Good News
// February 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // World Issues
Posts Tagged ‘war’
Rise
// November 5th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // World Issues
A spectator raises her fist in celebration seconds after it was announced that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008.
“So you may shoot me with your words,
you may cut me with your eyes,
and I’ll rise – I’ll rise – I’ll rise – rise – rise.
Out of the shacks of history’s shame,
up from a past rooted in pain,
and I’ll rise – I’ll rise – I’ll rise – rise – rise.”
- written by Maya Angelou, as performed by Ben Harper
you may cut me with your eyes,
and I’ll rise – I’ll rise – I’ll rise – rise – rise.
Out of the shacks of history’s shame,
up from a past rooted in pain,
and I’ll rise – I’ll rise – I’ll rise – rise – rise.”
- written by Maya Angelou, as performed by Ben Harper
A seemingly endless string of disasters, a hardening of the spirit that drew new rifts between us, the elicitation of the corrupt, the incompetent, and the cruel; do we let ourselves believe that these dark times are over? Is this one sign enough to bring the wearying soul even the briefest respite? Is it a crack in these storm clouds that reminds us that the sun lies just beyond? Or is it first ray of a new dawn, that makes us realise the depth of the night and the inevitable direction of change?
As he said himself, “This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change”. It may yet be a symbolic victory, but in a decade that seemed to lose the very meaning of “freedom”, “democracy” and “human rights” as symbolic casualties of war, the promise of new meaning to these symbols is incredibly assuring. It may be simply changing the hands who wield power, but when those hands had become so stained with blood and money, there can be few things more important.
The million stories that have forged this piece of history reveal again that there is something in us which hungers for this light, a common part that yearns for freedom from a yoke that was bought in fear and desperation. It is a light, that no blindness can truly take, because we realise that for all the shadows and the chains that bound us in the cave of ignorance – the light itself was always there, burning from within us all.
May our children mark this as a vital and profound new chapter in the history of our interwoven civilisation. Peace.
Get Your War On: The Watch List
// August 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry, World Issues
“This is it. The highly anticipated premiere of Get Your War On, the new animated series from 23/6, based on the popular comic by David Rees.”
No One Will Keep Us From Seeing
// July 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry, World Issues
Like Spinning Plates
// June 3rd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry, World Issues
The photograph below is the final scene of a powerful series capturing the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, during a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27th 2007. Interview with photographer John Moore, Getty Images, 1st Prize for Stories, 2008 World Press Photo.
While you make pretty speeches
I’m being cut to shreds
You feed me to the lions
A delicate balance
I’m being cut to shreds
You feed me to the lions
A delicate balance
And this just feels like spinning plates
I’m living in cloud cuckoo land
And this just feels like spinning plates
Our bodies floating down the muddy river
- Like Spinning Plates by Thom Yorke of Radiohead
Standing silent in the Old Church (Oude Kerk) in central Amsterdam, I’d made my annual pilgrimage to remember the world unfolding around me. The sermon was strong again this year; suppression of the human condition in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya and other lands so tortured. How often have we heard this parable and how often have we begged the lesson yet be learned? There was no hymn, no choir of angels to descend upon our fearful souls. We came to see, not listen, and we look until our eyes are filled with tears upon faintest realisation that THIS is happening HERE and NOW, merely outside whatever walls that we imagine line our little lands. There is no priest, except whatever voice wells up from within, and no communion except the few fragile seconds when you let slip and imagine that this man or woman or child is human, just like you.
Jon Stewart interviews Douglas Feith
// May 13th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // World Issues
One of the most dangerous and infuriating aspects of the Bush administration has been the media-spinning, propaganda producing, history revising, blank-faced lies and denials. Knowledgeable, respectful, willy and determined, Jon Stewart interviews a lead Neocon in the Bush Administration’s planning, execution and justification of the Iraq War- former Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith.
Feel it. That sweet sense of accountability, and almost.. almost a hint of justice.
Waiting for the Guards
// November 23rd, 2007 // No Comments » // World Issues
“Waiting For The Guards is the first of 3 films commissioned by Amnesty International to highlight the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA in the “War on Terror”. The Directors approached the making of the film in a way that has never been done before, choosing to show the reality of Stress Positions in as authentic a way as possible. They filmed a person being put into Stress Positions over a 6 hour period. There is no acting on the part of the “prisoner” – his pain and anguish is for real. This powerful film shows without doubt that what the US administrations say is interrogation is in reality, torture and must be stopped.”
There isn’t much that will have tears filling my eyes at 9AM in an open office space- but this piece confronts one with such a deep well of anguish and sorrow that it’s simply overwhelming. It is a rare moment when the reality of the history unfolding around us can punch through the veil of apathy and comfortable ignorance, but as they say “some viewers may be disturbed”.
