From their gardens or small vegetable patches men and women, some decidedly old, others somewhat younger, stop their pruning, cutting, weeding – whatever they are doing – straighten their tired backs and peer into the middle distance. Was that thunder? Or was it the sound of bombs? Many of those who come from far away will have good reason to fear bombs. Those of us who have lived here all our lives don’t really want to know what bombs are, but news of Gaza haunts us, no matter how hard we try to shut our eyes when those ghastly images flicker across the screen.

But I decidedly heard rumbling in the distance.

Garden work is hard on backs and knees. Yet, those who engage in it are, more often than not, retirees. Now they are turning their faces towards the sky, gratefully accepting the first few raindrops, while rubbing the small of their aching backs. Some cast a glance towards the tool shed, where the old pitchfork is hanging from its hook. It hasn’t been used for years, but it is still there.

If I were a painter, my next picture would have as its background the EU headquarters. In the foreground are thousands and thousands and thousands of human figures and their pitchforks.

We’ve been had, you know. Even in the global north, we’ve been had, but in the Global South… The Global South has fed us and clothed us and provided us with gold and gems and beautiful handicrafts and received nothing in return. Less than nothing. Much of the Global South is starving.

Gaza is in a sense the metaphorical Christ who was crucified to save us. Gaza has shown us the evil of our ways.

Here in the global north, we are just beginning to suspect how evil our ways are. Not because of the pruning, cutting and weeding in vegetable plots, but because of the neoliberal system in which we have faith. Mind you, I too have been criminally blind, criminally naive, criminally complacent for most of my life. I am not ashamed of it, because – as I now see – indoctrination is no joke. It’s not taught as such at universities, but it is taught!

The metaphorical pitchforks are appearing, though. More and more people find it too painful to bear that their governments and financial elites are contributing to the massacre by bombs and starvation of the people of Gaza.

The opening words in the statement of UK’s new “Your Party” apply also to the hoodwinked population of the UK. These words are a metaphorical pitchfork:

The system is rigged when 4.5 million children live in poverty in the sixth richest country in the world. The system is rigged when giant corporations make a fortune from rising bills. The system is rigged when this government says there is no money for the poor, but billions for war

The UK’s “Your Party” is the rumbling that I heard! It is not bombs, but the contrary of bombs.

And in the US, the following video should shake up at lot of people too.

There is hope.