So far, I am swept by the bristles in this amazing book that I found called "The Yellow Wind" by David Grossman. His depiction of the Palestinian Hebron refugee camp of Deheisha is lyrical, beautiful, rough, brutal, honest, poignant, sad. He describes the small concrete blocks of home, the tin can gardens, the hope of future of the residents, the plight of the children, the bathrooms at the school without electricity, the pent hatred expressed. He outlines one person, then another, attempting to look at the Arabs apart from the Jewish soldier he is; he must "enter the vortex of my greatest fear and repulsion, direct my gaze at the invisible Arab."
He reacts, though, against their "education in blind hatred, and against such tremendous energy being expended for the preservation of malice, instead of being spent in an effort to get out of this barrenness, this ugliness in which this kindergarten lies, these little children who are so good at hating me."
Yet he feels sorrow, and as he leaves the camp (at the end of Chapter 2), he sees again the environment, the road which hosts abandoned rusty cars, the trash, the remains of despair, resonating with a cry of melacholy and rebellion.
Perhaps one of the most moving passages is when he returns to his safeland normalcy, to a mall to buy a book in downtown Jerusalem, and this is how he writes about it:
The evening is gray and misty, and the people are burdened with their civilian matters, isolated so much from the hate and the danger, as I walked among them like the bearer of evil tidings among the unaware. In the thin fog and with the light of the yellow streetlamps it is possible to succumb to illusions and see behind every person a halo, a sort of double peeking out for a split second, the identical twin of this man, his double from Nablus, and that young woman, whose unknown twin I met this morning at Deheisha, that same walk and same smile and same quiet sensuality, and for every child there was a double, and none of them knew, and none of them guessed a thing."
Monday, April 9, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Plastic toys
Barbara Victor in her book "Army of Roses: Inside the World of Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers" is bringing a sickening awareness into my life. As a matter of fact, at times, I feel a slight wave of nausea come over me. It's fairly incomprehensible to me, or to us here in the luxurious States, to understand how Palestinian schoolchildren are being indoctrinated to one day become martyrs for a homeland. When she asks a group of schoolchilden who wants to become one, "all the hands went up excitedly." When Victor asked why, they answered: "To have everything in Pardise." "To kill the Jewish and to live near our God." "We never die. The Jewish die but we live forever."
They go to a Hamas camp in the summer where they are read passages from the Koran that glorify martyrdom and "each child, including the girls, is armed with a plastic Klashnikov and grenades .... Children realize quickly that the way to win the approal of their teachers is to be the most militant, nationalistic, and religious, even at age six."
She describes morning cartoons which the kids watch everywhere in the society where the animated children throw rocks at Israelis soldiers, are killed, and then rise up with a larger rock. The past martyrs have become superstars, like Britney Spears, says Victor, to the popular culture of these children.
I react with nausea because it's quite sad that these children are not given a chance of peaceful normalcy. The occupation of their land, and subsequent harsh treatment by their "occupiers" (Israel), has planted a seed of hatred, violence, and blindness among the population. Now led by the hatred projected on both sides, these children do not have much room to play, twirl, be free of the teachings which nail them, with celebration, into their own coffins.
They go to a Hamas camp in the summer where they are read passages from the Koran that glorify martyrdom and "each child, including the girls, is armed with a plastic Klashnikov and grenades .... Children realize quickly that the way to win the approal of their teachers is to be the most militant, nationalistic, and religious, even at age six."
She describes morning cartoons which the kids watch everywhere in the society where the animated children throw rocks at Israelis soldiers, are killed, and then rise up with a larger rock. The past martyrs have become superstars, like Britney Spears, says Victor, to the popular culture of these children.
I react with nausea because it's quite sad that these children are not given a chance of peaceful normalcy. The occupation of their land, and subsequent harsh treatment by their "occupiers" (Israel), has planted a seed of hatred, violence, and blindness among the population. Now led by the hatred projected on both sides, these children do not have much room to play, twirl, be free of the teachings which nail them, with celebration, into their own coffins.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Photo: Ann Hermes, Columbia Missourian, March 18, 2007Maya smiled and the world was calmed. That's how it felt last night, even in the back student section (thank you lovely student friend for the invite) when we watched her, in person, smile out over her latest enthralled audience. I'm sure the smile went over into the Gaza settlements and into the outposts in Nepal where children march with guns.
Okay, most likely, it didn't. People died today because of violence despite Maya's smile and grandmotherly advice and benevolent hope for humanity. Yet wouldn't one who died today wish for someone who cared, who spoke about caring, who used her time to be expressively hopefully about a better world, who marched her words outwards to spread the care? I would want that in my shocked and final suffering at the hands of hatred.
