Then and Now...

Ambryn and I spent a few hours last week listening to a retired general of the Indian army (turned social justice activist and PhD) speak to us (and specifically, the School of Peace) about the role of police and military in a democracy, and the Military Industrial Complex. The facts were very interesting, but the concepts were not new. We know corporations are greedy, that the WTO has a significant role in the demise of the world, and that the United State’s military spending can be described as nothing less than sinful (especially in comparison to the rest of the world…absolutely atrocious). We may know these facts, but the other people here don’t necessarily know that we know that. We were two of three Americans in the room (the third being Max, a Mennonite peace activist who hasn’t lived in the U.S. for decades) and even though I have never been directly asked by a legislator for budget advice, write to my legislators sporadically, have never voted Republican, try to educate myself, and try to consume ethically…I still benefit. During the discussion section of the last session a question was raised as to who was supporting various tyrannical regimes around the world (the home countries of several of the School of Peace students) and the answer was a resounding, “U.S.!” while several people stood up and pointed at us. And then the sessions ended because our presenter needed to catch a train.

When we were students in 2001 we soaked all this knowledge up, nodding all the while and leaving the classroom with our heads hung low. But now, six and a half years later, we don’t feel as culpable. I know Father Gary Smith and the dozens of people who have poured their heart and soul into the work at Nativity House over the last almost-thirty years, and the Catholic workers at Guadalupe House, and the good people of Holden Village, and Paul Wellstone, and my friends, and people who are good parents...I also firmly believe that living in poverty is not compulsory for being a “good person.” I’ve been thinking a lot about something Mother Theresa is credited with saying, “You cannot do great things, only small things with great love.” What else is there to aspire to than to treat people in your life…your closest family and friends or the person who scans your groceries…with kindness? I believe that is enough.

We know that our country has done and continues to do horrible things all over the world (and at home). But we also know that we as human being are not representatives of George W. Bush only. Good things happen in the United States every day, just like good things happen every where every day. It’s easier to be traveling in India now, at the dawn of a presidential election, with clear hopes for change. (It was not as easy to be traveling here in 2001 after W. was “elected” the first time and then began to bomb Afghanistan while spewing nationalistic rhetoric.) It’s also easier because we’re not earnest college students willing to grovel for our nation’s faults. We’re still young, but we’ve been around the block enough to know that it’s not that simple.

I was intending to pass along some of the sobering (and some of the inspiring) information that I learned in that session, but most of the people who are reading this probably know all that: problems cannot be solved by force, the James Madison quotation, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” U.S. corporations (Coke, IBM) supplied the Nazis during World War II. So, Ambryn and I are trying to take ourselves less seriously. We can’t take on the world, but we (and the various identities we carry with us) can work to be good human beings in the relationships we’re forming here and now. I hope we’re not pointed at with accusatory fingers throughout our travels, but in the end all we can do is try to be as kind, and be as easy on ourselves as we'd like other people to be on us.