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:

the holidays are here and we're still at war

by: los anjalis

Sat Jan 02, 2010 at 10:00:00 AM PST

Pilgrims in the parking lot
Arteries clogged with blood clots
Pushing through the aisles of department stores
Neon crosses and Christmas lights
Credit card debts and brand new bikes
The holidays are here and we're still at war...

(more after the jump)

And now for some Saul Williams. Not in our Name.

by: los anjalis

Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 22:34:19 PM PDT

We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility
to resist the injustices done by our government,
in our names

Not in our name
will you wage endless war there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions of blood for oil

Not in our name
will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless

Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for

Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil

Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us

Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil

Not by our will
and Not in our name

We pledge resistance

We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity

We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world
to bring about justice, freedom and peace

Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real.

No More Victims and medical care to Iraqi children

by: los anjalis

Sun Oct 21, 2007 at 03:39:41 AM PDT

The 10-year-old girl lost her legs in what her family said was a U.S. air strike on the outskirts of Baghdad last November. Salee, who was discovered by her mother dragging herself over a pile of bricks, helped identify the remains of her 13-year-old brother and her best friend, who were killed in the same incident.

Salee recently was fitted with mechanical knees and prosthetic limbs at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville, S.C. Her sponsors wanted to give her a happy memory before she returns to her war-torn country next Monday.

So they brought her and her father to Catalina Island...

Her companions included Mahmood and two people who raised most of the funds to bring Salee to the United States in July for corrective surgery: social worker Ann Cothran of Greenville, N.C., and Cole Miller, founder of Los Angeles-based No More Victims, a grass-roots organization dedicated to assisting Iraqi children injured in the war.

"There are thousands of Salees in Iraq," Miller said. "I don't consider this charity. It's responsibility."

And on an entertaining note, Salee Allawe (the girl discussed above) whispered to her translator while on Catalina Island:

"I want to be a photographer when I grow up. But don't tell anyone because all the kids I know want to be doctors."