by Sharon Walling

The first time I saw a Ugandan woman in her traditional garb, Lord Byron’s verse “She walks in beauty, like the night,” flashed in my mind. The women of Uganda are pictures of grace. They are stately and quiet.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me to improve my posture. She would make me practice walking with a book on my head.  The women of Uganda walk with a myriad of things on their heads: crates of eggs, bags of grasshoppers, baskets of bananas, and even water jugs, often while holding a wriggling child with one hand and with a baby strapped to their back.

Perhaps this strength they possess comes from their straight backs.  No matter what the women are doing — picking vegetables, planting a garden, or washing clothes in their little plastic basins — they do so while maintaining perfect posture. They appear to be hinged at the waist, as they bend with a flat back, not curved or arched in any way.  They work for hours on end, bent over, in the sun.

Often in town, we see a very short woman, whom we’ve been told is over eighty years old. That’s nearly a miracle in Uganda. Her advancing years aside, she walks daily to her bore hole, and her stance is poker-straight.

Even the women who can afford to ride a boda-boda, a motorcycle taxi, sit side saddle, head high, back straight, as the motorcycle drivers zig zag in and out of traffic. The passenger will hold on to her purse with one hand, and the small “seat” with the other.

Prior to the elections, the cities and villages had many visits from the president as part of his campaign for another term. Local authorities wanted their streets and villages to look clean and welcoming.  They hired only women to be the road cleanup crew.  Female citizens lined the streets in Kampala wearing official orange vests, and they swept the roads and edges of the highways with handmade brooms. Despite the difficult and extensive task, their flat backs never lost their perfect form during all those hours of labor, which would undoubtedly make them the envy of any choreographer catching a glimpse of the spectacle.

At around five o’clock, the majority of the women in cities and villages gather their children and their plastic jerry cans to make the mile or more journey to the bore hole so they can get their water for the next day or so. Most have a jug on their heads, as well as one in each hand. The children carry smaller jugs to fill.

The bore hole is the equivalent of the office water cooler — lots of conversation, even gossip and laughter.  There will be dozens of families waiting to get their turn at the pump.

The pump looks like the old farm house water pumps. The handle is low to the ground. The women place their containers beneath the pump and bend down with their flat backs to pump the water.  It takes over five minutes of pumping to fill one five-gallon can.  But they are happy to do so, and even happier to tread their mile(s) back to the village after waiting and working the pump.  The children never complain about their role, either. It’s part of their life. It’s never even questioned. I can’t imagine telling a five or six-year-old American child to walk two miles to stand in the sun and pump water so it can be brought back to the house, only to do it all again in two days.

The women work hard and do many things to add to the family income.  They make their own charcoal so they can cook their meals. They then sell the excess charcoal. They make their own brooms to sweep their dirty porches and floors, then provide them to local shops. Catching and roasting grasshoppers to sell on the streets is seasonal work. (If you’re curious, they taste like beef jerky, but the texture is a bit flakey.)

The babies of Ugandan women are all living miracles. There are no hospitals. Small medical centers are available, but a patient in labor must provide all their own essentials — clean sheets, a pan for the placenta, bandages, pads, and flashlights in case the power goes out. Indeed, many babies are lost in childbirth. In addition to poor medical facilities, one child dies every twenty minutes from malaria. In spite of major net campaigns, malaria flourishes. For older children and adults, its prevalence is accepted as readily as Western cultures accept the common flu.

Ugandan women are very attentive mothers.  The babies who survive are loved and treasured.

by Con Carlyon

I watched Piers Morgan interview an atheist during the week. Piers asked what the atheist thought happened when we die. The atheist asked Piers if he could remember what it was like before he was born. I think he was trying to convey that we could expect it to be the same when we die. I would have replied like that at one time. Now I would simply say that we have always been a part of the universe and always will be. So many seem to have difficulty coming to terms with Einstein’s words that I referred to last week. They are:

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest– a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

So much of our time on this Earth is spent in the business of human survival that we don’t find time to observe Life from any other standpoint. As I’ve often opined here, I firmly believe that we must step back and look at Life from the Cosmic Perspective in order to better focus on Life from the human perspective.

Yet we seldom see coverage in the media that deals with anything other than the raw material of survival on this Earth. Certainly not from the Murdoch media anyway, which seeks to dumb down the public discourse as a means of furthering the material interests of the rich and powerful. I do wonder how many of his friends really believe in the religions that their conservative foot soldiers preach to the masses. If they don’t, then I have to wonder what they do believe in. Is it only wealth and power? That seems to me to be a waste of a life.

I think the Einsteins and Carl Sagans of this world live a far more fulfilling life. They’ve looked out the window, fascinated with the view, and they speak of it in wonder. When have we ever heard the Murdochs of the planet speak in such terms? In my younger days, when I was in search of meaning, I remember reading Somerset Maugham’s book The Summing Up.  I recall Maugham’s observation that he found conversation with businessmen difficult, as all they seemed to know about was making money.

I think this is probably true of most billionaires, but there are clearly exceptions: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros come to mind. These men have demonstrated by their philanthropy that they have values beyond crass materialism. Not so, Murdoch and counterparts. There’s no reference to humanitarianism in his Wiki entry. No, the hounding of the unfortunate is more typical of this man, along with his never-to-be-forgotten endorsement of the invasion of Iraq: “because we’ll get oil at $20 a barrel”. I do wonder how any man with even the smallest bit of conscience could utter such words, words that would result in the destruction of so many hundreds of thousands of lives. And when did any of these supposed men of God, who faithfully preach the materialistic gospel so beloved by and favorable to the wealthy, ever offer a word of criticism of such inhumanity? Yet they all walk with their heads held high, bearing no sense of shame. Such arrogance astounds me.

So that is why I need to seek refuge in the Cosmic Perspective from time to time. There, I can look at Life from Einstein’s perspective. There, I can commune with the universe. There, I can forget the actions of some of my fellow humans who disgrace the privilege of this Life. There, I can Live.

Or- The Ideological Ruminations of a “Jinglebrained Ninnyhammer”

by R.G. Ryan

An Economics professor at Texas Tech University was arguing with his students over the benefits of capitalism versus socialism. The professor was a proponent of capitalism while the majority of the class was largely socialistic in their ideology. So he said, “For the remainder of the year we will be Socialists and conduct our grading based on an average of the class grades so that everyone is equal.”

The students were thrilled.

The first test came: About half the class studied and got A’s while the rest of the class slacked off and got D’s and F’s. Luckily, on the strength of the A’s from the students who studied, everyone in the class got a B. So far, so good.

Second test came: Only a quarter of the class studied and got A’s while the rest of the class slacked off and got D’s and F’s (many of the “slackers” this time around were students who had studied hard on the first test only to see their high grades marked down). Based on the class average, everyone was given a C-minus. The first murmurs of discontent were heard.

Final exam came: Upset about studying hard for two tests only to get low grades based on class average, no one studied. The students capable of getting A’s didn’t study because they were angry over the other tests, while those students who slacked off in the beginning lacked the knowledge to score well on the final. As a result,everyone failed the course.

