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At a small, informal school in the basement of a church in Amman, many strings of colorful paper cranes bedeck walls and windows. The school serves children whose families have fled Iraq. Older children who come to the school understand the significance of the crane birds. Claudia Lefko, of Northampton, MA, who helped initiate the school, told them Sadako's story. The Japanese child survived the bombing of Hiroshima, but suffered from radiation sickness. In a Japanese hospital, she wanted to fold 1,000 origami crane birds, believing that by doing so she could be granted a special wish: hers was that no other child would ever suffer as she did. Sadako died before completing the task she'd set for herself, but Japanese children then folded many thousands more cranes, and the story has been told for decades in innumerable places, making the delicate paper cranes a symbol for peace throughout the world.
Today, August 6, children who've recently joined the informal school in Ammam will learn Sadako's story.
Having survived war, death threats, and displacement, they may be particularly aware of the enormous challenge represented by Sadako's wish.
Words to the song "Little Girl of Hiroshima" are on my mind today, thinking of the Iraqi children who have not survived:
I come and stand at every door
But none shall hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.
The song goes on to tell of a child who needs no bread, nor even wheat, needs no milk, or water, for she is dead. She only asks for peace,
So that the children of the world
Can run and dance and laugh and play.
A year ago, the space where the Iraqi children gather was grim and decrepit. The Jordanian parish priest invited volunteers from the community of Iraqis living in the area to help create a place where their children could meet for lessons and games. Several families responded and set about hauling debris out of the rooms, long unused, that had once housed monks in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Walls were sanded and painted, windows installed, and a garden they planted is now in full bloom. Thirty five children gather, for two hours a day, five days a week, under careful supervision of a few adults in the community. It's a hopeful spot.
When I visited the school several times a week, earlier this year, two of the children, Carom and Carla, were listless and withdrawn. In the past few weeks, I've loved watching little Carla run to join a team playing tug-o-war, proudly accept a marker and solve simple math problems in front of the class, and actively engage in cooperative games. Her brother races faster than any of the other children his age, and he fills his notebook with careful writing.
How fortunate that these two children escaped the fate of so many Iraqi children now represented by the little girl of Hiroshima, those whose silent tread will never be heard.
Claudia Lefko, (iraqichildrensart@verizon.net) works to raise money for the school. For every $35 dollars she raises, we might guess the Pentagon raises $35 million. Billions, perhaps trillions will be spent to send weapons, weapon systems, fighter jets, ammunition and military support to the region, fueling new arms races and raising the profits of U.S. weapon makers.
August 6th, Hiroshima Day, marks the time when the United States ushered the world into an age threatened by weapons of horrific mass destruction, spawning the terrible arms race that marked the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, as the nightmare of war in Iraq steadily worsens, August 6th also marks a new round of Occupation Project activities. The Occupation Project is a campaign called for by Voices for Creative Nonviolence and endorsed by Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, Declaration of Peace, and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, among others.
The action involved is simple. Activists assemble in the offices of elected representatives, prepared to read aloud or to chant the names of Iraqis and Americans who have been killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq. They bring with them articles which help analyze how U.S. wealth and U.S. lives are being used to protect war profiteers and extend the arm of U.S. military might.
We can never reverse the decisions to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor can we ever adequately explain to children the vicious patterns of our ongoing wars.
The song about "The Little Girl of Hiroshima" imagines a child who comes and stands at every door, unheard and unseen. In reality, we can go to the doors of elected representatives; - we can be heard and seen. We can learn from past experiences and, as we commemorate the loss of innocent lives, bolster efforts to stop war makers from constantly gaining the upper hand in our lives. I can think of no better place to announce our determination than inside the offices of those who, as elected lawmakers, can affect future military spending. Please, if you have not already done so, visit the www.vcnv.org website and consider ways to participate in the Occupation Project during these crucial weeks before the Senate and House of Representatives vote on more spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org
15 Comments so far
Show AllDear God, What have we done? We're going to destroy the planet!!
And BTW, I don't read long or mean posts. Get your own blog if you can't SHUT UP!!
DANIEL SMYTHE: Good points!
A really touching article. It's amazing the extremes of human behaviour.
At one end of the spectrum are the killers, the exploiters, the molesters, the power-crazed, the greedy, the heartless, the haters.
At the other are the gentle folk who hurt no one, whose arms are always open, whose lips mostly carry a smile of hope, who care for others, who know the true meaning of forgiveness and love.
Hopefully evolution will favor the latter group.
Only then will we know peace.
Motherhood is akin to prophecy.
Tina....thank you for sharing your beautiful experience...that is true peace work....
