If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But, if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. Aboriginal Activists
I tell them of my loyalty to your beautiful country; how it under my skin.
I tell them of the hate. The anger that drives this obsession. This blinding reaction against poverty and oppression.
I tell them of our introduction. I explain the label of orphan is a luxury. That reality is abuse and neglect.
But, I leave you out of my narrative. I cannot risk you.
You are a stat, a character, a commercial.
What do I say now? My inspiration ran away?
If that question had been asked before October 21, I could tell them my standard story. I would skip the anger, give them the 6 years of my life they want to hear.
I dare not say go home, home to prostitution and abuse.
I would never say go back, back to working the fields.
¿A donde vas? the streets?
Do I come home? Do I look for you again?
This is it Alex, this is real life.
You are my home, and I yours. You are my tribe. We are a people of two.
"He remembered the Latin words he had once seen on a sixteenth- century map to mark the limit of Western exploration of Africa, Scientia hic finit.
Knowledge stops here. How arrogant we were, he thought. How arrogant we remain." Donna Leon
Please continue following my blog, as I head to South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana in January. I am not going to find myself. I am not going to save Africa. And, I will never buy a safari vest. I am looking for the t/Truth.
"One wonders what would happen if good-hearted Americans realized that a mere 10% of the US military budget, if reinvested in foreign aid and development, could care for the basic needs of the entire world's poor. Or if they realized that one-half of 1% of the US military budget would cut hunger in Africa in half by 2015. Would there be marches in the streets calling for budgetary reform?" Everything Must Change, Brian D. McLaren
We now have the ability to kill without ever being in the country. Why go to Afghanistan if you can kill combatants and still make it home for dinner?
I sat watching the CNN report of the first kill by the US Army's drone from Mostar, the most heavily bombed city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was stunned, just as I was beginning to grasp the full implications of war, I was introduced to a new version. Luckily, I was refreshed after spending the evening with Youth Bridge Global, an NGO using applied drama as a tool of peace and reconciliation. Their first year they barely performed Romeo and Juliet in a city now fragmented by the war, leaving Bosniaks and Croatians divided. Averil, Alex, and I walked to see their stage, a courtyard of the bombed out library. We found a concert instead, a witness to Bosnians claiming their space and using their voices in a world that can now kill with a video game.
It is critical that I am touching the remains of war the first time in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has become casual, normal even, to walk by phosphorous bombed buildings, shell markings, to meet concentration camp survivors, watch (free) war criminals and mass grave findings on the nightly news or talk on a cell phone next to a graveyard. But, it is also here, that the passion of the people washes over me, cleansing me of this violence.
The spirit of resistance has manifested itself in the form of passionate nonviolence, the arts. The Sarajevo film festival started during the war to salvage civil society, and has now grown to become one of the largest in Europe. The Miss Sarajevo beauty contest was held during the peak of fighting; U2 would later sing about this beautiful act of courage. The war Theater in Sarajevo continued to perform, famously debuting Hair in the city under siege. Education never collapsed because they were sustained by the brave teachers that would walk among snipers and shells to hold class in basements. The newspaper Oslobeđenje (Freedom) never missed a single day of print. A 700-yard tunnel was hand dug right under the UN controlled airport, past their inability to do anything but hand out old food, and into the"valley prison" (Clancy). A lifeline was then established to transport food, ammunition and supplies. Finally, Vedran Smailović , caught the worlds attention as the Cellist of Sarajevo, playing Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor for 22 days; dressed in his tuxedo, he played each day to honor the 22 victims killed while in line for bread. "He played for human dignity that is the first causality in war. Ultimately, he played for life, for peace, and for the possibility that exists even in the darkest hour. Asked by a journalist whether he was not crazy doing what he was doing, Smailović replied: 'You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello, why do you not ask if they are not crazy for shelling Sarajevo?'" (Swati Chopra)
CNN reports that war has been revolutionized, that warfare will never be the same. Indeed, I fear what we are capable of now. Never to set foot on the ground of the people we destroy anonymously. We now live in a world that can mobilize 1 billion dollars a week for war, but fails to find 5 billion for children's health care. In this context, we rely on unmanned aerial vehicles, no longer dependent on killing with our hands. We will not feel a pulse stop or the weight of life leave the body. We will no longer see the people left behind, the ones "born into blood and fire" (Galeano) picking up their lives and choosing to fight with words, not weapons.
"Tears spring to my eyes. But I have been preparing for this. I feel like a boxer who knows he is about to be hit, each muscle tightening so as not to crumble when the actual blow lands; ready to hit back. Not to think but to act."
Victims found in mass graves are buried each year on the anniversary of the genocide July 11, 1995
I was ready. I had no choice. I had to go in prepared, rehearsed and researched. Three massacre sites in 16 months; but this time I was living and working where it happened for three weeks in and around the burial ceremony of 534 Muslim men and boys.
I was in Srebrenica. The site of the worst massacre since World War II. Over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in an act of genocide by the Serb Army in a "protected"UN Safe Zone filled with refugees.