Amid outraged cries of, “But that’s not fair! Why should we suffer for the laziness of others?” the professor simply smiled and said, “Welcome back to capitalism.”

I share this story because at the heart of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement exists a bubbling cauldron of anger largely fueled by class envy. Oh sure, there are those who are mad as hell over government bailouts of the big corporations and resulting lack of accountability, the collapse of the housing market and overall economic malaise, and perhaps rightly so. But with, “We are the 99%!” as the movement’s battle cry, the implications are clear: Those in the 1% should be sharing what they have with the rest of us; any profit making is suspect; and the “bourgeoisie” arrived at their station on the backs of a downtrodden, oppressed proletariat. Or, in the immortal words of David Byrne, “same as it ever was; same as it ever was; same as it ever was…”

Sadly, there are those in political leadership who are stoking these fires of class warfare for political gain rather than working to arrive at a credible, viable solution. As a result, the movement ─ which started out as having no stated political agenda ─ has now been co-opted by a surrealistic hodgepodge of left-wing radicals, anarcho-syndicalists, aging sixties counter-culture radicals, neo-socialists, Marxists, and others who are basically broke, busted and disgusted! I get it. I’m there, too! The difference being that I expect nothing from the one percent. I expect nothing from my government save the freedom to succeed or fail on the basis of my own investment and effort.

All the anger directed toward that now legendary one percent—those über wealthy few—seems to miss the inarguable fact that in order for societies to thrive, one thing is needed above all else: wealth! It drives all cultures, whether a monarchy, democracy or socialist republic. Someone has to generate money, and providence seems to place individuals into every new generation who have a knack for doing just that.

In a movement and a current administration that leans ever more toward socialistic ideology than capitalistic, one wonders where the “distribution of wealth” is going to come from if no one is, well, wealthy. The reason every socialist experiment has failed throughout history (and the argument that it has never had a “fare chance to succeed” is a sad canard) is that socialism requires an endless supply of money. The problem is that while everyone wants to share in the profit, not everyone is willing to work to insure that monetary supply,that continuation of wealth. Like the students in my opening story, what motivates me to hand over the “profit” I produce if there is no incentive for me to keep producing?

Let’s use a hypothetical: Say you have a privately owned business employing 160 people and generating fifty million per year in revenue. One family has owned the business for over forty years having built it to its current level from scratch. The family members not only own the business, but also work, putting in more hours than any employee. Is it fair for this family to profit more than the workers? Of course! Why? Because the company was built as a result of their collective sacrifice and investment long before any of those workers were present. Additionally, when the company was slapped with a million dollar lawsuit, the family absorbed the loss, not the employees. And yet, I sense a dangerous shift in our nation’s collective soul moving us ever closer to “entitlement” mentality wherein the expectation is that businesses such as the one in this hypothetical example are expected to equally share whatever profit is gained, while at the same time continuing to absorb all the risk.

Our President obviously wants to do something about the severe problems facing our country and claims that the pathway out of our economic woes lies in the direction of higher taxes on the “wealthy.” That’s an interesting theory. Winston Churchill said, “Raising taxes to increase prosperity is like trying to pick up a bucket while you’re standing in it!” I’m pretty sure he’s correct. Our President, with his back to the wall and facing a rough re-election campaign, has promoted another theory that says the way to stimulate our economy is by introducing more government programs, more government subsidies, more government jobs, more government ─ period. I have a problem with this as well, because having “more” provided to you by the state plays into the law of diminishing returns. At some point, as it always does, the money will run out, because those few producing the wealth will grow weary of doing so and either stop entirely, or move their production to a more favorable economic climate. If the President really wanted to “stimulate” the economy, he should throw his inestimable weight behind the small business owners of this country and give them the help they need to put the growing ranks of unemployed back to work.

The individuals comprising the disparate crowd known collectively as the “Occupy…” movement are exercising their constitutional right. People have been demonstrating against one thing or another throughout most of history. Some demonstrations have even been successful. If you feel strongly inclined to do so, join them. Let your voice be heard. Personally, I think you’d be better served by “occupying” a voting booth come election time. But that’s just me.

If this movement isn’t enough and you feel inclined toward Socialism, then go be a socialist. Get together with all your friends who want to be socialists, provide 0% interest loans for each other. Pool your resources. Pay for each other’s houses. Buy group medical insurance policies. There is nothing stopping you from being a socialist. Really, though, pure socialism is only a theory and cannot be truly tested. The only way to find out if it works is to put it into practice, which requires a revolution by the “working class.” However, the working class will not revolt in a capitalistic society because they’re all satisfied with the status quo. Besides, redistribution of wealth already occurs. It’s called, “taxation.” And I am among the 53% who actually pays taxes.

Here’s the bottom line: The wealth of the world is now, and has always been unbalanced because people are selfish, not because of a particular political ideology. You want to break the back of poverty in this country, champion generosity.

R.G. Ryan is the author of “The Voices In My Head: The Danny Gans Biography” and the “Snapshots at St. Arbuck’s” series. He lives in Nevada with his first wife and their miniature schnauzer of some renown. Can sing a little. Visit his website at: http://rgryan.com/

by Con Carylon

(Reporting from Toowoomba, Australia)

After about twenty years of drought, Australia is now having rain and lots of it. Our dams, which were at a disastrous 7% level, are now approaching 70%, with rain predicted for a couple of months yet. Some may even get to 100 percent capacity. Toowoomba sits on top of a mountain range, so floods are unknown here. Not so for many other Queenslanders who are situated in flat areas close to rivers. Many have to contend with houses under muddy water, and at last count at the time of this writing, nine have died trying to cross flooded streams.

It is always pleasing to see people pull together in the face of adversity. Political, religious and class differences are forgotten in these times, as well they should be. But why does it have to be restricted to times of adversity, one could ask? When the crisis has passed we’ll resume bickering among ourselves, no doubt. We are humans, after all.

There are those who see adversity as just another opportunity to further their own agenda. Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott has assured us that he will be calling the government to account if they don’t handle the crisis according to his exacting standards, and announced with a flourish his plan to build dams around the country so that floods will be a thing of the past. At first glance this seems like a good idea. That is, until the NIMBYS (Not In My Backyard-erS) discovered that it is in their backyard that Tony plans to build his dam. Good luck with that. There are numerous other reasons why the proposal will never bear fruit, but appearance trumps substance, and that’s all that matters in politics, it seems. Is it any wonder that we become so cynical?

The opposite of cynicism is that during the flood crisis, thousands of people are donating money and  time to help with the State Emergency Service; and helping in a million other ways without receiving any recognition for their efforts.  Will Durant had something to say about this:

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.”

So, here’s to the people on the banks. We too often forget the true heroes in this world.

