[Think] (no subject)

[Fabio Ignias]

A (brave?) New World
Omar Shariff
	The world changed on September 11th. Or at least this is what they tell me. 
I suggest that perhaps the world hasn't changed, so much as America has 
realized what many people in the world go through. In the end, that might be 
change enough. Americans now know what it is like to live in fear or 
terrorism, and let us not be so ignorant as to believe that sovereign 
nations are not terrorists. For years, I remember trying to get people to 
care about the issue of sweatshops, and people though the suffering was just 
something that had to happen, as with so many other modern day horrors that 
many Americans ignore.
	This is not the time for activists to say, "I told you so." This is the 
time to ask people all over the world to open their eyes, to make them 
realize that "injustice anywhere" really IS "injustice everywhere", that 
once you don't care about someone's suffering, someone else is just as 
unlikely to care about yours. Bush wants people to go back to their daily 
lives, to believe that he and the US government can catch and eliminate 
terrorism. And so we as Americans are willing to ignore the pleas of the UN 
to save the lives of 7.5 million innocent Afghans. If we want justice, how 
can be so unjust in the pursuit of it? Because we want to be safe, to once 
again ignore the world. That can't happen, that shouldn't happen, and we 
cannot let it.
	The burden of making people falls to us. The protestors who want a truly 
better world, not a return to a status quo that will only cause the deaths 
of more people, American and otherwise. After all, we as activists have 
always struggled to get people to pay attention to the suffering around the 
world. Or so we were willing to believe. We spoke for those who could not 
speak for themselves, and we were proud of it. Yet the people of America did 
not listen, did not join us in the streets. And while I applaud the brave 
nature of everyone who battles for peace in cities around the world, I must 
ask if we too, did not fail.
	The protests in Seattle became a nightmare, where people saw the activist 
community as destructive maniacs. In DC, I was disgusted to watch the lack 
of cohesion, the petty arguments between protestors, the loss of the message 
in the confusion desperation to display one's particular cause. Yes, freeing 
those wrongly imprisoned is important, as is trying to protect sea turtles. 
But we won't win the day with only puppets and picket signs that have 
catching phrases calling for an end to money. People will simply laugh at 
out foolishness, and say how protesters just need something to complain 
about. Marching down the streets at 4:00 am shouting and screaming is not 
going to make the person who you want to listen happy. Spray painting 
anarchy symbols on American flags will definitely not bring people to our 
side, especially after September 11th. Which is what we want, because we 
seek a revolution of the people. We want people to think about global peace 
and justice, but because they don't agree with us doesn't make them sellouts 
or servants of  "The Man". We decry the military and the police and yet it 
is they who protect the freedoms we use in our cause. Just because certain 
rights are inalienable doesn't mean we don't a debt to those who allow us to 
keep them. I have friends in the military and formerly in law enforcement, 
and they are not facists or racists. They're people. As one policeman said 
at the DC protest two years ago, "We don't know anymore than you do. We're 
just pawns." Perhaps its time we gave those who keep us safe some credit.  
Realize that even an assassin trained in the School of Americas might be 
some inner city child who wasn't given anything by his country but an ROTC 
scholarship so he could die in another country instead of in his backyard.
	Don't worry, I'm not just writing to complain. Next year, we will have a 
another action in DC, one meant to tell Bush that all Americans aren't 
behind him, which is ridiculous for him to say, knowing that over one 
thousand of them are being detained mysteriously by Ashcroft though the 
charges are not disclosed. Suddenly, the country is forgetting that studies 
show there will be a massive drop in the teaching force of our nation, that 
around 1 million of our children are homeless, that rural America was never 
doing well even in the Clinton years. (We measure our economy by the stock 
market, thus ignoring the welfare of many citizens who aren't well 
represented in Wall Street) All we can think about is the next bomb, the 
next virus. And so we are willing to fight a war on terrorism, willing to 
believe that protestors in other countries are just jealous of American 
power, and to be patriot one must naturally support Bush. The country will 
hate us for the protests, and I personally believe there could be a riot, as 
angry citizens become unable to watch people with upside down flags walk 
around the streets hating America. If we bring out the mocking puppets, the 
smart-ass slogans, the spray paint and all the other instruments of chaos, 
we will be heckled, attacked, jailed, gassed and worse as the American 
public cheers at our failure. Worse, we will have done it all for nothing.
	It's time for us to grow up. What we need to do is remind -and in some 
cases even teach--Americans of the truth. We need to remind them that it was 
the CIA that trained Bin Laden, and if we need to arrest someone, maybe we 
should check Bush Senior's involvement in that debacle. We need to remind 
them of the Red Scare, of the internment camps. We need to talk to them, not 
scream at them. We need to stop mocking them as unenlightened pawns of the 
corporations and government, and we can't just tell them to have "a world of 
sharing as a solution." They will want to know how to keep their children 
safe, and we will have to try to show them that Bush's way will only put 
them in more danger. We need to explain why Ashcroft is insane and cruel, 
and how even the White House doesn't seem to fully know what he is doing. 
This can't be done by making a giant puppet with horns on it, or with little 
comics or pictures as stupid looking as the ones the fundamentalist 
Christians pass around. This isn't the time to vent out our frustrations at 
not fitting into society, to let loose our destructive angst. Because for 
once, people might just be willing to pay attention, if we are intelligent 
and can give them something they can believe in. We have, by the sacrifice 
of the September 11th victims, and all who came before them, the unique 
opportunity. This is the chance to open the eyes of the American people, so 
that they may take up the ideals of America and act as responsible citizens 
of a democracy that claims that all are created equal.
	We need pamphlets, we need banners and posters with facts instead of  cute 
phrases, we need to be solemn in remembrance of the victims of September 
11th. We shouldn't just blockade streets, we should feed the homeless and 
help work on schools (The Divine knows DC needs it). That sounds crazy 
doesn't it? But it will get people's attention, it will help us to actually 
identify with the poor, as so many of us are upper middle class men, often 
white, who are distance from those we want to aid. If you want to over turn 
cars or go toe to toe with the police, find another way to let go of your 
anger. If you want to help people around the world, start by helping your 
neighbor.
	Don't get me wrong. We SHOULD stand together, we SHOULD block streets, we 
NEED to show people that maybe this War on Terrorism isn't such a great 
idea. We have to be what we always strive to be, the conscience of a nation 
where the media distorts the truth and the government just lies. We need to 
gather and use our numbers to speak in a way that will make Americans 
listen. I do this because I am a patriot, and this is only way to begin an 
end to war and terrorism, by creating a world where people don't feel the 
need to hate the worlds only superpower. September 11th showed that all of 
us, in America and the world, must act in a way that puts aside our selfish 
desire and truly pursues the goal of a just peace.
	If this means that when we're all in DC next February, we have a vigil for 
the fallen soldiers, so be it. If we paint some schools and put up a couple 
playgrounds, even better. If we help at shelters, soup kitchens, etc, we may 
get some understanding of who we are trying to help, and what they really 
want.
We were selfish, childish, and destructive, and the time for that has 
passed.  It's not about us, it was never meant to be about us, and now it 
can't be about us ever again.

It's about starving children, people in burning buildings, and citizens in a 
nation called America that don't really know the atrocities its government 
has committed.  So lets really try to talk to the citizens of the great 
experiment that is America. The lives of millions may, and already does, 
depend on it.

I thank you all for what you do, and I hope you heed my words.

Omar Shariff

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.



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