Words that come (too) easy

 

Some may say that Elli Robert Fitoussi, the French singer and musician born to a Tunisian Jewish family and better known by his professional name, F R David, is a one-hit wonder. He is, after all, best known for his 1982 international hit single ‘Words’ which was the title song of his debut album of the same name.

People familiar with music from the eighties would know the lyrics.

Words don't come easy to me
How can I find a way to make you see I love you?
Words don't come easy
Words don't come easy to me
This is the only way for me to say I love you
Words don't come easy

Words don’t come easy when it’s about expressing sentiments such as love. Words do come easy in other contexts, though.  Today I am thinking of a few words that have slipped off certain tongues or, as one might say, from forked tongues, as easy as certain prayers from certain mouths. Mantras, almost.

Here’s a term: existential threat. Here’s another: rogue regimes. And yet another: the era of impunity.

The last two came from Jeb Bush, one time US presidential hopeful, the son of US President George Bush (Snr) and the brother of US President George W Bush. The former Florida Governor in a social media post has claimed that the US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities ‘reassesses American (sic) strength, and sends an unmistakable message to rogue regimes: the era of impunity is over.’

Iran is not done-n-dusted, of course. That endgame may keep people waiting. It was an attack and there was a message. Here’s another way of reading both attack and message that is quite different to Jeb’s: ‘the long era of impunity enjoyed by the world’s worst thug, a rogue regime if ever there was one, the US in case you’ve not got it already, is yet to end.’ Need we even elaborate?  

Existential threat. Now that’s one for the ages. Who has used that term most in the last so many decades but most persistently since October 7, 2023? Well, Israel. Well, Zionists. Well, the USA. Well, the NYT, the BBC and other adjuncts of Washington-Speak. Well, the client states of the USA, including Canada, some in Europe and some down under.

Existential threats can come in various forms. For example, blankets infected with smallpox. For example, the guns-in-booty-out form so loved by old style colonials. For example, ‘the rules-based world order’ where rules protect the prerogative to plunder and subjugate by some and not all. And of course nuclear weapons.

Russia, the USA, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea possess nuclear warheads, a total of well over 12,000, each capable of causing over half a million fatalities. Italy, Türkiye, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Belarus host nuclear weapons.  According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. While the range of a nuclear warhead can vary depending on the delivery system, the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, the longest-delivery system, is estimated to have the capacity to travel 6,000 to 9,300 miles. It can’t be difficult to figure out which countries face ‘existential threats’ from those which possess such capacity. Therefore, if ‘existential threat’ is reason enough to declare war or in the very least plan and execute ways and means of eliminating such threats, then all such countries have every right to do so.  If this means acquiring nuclear weapon capability, that’s alright too, it can be argued.  

This is the problem of words coming (too) easy. The utterers slip over their tongues. They fail to see that their ‘reasoning’ can be thrown back at them. It is perhaps a malady that afflicts the powerful: we are right because we say so; our logic is a one-way street and cannot be used against us. Something like that.

F R David’s song has this lovely line: ‘But my words are coming out wrong, girl, I reveal my heart to you, and hope that you believe it's true ‘cause words don’t come easy to me.’

Yeah. Right. The words are coming all wrong; not because they don’t come easy but because they in fact do come easy.  Carelessly. They sounds vulgar. Utterly.

Elli Robert Fitoussi, wherever he is right now, might not agree and indeed may be appalled and object to his words being twisted, but then again, I don’t have nuclear weapons. Words are all I have. And all I am saying is ‘I love you too much not to say what I feel, even if “my words are coming all wrong”!’

[This article was first published in the Daily News under the weekly column title 'The Recurrent Thursday']