Transcript for: her thoughts on the silence in relation to modern conflict in Gaza
Interviewee: Khadija Agil
Subject: Moving Minds - Imperial War Museum North
I think about the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1948 when Israel was first established, and I think about the vast number of people that were, you could say, ‘ethnically cleansed’ at the time. I think about other people in Bosnia, Serbia and lots of places around the world. Because war isn’t something that’s unheard of; war is something that’s been around for quite a while, and there are so many people who are forgotten and just aren’t remembered. And I think the two minutes silence shouldn’t just be for the World Wars, although they are something that everyone has to remember, I think that you have to include other wars as well, and other people who went through similar sufferings.I’ve got some family back in Gaza, so I do get a direct and personal view of what’s going on from my family there. A lot of them were really horrified and shocked about what had happened, because it just seemed like it was all very sudden. In the space of three weeks, you’ve just got a whole city being completely damaged, and completely brought down, and you’ve just got to start from scratch rebuilding. And you’ve got so many children, who shouldn’t have to go through hearing bombs flying, planes overhead, and bombs falling down on schools. I think that it’s really important that we try to make sure that nothing like that ever happens anywhere in the world, or to any kind of people; it doesn’t matter what race you are, or what religion or what ethnicity, I just think that as long as you’re a human being- or even an animal- you have the right to live in peace, and you have a right to education and to the basics that everyone has.