right now i can see the sun starting to peak through the heavy cloud, the wind blew my house around like crazy last night, something is in the air that's for sure. last night, i watched (again!!) a fine documentary by one of my favorite canadian filmmakers....velcrow ripper. it's called 'scared sacred'. this movie takes us to some of the 'ground zeros' of our world, places that have suffered through some horrendous suffering.
one of these places is bhopal, india. one night, a chemical leak at one of dow chemical's factories had a leak and a cloud of toxic gas was released into the surrounding area. of course with corporate responsibility being what it is, these people were abandoned. but what this film shows in numerous scenarios is the strength of human compassion. the people in bhopal started an ayurvedic clinic and have been treating victims through healthy eating, massage and yoga therapy. and it has been very successful. to hear these people speak of that night and the lost of their loved ones is quite devastating, but to see them rise up and help each other..... left me with a sense of empowerment.
velcrow travels to cambodia, hiroshima, afghanistan, new york, bosnia, israel and palestine. having been to a number of these place myself i found myself really understanding the meaning of scared sacred. i remember being in cambodia and trying to not let the horror show on my face when i seen countless people out on the streets with missing limbs. from old people who had survived the days of pol pot to young children who were innocently out playing in the jungle and had picked up a landmine. but the horror on my face vanished once i looked into those smiling faces. i could no longer see these mutilated bodies... just happy, welcoming smiles.
palestine............palestine is a modern day concentration camp. a genocide raging on behind closed doors. and one that never gets talked about because we fear questioning the jewish people who suffered their own holocaust. to survive a such a horrible situation, as the jewish people have, and then foist a new genocide on the palastinians, which they are doing now, goes beyond my comprehension!
sky and wayne and i drove our rented car into bethlehem, first we were met by an israeli checkpoint where i had a gun held to my head to convince me not to go further. but since i had the paperwork, the gun meant nothing! we carried on and what we seen will stick in all of our minds forever. people are forced from their homes, encircled by cement and barbwire, cut off from their orchards and their means of making an income. these days jewish settlements encroach even further onto palestine land and are often populated by the most radical of the radical and fully protected by the israeli army.
not many years ago, rachel corrie, who was in palestine with a volunteer organization (international solidarity movement) to walk palestinian children back and forth to school safely, was ran over dead by a bulldozer. she was ran over by a D9 caterpillar as she was taking part in a protest against the destruction of palestinian homes on the gaza strip. rachel corrie held an accurate belief as many at the ISM had.......that a person from the 'west' would be less likely to be shot and killed than just another palestinian.....this time she was wrong...as was thomas hurndall, an student from England, who rushed out into IDF sniper fire to save children frozen in fear as bullets fell around them.
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