It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings is a proverb that means do NOT assume the outcome of something-such as a sports game-until it has finished.
The
proverb originated from Richard Wagner's opera suite Der Ring des
Nibelungen in its last part, Gà tterdà mmerung, when the fat lady/the
Valkyrie Brà nnhilde, delivers an aria that lasts nearly ten minutes and
ends the drama.
Thirty-three years ago, Mordechai Vanunu
began listening to Wagner, a 19th century German composer [who wrote
both music and libretto for every one of his works] because, "Opera
inspires me, it gives me strength. When I was twenty-two I stopped
listening to pop; The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan. I like
challenges and began listening to opera. It builds skyscrapers in my
mind. Opera is nutrition for the brain. Opera enlarges and develops the
brain. Opera speaks to my brain"Every morning I am in my room until
eleven listening to opera. I find ways to enjoy myself as my way of
resistance. I transform anger into positive energy."
Vanunu
told me that during my last visit to occupied east Jerusalem in June
2009. At that time he was also walking 2 hours a day to the
checkpoints he is denied the right to cross that lead to Bethlehem and
Lazarus' Tomb. Vanunu had also been playing coed volleyball and having
dinner weekly with his friends from the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
in the Old City, where he became a member three years ago and has
attended both the English and German services because he liked the
music. Shortly thereafter, he quit meeting reporters as well as foreign
supporters.
Three weeks after my visit, while back in
Israeli High Court, Vanunu learned he was again denied the right to
leave the state for another six months, which literally is up on
December 21, 2009.
Whether out of boredom with the topic
or weariness, Vanunu finally committed to refrain from speaking of
Israel's nuclear program during the July 6, 2009 Supreme Court trial
while President Dorit Beinish, claimed his "case is still generating
great interest, like any other security-related case. The media's
attention he gets is proof of that." [1]
There is no proof
to back up that judge's claim and in fact, the media's silence has
worked to collude in the injustices Vanunu has endured, for he has been
demonized in Israel and remains largely unknown in America. However,
the Media's negligence has conspired to help create an iconic hero for
proponents of the abolition of nuclear weapons and supporters for human
rights united on the Internet and so, until Israel allows Vanunu the
right to full freedom, the human interest in-and the disseminating
of-his drama will grow and be spread on the world wide web.
When
I met Vanunu in 2005, I was in the midst of writing my first book, but
it was not until 2004, when I began researching for it, did I first
come across his name. In the Chapter: Thanksgiving Eve, 1987 from KEEP HOPE ALIVE, I wrote:
"I
have yet to read or heard a word from the American press about Vanunu
who had worked in a very compartmentalized position in the secret
underground Dimona nuclear research center in the Negev. The nuclear
plant had a sign outside claiming it was a Textile factory and it seems
that when Vanunu finally realized he was involved in the horrific work
of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, he shot two rolls of film
inside of the restricted areas. Seems security was very lax and this
low level tech was able to obtain the keys in the shower room that
opened the doors to what Israel has not admitted to"Vanunu quit the job
and leaves Israel and carried around the undeveloped film for nearly a
year as he traveled throughout Europe. He ended up in Sydney, Australia
and converted to Christianity.
"A few weeks after he shared his
story with a British reporter"Vanunu and the reporter returned to
London, and while the London Times was verifying his story, Vanunu
mysteriously disappeared. The photos proved the fact that Israel had
become a major nuclear power, but not a word has been heard from my
government or press!
"The Sunday Times reports this incredible
news that Israel's underground plutonium plant has material for two
hundred nuclear warheads of advanced design, but not a word have I read
about it or heard from the US media! It makes me wonder about all the
iron curtains the media and government have raised as a shield from the
truth. [2]
Governments get away with mayhem and murder
whenever the media fails or is prevented from doing their job; to
investigate and report the truth, no matter how ugly or brutal.
VANUNU's 2005 message to USA:
Vanunu began talking to anyone except the Israeli press, the day he emerged from 18 years in a tomb sized cell, on April 21, 2004, after serving a full sentence for espionage and treason which was due to his crisis of conscience about being a cog in creating WMD and which lead him to photograph the proof that Israel had already manufactured of upwards of 200 nuclear warheads by 1985 in the Dimona, a clandestine seven story underground WMD facility in the Negev.
Most of the 18 years behind bars, Vanunu spent in solitary. For the last nearly six years of waiting for the right to leave occupied east Jerusalem where he has been under relentless surveillance has led to another crisis of faith for Vanunu; his first at sixteen when he rejected his families Orthodox Jewish faith and became an atheist, agnostic and existentialist until just a few days prior to being kidnapped by the Mossad in 1986.
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