"GAZA’S AFFLICTIONS (A PROEM)"

Posted on December 26, 2024 by HCCN

Gaza’s Afflictions (a Proem), Hugh J.Curran

May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain. (Oath of Maimonides)

Empathy will never be exhausted as gaza schools and hospitals are torn asunder by pilots in fighter jets, their grievances

transposed from another time and place into strafing refugee villages with clinical precision;

All good gained from sufferings of times long past,
all dissipated by the voracious bombing of innocents as tens of

thousands of women and children are slain with impunity i
n a violence that rains down upon terrified heads;

A puzzled drone operator in Gaza asked “when will the
Israeli public wake up to the conflagration that has been taking place

in their name while turning Gaza into rubble…what is it
with these kippah-wearing part-time soldiers with their comments:

“Nova was their Nakba” I see children crawling out from
under rubble looking for remnants and yet we keep bombing;

Israeli strike kills grandfather of ‘soul of my soul’ his grand-daughter Reem having been killed by an earlier air strike…Ten more killed in one family in Gaza airstrikes on Dec 17; “Israeli strike In Deir al-Balah in the central Strip killed 10 people, including the city’s mayor, Diab Al-Jaru (Haaretz)

Palestinians have had a millennium of agriculture and olive groves and goat herds with multiple generations of shared

Values, but eighty years ago dispossession of six million acres took place with 700,000 forced into becoming refugees;

The cruel insistence that Gazans are human animals,phrases that resonate among a leadership

destitute of empathy for what has been perpetrated; an inversion of reality allowing victimizers to victimize the

unprotected while ignoring the bestial state of mind that justifies the lethality of bombing,

smothering truth with unfeeling biblical hair-splitting ;

According the Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, and The Cambridge World History of Genocide, colonial policies included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples in North America…Genocide intent includes spreading of disease via the ‘reduction’ of [natives] to densely crowded and unhygienic settlements…population removals to barren ‘reservations…deliberate starvation and famine, exacerbated by destruction and occupation of the native land base and food resources…”Economics should never be above moral issues and human rights issues” (Eitay Mack, Israeli lawyer & activist))

but soon a time comes when they are unable to relieve themselves of guilt and shame nor can they continue to

manufacture counterfeit glee, excusing themselves from the barbarism of murdering children; thus do the

perpetrators of afflictions extend their behavior into the
moral complexities of trauma, while split-personalities are

rife with vengeful zealotry, a moral decay that cannot be atoned for multiple generations; This holocaust we are

witnessing puts to rest “never again” by leaders who project evils upon their adversaries, while their own

annihilating contentiousness is blindingly obvious to the discerning; Will they have recourse to the wailing wall to

absolve themselves, or will they continue to resort to biblical self-praising while conflating 45,000 massacred

civilians, including 16,000 children with 1500 Israelis killed or taken hostage;

War crimes become genocide when demonizing permits normalizing the daily erasure of a people by punishing

them with gross afflictions; Yet zealots possess a moral schizophrenia and an ethical decay

that will infuse generations, even though they are genetically entwined and historically linked to their adversaries

I’ll tell you what should have been done already yesterday, and many months ago: to shout out for a cease-fire, not only to obtain a hostage deal… but also to protect the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank… We need to protect the Palestinians in the name of a shared future….. Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm

America’s leaders have wrought upon their children’s heads a blame that cannot be erased with well-groomed words;

Essential thinking is necessary to awaken to conciliation and healing; Did not the Sermon on the Mount preach

selflessness and love reflecting Hillel’s golden rule that
“what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow [man];

that is the whole torah”; One hundred peace groups
in Israel acknowledge the golden rule but only one member in a recent

session of the Knesset supported the genocide case against Israel, and he was suspended, indicating that

some minds can be elevated above the cruel thoughtlessness of militant leaders;

Did not Freud say that Yahweh is one-half a volcano god?Was not Christ born a Hebrew in Palestine? Are we not

all haunted by the Law of Unintended Consequences?