Youthful civil disobedience will never be the same again. Thanks to their superior knowledge of modern technology, it will conquer. Think of it as the Ice Age Theory as opposed to the sudden Meteor Theory; a freeze which slowly but inevitably prevailed over the unsuspecting and unprepared Tyrannosaurus Rex. Used to being a force of terror, drunk on its own power, Mr. T. Rex just didn’t notice how chilly it was getting.  Today, we are the dinosaurs compared to those who not only simply utilize the convenience and entertainment value of Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and iPhone, but know how they work. On this premise, governments will rise or fall, revolutions will succeed or fail, based on the skills of either side’s best hackers.

Nothing illustrates this more vividly than the recent uprisings in Egypt, which overthrew the Mubarak government in only 18 days. Much has been written about the “whys” of the protests, and the “what happens now” after the protests, but little has been said about the “how”. And that’s because the fossils still think they’re in charge; the fossils in this case being old school dictatorships, and mainstream media. In their heyday, uprisings could be quickly quelled and protesters killed or jailed in any country that was not completely first world by the time the rest of us even heard about it. When we did learn of it, it was through the print and broadcast press, which was able to put its own spin upon it, aided of course, by whatever each of our individual country’s government did or did not want us to know.

However, the following is proof positive that this is no longer the case. Taken verbatim from my own Facebook feed are communications from several students, all under the age of 25, some of whom were based in The United States, some based in Egypt, and some based in Europe. These communications all took place, publicly, for the entire world to see and read, while the Egyptian rebellion was happening. Get your ear warmers and your mittens, on, Mr. T. Rex ─ it looks like it’s getting cold again:

From a 23-year-old male student based on the West Coast of the United States about his communication with an Egyptian friend:

“Just got off the phone with my friend _______.  I say ‘phone’ because halfway through our Skype conversation, the [Egyptian] government presumably pulled the plug on the last working network. He chuckles at the absurdity of it all, while showing me the taser he keeps on his person, one of the weapons against the looters directly outside his house. That is one of the last things he does in our pixilated, jittery exchange before he gets cut off.  So we used our cell phones after and he gives me the rundown of the events that took place when he and his mates marched in a peaceful protest. In short, he was tear-gassed, beaten with police batons, and narrowly avoided getting shot with a rubber bullet by a cop who was directly aiming at him. Most of this occurs after the police decide to cease firing warning shots, and instead begin shooting directly into the crowd at random. (For those who think rubber bullets can’t kill, try receiving one in the head). In a safe, regrouping area, many off-duty cops are actually sympathetic to the wheezing and beaten protesters and offer them onions and carbonated beverages to counteract the effects of the gas, which _________describes as one of the worst sensations he’s ever felt. …….He ends up spending the night at a friend’s across town from his worried parents’ house, as he can’t return home due to the curfew imposed.”

From the 21 year-old Egyptian student about whom the first student writes:

“So, tear gas is really. F*cking. Unpleasant. For that matter, so’s a police baton to the back. Who says the Egyptian government can’t teach its citizens anything? What they can’t seem to do, though, is recognize a peaceful protest when it comes marching down the streets, holding up signs and shouting “Silmiya!” (Peaceful). Also, they can’t quite grasp the concept of a nationwide communication blockage.”

Commentary to 21 year-old Egyptian from Facebook friends and family. (Names have been deleted and locations changed for privacy):

‘Canada’: Bro….I require a daily update (Can be short:P) on everyone’s well being, pleasssse. Texts don’t seem to be going through to mom or dad.

‘New York’: I tell all my friends about you and what you are doing. We are all very proud of you. You are in our prayers and please, please stay safe!

‘San Francisco’: It’s surreal to me that several weeks ago you were here in school, and now you’re having to guard your home with makeshift weapons. I take it firearms have been outlawed there?

Reply from Egyptian to the above:

@’San Francisco’ Yeah, it’s all quite surreal _______. Firearms have never been easy to get a hold of here, but the Army is urging everyone to protect their homes by any means possible.

@’Canada’   Sorry sis, internet was out for the past two days. Let’s talk tonight if you’re free.

From a Greek youth, informing the Egyptian protesters how to get past the internet lockdown imposed by the Egyptian government:

Egyptians, to get pass the internet blockages use the following IPs:
Twitter: “128.242.240.52″
Facebook: “69.63.189.34″
Google: “172.14.204.99″

And then, a notification from France:
A French ISP is offering free access to the telephone line +33 1 72 89 01 50 encoded ‘toto.’

From USA-based 23-year-old, reporting on Facebook again the next day:

“When he is at home at night, the neighborhood watch keeps the looters out, who have practically become an army of their own, assault rifles and all. However, contrary to a lot of what has been reported, many of the neighborhood watch are armed with guns of their own, aside from the makeshift, ‘household’ weapons they brandish, so the looters have yet to pose an actual threat as the ‘apartment complex militia’ are doing a great job holding them off.  _______ and his friends stay up all night by campfire outside their home turned trench, making the best out of the situation, immediately responsive to any potential threat via sound signals they’ve created to communicate with one another across long distances. The following are the important updates ______ gives me that need to be reported, as most of the media is doing a fairly half-assed and inconclusive job ─ ”

‘Mercenaries-for-hire have broken at least 25 convicts out of local prisons. One would think that, given the reports of the Muslim Brotherhood doing the same with a select few of their own, that there is some political motive behind this. However, many of these prisoners have proven to just be random, average criminals, some serving mere six month sentences. This being proven by the fact that a few of these guys have actually gone to police stations to turn themselves back in, stating that they were forced to break out and simply wish to serve the remainder of their sentence and avoid future prosecution. As a result, many speculate the mercenaries themselves have been hired by the government to commit the prison raids, all part of Mubarak and Co.’s strategy to let chaos ensue in order to prove that only they can restore order to the nation. Ironically, many of these mercenaries have been hired by citizens themselves to protect their respective neighborhoods. Apparently, ‘a gig’s a gig’ for these guys.’

“─ Many off-duty cops are looters themselves; _________ has seen this with his own eyes. Aside from this far from subtle display of gross hypocrisy, police have been setting their own vehicles on fire, framing the protesters and making a peaceful protest appear to be a violent one in order to have a ready excuse to use force.  Also, part of the death toll that isn’t being reported on in main stream media includes civilians killing looters.

On the plus side, there is an ‘army hotline’ ─ (the army, thus far, has still remained a symbol of peacekeeping in the eyes of most citizens) ─ for people to call for help if they capture and tie up a looter, which many have done. However, the common knowledge is that many thieves have simply been executed by those defending their families and property.”

From the 21-year old Egyptian:

“Sporadic gunfire nearby…curfew’s about four hours in. Got our own ragtag neighborhood watch standing outside the building (essentially a group of twenty-something’s with sticks, knives, knives taped on the end of sticks…you get the drift). They light campfires at night, just in case anyone thought this wasn’t enough like Mad Max. Do your worst, looters.”

