"Risk is our middle name" ~Gaza kids
This story, the video, Finding Freedom Amid Ruins: The Free Runners of Gaza fills me with such sadness... too much to contain alone in my room in front of my screen. It all seems so sci-fi-dystopia but it's real. Haunting.
They proceed to show videos of Israeli rockets filmed dangerously close to the points of impact. “We want the world to know what we do, how tough the situation is,” one of the North’s players says.
“We used to climb that mosque,” one says pointing to a tower. “But there’s a dud in there now.” The same can be said of the rest of the city, with many unexploded bombs and shells still trapped under the rubble – the very obstacles the teams depend on to perform their death-defying jumps and somersaults.
Both teams are preparing for the upcoming competition. All of them are incredibly fit, despite the scrawny statures. They can grapple and climb like agile cats, making every trick look easy in the blistering heat.
Watching this, all at once I feel overwhelmed with the sense the incredible resilience of the human spirit - these kids are amazing - but also the intensity, and power, of those who would crush it. And for what? Again, same answer as always: Greed, fueled by Hate.
The sport of free-running – or parkour – has found a home with youths in battered Gaza. The ruins and debris left in the wake of the 2014 bombing campaign by Israel have become a source of both mortal danger and endless inspiration.
RT Documentary travelled to the area, where debris and dilapidated structures line the desolate landscape, setting the stage for two sworn rivals – Gaza Parkour, from the South, and 3Run Gaza, from the North.
Most residents try hard to maintain a sense of normality amid the unchanging scenes of damage that will take decades to repair. But for the two teams this apocalyptic landscape provides a rich training ground for their extreme sport.
“Parkour is freedom. And there's no freedom in Gaza. People get their freedom through parkour,” says one of the free-runners.
What are we doing? Humans I mean. How is this allowed...
Comments
oh yeah and
Happy Fathers Day to all who qualify!
Happy Father's Day to all
Here is a link to Jewish Voice for Peace. It is related to this topic. Please note they are supporting a boycott of Israel.
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking
Photos
An unfinished meal full of rubble.
Children playing
In Photos: Life in Gaza a Year After the Ceasefire
From the Light House.
Yes this is terrible. It
Yes this is terrible. It should not happen.
Neither should Qassam rockets or tunnels or blowing up buses and cafes, where I guess Hamas spends most of the people's internationally contributed money, when it's not exporting/supporting terror to the Sinai and Egypt. You do know Egypt shut down every tunnel they could find from Gaza. Wonder why? What have those inhuman Egyptians done?
This is a mess. It will seemingly always be a mess.
I just can't abide this a side is better than the other side because of the latest sad and/or outrage.
It's all shit and they are all responsible for where they find themselves.
2,000 years and still going strong. Not quite as great as the killing of Husayn ibn Ali in 626 causing the Shia/Sunni schism but damn this Gaza/Israel thing has legs too.
After the defeat of the Barbary Pirates we should never have gone back.
Just an observation, not a criticism.
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
Before spouting odd hasbara propaganda please read...
Russell Tribunal “Prevent the crime of silence”
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/...
It is disingenuous and morally repugnant comparing homemade Qassam rockets with practically zero explosive power with bunker busters, cluster bombs, white phosphorus tens of thousands of artillery shells and millions upon millions of live ammunition rounds dropped directly on or fired at civilian apartments and houses. And it is plain ignorant describing the tunnels as "terror tunnels"... Gaza has been under siege for a long time and the tunnels, like the ones in the Warsaw Ghetto, are used for importing food, medicine and goods. If they had been used for weapons, one would expect Gazans to be armed with the most modern equipment... well, they aren't. In addition according to international law occupied peoples have a basic human right to defend themselves against occupation.
I have previously posted essays hinting at the solution(s) that are available. Proposing that apartheid and ethnic cleansing by a Zionist majority continue is exactly the same as proposing in the past that South African apartheid was without a solution and thus should continue forever.
Building an exclusive Jewish theocratic state on the backs and lands of another ethnicity is morally repugnant and no different in quality than Daesh creating an "Islamic State". If the ideology were exported to the USA it would mean putting a wall around Black counties in the South and Urban centers and acting as heavily armed military occupiers... followed by decades of ethnic cleansing, land and resource theft, and civic, ethnic and religious inequality.
IMO the only moral solution is a secular single state with equal rights for all inhabitants of Palestine/Israel and a right of return for refugees and I would say continuation of right of return from the Jewish diaspora. The key is learning how to live together.
From the Light House.
thanks and amen for this comment /nt
Tired
I do get annoyed at rebutting the same tired Zionist talking points over and over again. and the seeing general blindness to the basic principals of equality and justice.
From the Light House.
I hear you. Let's try to support and lean on each other.
Your articles and comments are very important. Don't give up. You have a lot to share and teach.