Maya was funny. She said that she was trying, trying to be a Christian now, but it's so hard. Sometimes, someone will come up, shake her hand, and announce that they're a Christian. To which she likes to respond incredulously, "Already?"
She received many laughs, many claps. I sat there moist-eyed, because I had started to feel like the world was sinking into the mire of hopeless conflict and subjugation. And, perhaps we are. But, if we ask for more from ourselves and each other, as Maya spoke about, a "rainbow in the clouds" can appear: promising hope for even us, for even Israel and Palestine, for even the disenfranchised in New Orleans, for even Iraq, for even around our own homes.
I'm quite glad that I was introduced to Maya Angelou only 12 years ago, despite the gaps in my biased education. She truly is an amazing torchbearer of human dignity. Below is a poem written by her on the subject, written and delivered for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations:
A Brave and Startling Truth By Maya Angelou
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn and scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Activism perhaps
While I ran in the snow with over 900 people this morning for our city's St. Patrick's day run, thousands of Christians in Washington D.C. were marching for peace. I'm proud of the fact that Christians can overlook rhetoric and stick to principles of doing what's morally right: to stop the war; to question the reasons for its initiation; to go beyond the claims of our administration. Here is the article describing the march.
Tomorrow in my town, there is also a peace rally and march beginning from the same area where we ran this morning. It's much easier for me to show up for a fun event. I look like a moderate, an acceptable middle class-age woman in her fashionable running tights and fleece, engaged in what those who look like her are engaged with. The peace activists look like extreme leftists. I'm not an extremist. I won't be in front of the post office soon.
Yet God may be daring me to stop caring about the proper thing. I've been getting the promptings lately. Those who followed Christ had to throw off their inhibitions to be in the crowd, to be accepting of the loaves offered, to be different than their Jewish relations and neighbors. I'm certain that it wasn't easy then.
Therefore, perhaps I'll be seen on the front cover of our town newspaper. I'm sure they will zone in on me looking like an awkward virginal activist! I will definitely not be with a sign, though.
One small (hesitant, awkward) contributory step for grace and mercy.
Tomorrow in my town, there is also a peace rally and march beginning from the same area where we ran this morning. It's much easier for me to show up for a fun event. I look like a moderate, an acceptable middle class-age woman in her fashionable running tights and fleece, engaged in what those who look like her are engaged with. The peace activists look like extreme leftists. I'm not an extremist. I won't be in front of the post office soon.
Yet God may be daring me to stop caring about the proper thing. I've been getting the promptings lately. Those who followed Christ had to throw off their inhibitions to be in the crowd, to be accepting of the loaves offered, to be different than their Jewish relations and neighbors. I'm certain that it wasn't easy then.
Therefore, perhaps I'll be seen on the front cover of our town newspaper. I'm sure they will zone in on me looking like an awkward virginal activist! I will definitely not be with a sign, though.
One small (hesitant, awkward) contributory step for grace and mercy.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
"GREAT letter"
A woman I know put me on an e-mail block to receive the "GREAT" letter posted below which circulates like a hypnotised eye around the internet. My first response was personal: "Geez, does she not know that I would see this writing as diametrically opposed to what I see as productive?"
My stiffened fingers poised, waiting for orders from my second thought: "She'll know soon!"
However, no order barked, because the more I think about it, the more I'm glad that she sent me this GREAT letter. Perhaps it is great because it illustrates a mentality which escalates conflict no matter where in the world you are. (I apologize that it came from the United States, though. I'm sorry for its ignorance and intolerance.)
It reminds me of the little chihuhua that barks and barks, nervously, because it's small and vulnerable. That's how this author feels, I daresay. Some of it is understandable => no American likes what happened on 9/11. We want to be safe, like all, to travel or to blog in our homes. Most all agree that there needs to be a response to that horrible day. Yet heaping violence upon violence will not solve much. We must be careful to not overreact (like the US soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday -- now 25 civilians there are dead). Here, I sit, comfortably saying so when all is pleasant in my life. I realize things are complicated.
Yet guiding principles, when the heat turns up, must be prepared. I must not hit my neighbor when she complains about the begonias being run over. I must not shoot her sons. I must be prepared to discuss action, restitution, and what's reasonable to replace those inconvenient blossoms. Sigh, even in the small things, one must be reasonable.
The United States has overreacted quite much in this last term of George W. Bush's reign. I just hope that moderation and understanding will guide the next candidate and that whoever becomes elected won't continue to reflect the ideas in the following letter of hate.
~~~
The "GREAT" letter
"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001 ?
Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania ?
Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?...Well, I don't. I don't care at all.
I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11. I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia. I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques. I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.