From the 23-year old USA-based student:

“Tomorrow, February 1st, marks the one-week anniversary of the uprising, and a nationwide strike is planned. With the majority of the civilians protesting in even greater numbers than before, the reaction of the police and the resulting bloodshed in the past week can only indicate that the death toll tomorrow will undoubtedly skyrocket. My friend will be there; I certainly can’t blame him. This is a gruesome, horrendous, yet incredibly significant time in Egyptian history, and I cannot hate on anyone who would want to witness or take part. But the police do not distinguish between the rioter and the observer/historian, they just f*cking shoot anyone who’s there. All I can do is call him tomorrow and see how the day went, as any cliché wish of “be safe” is beyond pointless.”

From the 21-year-old Egyptian, in response to a friend based in New York’s questions about the politics behind the uprising and the Egyptian government’s tactics:

“So although Mubarak’s divide and conquer strategy is apparent to anyone with a TV or a router (or a pulse), it’s still a shade away from being fact. Unfortunately, that means that all the suggestions you made (embargo/UN) won’t fly, because there are all types of theories floating around about who’s behind all the chaos. …This whole shebang has only been happening for just over a week, remember, so it’ll take a lot more time and a lot more destruction for any kind of decisive international action. That being said, we’re quite a territorial and emotional people, and outside intervention would definitely stir up the more extremist elements of the country. People feel as if they have the power to change things for the first time, and having foreign intervention might stop the sectarian violence temporarily but it’ll only make people unite against a common enemy, which is never a good foundation for a new democracy…. Most Egyptians would rather keep the chaos going, at least for a while, or solve it themselves instead of having the U.S. lead any kind of peacekeeping effort.  Welcome to my world.”

Summary of situation immediately prior to the resignation of Mubarak by 23-year-old USA-based student:

“….The Muslim Brotherhood, Army of Islam, etc.,  seek to topple Mubarak for the complete opposite reasons of the civilian protesters, and that is an important distinction that I don’t think the media is focusing on enough. The average protester doesn’t want Mubarak out because he’s part of “the West” and a “US ally” and pro-negotiations with Israel and all that usual fundamentalist lingo; they want him out because his administration allowed the imprisonment of teenage protesters without trial, the police murder of Khaled Mohamed Saeed, government scandals, and for all around being a totalitarian, civil-rights violating douchebag. But a potential coup by the extremists would implement a ‘government’ that would make Mubarak’s Egypt seem like a utopia. I would rather see an imperialist U.S. puppet dictator put in than see Egypt be consumed and destroyed by a bunch of fanatic psychos as it was with Iran in the 70’s. But that’s one of the worse case scenarios, we just have to wait and see.”

From a friend in New York, to the Egyptian, after the fall of the Egyptian government:

So, what now?

From the Egyptian in reply to the friend in New York:

And there you have it. Unless all governments and/or Rupert Murdoch decide to outlaw cell phones, computers, and independent media outlets, this is the future. Rest assured that whatever does happen in Egypt next, the youth around the world will be watching, and reporting.

________________________________________________________________

by Taher Medhat

In the 1946 Alfred Hitchcock film, “Notorious”, Cary Grant’s Nazi-infiltrating T.R. Devlin scours through a wine cellar belonging to the host of a party which is going on upstairs. As Grant searches for the evidence to implicate his dastardly Nazi host, the viewer is treated to a classically Hitchcockian device: The Ticking Clock. You see, Agent Devlin has a very narrow window of opportunity: as soon the champagne which flows about carelessly upstairs runs dry, the server of said beverage must doubtlessly run downstairs to (where else?) the very same wine cellar in which our hero sleuths about. And with that, the master sets the stage for suspense. A champagne bucket upstairs, an object previously thought by the viewer to be of complete innocuousness, becomes as deadly as a time bomb as it is slowly drained of bottles, signaling the imminent discovery of the protagonist.

The fact that this scene was rattling around my head as I watched Friday prayers drawing to a close on January 28^th, 2011, moments before one of the largest protests in Egyptian history was about to erupt, might seem slightly ludicrous, but for someone like me, a film student and an Egyptian by birth, the sequence of events which unfolded at Moustafa Mahmoud Mosque in the town of Mohandeseen, did so with such a sense of grand orchestration, that I couldn’t help think they would make Hitch himself crack a wry smile in his grave.

It began with a Facebook event invite that had a catchy title: “Anger Friday for Revolution Against Corruption, Injustice, Unemployment, and Torture.” Roughly eighty thousand people were classified as “attending”, but the replies of over one million Facebook users were still listed “awaited”. Perhaps that was because there were several virtual farms and cities that needed tending to, and this was no game. Tahrir Square was to be both the physical and symbolic center of the protest, an appropriate decision given that tahrir is Arabic for ‘liberation’. Unlike the previous protest which had taken place three days earlier, this one was planned from the very start to go nationwide. The atmosphere surrounding Moustafa Mahmoud Mosque, which was playing host to several journalists, Egyptian media personalities and eventually riot police, was electric. Around noon, just before the commencement of Friday prayers, soon-to-be protesters glanced around nervously, minding their p’s and q’s, just in case eavesdropping government agents were nearby, surreptitiously blending into the crowd. A handful of well-known Egyptian film stars and directors offered their two cents to anyone with a camera and microphone. I only caught snippets of their conversations; phrases along the lines of “Peaceful demonstration”, “The people want [x]” and “We’ve had enough of [y]” cropped up quite frequently. A few plainclothes policemen were loosely spread around the outskirts of the mosque; so few, in fact, that I became suspicious─ were these people drastically underprepared, or were they wearing an extremely well-crafted poker face? The cynic in me told me it was the latter, and unfortunately for and the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets during this time, my inner cynic is usually right.

For those of you unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the world’s fastest growing religion, prayer in Islam is a highly regimented affair. It’s a coordinated series of bows and prostrations mixed in with recitations of Quranic verses. More importantly though, at least for the purposes of the event in question, prayer ends with the Imam saying the phrase “The peace and mercy of Allah be upon you.” (Why this is important you’ll soon know.)

As prayer begins, I, along with several journalists and women, who are prohibited from praying with men in the mosque (the women, not the journalists, just to be clear), sit on a protracted ledge directly behind the worshipers. Some of them use their Egyptian flags as prayer mats, others pray on scarves, which they clearly intend to use as a safeguard against teargas later down the line. My train of thought is shaken by a tap to the arm; it’s one of my two companions, who motions for me to look in the indicated direction. There they are: dark-clad, single file, covering the entirety of the street behind us, riot shields and all. We don’t have much time to consider where the hell they came from for too long, because the worshipers, now standing, are preparing to go into their first prostration, in which they kneel down with their foreheads touching the ground. They do just that, and as they do, on either side of the men at prayer suddenly now stand an additional two, perfectly formed rows of riot police, having arrived at their posts by what I can only assume is some form of ancient sorcery. I do the math. One row on either side, one directly behind us, plus the front entrance of the mosque; we are quite literally boxed in.

It was at this point that I started thinking about Hitchcock’s Ticking Clock. Having attended Friday prayers as a child, as I assumed almost everyone else sitting outside the mosque had done at some point, I knew the precise moment at which they would end and, by extension, the point at which we would become fair game, so to speak, of the riot police. Judging by the look on my fellow, would-be protestors’ faces, they had had a very similar thought process leading to the same eventual conclusion, albeit perhaps not in the context of a mid-40’s Cary Grant film.

