It is Wednesday of the first week of March of the hottest winter on record, it is raining, so it feels like a perfectly adequate time to freak out, which I am doing right now. I feel myself in this strange liminal space, like Lewis’ forest between the worlds, except that there is nothing peaceful or calm about it. I am torn between the compassion and anger about the suffering of Palestinians that is so disproportionate and cruel it almost seems unreal. Who would do that? Who would think of that? On the other hand, I feel growing discomfort. Every social media post I read about how morally corrupt and despicable all the western governments are, how “the western powers” are war criminals, every post that uses monikers like “bloody-this” and “genocide-that” makes me cringe. not that I disagree, it’s just the feeling of discomfort that I can’t shrug off. This morning it dawned on me: the reason I feel this uncomfortable is because these posts of rightful outrage are becoming word-by-word copies of the Soviet propaganda I heard as a child. Corrupt West, colonialist Europe, bloody governments, all the while ignoring the Uyghur genocide, the multitude of Russian crimes and so many other things. It is chillingly familiar: give the world one war, one crime, one atrocity to focus on and forget all the rest. Draw the lines, deepen the divide, turn truth and compassion into propaganda. You can build an Iron curtain with that material, a three-meter concrete wall, literally overnight. Better still, make them turn against each other while you carry on solidifying the east against west, south against north, while you profit off selling weapons and oil and gold. We all have ancestral memory and mine, the DNA of my ancestors, starved, executed, deported and cut off their culture, finally wakes up to recognise the rallying KGB cry. And I am very very scared. Understand, it is not about who is wrong or right, it is about the division to the point of no return. Now, the real monsters will come.