“It’s like a Ponzi Scheme that collapses when you stop making a profit. Netanyahu is a believer in magical thinking. He supports a war against Iran, but such a war would be a disaster for Israel. These leaders around him are resorting to biblical thinking., no longer acting rationally…Its an eschatological end-times thinking which they want to believe.(Alistair Crooke)

Consequences take place in the deep recesses of consciousness, where the majority, in their indifference,

gnaw upon a mountain of platitudes: tectonic plates move slowly but when they erupt in volcanic action the sudden conflagration

can change the nature of the world, killing not only the innocent but also the guilty in the holy land; The scales of justice are

finely balanced between vice and virtue but out of the traumas comes a reckoning; The deadly weapons of

mass destruction have resulted in the intense trauma suffered by civilians while

ten thousand children’s limbs are torn apart by lethal weapons to float in ghostly parables and nightmarish

dreams as the zealots of upside-down thinking confront truth-telling;

The redoubtable Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro noted: “Zionism is poison for the Jews; it is a suicidal ideology, and a liability”; it does not represent Judaism, it is mythological nationalism; Israel is no longer a safe place but a foreign country, not the promised land”.

No matter if the “greater good” is called upon to justify horrors, there is nothing holy in massacring humans,

since holiness is a quality to strive for, not a volcano to feed; Ignoring finely balanced scales of justice brings

calamities so that when the golden rule is so blatantly flaunted it will inevitably result in a reckoning for gross

misdeeds and vast atrocities; The pain and suffering and the taking of land rightly

belonging to others shouts out for profound remorse and infinite atonement.

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"WAR TRAUMA & FORGETTING"

Posted on March 5, 2024 by HCCN

WAR TRAUMA & FORGETTING by Hugh Curran,

Our memories are often suppressed by trauma, a word derived from “Traumatiko”, a wound or mental shock. Examples of traumatic events are people being compelled to leave their homes due to war, disease, drought, famine or similar events. Recent sociological studies on the after-effects of war reveal feelings of apathy, resignation and hopelessness brought on by being forced to leave one’s ancestral territory.

Kelly Borhaug, author of “Moral Injury and War Culture” quotes Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase on “the banality of evil” in reference to the Holocaust. The “evil” referred to was a “failure to think” [through the consequences of their actions], Evil has many guises, as Borhaug notes, and is “most pernicious and dangerous when it is routinized and normalized”.

Bombing civilians makes the victims “hopeless and willing to leave” which facilitates dispossession and depopulation. According to the Israeli historian, Illan Pappe, who recently wrote in his book: “Ethnic Cleansing, ”that the aggressor nation masks their intent by dehumanizing the dispossessed so as to try to exonerate themselves from the consequences of their actions. He also noted that the term “Zionism” is often confused with Judaism, but they are not the same. Zionism, including Christian Zionism, is an ideology, whereas Judaism is a religion.

In Aristotle’s Politics, “wealth is the guiding principle of oligarchy” and “freedom the guiding principle of democracy”. But when “freedom” is only freedom for those who are within the tribe it becomes “ethnocracy”, which refers to a nation favoring only one group, which is particularly true in Israel.

When one ethnic group is favored then empathy for others is in short supply. According to the 17^th century Scottish philosopher, John Hume, the highest sensibility that humans should strive for Is empathy, Genuine empathy is not just a convenient word, it represents an identification with the suffering of others. When civilian populations are slaughtered in Gaza by incessant bombing, the devastating results are experienced by thousands of women and children, some now buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings. Such circumstances are so painful to contemplate that euphemisms are adopted to attribute blame to the victims. A former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, once said “…we can never forgive the Arabs for forcing us to kill their children”; This tribal attitude insists that only those who are within the group deserve to be protected, whereas those who are outside the group can be treated harshly.

Such tribal attitudes toward the Palestinians in Gaza has resulted in mass death in gruesome circumstances with the end result being starvation and disease. The enormity of the suffering numbs the mind, and the complicity of U.S. politicians betrays the reality that our leaders have become emotionally disconnected and unable to fully comprehend the devastating effects of suffering taking place on a daily basis?

In her book on trauma, Borhaug quoted the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who spoke to veterans: “we know that war is not only in us, it is in everyone, veterans and non-veterans alike. We must share our insights [from the tragedies of war], not out of anger but out of love”. Buddhists understand that suffering has causal factors which inevitably result in consequences to the victims, but also to those who cause suffering, since they too will inevitably suffer the results of their actions.