The surreal quality of the whole scene makes for a perfect juxtaposition of Hitchcock in my head ─ one more prayer verse recited, one less bottle of champagne ─ A ‘Ticking Clock’ playing to a live audience, who we simulate the inevitable chaos that is about to unfold. It’s the last bottle now, the final prayer position: on the knees, back straight. The riot police loom over us menacingly, their posture in sharp contrast with that of the worshipers, and twice as many. This all being a Hitchcockian set piece, I think that this is a paradigm of visual foreshadowing of the events that are about to take place. And then, the phrase I’d heard countless times before cuts through the air like a razor, and takes on a new meaning: “The peace and mercy of Allah be upon you.”

Adrenaline has an uncanny ability to play with one’s perception of time. At least, this was my initial assumption when I pondered the speed with which the events of the next couple of hours seemed to transpire. Upon watching the footage from Moustafa Mahmoud Mosque the following day, though, I saw that my version of events, their brevity of time between which they occurred, was surprisingly close to the truth. There was indeed just a split second between the Imam’s pronouncement of that key phrase, and a yell from somewhere behind me that was to be the rallying cry of the protest: “The people want the fall of the regime!”  And it was, to be sure, barely a heartbeat before every voice in the police-bordered square roared those eight words, releasing thirty years of rage along with them. And what came next was indeed like a choreographed Bollywood dance, the type where an unremarkable group in the street spontaneously breaks out into the kind of routine that should doubtlessly take weeks to perfect.

Suffice it to say that as surprised as the rest of us over our display of sequenced solidarity, the riot police had no choice but to let us loose onto the streets.  So we marched. For how long I can’t say, but dull moments were few and far between. First, and most apparent, were the people. Everyone in Egypt seems to know everyone else, an astounding feat in a country of roughly eighty million people. I suspect that many of my fellow demonstrators viewed the day’s events as a cheap alternative to the local nightclubs they would have otherwise had to pay an absurd cover charge to enter. In between the chanting, friends ran into friends and formed temporary parties which would inevitably become disbanded by way of teargas.

I fear the almost hypnotic, yet comic quality of the day’s chants will almost definitely not translate onto the page, but bear with me nonetheless. Egyptians, as it is well known throughout the Arab world, have adopted a sense of humor vastly superior to that of our neighbors. Fittingly, public events give prospective comedians a chance to test their mettle, a veritable stand-up open mic night. A Revolution Against Corruption, Injustice, Unemployment, and Torture™ might seem to many to have a certain incongruity with this concept, but then, you’d have had to have lived in Egypt to ‘get it.’

The chant went like this: “Susanne [our first lady], tell your man a bag of lentils costs ten pounds; and the land in my backyard is worth half a pound.” (The English translation, as I warned you, rather drains that of humor, but rest assured it was a crowd favorite.)

If the picture I’ve painted so far seems incomplete and strangely devoid of violence, I’ll do my best not to disappoint. Our numbers grow as we continue through the streets, coming finally upon Ramses Square, a largely unremarkable place connected to Tahrir Street (not to be confused with the now famous square) through Galaa Bridge. Some of us don surgical masks loosely around our necks; but most do not think it necessary. We cycle through a series of chants and happen at this particular moment to be stressing the “peaceful” aspect of our peaceful protest by shouting “Silmiya!” (Peaceful). Imagine our surprise, then, when several heads in the crowd turn skywards, regarding with a sort of vague curiosity the eight or so canisters of tear gas being lobbed in our direction. Those of us with masks at the ready don’t quite suffer the full impact of the stuff. The rest…not so lucky.

The square becomes home to all manner of unpleasant symptoms; vomiting, fainting, floods of tears and mucus. The veteran protestors among us come to the rescue, providing supplies that would become all too familiar to us throughout the rest of the day: onions, soft drinks, and vinegar, which we had already learned were handy, homebrewed defenses against the consequences of tear gas exposure.

Aside from its intended results, tear gas has two unfortunate side effects upon those it’s used against: rage and indignation. When one ceases coughing and wildly stumbling about, the same question always arises: “How could they? And to me, the bastards!” So, to be entirely accurate, it’s perhaps one part indignation to one part bruised ego.

Which all often works to the attackers’ advantage. All it really takes is one or two brave souls, caught in a frenzy of adrenaline, to wildly rush at a barricade, trusting that the crowd will follow. The crowd almost always does. Almost. “Almost”, among the many other lessons I took with me that day, is not a word to be taken lightly.

We rushed the bridge, my friends and I, along with a couple dozen others, in the hopes of pushing back our tear gas-dispensing foes. I know I speak for our entire group when I say our thought process went roughly like this:

“That’s strange, I thought there were more people behind me. Why are the rest all crammed on one side of the bridge?”

“Oh, the other side is full of riot police with batons.  I see…”

“Well, now, why is everyone in front of me putting their hands above their heads and ducking down slightly? Oh, it must be because of that advancing armored military carrier, mounted by a shotgun-wielding cop, who is now firing blindly into the crowd.”

“Is that what’s called ‘a pincer move’, when you suddenly get trapped and attacked from both sides? This newly fired round of tear gas is wildly unnecessary.”

We manage to emerge from the plume of smoke, having received a fair beating, and now initiating a new cycle of vomiting, fainting, running tears and mucus. Some of our number have been sprayed with non-lethal shotgun pellets.

But don’t let it be said that this was the extent of the police’s violence. Hundreds have had their lives taken by senseless, stupid brutality. At the time of writing, it is far from over. The Egyptian Army is attempting, with varying degrees of success, to fill the security void left by the police. As of this writing, looters, crooked cops, and escaped prisoners still roam the streets, defended against by hastily assembled neighborhood watches. (I guess you could say we’re in the Mad Max phase at the moment.)  Mubarak has announced his dedication to reform and has given his word that he will step down in this year’s election. Is it enough? Let me be the first Egyptian to say: I don’t care. I personally tire of local politics. Mubarak steps down, Mubarak grows a ponytail; absolutely irrelevant. Irreversible change has occurred in an unprecedented manner, and the people have shown that they clearly have no issue with taking a few days off work to speak their mind.  Or even to lose our lives. Our fear has vanished, seemingly overnight, and I take a certain pride in my fellow shabaab for accomplishing what earlier generations could not. ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ this, ‘ElBaradei’ that; the speculation is and will remain unceasing, but whoever inherits this mess can take it as read that Tahrir Square will always be open.

Taher Medhat is an Egyptian film student who studied film at City College in San Francisco, and is currently living in Cairo. For more on Egypt, click here.

by Patricia V. Davis

The Big(oted) Boss

Dear Expert in Failed Relationships:

I like my job, like my direct manager at the company for which I work, and enjoy working with my colleagues. However, there’s a problem that has to do with the CEO. We see him once a month, and since we’re not a very large company he insists that we all have dinner together when he comes into town. That would be fine except for his dinner conversation. Since he is the CEO he gets center chair and center attention. All of us are expected to keep our eyes on him and nod as his spouts his racist and sexist diatribes. He will rant from soup to coffee about how the “brownies overseas” are putting him out of business. He will make side comments about the size of the waitresses’ chests. He says gays are a “disease,” and the only affirmative action he believes in is a “white sheet and a rifle.”

