Build your own write-up

A= Argentina

It was the beginning of Shahbagh Argentina. It was an unforgettable week, although it has retreated now, more than half a lifetime into my past. 1987, Holy Week, Buenos Aires.
During the military dictatorship of 1976-1983, The "milicos" were ruthless. They kidnapped young girls to rape them and farm the babies to adoption for profit. The stories circulated of innocent people, blindfolded, carried into the air in helicopters, and thrown out at 2000 feet. These were called "death flights" and were a convenient way to execute and dispose of bodies, as the victims were stripped naked and thrown out of the helicopters over the Atlantic Ocean. The military sometimes killed people simply to steal their property.

After the Argentinean military fell, the democratically elected president, Raúl Alfonsín, decided to hold the military leaders accountable for the atrocities they had perpetrated against their own people. The military responded. Four years after his election, Alfonsín faced an armed backlash in April of 1987. I remember it well. I was living in Buenos Aires at the time. We all feared a potential coup, and millions headed to the plaza to support democracy. Tensions ran high, but everyone was willing to shed blood to protect the gains they had made.

And Alfonsín made a decision…

* * *

Wait, I think I've said this all before.

My career has expanded, and my write-ups have recently become less frequent. At the same time, events have accelerated in Bangladesh. I have decided to compile the five weeks of writing I've missed into a modular piece that recaps my reactions to events both there and here.

Now that I have a long vacation ahead, I intend to get back to my writing. I apologise for any of you dear readers who are kind enough to miss these missives. I intend (I've said this before too) to do better, as I did in those inspiring days of unemployment, but if I do miss, you can combine these five mini-essays in any way you choose:

I have lettered the missives for your convenience, and have suggested combinations that can yield new write-ups. They represent scattered scraps of ideas, blown around in the whirlwind of my mind. So, with that in mind, allow me to continue…

* * *

B= My home at the Jersey Shore

In other news, the iconic pictures of the hurricane we suffered here, the roller coaster towering above the surf, has been replaced by the more mundane shots of workers readying the boardwalk for the summer season. On the same pier, I saw that a carousel my children used to ride was also destroyed.

I recall one time while I waited to take my own children on that carousel, a little girl pointed to a painted pony and squealed at her brother, "That's the fastest horse! I'm going to beat you!"

"What are you talking about?" The boy replied, "The race is fixed! It's a rip-off!"

The boy's mom looked down at him. "You're such a cynic," the Mom said. "What do you mean it's fixed?

"The music plays really loud. The lights flash. The horses go up and down. You just think you're going somewhere, but you end up in the same place. The game is rigged. You can't win."

* * *

C= Technology

Recently, CNN reported that the drone attacks have killed between 400 and 800 non-combatant civilians since 2004.

In Pakistan.

Our ally.

Technology has given us the capability to kill via remote control, but it cannot allow us to look into the hearts of those who assemble in the remote villages of far off nations.

It cannot even tell us what's in the heart of our own people.

* * *

D= The Boston Marathon

The bombing of the Boston Marathon happened on Patriots' day.

In Boston, a young man, desperate for the approval of his older brother, turned on his adopted country. A post-911 United States has made it increasingly difficult to reconcile American ideals with the anti-Muslim prejudices enshrined in the practices, off the cuff remarks, and official profiling here in the United States.

The term "Patriot" has been usurped in recent years to justify many values that would horrify the Founding Fathers. The Patriot Act has allowed the American government to act, in the name of security, more like the British than the colonials who opposed them. We launched Patriot Missiles at unseen enemies. In my youth, I was taught that the idea of "Patriotism" was a connection with the US Constitution, and that the true enemies of the state were those who would compromise its tenets for any reason whatsoever, including personal security.

Today's "Patriots", Senators in Washington, were clamouring to treat this nineteen-year-old as an enemy combatant, so that he would have no access to a lawyer and his Constitutional rights would be suspended during questioning.

Exactly the opposite of what our Founding Fathers fought to secure, and ironic, since the only oath that any senator takes begins as follows:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same."

