Looking at life steadily, looking at it whole

 

From Terence Netto

Thomas Stearns Eliot, reputedly Anwar Ibrahim’s favourite poet, counsels his readers to “look at life steadily, and look at it whole.”

This is very difficult advice to follow when contemplating the Middle East question.

It’s a tangled skein.

Untangling it such that it becomes comprehensively explicable may only occur in a longer run that any individual is likely to get.

Therefore, in contemplating that question a certain humility is required.

This trait does not occur easily in students in their middle to late teens, which is why one should not introduce events of contemporary history to them.

This is especially so if by education of the young one means – and here we have to resort to Eliot again – the training of the mind and sensibility which is its highest goal.

Not the education that is a process by which you churn out people equipped with skills for the marketplace.

No; it’s the education that steers one to look at issues steadily and look at them whole, as Eliot urged.

The decision of the Anwar Ibrahim government to hold a Palestine Solidarity Week is a poor one on a number of counts.

Firstly, it introduces a febrile and contentious issue into minds lacking the amplitude to grasp its complexities.

This is probably what Adam Adli Abdul Halim, the deputy sports minister and PKR youth leader, was referring to when he said the solidarity week should focus on the Palestinian issue’s history and intricacies.

Adam Adli was striking an “Eliotian” stance with that advice: he wants teachers and students to apprehend the issue in a broad context with humanitarian considerations paramount.

Another reason it is not advisable for the Palestinian issue to be introduced to tender minds is that it is, at its core, a conflict of theologies.

It is better not to delineate what this conflict is, religion being an ultra-sensitive issue in this country.

Suffice, this conflict of theologies is irresolvable, a testimony to its century-long duration.

Such conflict does not make for neat packaging to young minds. It is best to steer clear of it until such time minds are mature enough to wrestle with it.

But such maturity may never arrive.

Here again, we can rely on Eliot for a rescue of sorts: he was of the opinion that humankind “cannot stand very much reality.” - FMT

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.