After sitting through one of these dinners, I feel sick for hours afterward, and mostly sick of myself for not telling him to shut the f*ck up!  But of course, if I do that I’ll lose my job.  I have tried to decline going to these dinners, making up as many excuses as I can think of that won’t sound like I’m shirking my work responsibilities, because in this company, these dinners are considered business meetings. But there are only so many times I can be excused without raising eyebrows and I am at my wits end. Please, do you have a suggestion on what I can do to let my boss know I hate this without losing my job? I need my job, and in this economy I’m afraid I won’t find another.

Signed,

Sick of the CEO

*******

Read the advice given here:

by Lindsey Kay

“I am a man with no country,” he said.  “My Muslim brothers hate me because I have grown Western, but the West hates me because my brothers are Muslim.”

This one man is not alone in his plight.  Across the United States, millions of Muslims find themselves walking the tightrope between embracing their faith and culture, and facing the rejection or even hatred of the American public. One should never discuss the fallout of 9/11 without paying homage to the Muslim Americans who often, wrongly, bear the brunt of our fears.

Another man angrily reminds me that “New York Remembers, New York will never forget.”  One might assume what he means is that no one in Manhattan could ever erase from their memories the horror of that day. Who could forget the towers falling? Who could forget the ash that didn’t settle for weeks? Who could forget the myriad of people who wandered the streets, looking at the faces of hobos and wondering if a member of their family was lying amnesiac on a street corner, praying that they were merely broken, and not forever lost?  Of course New York remembers ─ but what that man meant was not that they remember the tragedy, but that they remember who is to blame:  Islam.

Both men live their lives with respect and honor.  Both have a good job, take care of those around them, give charitably and keep their noses clean. Both shop at Walmart and Sam’s Club, both drive used cars, and both recycle. They both read literary fiction and dream of an evening that they can just kick up their feet on the porch and watch the neighborhood walk by, but their busy lives pursuing the American dream seem to always get in the way of relaxation. One flies the American flag from his window, the other has it as his computer’s wallpaper. Both read political magazines and try to keep up on current issues. Both research who they will vote for in the primaries as well as national elections. They write to their State Representatives and Senators.  Both, as a matter of fact, usually vote Republican.

One should not enter into a discussion of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” without respect for both of the men who typify what the issue is about:  First the American Muslim, and then the American whose principal knowledge of Islam is the horror of 9/11. The issue at hand here isn’t the legality or justice of a Mosque existing near Ground Zero, it is about the fear that many Americans feel when they sense Islam encroaching into their lives. The question isn’t if Muslims should be allowed to worship in lower Manhattan, it is if allowing Muslims to set their tent stakes in our cities means that we are inviting terror into our back yards.

People have painted the Imam behind the development of the mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan as a radical extremist who embraces Shariah law and would subjugate any American with whom he came into contact. Hypothetical situations have been set forth as fact, such as that the Muslims involved in the project are hoping to be martyred so as to bolster hatred between Islam and the West.  Some have gone as far as to say that Imam Faisal is working for the devil, parading the name of peace, while plotting for destruction.  Bible verses are quoted as a justification for that fear, making a chilling inference that these are the end times and Imam Faisal is tantamount to the antichrist. The truth is that one could not hope to have a logical discussion about justice and legality, while all interpretations of the issue are brushed in colors of fear and mistrust.

If the discussion was only about the rightness of having Muslims worship so close to Ground Zero, than long ago people would have taken up arms to prevent the Mosques that are already in operation in the same neighborhood.  If the discussion was truly about the Muslims in question denouncing terror, than the multitude of quotes from Imam Faisal and the other architects of the development would serve as evidence enough for fears to be quieted. If the real argument was how the 9/11 families feel, than the fact that many of them have come out to support the building would be more widely reported.  If the issue was in actuality how New Yorkers feel, then the fact that the vast majority of them affirm the Cordoba Project’s constitutional right to build ought to be enough. Yet the discomfort and opposition persist, despite mounting evidence that the issue shouldn’t be up for discussion.

A quick review of the time line: Manhattan based Soho Properties bought the land in question after it went for sale in 2009.  The Cordoba Initiative, along with other developers, purchased a portion of the block with plans to establish a mosque as well as a community center.  According to people involved in the project, a larger space for a mosque was necessary due to the rapidly growing amount of people attending services downtown, and established mosques simply not having adequate facilities to meet the Muslim community’s need. Services started being offered at 45 Park Place while plans for the community center at 51 Park Place moved forward. In early 2010, the developers took the plans for the center to a community board to be approved, and they won by a vote of 29 to 1. That was in May.  June passed with little note, and then July came. Searching through article archives and using Google’s alchemy functions, one can see evidence that in mid July the Cordoba Project’s plans gained sudden national media attention with the existing mosque’s expansion and plans to build a community center two city blocks away from Ground Zero, as the building of a “Ground Zero Mega Mosque.”  Suddenly Park 51, a community center “promoting tolerance and understanding through three types of programs: arts and culture, education, and recreation,” became rephrased as a tool of Muslim encroachment, with new descriptions like “creeping Jihad,” “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” “breeding ground for terrorism,” and “aggression masquerading as peace” attached to it.

To see the extent to which the issue has been mischaracterized, you need look no further than the metaphorical language used to describe people’s feelings. When asked why it is wrong for there to be a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, one man responded that it was like pedophiles buying a house two blocks from a park where children play. When asked why Muslims choosing to have a memorial near Ground Zero was wrong, another responded, “Even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked.” Other evocative turns of phrase are used like “spitting in the face of American’s pain,” “kicking us when we are down,” “trying to provoke us,” “using Freedom of Religion and zoning laws to mock an American tragedy,” and my personal favorite, “taunting the American Public.”

All such language shares two common attributes: The first is that it paints the American public as a helpless victim of Islamic torment.  We are the innocent babies in the park, powerless to defend ourselves against pedophiles. We are the sleeping dog that is either being tripped over or kicked by the advancement of Muslim rights.  We are the ones who, while lying there in pain, are being alternately spat on, kicked, provoked, or having our laws used against us.  At the very best we are being taunted. Why would a proud, patriotic American choose to portray himself as a passive victim? The second common attribute is that it makes a clear line of separation ─ the often unnamed but clearly malevolent “they” are doing something awful to “us”. The implication such language makes is that the Muslims in question are not like “us,” they are not Americans nor are they patriots, nor have they been hurt by terrorism.