When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don't care. When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and -you guessed it -I don't care ! ! ! ! !
If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your e-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior! If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country! And may I add: "Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan
I have another quote that I would like to add AND.......I hope you forward all this. "If we ever forget that we're One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under." also by.. Ronald Reagan
One last thought for the day: In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said: "A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in... And how many want out. Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: 1. Jesus Christ 2. The American G I. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
My stiffened fingers poised, waiting for orders from my second thought: "She'll know soon!"
However, no order barked, because the more I think about it, the more I'm glad that she sent me this GREAT letter. Perhaps it is great because it illustrates a mentality which escalates conflict no matter where in the world you are. (I apologize that it came from the United States, though. I'm sorry for its ignorance and intolerance.)
It reminds me of the little chihuhua that barks and barks, nervously, because it's small and vulnerable. That's how this author feels, I daresay. Some of it is understandable => no American likes what happened on 9/11. We want to be safe, like all, to travel or to blog in our homes. Most all agree that there needs to be a response to that horrible day. Yet heaping violence upon violence will not solve much. We must be careful to not overreact (like the US soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday -- now 25 civilians there are dead). Here, I sit, comfortably saying so when all is pleasant in my life. I realize things are complicated.
Yet guiding principles, when the heat turns up, must be prepared. I must not hit my neighbor when she complains about the begonias being run over. I must not shoot her sons. I must be prepared to discuss action, restitution, and what's reasonable to replace those inconvenient blossoms. Sigh, even in the small things, one must be reasonable.
The United States has overreacted quite much in this last term of George W. Bush's reign. I just hope that moderation and understanding will guide the next candidate and that whoever becomes elected won't continue to reflect the ideas in the following letter of hate.
~~~
The "GREAT" letter
"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001 ?
Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania ?
Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?...Well, I don't. I don't care at all.
I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11. I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia. I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques. I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.
When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don't care. When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and -you guessed it -I don't care ! ! ! ! !
If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your e-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior! If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country! And may I add: "Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan
I have another quote that I would like to add AND.......I hope you forward all this. "If we ever forget that we're One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under." also by.. Ronald Reagan
One last thought for the day: In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said: "A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in... And how many want out. Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: 1. Jesus Christ 2. The American G I. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
Monday, March 5, 2007
This Land is Our Land
Holy Lands:
One Place Three Faiths
is a Life picture book, with an introduction written by Thomas Cahill. Inside of it, one views the art, landscape, peoples, and soldiers of the three different faiths of the Holy Land. More specifically, pictures show tagged bloodied hands escaping from covers; circulating worshippers in Mecca; and mounts where Moses viewed these lands of deep trouble for his rewarded flock. Could Moses have foreseen the bloodshed? He truly didn't need to look far into the future, because his successor, Joshua, carried out God's command to depopulate the people in Canaan. Blood flowed thickly, quickly, devoutly.
I'm reading about that now in my morning quiet time. It's hard to stomach, over cinnamon coffee and a banana, and a desire to understand how peace should and needs to work. Along with the desire that faith promotes, rather requires, such view. I tell myself that Jesus promoted such with his pacifistic entreaty to turn the other cheek when your enemy strikes you. Quite revolutionary, then, and today. Has there been major deviation within the Christian faith away from this? Or is the faith only insured through warfare and violence? Religious weaponry should be an oxymoron instead of an emphatic reality of advancement.
Quite sad, given the light that was said to shine in the darkness, which all of our religions claim. Unfortunately, the darkness is thick where defenders slash away at each other.
Yet all denial of light is wrong too. We have the chance to light the flame for knowledge, chance, understanding. Even here on this cul-de-sac of mine where it's easy to be impassive when all is comfortably intact, I want to care and be part of a weave which prepares itself for understanding.
One Place Three Faiths
is a Life picture book, with an introduction written by Thomas Cahill. Inside of it, one views the art, landscape, peoples, and soldiers of the three different faiths of the Holy Land. More specifically, pictures show tagged bloodied hands escaping from covers; circulating worshippers in Mecca; and mounts where Moses viewed these lands of deep trouble for his rewarded flock. Could Moses have foreseen the bloodshed? He truly didn't need to look far into the future, because his successor, Joshua, carried out God's command to depopulate the people in Canaan. Blood flowed thickly, quickly, devoutly.
I'm reading about that now in my morning quiet time. It's hard to stomach, over cinnamon coffee and a banana, and a desire to understand how peace should and needs to work. Along with the desire that faith promotes, rather requires, such view. I tell myself that Jesus promoted such with his pacifistic entreaty to turn the other cheek when your enemy strikes you. Quite revolutionary, then, and today. Has there been major deviation within the Christian faith away from this? Or is the faith only insured through warfare and violence? Religious weaponry should be an oxymoron instead of an emphatic reality of advancement.
