Memorial Day: Despair and Resilience

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/26-0



The Peace Flag Honor Guard marches down Main Street in Auburn, WA in 2013.

Memorial Day: Despair and Resilience
by Dud Hendrick
Published on Monday, May 26, 2014 by Common Dreams

Memorial Day is difficult for me as it is for all veterans. My annual seasonal despair is, of course, directly related to the lost lives commemorated here and to the unrelenting militarism of our country, the celebration of which is particularly pronounced on this day and the upcoming Fourth of July. This year the despair seems deeper in my core, compounded by the recent trip I took to Palestine with Rob Shetterly and Lily Yeh. Despair? There would appear to be real reason for despair embodied in the separation wall, in the settlements, in the building demolitions, in the checkpoints and in every other indignity heaped on Palestinians daily.

The celebrated author John Berger writes of this despair and he identifies why people of conscience, particularly in the U.S. might share Palestinians’ despair. Referring to the continuing theft of Palestinian land he says, “It is not happening in some remote war-locked corner of the globe; every Foreign Office of every rich nation is watching and not one takes measures to discourage the illegalities.” He quotes an aggrieved Palestinian mother, “The silence of the West is worse than their bullets.” The 10-year, $30 billion military aid package granted Israel by the U.S. government in 2007 makes clear our complicity.

Throughout our visit, on being assaulted with the magnitude of the injustice imposed on the Palestinians, on the asymmetry of power, I could not but wonder why there were not suicide bombers on every corner, on every bus, and in every café. In fact, Berger wrote in 2005, three years after the construction of the wall began, there had actually been a reduction in suicide bomber attacks. Violence by Palestinians has continued to decline and suicide bombings have virtually stopped even in the face of the daily humiliations. Palestinians have collectively managed to use despair to strengthen resilience.

Which brings me to that which I intended to address today—military suicides.