s u m m e r
in memory of a friend
But what's peace when your head is on a stake, staring blankly at your killers as they rule the streets of Dili?
I heard there is a mandatory curfew in effect in Dili. Anyone out after 9:00 P.M. will be shot on sight. What does that ring true of?
What good is peace at all?
What is peace?
Truth, justice? People getting along? I was recently reminded by a friend that economics is nothing more than a fancy word for war and society. Society mixed together, all types of people, always fighting over something. What was it I read in "Notes From Underground" about man living to create only so he can destroy? What was it in "Heart Of Darkness" that reminds me of Dili? The heads. All facing inward, ever notice that? They stared at the source of the evil, Kurtz. To remind him?
What was it my friend meant? He saw the world a little differently. He saw war a little differently. From four miles up. But he did say it didn't matter if you bled and died on cold aluminum or Normandy mud, dead is dead. I'm sure if he'd known about Dili, or thought about heads on stakes he'd have written about that too. He wrote about the massacres in China and about rape and about the cold hands of lady death on the throttle controls. I'd ask him tomorrow about what he meant when he defined society by economics 'cause everyone says it all comes down to money. It's a good argument, but it's not infallible and it's unfortunate my friend never got the chance to ponder his thoughts a little longer because he died in November 1944 at the age of 23, a victim of target fixation over Hamburg, Germany.
But he'd seen his share of war. He'd lived it. He'd flown 35 missions and could've gone home but didn't feel right about it somehow.
He didn't know about peace anymore either. All he could do was hope out loud that after he'd done all his fighting it wouldn't be in vain and we'd all quit messing around and simply talk to each other. That the wise and powerful would stand up once in awhile and say, "I'm not so wise and powerful, I'm rather a lot like you. We're all rather a lot alike."
See that's the one thing we all miss. On the streets of Dili after dark and at the embarkation points in Australia no one seems to be thinking about the families and the children each side has. That comes much later, just before your head is cut off for the stake, or you're shot by a sniper in the back while looking for water. Or maybe it never comes to you at all.
But believe this. Dili is not over independence, it's over economics. If there wasn't money to lose no one would care who could lay claim to the dirt on which they currently stand. My countries own revolution was no different and no less bloody. Neither was our civil war for that matter, or the two world wars we've been involved in.
It's unfortunate that Australia may be falling for the same troubles the U.S. gets itself into. Peace keeping force. Should it not be read the other way around, "Force Keeping Peace"? That makes a much better headline anyway. But how different is that from a martial law and a passive/aggressive military. How does it differ from the Balkans? Seems to me the whole of the world is pretty sick of trouble in that place and yet we still go to bat with lives every time How much better off is the Balkans for the NATO involvement? Hell, what do I know? At the time I was a big supporter, still am of the men and women that are there following orders, sweating it out. Part of a "peace keeping force". But there is something inherently wrong with needing a foreign military force to keep peace in your country. The U.S. is already making demands here, in this situation.
Whose side will the Australians take? Are there really two sides? From what I hear the Indonesian military does nothing to stop the militias and even helps them gets arms and opens road blocks for them. They might as well too be putting heads on stakes.
But somebody has to stop them, right? Blow some sense into them? "Stop cutting the heads off people or we're going to be forced to keep the peace by shooting you."
I must sound awfully unsympathetic. I guess in a way I'm feeling for my buddy who would be 78 right know and a damn good writer if only people had listened to him and a lot of other guys sooner. But they were names and numbers against other names and numbers. They were million dollar aircraft and fifty dollar rifles. Seems the only thing that's changed is the place and the cost. The people are exactly the same. It will be Bacau and Dili and East Timor this time around.
The whole thing makes me want to spit.
But godspeed the ones that have to go. The ones that don't have the luxary of writing about it on a web page. The ones who have to act. The ones who must hug their families good-bye and hope they come home soon...or at all. The ones who will see it first hand and not hear of it through the speakers of a car stereo or read about it on a Trinitron monitor.
goodnight 9.7.99