The same here refers to the US Constitution, which guarantees all citizens, regardless of point of origin, the right to an attorney. If the state is the Constitution, which in the case of the United States, it is, then who are the real enemies of Patriotism here? The ideals for which so many brave farmers, artisans and merchants were willing to take up what arms they could muster one April day 238 years ago, are they so feeble that on the very anniversary of the march to triumph of those ideals, two confused young men could tear apart the principles upon which they were based?

* * *

E. Natural Disaster.

I write this as Cyclone Mahasen bears down on Bangladesh. I pray for the safety of all those in the storms' path. Such winds move in circles, erasing, reassembling, plowing up our lives, flooding rivers.

But at least they move forward as well.

* * *

(A+B)

In 1987, President Alfonsín had a failing economy, low popularity rating, and very little hope of helping steer his party to re-election when his term expired. A standoff with the military could help his political chances. However, he realized that the politics was a carousel. For his country, moving forward was impossible…

…Unless he had the courage to step off the ride.

He decided to make his measure of success the idea that no blood would be shed in the name of politics while he was at the helm.

And in order to do that, he stopped the tribunals. He instituted a law that put a moratorium on the prosecution of the military. The bad guys went free.

We hated him. His party lost the election. The traitors and murderers went free. However, the potential radicalization of pro-military forces never happened.

Not one person lost their lives.

The military never returned to power.

* * *

(C+B)

Technology is always coming up with new, increasingly "thrilling" ways to convey us in circles.

The White House lawyer who drafted America's drone policy, John Bellinger, argued that the Obama administration carries out these extrajudicial killings to avoid the political fallout of bringing suspects to Guantanamo. The US claims to be at war with terrorists who happen to operate inside Pakistan and Yemen.

Collateral damage does happen.

When it does, it radicalizes the victims, fuelling rage even among radicals we support, like the Chechens. It terrorizes innocent people in target areas, and leads to a global backlash against us. Innocent people worldwide wonder if they'll be next. It makes every American guilty in the eyes of the world.

The drone turns out to be a great terrorist recruiting tool.

* * *

(B+C)+D

I could easily radicalize a sympathetic person simply by allowing him to read accounts about how drone attacks have ruined the lives of innocent people. They're readily available. Here's an example from livingunderdrones.org:

"I have been seeing drones since the first one appeared about four to five years ago. Sometimes there will be two or three drone attacks per day. . . . [We see drones] hovering [24 hours a day but] we don't know when they will strike." Firoz explained, "People are afraid of dying. . . . Children, women, they are all psychologically affected. They look at the sky to see if there are drones. Firoz told us, "[The drones] make such a noise that everyone is scared."
Until I wrote this article I had no idea that the drones hover in the sky over given communities twenty-four hours a day, just waiting to strike without warning. Talk about terror.

* * *

(A+B)+((B+C)+D)

We think we are progressing. We imagine that we move forward, stumbling into the future. We refuse to see signs that we've been here before. As we go 'round, innocent, mainly impoverished people die as a result of politics. We think our paths lead us out of the chaos, and then, all of a sudden, we pass a familiar landmark and we realize we've been travelling in a circle.

From a distance, I can see the circle that Bangladeshi politics is travelling. From a distance, you can see the treacherous circle of American foreign policy.

* * *

(…+E)

In Hurricane Sandy, our governor, Chris Christie, a Republican, embraced Barack Obama, and later blasted his own party for stalling on recovery aid. He broke ranks, stepped off the political carousel to move his state toward recovery.

As the news flows out of Bangladesh and this cyclone approaches, I pray that there be only one casualty-

Let the political carousel be swept out to sea…

…because when it comes to politics, that child in Seaside, New Jersey is right:
"The music plays really loud. The lights flash. The horses go up and down. You just think you're going somewhere, but you end up in the same place…"

…minus a few innocent people.

"The game is rigged. You can't win."

Politicians should jump off the painted horse and stop the bloodshed.

It's time that all comers dedicate themselves to that unpopular opinion that cost Raúl Alfonsín his presidency: Let History judge the vile. They'll be dead and forgotten soon enough.

Hurricane Sandy was a reminder that we institute government to safeguard life, fight fires, inspect buildings, shore up in times of disaster.

* * *

We need a new Hippocratic Oath of politics: First, do no harm.

But then, I think I've said this all before.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", teaches the native art of oral tradition storytelling.