I didn't brake when I saw the shockingly casual site of burned houses, the intimate naked skeletons of three story houses. The shell markings and bullet holes. I walked the streets of Srebrenica, passing the destroyed houses. I continued with my daily routine, trying to forget that the house in front of mine lost 3 boys. I explained to the women behind our house that I was locked out and found a kitten, not dwelling on the fact that her family buried a husband and son of 16 years this July. I continue shopping for groceries even after realizing the man in the juice aisle has no left arm and that he is a man, alive.
I joined the 30, 000 people at the Memorial Ceremony. I tolerated the VIPs at a funeral. I met people, made introductions. I witnessed the line of coffins, 534 filing by me with my meager offerings - my camera, my witness, this voice. I didn't brake, didn't cry. I had no right to cry, I have lost nothing.
I finally broke over a video I saw on Youtube. It was recorded during the genocide; a father was yelling for his son to come down from hiding in the woods, screaming that it was safe while surrounded by Serb soldiers that would eventually add him to mass graves. Genocide had found Youtube, and I couldn't take it. If we can casually watch people being slaughtered and do nothing the next time, what kind of sick game is this? When taught about the Holocaust, why are we not also taught about the concentration camps in Argentina, the 677 in Bosnia? Where is the follow up on genocides in Rwanda, the killing fields of Cambodia or the one happening now in Darfur?
We need to stop saying "Never Again." Never Again has witnessed Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Algeria and Darfur. I think "Until Next Time" is more appropriate. Justice has not been served in Srebrenica. War criminals walk around the town, Bosnia, and even serve as President of Serbia. The day after the burial ceremony, Serb nationalists came into Srebrenica and yelled, "don't worry Europe, we can do it ... we will rid the Balkans of Muslims"
Please act to end the current genocide in Darfur. Start by signing the petition.
"My country can boast that we produce 53.4% of the world's weapons ... perhaps (Americans) believe that McNamara was more rational than President Jimmy Carter, who in 1976 said, 'We cannot have it both ways. We can't be both the world's leading champion for peace and the world's leading supplier of arms.' It gets worse. In 2003, 80% of the top buyers of US weapons (twenty of the top twenty-five clients) were countries that our State Department labeled undemocratic or countries known for their failure to uphold human rights, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In 1999, the US weapons industry supplied arms to 92% of the conflicts in process anywhere on the planet, and in a stroke of elegant fairness, often supplied both sides in conflict. Perhaps most shocking and awful of all: between 1998 and 2001, the United States, Great Britain, and France earned more income from selling weapons to developing countries than they gave those developing countries in aid." John Perkins in Justice For All
I lost my patriotic virginity two years ago when I first visited El Salvador. My age of innocence was forever gone, left on the Holy Grounds of El Mozote and the UCA. I swore loyal opposition to my country. After studying for two months in Latin America, I understood the legacy of the Cold War; that in reality, it was a hot conflict that burned its way through Latin America, exposing the connections between human rights perpetrators and the United States government. I was disgusted by our hypocritical human rights abuses and shocked when I discovered the chronic mistakes of our foreign policy. We waged war to impose peace. Few know that President Reagan broke international and federal law by continuing to fund the Contras after the House of Representatives voted unanimously 411-0 to stop aid. A pattern emerged of US involvement: the torture case of the American nun, Diana Ortiz, the Atlactal Battalion, the paramilitary death squads trained on US soil, and coups supported and sometimes orchestrated by the US.
I feel like I have cheated in my political activism; just as I was learning of the grave mistakes of the United States, Change took his place in the White House. I only had time to be horrified, write a few research papers on torture policy, and then feel profound relief and hope when Obama was elected. I came to Sarajevo prepared to showcase my mature understanding of the real United States. I knew why the world hates us, I can even give you statistics. I was ready for Srebrenica because I had been to a massacre sites before. I knew what to look for and who to ask questions about. We continue to echo "Never Again" from the end of the Holocaust to the start of another genocide in Darfur; we watched as Rwanda unfolded and waited to act in Bosnia, but we finally sent help and brought a swift end to the war. For that, I was surprised and humbled when I arrived because the United States is a positive force in the Balkans.
My ignorant bliss will never return, it ran away somewhere between El Salvador and Guatemala, but it seems pride for my country may finally start to rebuild itself. I am slowly picking up the pieces. I love and respect my country, more now as an outsider. By living in the Balkans, I am again able to recognize the diversity and freedom in my country.
The fence at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC - Each cross represents a victim
El Salvador: A Crucified People The Stations of the Cross in the chapel of the UCA Each station depicts just one of the 75, 000 Salvadorans who were tortured and killed by the paramilitary death squads
The shirt Archbishop Oscar Romero was wearing when he was shot during Mass for his belief in a "preferential option for the poor"
"Presente" Sara Walker and I standing in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Latin America. We were two of 20, 000 at the gates of Fort Benning on November 21, 2008.
"One wonders what would happen if good-hearted Americans realized that a mere 10% of the US military budget, if reinvested in foreign aid and development, could care for the basic needs of the entire world's poor. Or if they realized that one-half of 1% of the US military budget would cut hunger in Africa in half by 2015. Would there be marches in the streets calling for budgetary reform?" Everything Must Change by Brian D. McLaren
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