In the Presence of Blood and Iron

My Conversation with My Cousin

We sat together in the family home, coffee rising like incense through an air thick with quiet fear.
I looked at him — my cousin, clothed in the uniform of the state, the man who defends a system that devours its own children, a sword drawn against every mind that dares step beyond the herd.

I asked him:

“How do you see them, cousin?
All those angry ones —
crying out in the name of a faith they barely understand?”

He replied, his eyes hard as steel:

“There’s no cure for them except firmness.
If you let them think too much, they’ll declare half the country infidels,
and if you let them move too freely, they’ll burn the whole place down.”

I answered:

“But firmness alone cannot heal.
You smother the fire on the surface, but the embers still glow beneath.”

He shook his head, casting all my hopes straight into the dustbin:

“You’re too soft, cousin.
You don’t know these people.
As long as we hold them by the throat, the country survives.”

Ah, in that moment I saw how fossilized those minds have become — minds entrusted with iron, minds that know only the stick, minds that remember nothing from history but the lessons of the lash.

My cousin sees extremism as a disease to be caged, while I see it as a wild weed that might wither on its own if given some measure of justice and the warmth of a fair sun.

I told him:

“Cousin, religion left in people’s hearts without education
turns into a weapon.
And when you lock people away,
you give them nothing but dreams of revenge.”

He fell silent, as though the walls themselves were listening, and for a moment I saw a softness tremble through his gaze, his breath grew heavier, and I reached out with a bridge of hope:

“What if you tried a more open religious discourse,
next to the iron fist —
instead of leaving it to fester and explode?”

He sighed, as if the entire weight of the state rested on his lungs, then spoke, slower this time:

“Maybe… if there’s a guarantee it won’t turn extremist again.
Maybe.”

I smiled inside, for I had glimpsed a tiny light in his eyes —a light that told methere might yet be a middle ground between iron and awareness, between oppression and wisdom, between my cousin and me.