[Peace] Fwd: jess' email....

[Darrin Drda]

Dear Peaceniks:
I know we've all been getting more daily epic emails than we can possibly 
read over oatmeal, but I found this one too tasty to not share. It's from a 
friend of mine who is doing peace work in Guatemala. She appeared on the 
cover of the Octopus (and therein) a short while back.
-Darrin

******************************************
>Dear Friends and Family, Cohorts, Partners in Crime
>and those who just put up with me:
>
>I rode out of community anxious to touch base with
>loved ones and wondering if by the time I returned, my
>country would be at war. War is something that to me,
>like many young Americans, was comprised of stories in
>books and images in films until only recently. That
>was before I came to Guatemala, a country still
>desperately trying to pick up the pieces after 36
>years of armed conflict. The beauty of the landscape
>can do nothing to obscure the deep-seated effects of
>the recent bloodshed: the empty space that fathers,
>mothers and children, dead before their time, no
>longer occupy, the physical and emotional scars that
>serve as a constant reminder of the cruelty human
>beings are capable of, the fear that permeates the
>lives of the people and the mistrust and division it
>spawns. The effects of war are long lasting and they
>are nothing short of horrific. I shudder as I read
>George W.’s warnings that we can expect "a lengthy
>campaign unlike any other we have seen" and see images
>of Americans rallying behind the call to arms.
>
>The people in Xamán have touched me with their
>compassion and concern over the recent disaster in the
>States. Many have come to my home, offering
>condolences and sharing any news. Most of all they
>have expressed sympathy for the suffering of the
>people of the US and have shared my hopes that this
>will not be but the beginning. They have assured me
>that in this era of globalization and disparity,
>should an armed conflict ensue, they, along with the
>poverty stricken everywhere, will feel the effects
>most strongly. "The people who suffer from war the
>most are the poor, you know," my friend, Don Jose,
>warned, "they are the ones that fight and die, starve
>and suffer." The fear of imminent violence has also
>given rise to many memories of the horror that the
>community recently lived through. They have related to
>me the intolerance that permeated their own country
>during the armed conflict and continues to impede the
>peace process, manifested in, for example, the
>unrelenting attacks on labor leaders, journalists,
>human rights workers, lawyers, judges and anyone else
>who struggles to bring the truth to light and
>facilitate justice. As a result of this silencing,
>there are internationals in Guatemala and residents in
>larger cities that have remained largely unaware of
>the genocide (as it is currently being tried) that was
>happening right in their own backyards.
>
>When I finally arrived in Guatemala City and was able
>to read email messages and news reports from home, I
>noticed some striking similarities between America
>today to the climate that allowed these atrocities to
>breed in Guatemala. While US politicians are speaking
>of preserving the long-held American values of freedom
>and democracy for generations to come, only one
>congresswoman, Barbara Lee from California, voted
>against giving George W. carte blanche privileges over
>the military. She now receives death threats and
>harassment and is afraid to leave her home. Freedom of
>the press has also been challenged. Two small town
>journalists have been fired for criticizing the
>president and two ABC-affiliates, including the one
>that broadcasts out of DC, have canceled the
>television show Politically Incorrect, a political
>talk show specifically designed to be controversial
>and address difficult issues. Responding to this, last
>Wednesday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer,
>stated that in times like these "people need to watch
>what they say and what they do," apparently warning
>other public figures and reporters not to step too far
>out of line. Meanwhile, the ignorance and
>misunderstanding that results from such a lack of
>information and analysis has led to a barbarous rise
>in hate crimes aimed at Arab-Americans, or those whose
>skin color merely resembles theirs. While my friends
>and family tell me how wonderful it is to witness the
>American people rallying together under the banner of
>patriotism, I read that Sikhs, Pakistanis, other South
>and West Asians and even Central Americans living in
>the States are being harassed, beaten and, as I write
>this, five have been killed. Mosques, guardwaras and
>temples are being firebombed and desecrated. The
>Indian consulate general in the US is urging their
>female citizens to wear bindis so that they are not
>mistaken for Muslims. The freedoms we hold so dear and
>the values that make America great are being
>challenged and undermined just and we head out to
>share them with the rest of the world.
>
>Every war, great and small, has begun with this
>simultaneous silencing and polarization of the masses,
>whether it be based on religion, race, ethnicity or
>ideology. In American history, the persecution of
>lefty thinkers during the Red Scare and the
>imprisonment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on
>Pearl Harbor remind us of how our fear has gotten us
>carried away and led to some rather embarrassing
>moments in our history. This closing down of debate
>allows events to either be justified by the media or
>unfold outside of the public eye and perpetuates the
>fear and misunderstanding from which conflicts arise.
>In America today, it appears that somehow a search for
>the reasons why a group of people in the middle east
>would put their desire to destroy these key targets in
>the US above their desire to live has been equated
>with a search for justifications of the act itself.
>There is no justification for the horrific crime which
>took place on September 11. However, our suffering
>does not negate their grievances. We need to talk
>about why this happened and what we can do to prevent
>more of it - even as we mourn the dead, pull together
>to help relief efforts, feel outrage at the carnage,
>praise the heroes and seek justice for the criminals.
>Otherwise, we risk piling catastrophe upon catastrophe
>and reflect the intolerance and lack of freedom that
>we intent to combat.
>
>In addition, if we do not attempt to openly and
>honestly address the problems inherent within US
>foreign policy, the grievances felt in the middle east
>may succeed in maintaining the environment from which
>fanatics such as Osama Bin Laden are able to recruit
>and gain support from future generations. On the other
