collective grieving and the wikileaks video

by: los anjalis

Tue Apr 06, 2010 at 23:34:24 PM PDT

Let me premise this post by stating that I am posting it here on Cure This because it relates to violence, human rights, grieving, mental health, forms of nonviolent resistance and collective healing. This week, an independent website called Wikileaks released a video they received from an anonymous source, from the view of a camera on the gun of a US Apache helicopter in Iraq, and featuring voices from the pilots of two US military helicopters. It was released on the Wikileaks site and a Wikileaks site called Collateral Murder.

Like La Macha said on VivirLatino, I must include a trigger warning. If you are a survivor of violence, this video could be extremely hard to watch and could trigger previous trauma.  For those of us who have not been survivors of extreme violence, this could also trigger very deep, dark, powerful feelings.  Here is the video:

I have so many thoughts about this video, so many sad and angry thoughts, and feelings about how we have all contributed to this attitude towards war and life.  And I agree with La Macha says -- "I feel it is a duty to watch it. To see what it is being done in your name. And take responsibility for it."

But after I watched it, I was overcome with a sense of deep -- almost paralyzing -- grief.  I felt positive that I was alone in this deep grief, but all over the US (and definitely all around the world), this video is sparking grief AND anger in many of us. Obviously, the anger that this video must incite in Iraqis and oppressed people everywhere is unimaginable.

My wonderful friend Heather Bowlan pointed me towards a Guernica Magazine interview with gender and nonviolence theorist Judith Butler. Butler's written a book recently called Frames of Life: When is Life Grievable?  Her thoughts on the matter give me some direction and calm me... a little... so I thought I'd share them. On grievable and ungrievable lives:

are you supporting transformation?

by: los anjalis

Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 09:00:00 AM PST

Though it's been two weeks since the 45th anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination, I keep thinking about a post that my friend Adrienne Maree Brown wrote at her blog, about his transformation from Detroit Red to Malcolm X to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.  These two lines are stuck in my head:

Are you supporting transformation? Who is the Malcolm X in your life, and how are you supporting him or her?

Check out her blog post. You might find these lines stuck in your head too.