We try to obliterate the memory of war victims but “we do so by dehumanizing the victims, which, in turn, dehumanizes the military forces which are the causes of pain and suffering” (Borhaug). Yet it is the policy makers, enabled by political leaders, who contribute to wrongful conflict and war, although everyone involved, to some degree, is complicit. In order to atone for war’s atrocities we need to face the causes and then deal with the painfulness of the results, which cannot be effaced or blotted out.

There are those who adopt a form of amnesia as a way of disconnecting from a sense of responsibility, and who insist that they are merely carrying out orders. But what if the persons in command are unable to fully comprehend the harm caused by their decisions, and are themselves suffering from cognitive or emotional dissociation.

A journalist at VOX Media recently wrote an article titled: “How Israel’s War against Hamas has gone horribly wrong” stating that:“the truth is that this nightmare was depressingly predictable. When a dozen experts were surveyed about the war they warned that Israel had a dangerously loose understanding of what the war was about. [and its] conduct in the war so far has vindicated these fears. [having] dragged Israel down to a moral nadir… to an “an era-defining catastrophe.”

Israel, at one time, represented qualities admired by small nations, but it has descended into a moral quagmire which is taking place at a time when the world has become a “Global Village” and where communication takes place almost instantaneously. The present war in Gaza is a slow-motion tragedy being viewed throughout the world community via video imagery.

What is taking place is a calamity with enormous ramifications, Israel’s pretense to being an exceptional nation is shown to have little foundation, while Europe and America’s pretense to upholding humanistic and humane values, is shown to have spurious value

In circumstances such as this incessant bombing of Gaza.

The only saving grace to the catastrophe taking place in Gaza are the dozens of peace groups within Israel and Palestine who continue to work toward a ceasefire and a permanent peace. Other groups, such as: “Jewish Voices for Peace”(JVP), with its tens of thousands of members are demonstrating daily in peace marches and rallies in cities of America and Canada, hoping that the moral sensibilities in the heart and soul of Israel can be re-awakened before it is too late.

Hugh Curran lives in Surry and teaches in Peace & Reconciliation Studies at the University of Maine

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REPLY TO SENATOR ANGUS KING ON HIS RECENT TRIP TO ISRAEL

Posted on February 3, 2024 by HCCN

SEN.KING WROTE: “Not long after our trip, Israel announced it would be scaling back its ground invasion. Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so is important….”

Dear Senator Angus King,
It is truly bizarre to talk of Israel's right to “defend itself” as it destroys Gaza and kills 11,500 children so far in its utterly destructive bombing. I have to question a respected representative of Maine who seems to accept platitudes and self-justifications for the mass destruction that is taking place in Gaza. To those who are deeply concerned about the civilians who are suffering from 22,000 air strikes, the consequences are horrific. It appears to even the most naive that Israel is intent on “Ethnic Cleansing”. Please take some time to explore the history of Gaza and the Palestinians by reading the Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe. His recent, highly regarded book is: “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. Professor Pappe, who was raised in Israel and taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has also written “The Forgotten Palestinians” which I highly recommend..
Sincerely,
Hugh J. Curran

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ARTICLE: NETANYAHU: A CROMWELL FOR OUR TIME

Posted on January 21, 2024 by HCCN

NETANYAHU: AN OLIVER CROMWELL FOR OUR TIME

“When plunder [and dispossession] becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”― Frédéric Bastiat

Ilan Pappe, the Israeli historian, wrote in “The Forgotten Palestinians” that “Zionism was born out of two impulses; the first was to find a safe haven for Jews; the second was to re-invent Judaism as a national movement, inspired by the 1848 national movements in Europe; But the national and humanist impulse became subsumed by a colonialist one with a need for a pure Jewish space; and in 1948 the only way of achieving this was by the ethnic cleansing of one million Palestinians. As a result, 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and a “permanent dispossession of the indigenous population of Palestine” took place.