Tina Busch-Nema: You have described the power and strength and beauty of "the feminine" in a most eloquent way. I have tears.
I have a dream - that every human being - regardless of their man or woman outer covering - tap into the feminine energy within themselves. It has the power to heal and to bring peace and happiness and gentleness into a world where there is precious little of any of them.
It is so clear to me how the world's energy is so skewed to the masculine. Think of it not in terms of MEN but of The Masculine. I've very strong masculine energy in my life and I cherish it and rely on it. But The Feminine is equally powerful and equally able to be relied upon. One is not better or worse - they are equal but different. And the more these energies are in balance, the more choices a person has to respond appropriately to different circumstances.
The entire universe is a delicate balance of the masculine and feminine, yin and yang, the god and the goddess - choose the words that work for you. And then, work to bring that balance into your life (because it is hard work). And lend your support and care and compassion to those of us who are working for the same thing. And may none of us judge each other for the times that we fall short.
And in this way, happiness, joy, and peace can be achieved - for ourselves and every other living being.
Would that this be the legacy that each of us leaves behind.
Tina,
If only........
This Spring I was sentenced to two months in federal prison for crossing over into Fort Benning to protest the "School of the Americas"/WHINSEC. I have never been to prison before. I was assigned to Carswell FMC which is the only federal medical facility for women prisoners. Medical facility should be interpeted very, very loosely as there is very little medical care that goes on there. But I am off the subject. ..while I was as Carswell I got food poisoning. I was too sick to walk around outside so I sat in the open area of my unit and made peace cranes. The bright colors soon had women coming over to inquire what in the world I was doing. Soon I was teaching various women from all different clicks how to make these birds. I told them the story of Sadako and the 1,000 cranes. They really did listen. Then one woman said I should teach the women on the chronically ill unit how to make them. It took an act of God to get premission but it happened...you see, this was God's action in this inhumane place...Soon the Carswell Peace Crane Project was born. Women with only one good hand due to strokes were making Peace Cranes. I wrote to family and friends to send more paper but most of it got rejected by the sensors at the prison. But it didn't stop the women. They cut squares of paper from old magazines. Guards and officials asked what these "paper birds" were...I think they were uneasy about the process. Then the women on the chronic care unit took up this challenge to make a peace crane for each woman and officer at Carswell.
I was released about two months ago...and I don't know if they will ever achieve their goal but that really isn't important...because the process of making cranes. of women teaching eachother how to make cranes and of sharing cranes with each other brought a measure of peace to one of the most unpeaceful places I have ever been.
I understand what Kathy Kelly writes about...I have seen the power of a square piece of paper folded into the shape of a bird...I have seen it bring peace.
Tina Busch-Nema
You can know everything important there is to know about a man -- or a people -- by how he treats those weaker or more vulnerable than himself: children, women, the elderly, the poor.
It's a moral imperative -- if we EVER want to hold our heads up in the world public again or look in the mirror without retching -- we absolutely MUST indict George Bush et al for murder.
I'm not even talking about "impeachment."
To hell with impeachment. So he loses his job. Big deal.
Bush & gang must be indicted for felony murder -- thousands of counts -- in addition to "war crimes," if you like. A first year law student's dog could get a conviction on the evidence we've got.
Forget lobbying congress. Let's start lobbying our DA's!
SJ
www.spartacusjones.com
MarkMarshall,
That certainly is a wonderful poem. How sad Hikmet's idealistic dreams collapsed under the dread weight of a corrupted and bankrupt USSR. At least he didn't live to see it, or even imagine it, apparently. It would seem that we human beings are condemned to always shift between profound good and evil, until we finally self-extinct - a tragedy beyond measure.
The number of American victims grows everyday.
THE WAR MUST END.
Peace to you and yours.
The song the author speaks of was originally a poem by the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. In English, versions of the song have been recorded by Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Robeson and no doubt many others.
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/742.html
The tragic paradox of our human dilemma is that our relentlessly growing population causes such furious competition for diminishing supplies of oil, gas, minerals and farmland that wars become inevitable. The business motto "a growing economy is a healthy economy" assumes it can grow forever on a planet of limited resources. It doesn't work. If we humans really want to survive we must peacefully reduce our population and learn to live in peace and balance with the Natural World that created us - if not, then war and self-extinction are inevitable.
While we are talking about "war crimes" can there be anything crueler than stealing the hope of the small children for any kind of decent future? Shame on all of us who have allowed this to happen.
Children are suppose to be protected and cared for, so it is particularly heinous when the adults, whom they depend on betray them.
George W. Bush the "Compassionate Conservative" was born without the compassion gene. He will tell you he feels for those kids or he cares about those kids, but if he really did care, he would do something to help them.