacement, sorrow, and collective punishment. This cruelty continues unabated, visible to the entire world, which seems indifferent to their suffering. It is as if the violence in Gaza has revived humanity’s darkest instincts, resurrecting its most brutal tendencies.
For more than a year, Gaza’s civilians have faced constant deadly strikes, as if sentenced to endure endless blows until death. The death toll has been so high that even death itself seems weary of taking more lives. Gazans have died from imposed battles, hunger, cold, sorrow, pain, lack of medical supplies, missile attacks, isolation, injustice, and the bitter reality of their homeland. Gaza has become a death arena, where its people endure all forms of savage, violent, and relentless suffering for 460 days.
Every human being, regardless of circumstances, race, or nature, harbors a dark side — filled with fears, tension, aggression, and anger — struggling to keep it in check. Combat games provided a controlled outlet for these emotions through the boundaries of the arena. Initially, these arenas were unequal, but humanity created rules to ensure fairness, transforming these contests into events devoid of death, where opponents shook hands before and after the match. However, when such negative emotions escape the confines of the arena and defy the rules of fairness, humans become violent criminals, unleashing their most savage tendencies.
Today, the actions of the Israeli occupation in Gaza represent an unrestrained release of fear, aggression, and anxiety, driven by an unparalleled thirst for dominance. Meanwhile, the world has failed to impose laws to curb these actions or to prevent the occupation from treating Gaza’s civilians with such brutality. The occupation’s fear of meeting the fate of other colonizers throughout history and its obsessive desire for survival have dehumanized the Palestinians in Gaza. This dehumanization is epitomized by former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s statement describing Gazans as “animals”. Based on this perception, they are killed mercilessly, with no regard for their status as civilians or their rights protected by all laws and moral codes across time and place.
Humanity has long acknowledged its potential for violence and its destructive consequences for innocent lives. To address this, humans made numerous efforts to limit violence and crime, creating a safer world. They confined violence to narrow arenas, enacted laws to reduce harm, and ensured fairness in combat –ultimately transforming battles into non-lethal contests. Opponents would shake hands, acknowledging their shared humanity. Yet, in October 2023, these centuries of progress were disregarded. Humanity chose to ignore the legacy of laws and morals designed to curb violence, reverting five centuries backward to an era of savagery and brutality by supporting the Israeli occupation’s genocide and collective punishment in Gaza.
The world’s response to this injustice and violence has been twofold – at best, silence in the face of brutality, and at worst, full support for the Israeli occupation while blaming Gaza’s Palestinians, the true victims. This response resembles the historical support of influential figures who showcased their power and dominance by backing oppression. Is today’s world similarly flaunting its power over Gaza’s civilians? Or is Gaza the burial ground for the laws humanity once established to limit injustice and aggression? Could this signify a return to humanity’s darkest eras? And if not, what is the appropriate explanation?
Refaat Ibrahim is a Palestinian writer living in Gaza, where he studied English Language and Literature at the Islamic University.
This is a republication from PEARLS & IRRITATIONS website at: https://johnmenadue.com/gaza-the-modern-coliseum-of-humanitys-dark-legacy/
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