Quite sad, given the light that was said to shine in the darkness, which all of our religions claim. Unfortunately, the darkness is thick where defenders slash away at each other.
Yet all denial of light is wrong too. We have the chance to light the flame for knowledge, chance, understanding. Even here on this cul-de-sac of mine where it's easy to be impassive when all is comfortably intact, I want to care and be part of a weave which prepares itself for understanding.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
A
"Never again will I whisper in the shadows of intimidation. I am but a symbol of my people's struggle and a servant to their cause. And if I were to be killed for what I believe in, then let my blood be the beacon for emancipation and my words a revolutionary paradigm for generations to come." Malalai Joya
So saith Malalai Joya whose smile radiates from the picture above. I profess that I'm an American woman who lives on her insular cul-de-sac who had never heard of Joya before. It reminds me of only hearing about Maya Angelou when I was 30, Tom Jones when I was 25. Those two stand out because the people who brought the existence of these two out of the void for me were incredulous with my ignorance. Particularly my office mate about Maya as I had majored in English. She went on and on with her indignation about my ignorance. She was a black woman from Louisiana who had been taught at an early age about the heroine-poet. Man, she was harsh on me. What was an ignorant farm girl from the Ozarks to do? I had been taught all about Daniel Boone and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was actually extremely sorry that I had never been introduced to Maya through my subsequent English studies. Langston, yes, Maya, no.
Fortunately, I was introduced today to Malalai Joya and no longer remain ignorant about her efforts, her beacon light within the Afghanistan movement towards gender equality and fair democracy for all citizens. Her fight against war and drug lords.
Eva Mulvad, a documentary filmmaker from Denmark, stood before us at my town's True/False Film Festival to Q&A about her filming the struggles of Joya who became one of the first women elected to the Afghani Parliament. The documentary, Enemies of Happiness, portrayed the strength and bravery of Joya who persevered through dire tribulations (numerous death threats) to even be on the ballot in a historical election.
One of the best parts of the film for me was when a 100 year old woman walked two hours just to meet and vote for Joya. Later, on the sofa as the two visited, the old woman recounted her memories of killing Russians, and she immediately dropped to the floor on her stomach to demonstrate how she set land mines. Her wrinkled hands and scarfed head, reaching out in remembrance, to kill.
Hopefully, a new time has come there with a vote for peace and restoration. And, with the inclusion of women like Malalai Joya in the democratic Afghanistan.
I'm quite glad that I know her now. Thank you, Eva Mulvad.
"Never again will I whisper in the shadows of intimidation. I am but a symbol of my people's struggle and a servant to their cause. And if I were to be killed for what I believe in, then let my blood be the beacon for emancipation and my words a revolutionary paradigm for generations to come." Malalai Joya
So saith Malalai Joya whose smile radiates from the picture above. I profess that I'm an American woman who lives on her insular cul-de-sac who had never heard of Joya before. It reminds me of only hearing about Maya Angelou when I was 30, Tom Jones when I was 25. Those two stand out because the people who brought the existence of these two out of the void for me were incredulous with my ignorance. Particularly my office mate about Maya as I had majored in English. She went on and on with her indignation about my ignorance. She was a black woman from Louisiana who had been taught at an early age about the heroine-poet. Man, she was harsh on me. What was an ignorant farm girl from the Ozarks to do? I had been taught all about Daniel Boone and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was actually extremely sorry that I had never been introduced to Maya through my subsequent English studies. Langston, yes, Maya, no.
Fortunately, I was introduced today to Malalai Joya and no longer remain ignorant about her efforts, her beacon light within the Afghanistan movement towards gender equality and fair democracy for all citizens. Her fight against war and drug lords.
Eva Mulvad, a documentary filmmaker from Denmark, stood before us at my town's True/False Film Festival to Q&A about her filming the struggles of Joya who became one of the first women elected to the Afghani Parliament. The documentary, Enemies of Happiness, portrayed the strength and bravery of Joya who persevered through dire tribulations (numerous death threats) to even be on the ballot in a historical election.
One of the best parts of the film for me was when a 100 year old woman walked two hours just to meet and vote for Joya. Later, on the sofa as the two visited, the old woman recounted her memories of killing Russians, and she immediately dropped to the floor on her stomach to demonstrate how she set land mines. Her wrinkled hands and scarfed head, reaching out in remembrance, to kill.
Hopefully, a new time has come there with a vote for peace and restoration. And, with the inclusion of women like Malalai Joya in the democratic Afghanistan.
I'm quite glad that I know her now. Thank you, Eva Mulvad.
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