Mutterings*

The overarching issue that seems common and stand out the most, when discussing Greenwald’s No Place to Hide , the documentary on the Fukushima nuclear radiation as well as the documentary on the making of the movie Inside Job is the apathy of the general public. This seems universal, regardless of whether the issues are in Japan, or the United States.  Increasingly, the impact of these cover-ups are felt by people everywhere, no longer confined to one particular group of people. Just as the NSA spying was upon everyone, not just US citizens; radiation from the Fukushima power plant affected people in California, and the effects of an economic collapse in the US affected markets around the world. We are truly interconnected.  This is certainly a terrifying realization; with the advent of the Internet and “free” information, there are new challenges. My message to you today, however is that there is still hope. One individual cannot achieve global justice. It requires action of th

To Joseph, Leopord, Elie, Fulgence, Pio, Alphonse, Jean-Baptiste, Ignace and Pancrace,                        First and foremost, I write to you after deliberating over your accounts of killing in Machete Season.  I must clarify, the reason I write to all of you, is because I wish to point out I have no particular preference for either one of you, I struggle to think of you as individuals, when really, you are all a representation of people who failed many innocent victims with every blow of your machete, every time you scoffed at a feeble cry of an innocent victim as they were hacked to death. Thank you for participating in Jean Hatzfeld’s interviews . I imagine this was not an easy task for you, openly discussing your participation in the deaths of innocent people you had lived side by side with. I wish you had pointed out moderate Hutus were killed by Hutus too. I think this is an important point in the horror that happened in Rwanda.  I had to reflect on forgiveness from t

                 You do not know me, yet having read “ Left to Tell:Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust ” you have shared a deeply personal, intimate experience with the reader. Now I feel obliged to share how your story has impacted my own life, and thoughts on an unfortunately dark side of human nature. It seems rather important that I begin by telling you, I do not believe in a God. I am not a deeply religious person, and having been raised a Buddhist in a South Asian country that had its own share of civil war (nothing compared to Rwanda of course). Having grown up in such a background, I could not help but realize how easily people can be manipulated by powerful racist rhetoric to serve the narrow purposes of a small group of people. I appreciated your story made very clear that instead of over simplifying a very complex issue, but breaking down the issue to simply Hutus vs Tutsis, you made clear the issue was between extremists who were ignorant, cruel Hutus against mod