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PM: News and Views from Polly Mann
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by Polly Mann, W A M M
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Performance tables are used by international scientists and researchers to rank countries on how they have dealt with global and domestic problems. Recently, “tablers” from Yale and Colombia chose 16 issues and 133 countries to measure. New Zealand ranked first with a score of 88.0. The United States ranked 28th, behind the Czech Republic and Malaysia. Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, warned that “the lagging performance of the U.S. on environmental issues, particularly on energy and climate change, signals trouble not only for the American people, but for the whole world.” (Guardian Weekly, l/27-2/2 ’06) The work cut out for peacemakers is so overwhelming that the subject of the polluted environment too often gets short shrift. But the deterioration is such that, in my opinion, it threatens the survival of the planet even more than the specter of nuclear war. Unfortunately, those who believe in the inevitability of the Rapture also give scant attention to the problem, believing that since it’s inevitable, let it be.
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Occasionally, we who labor in the fields of peacemaking experience a victory. One happened recently, according to Brian Concannon, Jr., Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, when Fr. Jean-Juste was removed from a Haitian jail to a hospital in Miami to be treated for pneumonia and leukemia. I not only signed petitions but had written letters on several different occasions to Haitian officials asking for his release. Organizations whose members participated in the campaign for his release were Human Rights First!; Amnesty International; National Lawyers Guild; Global Exchange; the American Friends Service Committee; the UN Human Rights Commission; the city councils of North Miami and Berkeley, CA., and others. Do you suppose the same kind of campaign could return the kidnapped Fr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide to his duly elected presidency?
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Judy Plank, writing in the last WAMM newsletter, began her front page article about immigration problems on the U.S.-Mexico border with a “what if” concerning our Canadian neighbors. Along the same line there’s no question as to what the reaction of the U.S. government and public would be to the possible Canadian bombing, say, of the most barren reaches of northwestern North Dakota. U.S. bombers would be filling the sky quicker than you could say “NORAD.” The newspapers, radio, and the internet would be filled with accounts reeking with righteous indignation. I don’t know how the Pakistan media responded to the U.S. bombing attack of its country. According to reports, the Pakistani people were as furious as one would expect. What right has the U.S. to bomb a sovereign nation? According to the Guardian Weekly up to 10,000 people protested at rallies in Karachi, chanting, “Death to America.” Does anybody, anybody at all, believe that this kind of action is helpful in our so-called “war on terrorism”? Demonstrators demanded the resignation of Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, whose close association with the U.S. has made him unpopular. The rallies followed violent protests by thousands of tribesmen in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, where the attack occurred. An area with a 100-meter radius was said to have been blackened by the explosions which razed three houses and killed women and children and eleven so-called extremists. Thus Pakistan has been added to Libya, Panama, Cuba, Grenada, and countless Central American countries having the distinction of being bombed by the biggest bully on the block of the world—the U.S. government.
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My only experience with U.S. prisoners of war occurred during World War II, when I worked as a civilian employee at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. Captured German soldiers were interned there and while I never actually saw them I heard them singing as they marched through the camp. It was, oddly enough, joyous-sounding and beautiful. I never thought about these prisoners until a recent Saturday morning, when I saw an exhibit of photographs, artifacts, letters, and documents at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. The show is called “TRACES.” The director of the museum made a very moving presentation to a small group of us.
The exhibit includes material about internees here in the United States and also U.S. internees caught abroad during the war. Most of us know about the Japanese internees in this country. At the time I thought little about them, though I did read newspaper accounts of the situation and saw newsreels of people arriving at the camps. I wonder now why I read nothing about the injustice of their removal. There must have been some negative reaction to it. Perhaps I wasn’t interested in learning of it. But we now know that many of these families lost homes and businesses.
But the Japanese were not the only people interned. There were Germans and Italians, and among them were German Jews. There were Jews returned to Nazi Germany. I saw extremely disturbing photographs from Dachau. I have come to believe that eventually war must be declared illegal, like other crimes. A realistic appraisal of our past should help in this endeavor, and a visit to the TRACES exhibit will help stir our sensibilities in that direction. FFI: www.TRACES.org ws |
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© 2006 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete March 2006 Index - click here
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