>hand, if we patiently focus our attention on
>understanding and reducing injustices both in our own
>nation and on a global scale, we can help eliminate
>the seeds of pain and suffering that nurture terrorist
>impulses and support them. This, I believe, is the
>only way to provide Americans with a real and lasting
>national security.
>
>The fact is, although McDonalds has spread to every
>corner of the globe and everyone seems to know who
>Michael Jordan is, we are not as popular as we might
>like to think we are. Just last weekend, here in
>Guatemala City, a prominent political activist group,
>H.I.J.O.S., organized a march up to the US Embassy to
>protest "Economic Terrorism called Neoliberal
>Globalization." A flyer I picked up read:
>
>
>
>The Yankee Empire has, in Latin America, been taxing
>the present capitalist system with repression and
>terror. In the case of Guatemala, it began in1954 with
>the intervention of the CIA and their military puppets
>that respond only to the interest of the rich. Since
>that time more than 250,000 victims are the silenced
>witnesses to this military and economic imposition,
>the tally of which keeps on growing if we take into
>account the fact that daily they die of hunger all
>over Guatemala. The Yankee Empire and its
>transnational corporations erase the borders that
>exist in the world in order to impose their political,
>commericial and economic will at levels of monopolies
>without restrictions, free of obstacles and above
>local laws, pretending that they are acting for the
>betterment of the majority. To the contrary, we can
>see right here and now communities where hundreds of
>children die of hunger created by the injustice these
>systems of commerce impose.
>
>The World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not just
>arbitrary buildings, but international symbols of US
>economic and military power, respectively. We need to
>realistically examine what this power has meant in
>places of the world far removed from our reality. It
>is hard right now but necessary to realize that in the
>past, US foreign policy has on occasion obstructed
>freedom, democracy and material well-being in other
>parts of the world when these principles have come
>into conflict with our economic security or military
>agenda. It happened here in Guatemala and it has also
>happened in various locations in the middle east.
>
>Not only do these covert tactics often in the end
>prove immoral and inefficient, they have served to
>breed hate and resentment against the US in regions
>throughout the world. I have been witnessing it here
>in Central America, and now we are all bearing witness
>to how deeply felt these sentiments are in parts of
>the middle east. So, when George W. claims that we
>were targeted because of our might, and that "they
>hate us for our freedoms," what he should be saying is
>that we were targeted because of how we use and
>maintain our might and deprive others of enjoying the
>freedoms we hold so dear. There is a very important
>distinction there.
>
>The good news is that we stand at an incredibly
>momentous position in history where we are able to
>create a new America, but only if we are willing and
>able to examine the facts. This will not come about
>without the informed minds and the loud voice of the
>people that defines democracy. WE need to stop war and
>injustice. Our track record, particularly in the
>middle east, is not one to be proud of, it is true.
>What many people in the world now expect from us is
>for the giant to once again lash out at the weak. We
>need to destroy this image and not the people whose
>experiences have maintained it. This horrible event
>has brought the opportunity for immense, historical
>change. All of the world is holding their breath and
>paying attention. If, perhaps, we put the same
>momentum we have assembled to fight terrorism towards
>building an international alliance for peace and
>justice in the middle east and other regions of the
>globe, we would take away the most valuable tool of
>the terrorists: the injustice of US foreign policy
>that perpetrates hatred and recruitment. Ignoring it
>won’t make it go away and bombing Afghanistan "back to
>the stone age" won’t make it disappear. It is much
>bigger than that.
>
>This is a new war that cannot be won with the old
>tactics. The enemy has entered out lives, our homes,
>and used our own tools against us. What we have to do
>now is respond in kind and remove their greatest
>weapon and as Gandhi said, "be the change we want to
>see in the world." We need better domestic security
>that does not infringe upon our civil liberties. WE
>need better global police to protect human dignity and
>less illegal covert operations to protect US
>investments. We need to take issue with all
>governments, including our own, that hinder freedom,
>democracy and economic opportunity. Within the system
>we have already established in the US, we have the
>tools to create that change. As members of a free,
>democratic country, we should be using our rights to
>examine and determine, as informed citizens, our
>actions and their repercussions. I pray that we will
>have the courage to rise to the challenge.
>
>Guatemalan activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
>Rigoberta Menchu Tum recently issued a letter to our
>president in which she urged him:
>
>
>Before you sound the call, "fire,"  I would invite you
>to think of a different kind of world leadership, in
>which you don´t need to defeat but rather convince; in
>which the human species can demonstrate that in the
>past 1,000 years we have surpassed the sentiment of
>"an eye for an eye," with it´s barbaric justice that
>has plunged humanity into medireview darkness; in
>which no new arguments would be necessary to
>understand and respect those who have a different idea
>of God and the work of his creation; in which we share
>in solidarity the fruits of progress, take better care
>of the resources left on the planet and no child goes
>without food and schooling. 
>
>War has traditionally been a downward spiral, full of
>hatred and vengeance, censorship and intolerance,
>death and destruction, all of which only feeds upon
>itself. Let us use the tools in our power as citizens
>of the United States of America – freedom of the
>press, diversity of opinion and the application of
>justice - to break that cycle and become a nation
>whose history we no longer have to be afraid of
>discussing.
>
>Thank you for listening with an open mind and thank
>you to all who have supported and continue to support
>the work of NISGUA, and myself, as we stand by the
>people of Guatemala in their struggle for peace and
>justice.
>
>In solidarity, 
>
>Jessica
>
>
>
>
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