"Every man mistakes the limits of his vision for the limits of the world." -Schopenhauer
"Already I have comprehended a light which will never filter into the dogma of any national church: namely, that one of Christ's essential commands was: Passivity at any price. Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed, but do not kill. It may be chimerical and an ignominious principle, but there it is..... Thus you see how pure Christianity will not fit in with pure patriotism." -Wilfred Owen
Of late, reading Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, I have been thinking of my time as a soldier. In some ways being a soldier is a great thing of numbness, of "getting the job done" and of foolheartedness.
I still dream of faces. The faces of other soldiers on both sides of the war. Of faces of veterans of wars in El Salvador, of faces of ex-soldiers in Nicaragua. As time goes on I am swamped by a kind of pathos of needless dying.
Yet atonement comes with time. Spending my life with the poor, mostly women and children, doesn't free me from spite, or from the mendacity but it does give me a certain place in the world where I can try to be good; where I can try to be a "Christian". Little moments stand out with the joys of seeing childhood around me. Where a former illiterate, innumerate woman crows about her bank account (that her 9 year old daughter helped her get established.) And, of course, the growth of my wife as a social activist.
Araceli has been elected as head of our local school board on Sunday last and by Monday had set up a date to talk with the Governor of Chiapas for a new class room. She got books donated for the entire school with supplies for the children who couldn't afford them. It is Thursday, as I write this, and she has two more appointments and has roped me into redoing the electrical at the school to make it all safe. In between the school stuff she has set up a date to go to Mexico City to apply for her U.S visa, once again.
The local violence is growing, not at the same rate as the National but, nonetheless growing. So we talk, where we can and try to find sensible solutions around where we live.
A year ago, last week, 72 Central American migrants were killed by the Zeta drug cartel. It was later determined that the refugees had been taken off buses destined for the U.S. border by Immigration agents (12 in number were identified) who "sold" the mostly Guatemalan and Honduran people to the Cartel members to be used for drug runners. When some of the men and women among the migrants refused to carry the drugs all but three who escaped, were killed. The three witnesses later identified the Immigration agents and gave descriptions of their captors to the investigating officers. It took the government 10 months to arrest 4 of the 12 agents (all who have been bailed out by their Union) and four of the twelve actual killers who are awaiting trial. The intellectual author of the massacre has yet to be identified.
In contrast, this last week saw an attack on a Casino in Monterrey that killed 52 Mexican citizens caused by a fire set by members of the Gulf Cartel in a warning for not paying "protection" money. Within 24 hours, five of the eight perpetrators were arrested, the intellectual author known and charges filed against the owner of the Casino. Additionally, over twenty casinos around the country have been shut down (ostensibly for Health and Safety reasons but most people agree that those casinos shut down were paying protection money, hence, funding the Cartels.)
Are Mexican lives worth more than those of Central American migrants? Four days of constant T.V. coverage for the Casino fire while there was only brief mention in the newspapers of the identification of the Immigration agents. Perhaps some lives are valued more in the Nation that is doing the valuing? Certainly that is the case in the U.S. where 3000 lives lost in the attacks of Sept. 11th while few speak of the thousands dead trying to cross the deserts in Arizona to come to the U.S. Or, the body counts in Iraq and Afghanistan that count only American lives lost.
I warn myself to not fall prey to melancholia. Sometimes without success.
Next week I head out for the U.S. to work to advance our little Catholic Worker Farm. To build a place for my wife and I to live and work with the poor amongst us. Donations would be greatly welcomed at this time as we have very little money and Araceli needs funds while I am gone. I have a plane ticket and some work lined up for Omaha.
Saludos, and the Peace of our Lord with all of you,
-Richard Flamer
Mail donations to
The Chiapas Project
C/O Holy Family Catholic Church
1715 Izard Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68102