Imagine how offensive it must be for Muslim Americans to hear themselves portrayed in such terms. Do not for a moment assume that what happened on 9/11 is a tragedy that is solely owned by white America. The tragedy happened to us all, every race and religion, every color and kind. We are all Americans, and we were all attacked. As one Muslim neighbor said, “the only person who the terrorists hate more than white Americans is Muslim Americans.” Muslims were attacked on 9/11.  They lost their friends and family, too, as the Towers fell. Muslim Americans hit the streets to help look for people wandering lost and injured. Muslim firefighters and police risked and even lost their lives trying to help survivors from Ground Zero. It was a tragedy that all of Manhattan felt keenly. Not a soul living in that city survived unscathed. We all share in it as a nation.

If we, as Americans, have a right to memorialize that day, than Muslim Americans have that same right. If we, as Christians, have the right to build and worship in the shadow of that site, then Muslim Americans have that same right. If we feel our hearts broken by the tragedies of the past, and feel fear tearing at our lungs when we think of further acts of terror, what makes us think that we are alone in those feelings? Many Muslims have condemned acts of terror. Many have expressed fear about the future and the safety of their families. Many have stated that being able to build a community center so near Ground Zero stands as a moral victory, as it shows the terrorists that America is left undivided and will not bend its moral principals in the face of violence.

Ultimately, the question of Muslims being allowed to build near Ground Zero is not a question of that which is right, what is legal, or who needs justice. It is a question of who we are as Americans, and whether or not we will give up some of the principles of what it means to be American because of nothing more than xenophobia. America was founded on high ideals. We are a nation of freedoms.  We are to be a safe harbor in the storm, a place where all immigrants can lay their weary heads and seek the hope of a brighter future. If Americans allow ourselves to be ruled by fear, we lose something very precious: our identity as a Nation of “liberty and justice for all.”

We must never forget that who we are as Americans is not defined in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’.  It is not defined by what God we pray to, but by what ethical standards guide us as a people. Those ethical standards are the same whether we are Christian or Muslim. They transcend all religions and come from the unfailing heart of mankind. A Christian may say that God was the architect of objective morality, a Muslim may say Allah made it so, and an atheist might say it was birthed by reason. One thing remains a constant:  we believe that greater good and inarguable rights exist, and we pursue those beliefs as a society.

The most American thing any of us can do is go to the staff of Park 51, take them a cold lemonade and an apple pie, and extend a hand of neighborly affection. My dream as both a Christian and a patriotic American is that one day, a Mosque and a Church can share a street corner in lower Manhattan, and an Imam and a Priest can share a table and smile at each other, saying, “we are not so different, you and I.”

The Bible has a lot to say about kind words turning away anger, love casting out fear, even loving those that hate us and praying for those who persecute us  (Proverbs 15, 1 John 4, Matthew 5).  The balm that we seek for the wound of Ground Zero should not be a rejection of those we fear, but a celebration of who we are when we are united as a nation. As Terry Rockefeller, a man who lost his sister on 9/11 said, “This doesn’t insult her at all. This celebrates the city she loved living in. It is what makes America what we are.”  And as Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf said at a Ted Talk he gave in October of 2009: “Our objective and our mission must be to be sources of compassion, actors of compassion, speakers of compassion and doers of compassion.”

If only we could all feel as they do. Leave a Comment

by Eros-Alegra Clarke

Prayers

All day my body is curved around my seven-month-old baby, Joaquin. He rides on my hip, his hand resting on my breast, his arm slung over my shoulder. I am once again transformed into a one-armed pourer of tea, maker of ba-bas, masher of potatoes. A one-finger typist.

In less than an hour, I have two near misses with my children. The ‘beep-beep’ of the microwave alerts me and I am leaping from my chair, across the room, screaming, “No!” My daughter has placed her bowl of noodles and metal spoon in the microwave and hit ‘instant cook.’ I give her my scariest voice so she will understand the danger. I make explosion sounds and act it out with my hands. My scary voice makes something wilt inside of me. I want to curl up around her, and beg, “Please, just listen. Don’t get hurt.” She looks at me all innocence. Pink clouds and scorpions with butterfly wings dance through her mind.

Later, I am making a bottle for Joaquin. I hear a squeal as if Zaviera is tickling him. The squealing gets louder. Again, my instincts send me flying in time to see Zaviera, poised like a pro-wrestler, her hands on the corner of Joaquin’s play pen, jumping down on his stomach with both feet. I yell, “NO ZAVIERA!” I yank her out, my insides turning. She tells me I’ve hurt her ears. I tell her that I know. She needs to listen. What she was doing was very, very dangerous. I feel like I have a tight fist in my brain as I go over it and over it. When I am sure she understands, I hug her and say, “Wow, you were just having fun and then Mommy yelled. You didn’t even realize you could hurt your baby brother!” She nods appreciatively, climbing on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck.

Inside, terror continues to snake around my organs, the back of my brain whispers, What if…what if you didn’t make it there in time. I feel the perfect curve of my son’s skull beneath my chin as he rides on my hip. My mind tunnels backwards to a dark place it doesn’t want to go. Because as I type this, my six-month-old nephew, Cezar Wairere, is in a coma and his brain is dying.

If he survives, he might be blind, he might not walk. He will be brain-damaged. Everyone is trying to be positive. It only makes me want to scream and throw things and say, “There is nothing to be positive about!” I don’t scream, I don’t throw things, but I raise my voice. I swear when I speak to my husband about the situation. The family is free-falling through the horror grasping at platitudes, grasping at small things, cups of coffee, the babies, the details.

My husband asks for prayers on Facebook. I write several of my close friends privately. I do not go public. Because, you see, there was no accident, no illness. He was put in the hospital by an adult. He was shaken repeatedly. It appears the abuse was ongoing. There is blunt force trauma to his head. A shame streaks through me, inky, ugly. It stains everything. I keep asking my husband, “Who? Who did it?” We have answers, but we don’t trust them yet. The police are still gathering evidence. All of us are retreating back into our respective corners of ‘what if.’ There were so many choices along the way to this moment.

Today, my husband and my oldest child, Sol, went up to the hospital to support the family who are keeping vigil. I could not go. As much as I wanted to wrap my arms around my extended family, my husband and I knew that I would look at that little baby who is breathing because of a machine and I would be claws and snarls and rage and fists and hatred and sorrow and denial and shame. I would not be the woman I need to be for the family I love.

Tonight, while I held my baby in my arms, he cooed in his sleep. My daughter buried her face into my back. I thought about the fact that there is a person carrying on with life: breathing and eating and talking and doing whatever it is that he or she does. That person also beat a baby and put him into a coma.

I want to pray for what is best for my nephew and his soul. Not what we need. What he needs. He has suffered enough.  I want to pray to understand what to do with this rage. So many monsters continue free, unaccounted for. We make excuses for them.

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” – Albert Einstein

Death

Dan looks at me, shakes his head, hands me the phone without warning. My sister-in-law’s voice is something I fall into. I want to close my eyes and sink into the grief, like a small, polished stone. A wish someone has made. She tells me that Cezar is in his father’s arms. He is gone.

Passed on, with God, he’s dead.

I imagine my family moving beneath the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital, this dark thing held in their hearts. I imagine them praying over Cezar with a ferociousness, calling upon God as his little body surrendered.

