COMMENT | Violence always begets violence, but why still so blind?

COMMENT | I’m a big fan of the Beastie Boys. I’ve been listening to them since the mid-1990s and watched them grow from dumb kids who sang about girls and reading dirty magazines right up till they became staunch defenders of human rights.

I was devastated when Adam “MCA” Yauch, who was one of the Beastie Boys along with Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, died of cancer in 2012. My friends and I all agreed that God had taken away the wrong MCA.

I remember in 1998, when the Beastie Boys won an MTV award, during the acceptance speech, MCA used the platform to talk about violence in the Middle East.

To paraphrase, he basically said all sides need to look at non-violent ways to solve the conflict because any violent response will always be seen as a retaliation which would then lead to more retaliation. Wise words from someone who started his music career fighting for his ‘right to party’.

I believe that over the years, I have grown as well, just like the Beastie Boys. I started in journalism thinking that it would give me a life of adventure. It did.

I have travelled the world covering conflict and wars. A majority of