The Peel Commission of 1937 admitted that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had given the British a Mandate that could not be implemented. The Mandate created an antagonism between Arabs and Jews. The Peel Commission recommended a Partition, but it was opposed by both groups. The World Zionist Congress of 1937, for instance, demanded a larger share of the land in a Partition. By 1947 the British realized that after the losses suffered during World War II, and the costs of keeping a substantial military force in Palestine, they could no longer sustain their U.N. Mandate.

The costs of dispossession are diverse, with the indigenous being traumatized when they lose ancestral land, while at other times there is a moral cost that leaves levels of anger, rage and anguish experienced by those who are intimidated and displaced; But it also leaves a residue of guilt by the occupier in order to justify the appropriation of indigenous land which eventually requires atonement, reconciliation and restitution.

Although they are several centuries apart, what is taking place in Palestine resembles that which took place in Ireland in the 17^th century. Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan leader invaded Ireland, ostensibly as a reprisal against the Catholic Coalition of Ireland in 1649. As a punitive measure he conducted massacres of the inhabitants of Wexford and Drogheda. His scorched earth policy included burning crops and torching farms.

According to the 19^th century historian William Lecky the letters of Cromwell included comments of the Drogheda massacre where he personally ordered all the inhabitants to be killed. For instance, during Sunday services at the Church of St Peter, 1000 of the worshippers were “put to the sword” Cromwell himself wrote: “all of their friars were knocked on the head except two who were taken prisoner and killed”. He continued “…a great thing [has been] done, not by power or might but by the Spirit of God…it is good that God alone have all the glory” (Lecky, “A History of Ireland”). At another town (Tredagh), an Oxford historian, Anthony Wood, who accompanied Cromwell, related that 3000 were slain, including women and children hiding in “vaults underneath the church; [all] were “put to the sword”. Lecky pointed out that such cruel acts, of which there were many, “left behind memories that are the most fatal obstacles to the reconciliation of nations”. In Ireland Lecky noted that Cromwell’s deeds still “act as a spell upon the Irish mind…sustaining hatred of England…”

Although the effects of Cromwell’s War continued on after 1652, Sir William Petty calculated that during those subsequent 11 years “out of an Irish population of 1,460,000, those who died as “a result of war, plague and famine”, were estimated at 616,000 (504,000 being Irish)

Cromwell and his “New Model Army” left a traumatized country, forcing tens of thousands to move to economically deprived areas in the West of Ireland or being transported to the West Indies. The phrase: “Go to hell or to Connaught” was attributed to him, illustrating his complete lack of empathy for the defeated. The stark contrast with English news outlets at the time was far different: In October 1652 a London newsbook, The Faithful Scout, reported that ‘the long-expected news of the Irish calm, is at last blown over to us with a happy gale’. In “Enforcing Transplantation-1654-1659) the author notes that: “By the spring of 1655 the Irish government was at last ready to attempt the full implementation of its transplantation policy”.

The Act of Settlement 1652 formalised the change in land ownership as Catholics were barred from the Irish Parliament altogether, forbidden to live in towns and from marrying Protestants. In addition, “some fifty thousand Irish people, including prisoners of war, were sold as indentured servants under the English Commonwealth regime”…….

Cromwell returned to England after his conquest of Ireland, which was hailed as a great victory. Soon after, he invaded Scotland and succeeded in compelling that nation into a Parliamentary Union with England. Although Cromwell lived an additional eight years he died of Malaria and kidney stones. Despite being buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, he was subsequently dis-interred following the Restoration of Charles II and hung in chains in Tyburn. Although continuing to be held in high esteem by some Puritans, he was reviled by the Royalists for his execution of King Charles I in 1649.

By an interesting coincidence, in the time of Cromwell’s depredations, the influential preacher, Increase Mather, came from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to pursue a higher degree in theology at Trinity College, Dublin. He received support from Cromwell by way of a beneficence at Magherafelt. Fearful of repercussions after the return of Charles II to the throne, he returned to the Bay Colony and in 1681 became President of Harvard College.

A decade prior to Mather’s Irish journey, an infamous event took place in which up to 700 Pequots were massacred and hundreds more sold into slavery in the West Indies. This is considered the first genocide to take place in New England. The Puritan justification for killing men, women and children was ironically expressed by the Puritan leader, John Underhill who declared that “sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents…We had sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings.”

