I want to write about the events in Iraq. I feel compelled to write about the events in Iraq.
Yes, I know, Daily Kos is filled with diaries about that bloodied, torn country. What could I possibly have to add that has not already been said? I can only add a diary that can help to bring a a moment of silence.
As I have read the Sunday newspapers and the minute by minute events in Baghdad have unfolded on my TV screen today, I have shared with you the anger, the fury at our leaders. I have raved against the harm that has been done, the wasted lives that have been lost. In my mind’s eye I have visions of shattered buildings, burning cars and bloodied children. I cannot remove these, nor can I turn off the sound of screaming in streets, in prisons and in homes, although our news broadcasts have never let me hear these.
It has been a bright day of a warm sun and a fresh breeze here in Wales. As the events of what was happening elsewhere filtered through to me, I was walking the sands at Red Wharf Bay and putting up the new winter feeders for the huge varieties of birds that have already begun to fly in and use them.
Yet I was angry as I did these things. I went shopping in Tesco for some food and was angry at my fellow citizens as they rushed about buying, buying, buying. Oblivious to all that they had voted for or not opposed or had just done nothing and simply ignored even the opportunity of the ballot to express an opinion.
I came on Dkos and joined in the anger and read the rants and found satisfaction in your expressions of disgust and rejection of our leaders. I wanted to throw things around and smash objects but some of your angry writing avoided the need for this and I was able to vent along with you. Good old Daily Kos.
It is late evening now. The very short days mean that it has been dark for almost six hours. I long for the next twenty six days to pass and for the slow process of the daylight lengthening to begin.
An hour ago, I posted a comment on Georgia10’s diary a not very inspired comment:
Both our countries are going to have to sit down very quietly and look not just at how Bush and his sidekick Blair took us into this mess but also at what it is in our societies that allowed them to take us there
Damn it, Vietnam and the roof of the embassy in Saigon was only a few decades ago. We don't have to read books to know about it, all we have to do is ask our elderly neighbour. So why the hell have we learnt nothing?
I don’t suppose it meant very much to anyone but me. It was in any case written in anger arising from the powerful description by Georgia10 of today’s events.
It did make me realise, however, that the source of my anger was really directed at myself and my sense of hopelessness. I wanted to do something to change what I was seeing and hearing but there was nothing that I could do. Except walk the dog and feed the birds.
Cursing Bush and Blair does nothing to remove the sense of shame that I feel about this abominable Middle East adventure to which my nation has been party.
A great diary on here today described how her small group, regularly protesting the war on the corner of the highway, was receiving increasing abuse. We will have to accept that this will grow. In some ways, we are fortunate that we know the source of the anger that we feel today, Others see the same disasters as us but blindly thrash around for somewhere to direct it, afraid to do so at the leaders that they elected because it means that they have to face up to their own damning culpability. They cannot face having to shoulder the intolerable personal burden because they are too scared or too dumb or too temperamentally incapable. So they turn on the peace makers, who now only serve to remind them of the gross and ugly failure that was the result of cheering the march into Iraq behind our flags.
Yet, if we are ever to learn as societies, it is these people that must take the journey with us.
With the rightness of our argument - that has been so difficult to get heard in the deaf and blind political halls of these last few dark years - now finally being understood, it is a good time to change our polemic from being expressed in shouted anger to a quieter and more grave seriousness.
This fits in well with the new power that you are about to receive as Democrats. You have had great leaders in the past in the United States that have spoken more finely than I can ever write about the responsibility that power brings. This is particularly so at a time when it is not just Iraq that is in crisis but when really both our nations are in crisis because we are witnessing the catastrophe of our actions. The blood on the streets of Iraq is our blood,, and the recognition of this and on whose hands this blood lies is now beginning to filter through to even the meanest of spirits in our nations.
I don’t know if many will share my view that we need this new, quieter and more determined voice with which to express our views as to what needs to be done. I certainly don’t feel anything but empathy for those who still want to yell out loud their disgust at those who have perpetuated these events.
For me, at the end of this Welsh day that has been affected by what has been going on a long way away in a country that I have never visited and whose people I do not know, a period of quietness will be the starting point of a renewal of my determination to make my concern heard. Without feeling the need to shout anymore.
You write these diaries and the time disappears into a hole, You hear the grandfather clock in the hall strike the late hour. Sally the Psycho Dog is curled up on the sofa, Jacqueline du Pre is playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto on the hi-fi system and it is time to post this and sit quietly in the armchair before turning out the lights. Just a small period of quietness before sleep.
Whatever brings you peace this Sunday night, I hope that it is with you all. We have work to do tomorrow in trying to encourage those that rule us to take the right steps to try and undo this mess. Meanwhile, peace, friends.