Well tough, the world is disturbing and who are we to pick and choose only the pretty pieces to colour our fantasies of this place in which we live. I think many share this feeling of strong resistance to this raw reality, but what is the basis of this fear? It’s not a fear of what this information might do to us or make us feel, it’s a fear of what we may no longer be able to do. I think we’re afraid to lose our ability to sit there and do nothing.
I suggest watching the higher resolution version, although a Youtube is below. Turn your speakers up.
The actor is Jiva Parthipan, his story is here. Unsubscribe is a campaign by Amnesty UK, welcoming people around the world to join them unsubscribing from human rights abuses in the ‘war on terror’.
Update: Burmese Protests Expand
// September 24th, 2007 // No Comments » // World Issues
Photography by the AP.
Things have escalated in the Burmese Buddhist led protests over the weekend-
“Up to 100,000 people took part, among them perhaps 20,000 barefoot red- and orange-robed monks. At first, the monks limited themselves to chanting prayers and sermons, and urged the Burmese public not to join their marches. But over the weekend, a hitherto unknown group, the All Burma Monks’ Alliance, urged people to “struggle peacefully against the evil military dictatorship” until its downfall. Monday’s march was joined by some of the country’s best-known actors and musicians, as well as leaders of the opposition National League of Democracy (NLD) and crowds of ordinary Burmese.”
The Economist has the full story. Wikipedia news is tracking events as they unfold.
The International Crisis Group considers the situation in Myanmar. Human Rights Watch doubts that reforms will bring change in the country.
Pitiless Kings
// September 21st, 2007 // No Comments » // World Issues
Today is the U.N. International Day of Peace. I look at the UN, at our collective governments, and wonder if this is really the best they can achieve? A feel good factor that might make some of us feel that we can take control of this huge, violent monstrosity, even for a moment. When my bile settles, I reflect that anything that raises awareness and brings our focus closer to compassion is a good thing and that cynicism is too often the refuge of a crushed idealist.
So if this event is about attention, then my attention goes out to the thousands of Buddhist monks protesting peacefully this week against the military junta in Myanmar. 45 years of military rule, human rights violations, and surpressed uprisings- have left the country one of the poorest in Asia.
In a public statement the monks in Yangon declared yesterday.
“The clergy boycotts the violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless kings, the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury. The clergy hereby also refuses donations and preaching”
In January this year Russia and China vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would have urged Myanmar to ease repression and release political prisoners, a resolution long called for by human rights groups. This makes the actions of monks even more important- and I imagine few are better trained for the non-violent action necessary. However, successful non-violence relies on engaging a powerful group who can intervene to address the injustice. Whether broader Burmese society has the power or the international players the interest to play this critical role we may soon discover- or perhaps this is just another rise and fall upon this cruelly drawn out story of repression.
(Art by Banky)
While Brave Men Die
// May 31st, 2007 // No Comments » // World Issues
“Eleven years later. Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 Americans dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share.
An equation: 40,000 dead young men = 3,000 tons of bone and flesh, 124,000 pounds of brain matter, 50,000 gallons of blood, 1,840,000 years of life that will never be lived, 100,000 children who will never be born.
Do we scream in the night when it touches our dreams? No. We don’t dream about it because we don’t think about it; we don’t think about it because we don’t care about it. We are much more interested in law and order, so that American streets may be made safe while we transform those of Vietnam into flowing sewers of blood which we replenish each year by forcing our sons to choose between a prison cell here or a coffin there. ‘Every time I look at the flag, my eyes fill with tears.’ Mine too.”
Dalton Trumbo, 1970. Read the full piece on LA Taco.
Poster at Berkeley, captured by ivangonecrazy
In August 1939, Dalton Trumbo published the American anti-war book of the century, Johnny Got His Gun. Days later Germany invaded Poland and such pacific perspectives were forgotten. Trumbo writes the narrative of a “deadman-who-is-alive”, a World War I soldier who has lost his arms, legs, ears, eyes and most of his face. This darkest night of the soul speaks a tragic and bitter journey of realisation, despair and attempted suicide that culminates in a rallying cry against the lies, cruelty and foolishness that buries men- and worse- in the name of liberty.
“And all the guys who died all the five million or seven million or ten million who went out and died to make the world safe for democracy to make the world safe for words without meaning how did they feel about it just before they died? How did they feel as they watched their blood pump out into the mud? How did they feel when the gas hit their lungs and began eating them all away? How did they feel as they lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight in the face and saw him come and take them? If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you’ve given it away you’d ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever?
You’re goddamn right they didn’t.
They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live.
He ought to know.
He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth.”
Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun, 1939. An online excerpt can be found here.
