V-Day

Last Friday I attended:

Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer on March 28 @ 8pm in Hitchcock Hall Auditorium. This is a groundbreaking collection of monologues by world-renowned authors and playwrights, edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle and commissioned by V-Day for the first V-Day: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS festival, which took place June 2006 in New York City. All proceeds from the book will benefit V-Day.These diverse voices rise up in a collective roar to break open, expose, and examine the insidiousness of violence at all levels: brutality, neglect, a punch, even a put-down.The volume features such authors and topics as: Edward Albee on S&M; Maya Angelou on women's work; Michael Cunningham on self-mutilation; Dave Eggers on a Sudanese abduction; Edwidge Danticat on a border crossing; Carol Gilligan on a daughter witnessing her mother being hit; Susan Miller on raising a son as a single mother; Sharon Olds on a bra; Patricia Bosworth on her own physically abusive relationship; Jane Fonda on reclaiming our Mojo; and many more.These writings are inspired, funny, angry, heartfelt, tragic, and beautiful. But above all, together they create a true and profound portrait of how violence against women affects every one of us. The book includes information on how to organize V-Day events and readings of the book. A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, And A Prayer is a call to the world to demand an end to violence against women. ~

Although there were many thought provoking moments in the performance, I thought the most interesting thing that happened was something that was not stated at anytime, i.e. whether or not the monologues were 'real' or based on fictional composites. I have long held the position that because of the nature of sexually based violence that audiences of either print or visual material are most moved when they consume partially fictionalized accounts. I think that this is true for several reasons. Institutional accounts of sexually based violence in both war and peace time use clinical terms to describe what has occurred. The reports use terms like 'rape' and 'sexual assault', the legal definitions for which vary widely. Those terms are also unable to convey to emotional terror that sexually based violence wages on its victims. On the other side of the coin, victims of such violence also have a tough road when they give their account of what has happened to them. While there are many people that enjoy watching fictionalized stories of sexually based violence on programs such as Law and Order Special Victims Unit or CSI, very few of us are able to stomach having to assist a rape victim in the aftermath of the crime and look him or her in the eye to the see victim relive the terror. Moreover, because of the personal nature of sexual assault victims are reluctant to tell their stories publicly because of the shame surrounded with victimization. Let me know what you think. Remember mark your calendar for V-Day on April 11& 12.

http://v10.vday.org/homepage

The Iraq War: 5 Years Later

I posted this to my facebook account two weeks ago but I figured it was a good lead off post for the new effort here.

Five years ago this week my roommates and I were huddled around a nearly obsolete television set that dated from the early 90’s. In the background Guns n’ Rose’s “Welcome to the Jungle” was set on repeat and helped to sonically illustrate what we were about to witness visually. The channel was tuned to CNN. For the first time in history, civilians were able to ride ‘shotgun’ while an army representing one country spilled over the boarder of another with the aim of invasion. Sure, pictures of war had been available since the Civil War. During World War II newsreels upped the ante by providing an edited motion picture version of war. Coverage of the Vietnam War went further still by beaming the day’s action into the living rooms of millions of Americans during the nightly news. The Gulf War gave us a glimpse of what was to come with the cruise missile camera footage that was featured so prominently during Storm’n Norman’s daily press briefings. The resolution of the cameras was so high you could identify individual bricks on the buildings that were destroyed. The images were every little boy’s video game fantasy about what war could be. What we witnessed on CNN that night differed exponentially in scope because of the immediacy of the broadcast stream. As the tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division pounded through the mounds of sand that marked the border between Kuwait and Iraq we were there in real time. The tension in the room was amplified by the smell of sweat and testosterone. This was the ultimate in real time ‘gonzo’ snuff films for the enjoyment of anyone who wanted to witness it. It felt as if we were going into combat but, of course we were not.

I will admit, that night and for several years thereafter; I was drunk on the current Iraq war. I was trumpeting the change to freedom fries and cheering on Donald Rumsfeld’s vaudevillian press briefings. Now it is almost laughable that I had bought into it all but at the time I was energetically engaged with the ROTC program at Ohio State. While I knew that I could not make a career of it because of various congenital back deformities, I lapped up every drop of the military I could. Belief in the mission is the central cannon of the Army and I believed with all of my heart. "Lets Roll" was our battle cry everyday at formation. Much has occurred in the interim. The President has gathered together all of the hubris he could muster and laded on the flight deck of an air craft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished”. Keith Olbermann reminds us nightly that nearly 1800 days have past and more than 3000 soldiers have died since that declaration. Iraqi has descended into a violent civil war in which coalition soldiers are killed at a rate of nearly one a day while policing it. Several people that I know have been killed or irrevocably damaged in connection to their deployments. The lapses in mental health treatment and physical care for veterans have been shown to be appalling in many VA Hospitals. This is to say nothing of the lies, half truths, and innuendo that brought us into the war in the first place. Then when you think that it can not get any worse the president on the eve of the fifth anniversary of this war describes the service of the troops in Iraq as “Romantic”. Fifteen month deployments are romantic? The death of thousands of Americans is romantic? Harvard trained seminarian and author Chris Hedges stated it best in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning when he said that in regards to war that “we have all become like Nestor in the Iliad reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”.

I recently attended a group veterans called the “Warrior’s Council” at the First Congregational Church in Tallmadge, Ohio. This group is dedicated to healing the trauma caused by combat in its members and to aiding members of the military currently serving back into civilian life. The veterans and family members that were that attended the meeting spanned several generations of service and ranged from World War II veterans to parents of those currently serving in Iraq. The stories were moving and I could feel their pain reach back up through time to touch all who were in the room. While I do not take the lachrymose view that all war is utterly purposeless, it is most often at the very least a gross misappropriation of society’s resources. One can only image the kind of change that could have been implemented if this country could have back its 4000 dead and trillions of dollars that have been spent on this current misadventure. One can only wonder what humanitarian crisis the United States could have intervened in if its blood and treasure had not been pillaged elsewhere. Darfur? Burma? Tibet? We will never know. On this, a holy week for both Christianity and Judaism, I will be thinking of all of those who are serving, will serve, and who have died in Iraq. I pray that the madness that spurred on the Iraq war will be halted as soon as is reasonably possible.