September 11 is what it is. Knowing that the date was coming, feeling some difficulty in knowing how to respond and some quandry at the way our government has used the suffering of our people to justify creating untold suffering on others, I have been waffling all week with what to write on this day, or whether to write at all.Then I received an historical note from some friends at the BPFNA and I realized what I needed to write.
This is of course a day of historically trying circumstance, a memory for us as U.S. citizens that does not easily go away. What is maddening about the commemorations, and the justifications (and things like tonnight's show on ABC) is that the suffering of people has not been given its proper attention by the people who claim to be giving it attention. Instead they are simply using it (as they always do) to justify the machinations of their own power mongering and war making.
On another day, 28 years earlier, the U.S. took the occasion of another 9.11 to initiate the attack, and ultimate destruction, of the democratically elected government of Chile. Our president at the time, Tricky Dick, was behind that one as the CIA and the military joined together, much in the same way as today, to overthrow a foreign government with as much violence and disregard for human life as those guys on the planes five years ago.
On still another day, 100 years ago today, a different kind of overthrow was initiated when on September 11, 1906, Mohandas Gandhi convened a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, to mobilize his community to oppose racially degrading legislation. On that September 11th, more than 3,000 people solemnly pledged to disobey the proposed law. this was the begining of the "Satyagraha" movement of organized nonviolent action, and the rest, as they say, is history.
As you remember the day, and those who died, please take some time to remember the others as well. The folks who died in New Orleans because our government was too busy in Iraq, the ones who have died in Iraq itself (our soldiers as well as Iraqis), thos e who were killed by us 30 years ago in South America and those who died at the hands of the dictator we installed.
Remember too... Gandhi and his peaceful revolution. The fact is not that non-violence CAN'T change the world. The fact is that it's never really been tried.
2 comments:
My one remaining memory of 9/11 is how I thought my life, my world, would never be the same again.
5 years on, and EVERYTHING in my life is exactly the same as it was before.
Living your normal life is the only fight against terrorism.
As long as "peace" is permitted to be referred to as a "4-letter-word," nothing will change for the better. J.
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