FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF OCTOBER 19, 2001 COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez HEAR MY SONG NOTE: This week's column is a 1st person piece by Roberto Rodriguez. As I was listening to the reactions to Sept 11 of some world-renowned poets and storytellers at the annual Guadalupe book fair in San Antonio, I was inspired to ask myself: What's the most human response I can offer? Fight against injustice? Donate that which is most precious -- blood -- the sustenance of life? Never forget those who are suffering? Relearn to trust my neighbors? Speak the truth? I wondered about the most human thing I've ever done. Twenty years ago, I gave some friends from Guatemala who had been tortured, a story I had written, "The Song of the Quetzal," that their people would one day be free. Maybe there's something else. Three years ago, having regained my singing voice after 29 years, I began to sing Agustin Lara boleros for elders at rest homes and senior centers. An elder once told me that all song is prayer. Is that what's needed now? Prayer? Maybe, yet in reality, the most human thing any of us can do at this time is honestly share our most innermost thoughts. At once, I feel fortunate to have witnessed in my lifetime what I thought I'd never see: people of all races, cultures and religions giving selflessly of themselves in a country where individualism is venerated. Yet, at the same time, I've also been repulsed by those who harass people who look Arab, who equate freedom of speech with anti-Americanism, and I also feel sad for those who appear not to have human hearts. Perhaps the best result of all this is a complete repudiation of the many faces of extremism and fanaticism. At the book fair, poet Naomi Nye noted that she'd been disappointed that as human beings our answer to problems is still violence. How did we let it get this far? Truthfully, in the eyes of the apparent perpetrators, the acts of Sept. 11 were in response to a dehumanized situation. For many peoples in the Middle East, U.S. troops on Holy Land are propping up corrupt and tyrannical regimes, and the daily killing of Palestinians is both sacrilegious and intolerable. Nevertheless, in the history of struggles for freedom and liberation, civilians have always been off-limits, precisely because it is tyrannical regimes that hold little regard for human life. That's what traditionally has separated those who view human beings as politically expendable from those who hold all life to be sacred. In this case, the apparent perpetrators -- self-styled avengers for the downtrodden against infidels -- could not distinguish between janitors/restaurant workers and global capitalists, nor did they care to. Perhaps they and others with similar causes are no longer interested in distinguishing themselves from perceived tyrants. The bombing of Afghanistan has proved one thing: There can not be a fair fight. "Slingshots" don't count as anti-aircraft artillery. Military imbalance is why insurgents resort to unconventional warfare yet that doesn't explain the breakdown of the warrior ethos that spares noncombatants. Perhaps we've arrived at a point where technology and warped theologies have rendered that ethos obsolete. That breakdown, along with the knowledge that this country is no longer insulated and that cruise missiles don't protect us from suicidal bombers or anthrax, is causing extreme anxiety in the United States. I have close friends from Central America who note that that breakdown took place a long time ago in their societies. That's why they're here. Native peoples also make the same argument. This from a friend, Lorena Montoya who comments about the reality she lives: "And how about the many 'disappeared,' how many women raped, mutilated, children forced to witness the torture of their father or mother, children left orphaned? These are the very images that I, my loved ones and many others that I know endured for years during the war in El Salvador." It's precious human beings like Lorena -- that have survived these barbaric forms of dehumanization -- who will be able to guide this country to a new ethos. Fundamental to it is holding all life to be sacred and rejecting extremism of any sort at home or abroad, but particularly the kind that exploits hatreds and prejudices. Such extremism is obsessed with "purity," believing that its adherents alone hold the truth and that all others are infidels. Yet such a rejection is not enough. We need to personalize it even further. As novelist Sandra Cisneros noted: "Forgive someone ... and become peace itself." I would add this: Open up for yourself and for others not just your heart, but your arts -- sing, paint, write, dance or play an instrument. Your voice is your heart. Don't ever let it be taken from you. And as a friend reminded me, always "Remember to see the beauty within yourself and the beauty that surrounds you." COPYRIGHT 2001 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race (Cloth- ISBN 0-927534-69-X paper ISBN 0-927534-68-1 -- Bilingual Review Press). He is co-author of "Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut & Uncensored" (ISBN: 0-918520-22-3 -- Ethnic Studies Library Publications Unit, UC Berkeley. Gonzales is the author of the forthcoming "The Mud People: Anonymous Heroes of Mexico" and We can be reached at PO BOX 100726, San Antonio, TX 78201-8726, or by phone at 210-734-3050 or XColumn@aol.com "Column of the Americas" is posted every Friday and archived under "Opinion" at www.uexpress.com If you would like to receive it electronically direct from us, send us a note. IF YOU LIKE THE COLUMN, PLEASE CALL/WRITE YOUR LOCAL EDITOR AND HAVE THEM CARRY IT ON A WEEKLY BASIS.
