Still No Groundswell for Peace
/The Boston Herald
The world rushed to help the devastated city of Bam, Iran, first to rescue those trapped beneath mud, cement and rubble, then to bury the dead, feed the hungry, house the homeless - reaching out despite history and politics. A tear in the earth's skin, a shudder that buried 50,000 human beings, spurred this humanity.
Iran responded by opening its doors, waiving its strict passport controls, rebuffing only Israel. Seventeen hundred international relief workers from 30 countries were digging, toiling, cleaning up, hauling food and medical supplies. Iran didn't need Israel. The rebuff was a growl.
The United States, which last year called Iran part of the "axis of evil" and which hasn't had direct communication with the Iranian government since 1980, sent in 200 emergency relief workers. Canada, which has been feuding with Iran over the death of a Canadian photographer, OK'd Canadian money and supplies. Politics have been put aside for now.
We're good at this. Rushing to the rescue. But, oh, how bad we are at just living together day to day when the world isn't on fire or buckling under our feet.
The earthquake came Christmas week when all tragedy feels bigger and more personal, when peace on Earth is a prayer and the brotherhood of man a possibility. "Bring him home. Bring him home," Valjean sings in "Les Miserable," the musical about the French Revolution. Different place, different weapons. But the killing is the same. Every broken body, some mother's son. Every one of the dead, someone's whole world. "Bring him peace. Bring him joy. He is young. He is only a boy.”
Life throws us catastrophes. Earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, death. Why, we ask. Why? Why do we choose to kill one another on top of all this?
In the Army Times this week are 500 photos of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. "They grew up in big cities like Chicago and New York and small towns like Layton, Utah, and Cross Lanes, West Virginia. Ten were women, the youngest six 18-year-olds barely out of high school. The oldest, Army Sgt. Floyd G. Nightman Jr., was 55.” In Tuesday's New York Times, there was a story about a soldier now back from the war, Jeremy Feldbusch, 24, a strong Pennsylvanian now head-injured and blind.
An earthquake brings down a city, and countries that don't even talk to each other work together to help. Wars bring down families and communities and countries and civilizations and life as we know it. And still they go on.
It's hard to watch "Cold Mountain," the new Civil War movie in light of what's happening today. Because boys continue to get caught up in the frenzy of whipping the enemy, of "showing them who's boss." Even though a few years down the road the enemy turns into a friend.
"The Fighting Sullivans," "Casualties of War," "Saving Private Ryan," "Born on the Fourth of July." We've seen the movies. And we've seen the real thing.
If the people of Bam were to rebuild their city using cement and mud on their roofs - a combination that led to the devastation - we'd call them stupid because come the next earthquake, the buildings would again collapse and thousands more would be buried.
The trick is to learn from our mistakes. And we do. Architects now construct buildings that can withstand seismic seizures.
But we haven't yet figured out how to resolve conflict without killing. Despite cemeteries full of war dead, despite photos of soldiers who never grow old, despite orphans and widows and now widowers, and children caught in the crossfire and homeless vets and disabled vets and hundreds of millions of lives sacrificed, we haven't learned how to get along.
