Sometimes the Truth Burns Our Eyes

Over the past few months there have been both successful attacks as well as failed attempts by suicide bombers on universities in Iraq, I wondered about the insanity of it all. Who would choose universities to target? I found myself empathetic to the plight of Iraqi students struggling to get an education amidst a conflict zone and appalled that they could become sacrificial lambs to the politics of a bloody civil war.

In the United States, university campuses are thought to be protective environments for our burgeoning youth – a buffer from the “real” world. It is where a ritualistic process of initiation into adulthood takes place for so many of us in our culture. Not to mention the fact, that there seems to something almost sacred about a bucolic campus – a place that serves as a beacon of knowledge to light the imaginations of the young and ambitious.

So, “revolting” – the only word I can find to describe the violent attack on the campus of Virginia Tech. It’s simply too much to wrap one’s mind around. Blacksburg is not any where near a war zone.

So many questions now being asked about the massacre at Virginia Tech, but we have heard them all before and the sad fact is – that we essentially continue to find exactly the same answers that are all too often found at the post-mortem of these grim scenes. There is really nothing new, only a different place, time, and this time, yes, even more victims. The gunman was a loner – disaffected by the community in which he existed. His professors had been disturbed about the menacing nature of his writing. And, he was living in a state – no, a nation in which the gun laws are so liberal that he was able to obtain not one, but two handguns and bring them into an institution of higher learning firing as many as 100 rounds of ammunition as students sat in their classrooms.

The United States has borne witness to innocent children being victims of gun shot wounds, music icons gunned down outside their homes, and even our sitting presidents shot while the nation watched. We have little hope that the tragedy at Virginia Tech will bring about enough rage to effect radical changes in our gun laws, but I hope that it is a catalyst for at least incremental policy shifts because anything else would be an insult to our dignity as citizens of this nation. Sometimes the truth burns our eyes like staring directly into the fiery blaze of the sun. We must reconsider our positions and re-evaluate our ideals. We must force a re-examination of ourselves as a nation of diverse values, but interwoven communities. No more children in this country should become the sacrificial lambs to the politics of our Constitution. I don’t care about anyone’s “right to bear arms” because all of the students gunned down at Virginia Tech had their human rights violated as they laid in pools of their own blood.

Global Citizen or Denizen?

Nancy Pelosi, the strong-willed Speaker of the House, has come under attack this week for her diplomatic visit to Syria. Yes, that’s right, her “diplomatic” travels are under scrutiny by the current administration because President Bush doesn’t believe in speaking to people he doesn’t agree with. Fight them, yes. Speak to them, no. Ms. Pelosi’s actions here are quite laudable though. She has demonstrated the kind of chutzpah that separates true leadership from well, plain old pettiness.

The public criticism of Ms. Pelosi’s visit to Syria reminded me of something I had read several months ago that seemed very befitting to the contrast between President Bush’s handling of foreign policy versus that of Ms Pelosi’s. I had been given a catalogue for Claus Miller’s “Signs for Peace” exhibition which features conceptual artwork created from the fingerprints of peacemakers around the world. Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome, writing in the preface of this catalogue, reflected on a quote from Kofi Annan who was in turn explaining peacemaking from the perspective of traditional African society:

When dealing with conflict “people gather together under the largest tree in the village and talk. And, ‘if you can’t solve the problem, you meet the next day and you keep talking till you find the solution.’ This is the only path to follow, in dark difficult times such as ours, marked by terrorism and war: the path of dialogue, discussion, mutual respect, and negotiation. Peace is the way to achieve peace. It is a task that each of us can take upon his or her own shoulders, with humility and responsibility, knowing that every small act, every symbolic gesture, may be useful. For lighting up hope. For dispelling fear and egoism, which would be overcome.”

Ms. Pelosi is obviously ready to find her own “Sign for Peace” and actually reported that she felt hopeful for the future at the conclusion of her dialogue with Syrian officials. Perhaps, by reaching out to Syria in such a diplomatic way, this small symbolic gesture of Ms. Pelosi’s could have powerful consequences. Maybe, it will even serve as a signifier to other leaders in the Western world that it is time for them to recognize the importance of their role as global citizens rather than denizens. It’s time to talk and of course, listen.