Wage Peace not War

I sit with a heavy heart, having just watched Mondays broadcast of Democracy Now. The bulk of the show were excerpts of a cross-section of speakers from Sundays, "Bring the Troops Home" rally in Washington D.C. This was the largest anti-war rally in Washington, D.C. since the Viet Nam war. I cry because the same speeches were being given, only with different names, as were given at the Viet Nam protests that I attended. I cry because people talk as if getting rid of George Bush would solve some problem. The problem is not George Bush. The problem is in each and every one of us. The problem is not being willing to make the sacrifices necessary to foster fundamental political, social, cultural and spiritual change. We in the United States of America are addicted to privilege. We enjoy economic privilege that is available to us as a result of the Imperialist foreign policy that our government has fostered since the first American Indians were driven from their lands and there communities and culture destroyed through our policies of genocide. Our countries history is littered with invasions and covert actions to gain control of sovereign nations to allow multinational corporations to exploit resources and peoples, and as a result to grow more powerful than any nation. We are no longer a nation governed by the people, but a colony to the ruling multi-nationals and there henchmen in the dominate political parties in so called developed countries.

I cry because as a matter of policy and selfishness we turn our backs on the needs of the helpless; the elderly, children, unemployed, disabled and mentally ill. I cry because the recent reports show that the richest individuals in this country just had record increase in their wealth in the last year while over 1900 young U.S. men and women have died in Iraq, most of them from families that did not have the means to provide them with a viable alternative than to serve in the military, with the hope of getting an education and bettering themselves. They grow richer while unemployment increase, while wages decrease, while benefits are cut, while the quality of education declines, while the quality of health care declines, while our environment reels from the excesses. I cry because the people our soldiers kill are their brothers and sisters, caught in the same web of disenfranchisement from the same forces, wearing different clothes and speaking a different language. I scream, because I feel so helpless. I wail because I have been so selfish. I pray to God for guidance to do the right thing. I pray to see how to do my small part to wage peace.

I share this poem that an amazing young woman shared at the rally. You can see her speak it by clicking on the highlighted link. You can go to www.democracynow.org by clicking this or the link in the right hand column.

Peace, Alan


Suheir Hammad read her poem “Of Refuge and Language” at the pre-march rally:

SUHEIR HAMMAD: I wrote this poem after Hurricane Katrina and the victims of the rescue effort. The rescue effort victims of Hurricane Katrina were viewed on television for all of us, and they were called "refugees." This is a poem for all of the refugees in the world.

"Of Refuge and Language"

I do not wish
To place words in living mouths
Or bury the dead dishonorably

I am not deaf to cries escaping shelters
That citizens are not refugees
Refugees are not Americans

I will not use language
One way or another
To accommodate my comfort

I will not look away

All I know is this

No peoples ever choose to claim status of dispossessed
No peoples want pity above compassion
No enslaved peoples ever called themselves slaves

What do we pledge allegiance to?
A government that leaves its old
To die of thirst surrounded by water
Is a foreign government

People who are streaming
Illiterate into paperwork
Have long ago been abandoned

I think of coded language
And all that words carry on their backs

I think of how it is always the poor
Who are tagged and boxed with labels
Not of their own choosing

I think of my grandparents
And how some called them refugees
Others called them non-existent
They called themselves landless
Which means homeless

Before the hurricane
No tents were prepared for the fleeing
Because Americans do not live in tents
Tents are for Haiti for Bosnia for Rwanda

Refugees are the rest of the world

Those left to defend their human decency
Against conditions the rich keep their animals from
Those who have too many children
Those who always have open hands and empty bellies
Those whose numbers are massive
Those who seek refuge
From nature’s currents and man’s resources

Those who are forgotten in the mean times

Those who remember

Ahmad from Guinea makes my falafel sandwich and says
So this is your country

Yes Amadou this my country
And these my people

Evacuated as if criminal
Rescued by neighbors
Shot by soldiers

Adamant they belong

The rest of the world can now see
What I have seen

Do not look away

The rest of the world lives here too
In America