International Day of Peace

This morning I read the New York Times article about the Afghani military practice of raping boys and young men, even at military bases. It's a sign of status for upper-level police and military to surround themselves with these boys. Evidently, our military, the ones we support with not only our tax money but our hearts (and if we don't we're called treasonous or cowards), have been instructed to basically turn away from what is determined to be a cultural thing. The article explains that many of our military have shirked from "turning away," have "beaten up" some of the Afghani men who they've caught with boys and -- well -- I wish I had words, but this is about the best I can do. I won't even go into why the hell we're still "over there," why we appear to be, now, (and arguably have always been) a colonial power, and the whole magnitude of the thing we've wrought as a country since that terrible day in September, 2001.

International Day of Peace, indeed. I guess it starts at home, so I'm going to continue the disconnect that is the disease of this country and refrain from telling my boys that if they don't pick up their wet towels from the bathroom floor, they will be lashed with wet noodles. I'm going to go quietly and gratefully into the bathroom, pick them up from the floor, fold them inward on both sides, like I like it, and hang them just so, just where the light illuminates their neat blue folds.




The poet C.K. Williams died today. Here's a poem:

Claws

    from the Sanskrit of Mayura

The claws of the mighty nation dabble the gore-pools
and wallow the muddy flesh of the horrible enemy.

Human mouthfuls plucked like reeds. Hearts, plucked.

The claws dancing in the torn chest like herons.

MAY THE MIGHTY NATION PROTECT YOU!

Staycation, Day Four

Today's activities included a visit to the Annenberg Center for Photography and an over-the-top free exhibit celebrating 125 years of National Geographic. The exhibit was called The Power of Photography, with "powerful" an understatement. The way the photos were arranged, the video installations, the explanatory movie about the power of photography -- well, it was really mind-blowing. I was overwhelmed with emotion several times -- and both Henry and Oliver were mesmerized as well. My favorites were the photographs shot in Afghanistan by Lindsay Addario -- this one in particular (there was no photography allowed in the exhibit, so I pulled it online). Addario's commentary in the short movie shown was compelling -- particularly when she spoke about the power of photography to change the world, how an image is seared into our consciousness and how her desire was to show, expressly, the plight of women.

I learned a lot more about the suffering in the Congo -- Marcus Bleasdale's photographs of the children who fight in the wars and are then conscripted to mine for gold (most barely into their teen years) -- our gold, our insatiable need for gold -- and the more than 5 million people who have died there in the last decade. 

It took my breath away, made me think about the over-the-top response our country has over the deaths of several thousand. The whole exhibit made me think of the wide world, the breath-taking world, the scope of the planet and all living things and our own, often spoiled existence here in the United States.

Beyond the 11th

I opened my mailbox this morning to a really wonderful op-ed by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. It opened with the following:


This weekend, a Jewish woman who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks is planning to speak at a mosque in Boston. She will be trying to recruit members of the mosque to join her battle against poverty and illiteracy in Afghanistan.


Other memorable quotes in the article were:


Devastated themselves, they realized that there were more than half a million widows in Afghanistan — and then, with war, there would be even more. Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley also saw that Afghan widows could be a stabilizing force in that country.


and

So at a time when the American government reacted to the horror of 9/11 mostly with missiles and bombs, detentions and waterboardings, Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley turned to education and poverty-alleviation projects — in the very country that had incubated a plot that had pulverized their lives.


and


The organization they started, Beyond the 11th, has now assisted more than 1,000 Afghan widows in starting tiny businesses. It’s an effort both to help some of the world’s neediest people and to fight back at the distrust, hatred and unemployment that sustain the Taliban.


To me, these women and their actions constitute the most sane and humane way to deal with what happened on 9/11. While I do feel conflicted about the war in Afghanistan, I have to think that if we all contributed in the way these women have, against tragedy, without hate and violence -- we'd have less of it. I can sit here on this blog and offer my opinions -- opinions that anger some and that others agree with, I can talk and talk, here and on the phone, with my friends and elsewhere, but do I really contribute in any other way than talking and believing, nodding my head when I agree and shaking it when I don't? 


What is real engagement? In the world? In one's corner of the world?


I'm thinking about these things today.


You can read the rest of the Op-Ed  HERE.