I imagine the baby’s father, Adam, his giant body cradling the small, perfect form of his son. It is a punch in the throat, a punch in my heart.  Something tightens beneath my skull and I can’t stop thinking of tiny toes, tiny fingers, tiny heart, stillness, the weightless weight of a dead son in his father’s arms.

That thing beneath my skull continues to tighten as I watch my husband write the words over and over again, to family to friends. He stops every few seconds, looks somewhere distant, returns. From the couch, my oldest son asks me, “Why does God make us so that we die?”

My husband’s fingers stop their typing. The hard questions begin.

“Because,” I say, “God gives us just enough time in our bodies so that our souls don’t get too tired. If we were here forever, we’d get really, really tired.”

Tonight, I am tired.

Burial

Today, on the last day of the tangi (three day Maori funeral), I watch my niece, Minaka, walk over to Cezar’s grave and drop a soft, yellow zip-up pajama. I watch child after child line up, grab a flower, a handful of pale earth, and throw it on the coffin, the adults hovering over them to make sure they don’t fall into the grave.

The air turns biting cold, the sky dark. Sol asks me if it is night time already. The rain begins, the winds are cruel. Zaviera is climbing all over her daddy, trying to escape. She whines and whines. We grow impatient with her. I clutch my jacket tighter as I step forward and grab my handful of earth. I think that I am done crying, that I have been emptied out after seeing Cezar’s small body resting in silk, his legs bare, his tiny fingers curled as if clutching something. He had a soft knit hat on his head to hide what had been done to him. I lost the edges of my body as I looked at the bruise on his lip, the shade of death in his skin, his closed eyes. I still don’t know that those edges have returned.

For the last few days, our lives have been a merry-go-round that refused to stop, one that has replaced horses and wild animals with mattresses, wharenui (Maori tribal meeting house) walls, long nights, and hard chairs. It plays no music and moves too quickly. The children have clutched, cried, demanded, threatened, and held on. They lose themselves in laughter, running races with their cousins, in grabbing for lollies and cookies. And then once again they are gathered into the spinning of our adult world. The karakias (prayers), the speeches, the singing, the ‘sit still, be quiet’, ‘we are saying goodbye to Cezar,’ that makes their world feel out of control.

Dan and I have held our position in the middle, picking our children up, putting them down, passing them on to relatives, gathering them up again. We are exhausted, dizzy, sick. We are trying to be kind, and patient. We fail. We keep trying.

Standing at the edge of Cezar Wairere’s grave, a fistful of earth and grit in my hand, I look down at those yellow pajamas, the white teddy bear next to the coffin, a few toys, and flowers. The scattered earth has begun to cover them, fistful by fistful. The space inside of me returns. I let go of my handful of earth and then walk through the graves until I stand looking at bushes, flax, weeds, the hill, the mist hovering in the air.

Several years ago this month, we buried the baby of our dear friends. His name was Noah Ranui. He was nearly one and he was beautiful. His death was from a heart defect. On that day, Sol was only two years old, Zaviera was still a baby, Joaquin had not been born. Kneeling at his grave, Sol climbed up in my arms with a fistful of dandelions. He brushed my eyelids with his fingertips, the flowers trailing against my skin. He said, “Close your eyes mommy, it’s okay. Close your eyes.” And then he pressed his nose into mine.

On that day, I feared all of the things that could happen to my children; the illnesses, the accidents. On this day I am mourning something that could have been prevented. This baby was murdered. I refuse to use pretty language, to soften the reality.

Murder is defined as: “The unlawful killing of another human being without justification or excuse. To kill brutally or inhumanly.”

I have learned that when violence takes the life of an adult, we say ‘murder.’ But when a baby is killed by violence we use words like ‘tragedy’ ‘abuse’ ‘wrongdoing’.

I stand in the rain and I feel arms around my waist. It is Sol. I pick him up and he lets his body relax into mine as I cry. He is five years old, and there are no dandelions in his fist, but once again, my brave, question-asking son stands within the gap between me and God.

These are things that will not go away inside of me as the earth covers the small body of a baby boy. It will not go away as we get back to the daily acts of living.

Cezar Wairere Taylor, I will not bury your spirit in euphemisms and platitudes. I know you are beyond the reach of anger, pain, or sorrow, but here on this earth, while I breathe and live and hold my babies, I will not forget what has been done to you. God Bless you.

Eros-Alegra Clarke is editor-in-chief of Milk & Ink, an online literary magazine that celebrates “family in the extreme,” which just published its first literary Anthology, Milk & Ink: A Mosaic of Motherhood. She won the 76th Annual Writer’s Digest grand prize for her personal essay, “Salamander Prayer,” and placed in the 4th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards. She was nominated by Writer’s Digest for the top 101 Best Websites for Writers.   She can be found blogging about life, writing, and motherhood at: http://alegra22.wordpress.com/ and  www.milkandink.com.

by Patricia Volonakis Davis

Text, Love, and Marriage

Dear EFR:

I’ve been with my husband for nine years. He lost his job and took one as a security guard out of town for one month. Five months later, I picked up his phone one day and saw a text from someone saying, “Hi love, how are you?”

Then I found two photos of an ugly redheaded woman saved on his cell phone. I took his phone and messaged this girl, pretending to be my husband. At one point she asked if this was really him. I said it was. I told the girl that ‘my wife’ found her message and wants a divorce, and that I didn’t know what to tell her. Her advice was, “Well she’s p*ssed off already, so tell her everything or tell her nothing. It’s up to you. Why didn’t you delete my sh*t, did you want to get caught?”

I confronted my husband and asked him who this woman was. He told me he met her while doing that security job, but that they were just friends. My husband denied sleeping with her, but in later conversations I was having with this girl while she was still thinking I was my husband, she sure knew enough about me, the wife. My husband is usually a quiet, closed person, and I can’t believe he didn’t sleep with her, with the knowledge she has about me. But my husband says she’s just a drunk and he won’t talk about it anymore.

For the last two years of our marriage, I haven’t paid much attention to him, due to working on growing my own business. I know that’s not an excuse, but I think he slept with her, and don’t know how to get the truth from him. Now he is all lovey-dovey and wants our marriage to work.
How should I handle this?

Signed,

Security Guard Impersonator

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Shallow Hallie

Dear EFR:

I am a 36-year-old woman who has never married, because I could never seem to find a man who was up to my standards. By that I mean I exercise daily, am in great shape and — not to brag — am very beautiful. I recently started dating a man who measures up to all of that — he seemed my ideal physically, actually, until we had sex for the first time. It was then that I saw he has what looks like a third nipple, right next to his real left nipple. I have to say I was horrified. I can’t help it— it really grossed me out. We did have sex, because I didn’t want to be rude, but needless to say, I didn’t really enjoy it. He was good at it and all, in fact, he was really very sweet, but my mind mostly was focused on that third nipple looming over me. Now he wants to know why I keep making excuses not to see him, and I don’t know what to tell him. As I said, I don’t want to hurt his feelings. What should I do?

Signed,

No Nipple Nookie

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