On obligatory amnesia and unforgettable images
My
friend Thusha has kindly sent me a fascinating document by Eduardo
Galeano. It is called ‘The Right to Rave’, a manifesto and a wish list
at the same time. The list was prefaced. ‘In 1948 and again in 1976, the
United Nations proclaimed long lists of human rights, but the immense
majority of humanity enjoys only the rights to see, hear and remain
silent. Suppose we start by exercising the never-proclaimed right to
dream? Suppose we rave a bit? Let’s set our sights beyond the
abominations of today to divine another possible world.’
There were many ‘articles’ in these ‘rights’ and the following caught
my eye: ‘In Argentina, the crazy women of the Plaza de Mayo shall be
held up as examples of mental health because they refused to forget in a
time of obligatory amnesia.’ The reference was to the Mothers of the
Disappeared in Argentina, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who stood
silently, dentified only by their white kerchiefs, and sometimes by the
pictures they held of their missing children.
Anas Hamed and his sister Inas who suffer from birth defects in
Fallujah Courtesy :countercurrents.org |
They authorities, unable to deal with this silent statement of
objection (protests were banned at the time), resorted to vilifying
them. They were called the Crazy Women of Plaza de Mayo, las locas de
Plaza de Mayo.
I think the reason that I noticed that particular line in Galeanos
deft capture of the world’s injustices in this ‘Rave’ was that I had
received an email the same day about images that should not be
forgotten. The ‘forgotten images’ included one where US soldiers are
shown looking at the body of a dead Vietcong soldier which presumably
they had tied to the truck they were travelling on and dragging it along
the road.
If reconciliation, redress, punishment and so on are things that have
a political afterlife even following military victory/defeat, as the
current howls and howlers emanating from certain ill-informed and myopic
corners of the international community serve to make us understand, then
this photograph should warrant not just investigation and punishment but
compensation as well. It looks like the world is selective when it comes
to war crimes, investigation, delivering judgment and dispensing
punishment.
It is not even possible to say ‘that’s the past, let’s move on’, for
the USA has bombed 18 countries since the second world war ended,
maintains a military presence in dozens of countries, has invaded many
others and have directly or indirectly caused the death of more than a
million people in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years, displaced
a similar number and produced more maimed and orphaned persons than any
other country in the world during this period.
I had seen that ‘forgotten’ picture before, as I have some of the
others that were included in the email. There are more recent pictures
and stories that we are being asked to forget.
If you go to the following site, you will read about a boy called
Anas Hamed and his sister Inas both in the unhappy city called Fallujah
who suffer from birth defects courtesy the US-British battles against
suspected rebels, the bloodiest so far according to some accounts
(http://www.countercurrents.org/rothscum110710.htm). Fallujah was one of
the most peaceful places in Iraq post-invasion. On April 28, 2003, a
crowd of 200 people defied a local curfew and gathered outside a local
school to protest the presence of foreign troops in their city. As
things heated up, it is alleged, that US troops were fired upon. US
soldiers ‘returned’ the fire, killing 17 people.
An Italian documentary claims that the US used incendiary MK-77 bombs
(similar to napalm) in military action. The use of such weapons are
illegal according to Protocol III of the Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons, to which the USA (surprised?) is not a signatory.
The US State Department initially denied using white phosphorus as a
munition, but backtracked when it was found that a US Army magazine had
run a story detailing its use in Fallujah.
The infant mortality rate in Fallujah is 80/1000 per year, the birth
rate a horrific 136 per 1,000 births. In the first two months of 2010,
as many infants died as in the whole of 2008. Deformities, genetic
mutations etc stand at unacceptable levels. There’s a peace dividend
here, then. It’s not being reported or acknowledged in the British
Parliament, which regularly engages in moral posturing with respect to
Sri Lanka’s ‘alleged’ war crimes (unproven and extrapolated from
statements from dubious sources). The British, like the USA justified
invasion citing the existence of ‘weapons of mass destruction (WMD)’.
The US said ‘regime change’ but the British, constitutionally hampered
called it ‘self-defense’. Cute. Tell that to Anas and Inas Hamed and
thousands of other children who would not say ‘thank you’ to any Brit or
Yank today or ever for all the crimes against humanity committed in
their very names, for which they had to pay by foregoing normal lives,
regular bodies and freedoms that the children of the ‘saviours’ get to
enjoy.
There is another image that I want to see. Dr David Kelly, the UK
Government’s Nuclear Science expert sent to Iraq to find WMDs. Before
the invasion. He found none and reported this. His body was found in a
walking path near his residence. Verdict: suicide. Some JMOs protested.
They were greeted with silence. I want a picture of the look on his face
as he departed this earth. Freeze it. I am sure it will be a pin-up item
that rebels against ‘obligatory amnesia’ as such decreed by the thugs of
this world.
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