protest

Dancing on the Wall

/ donmooradianblog / Leave a comment

Originally published : November 11, 1989

They are dancing on the Berlin wall.

Germans can no embrace long-lost family members, long-lost friends, and, for the East Germans, long-lost freedoms. They are dancing on the Berlin Wall.

They are chipping away at it with small hammers, with picks and axes. They are chipping away at it with almost 30 years of pent-up frustration and pent-up hope.

They are smiling, and singing, and hugging, and crying, and yes, drinking heavily. They are dancing on the Berlin Wall.

In front of the cameras beaming picutres around the world, in front of the guards, in front of the guns and in front of the stunned world, they are dancing.

“The Wall” was for so many years a symbol of a world divided, forso many years a reminder of the horror of World War II and how we traded one enemy for another enemy — one horror for the greater horror of atomic death.

“The Wall” was for so many years a concrete tomb for the minds and souls of millions of East Germans, millions of Eastern Europeans.

But today they are dancing on the Berlin Wall.

President Kennedy was right: as long as The Wall stood, we were all Berliners.

President Ronal Reagan was right: if people wanted to understand the difference between the East and the West, they need only visit Berlin and look at The Wall.

He pointedly asked the Soviets to tear down The Wall.

Yes. Now is the time: Tear down The Wall.

Tear down all the walls.

Tear down the Great Dogmatic Wall of China. Tear down the immoral wall of apartheid in South Africa. Tear down the barrier walls in Labanon. Tear down the rotting walls of the South Bronx. Tear down the walls of the Protestant churches an Catholic churches in Belfast, Ireland, and let us all celebrate under the open sky. Tear down the walls of the missile silos and the munition factories.

Tear down all the walls, brother and sisters.

As we have watched the Berliners celebrate, let them watch us observe Veterans Day. The cost of freedom is buried in the ground of France, England, Germany, and Italy. It is buried in the ground of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and every nation where anyone stood for and died for freedom.

The cost of freedom is not cheap, for life is the most precious thing on Earth.

And to live, the spirit must be able to expand, to breath without restrain, to fly, to sing, to dance. So dance, comrades, dance.

And then tear down The Wall. Tear down all the walls.

A World Without Poetry. A World Filled with Hate.

/ donmooradianblog / Leave a comment

Without poetry , there would be no prayers to say over the dead.

Without poetry there would be no love to coax lonely souls to union,

no passion to wrestle life from Nothingness;

no mother to protect the helpless seeds of Humanity,

no children to teach us mercy, and no soul to yearn.

Without poetry, soldiers and sailors would have no home to return to,

no markers for their graves.

Hate.

Hate is simple: it is a parent who eats its young.

Hate takes many forms and war is the grandest of all.

But war isn’t always hateful. Sometimes it is as naturally inevitable as a thunderstorm.

When war comes, meet it with humility and shame, if you must meet it at all.

And win.

But remember this: Protesting against a war is the only way humanity can save itself from killing istelf.

What would the world be like if no one protested against war, if no one questioned the “right” or “need” to kill another human being (regardless of how crazed that other human may be)?

The anti-war protestor is man’s best part struggling against the worst in himself. The pacifist is the mirrored image of the warrior. Without the warrior, humankind would be unable to protect itself. Without the pacifist, humankind would be unable to stop itself.

The protest against hate, war, and death is the kernel of conscience we have that will save us from extinction.

Without protest against war, there will never be any reason to stop war. We would all die from the hate that lurks just beneath this thin-skinned facade we call civilization were it not for the pacifist.

If we must fight wars, make sure they are fought against the worst in ourselves.

Without protest, the flower buried beneath the rock would never find the poetry of the sun; the seed of hope would forever be crushed under the heel of Hate’s eternally marching boots.