by Maceo Carrillo Martinet
Daily Lobo Columnist
A friend said something that struck me a couple of days ago. "Just imagine, if a free and democratic-loving country such as ours can react in such an incredibly hostile way and with such passionate violence, imagine how people feel in those countries who have been reduced to rubble over years of wars and social turmoil."
I stood there standing in the hot sun so long, thinking about what my friend had said, that I nearly combusted into flames. Finding some shade, I remembered how many people have expressed their delight in living in this country, as opposed to anywhere else in the world.
It is true that this society does not experience everyday bombings such as in Palestine, or military killings of towns such as in Guatemala a few months ago. We all need to be thankful that we do not experience the physical and mental terrorism that visits too many people in this world.
But being thankful does not preclude our human responsibility to let these crimes continue to happen, nor does it justify an attitude that our society is superior to another.
If we believe in freedom, equality and justice for everyone, and if we are constantly being reminded that we represent a "free and democratic civilization," then let us make sure these virtues blossom within our own country.
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Let us make sure that these virtues are the heart of our foreign policy. We must recognize that any crime against any human being, nation or the environment on which we depend, is also a crime against humanity. We all must take an historic leap to acknowledge, as does history, that no human problem has ever been solved through violence and force. Peace does not just equal silence, but equal rights, respect and dignity.
We are continuously told that America is under attack, but does this endow us the destiny to declare the holy right to kill wantonly anywhere, especially without encouraging international jurisdiction?
Equating our actions to a holy war, where we are the "civilized" and they are the "evil," and encouraging the idea of mass death is just as hideously parallel to the ideas that could generate such actions we saw Sept. 11.
The scary thing about this is that with the help of mass media, action and destruction packed movies and countless other elements, we have become thoroughly sensitized to accepting these very ideas as "divine truths."
A statement from Bush's Sept. 21 address to Congress sticks in my head. He told every nation that they must decide, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." However, what does one say to a country that believes that the terrorists are actually the U.S. government?
Investigating ways to respond lead us to question and criticize some seriously hidden atrocities that this government has been a part of. We have given financial and military support to every Latin American dictator and their mercenaries, such as Pinochet who is still being indicted for war crimes.
We dropped thousands upon thousands of bombs on Vietnam, which we never declared a "real war," and helped bury mines in Cambodia that still explode today when innocent people step on them.
We supplied the tanks and other weapons that were used to push 700,000 Palestinians from their lands during the formation of the state of Israel starting in 1948.
Right now our tax money is providing the Columbian government the money and chemicals to contaminate the ecosystem and its people that have been economically forced to grow poppy fields in order to survive.
If this is all about "infinite justice," then let's start educating ourselves and rally for justice, and build up the twin towers of respect and equal rights.
Questions or comments can be sent Maceo Carrillo Martinet at conuco8@unm.edu.