Even with all the intervening years since his death Cromwell’s destructiveness still evokes anger. His legacy, due to his year-long killing spree and his expropriation of hundreds of thousands of acres of Indigenous Irish land was the fact that he set in motion a series of precedents that compelled the majority of Irish into servitude and placed the ownership of the land in English hands.

The Puritans of New England followed similar precedents of expropriating Indigenous land. They were aided by disease and famine among the estimated five hundred Native tribes who, like the Pequots, were marginalized if they did not agree to treaties that were onerous and seldom honored. The attitude at the time, was one of demonizing or dehumanizing in order to justify dispossession.

In Israel, there exists an equivalent to Cromwell, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose genocidal methods would fit well with Cromwell in Ireland or the Puritan treatment of the Pequots. Netanyahu and the extremist members of the Knesset have actively encouraged the destruction of Gaza, the homeland of 2 million Palestinians. He is encouraged by U.S. policies which continue to replenish his military with numerous 2000 pound bombs.

Netanyahu has a grim need to project demonic attributes unto Hamas, the Gazan defense force, who he compares to Amalekites, an enemy in ancient Israel. In that case the Israelites were “commanded to destroy the Amalekites by killing man, woman, infant and suckling”, By evoking this incident in the Hebrew Bible Netanyahu was making it applicable to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Perhaps we will see Netanyahu face similar circumstances as Cromwell, by being tolerated during a national emergency but rejected after order is restored. Will he leave a legacy of anger and animosity when the enormity of his crimes are revealed in the clear light of day. It may be, as with Cromwell, that the public will cast his memory into “oblivion”, with his “followers of convenience” resigning themselves to the back benches of the Knesset.

President Biden has had an extensive relationship with Ireland by way of his parents, especially his mother. But it appears he does not comprehend Irish history very well, nor is he able to see that its most traumatic experiences are being replicated by a Cromwellian style of brutality in Gaza. If he had done minimal reading of the invasion of Ireland in the mid-17^t century he might have glimpsed that its horrifying history is being repeated on a global viewership scale with the complicity of America. Perhaps he will discover, most likely too late, that he has participated in a great tragedy against a population lacking any sustained means of defense from the bombs raining down on Gaza's cities and towns.

Hugh Curran was born in the Northwest of Ireland and teaches in Peace & Reconciliation Studies at the University of Maine

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TWELVE INDIGENOUS POEMS FOR DECEMBER

Posted on December 10, 2023 by HCCN

TWELVE INDIGENOUS POEMS FOR DECEMBER

IF I MUST DIE by Refaat Alareer

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up

above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale

Refaat Alareer: highly esteemed Palestinian academic & poet, who was killed,

with his family, by Israel bombing during the first week of December, 2023

Displaced by Mosab Abu Toha

I am neither in nor out.
I am in between.
I am not part of anything.
I am a shadow of something.
At best,
I am a thing that
does not really
exist.
I am weightless,
a speck of time
in Gaza.

But I will remain

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library.

In Jerusalem BY MAHMOUD DARWISH (TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH)

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory

to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing

the history of the holy … ascending to heaven

and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love

and peace are holy and are coming to town.

I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How

do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?

Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?

I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see

no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.

All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly

then I become another. Transfigured. Words

sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger

mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t be safe.”

I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white

biblical rose. And my hands like two doves

on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.

I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,

transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?

I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I

think to myself: Alone, the prophet Muhammad

spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”

Then what? A woman soldier shouted:

Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?

I said: You killed me … and I forgot, like you, to die.

Mahmoud Darwish, “To Our Land” from The Butterfly’s Burden. Darwish was regarded as Palestine's national poet.

To Our Land BY MAHMOUD DARWISH (TRANSLATED BY FADY JOUDAH)

To our land,

and it is the one near the word of god,

a ceiling of clouds

To our land,

and it is the one far from the adjectives of nouns,

the map of absence

To our land,

and it is the one tiny as a sesame seed,

a heavenly horizon … and a hidden chasm

To our land,

and it is the one poor as a grouse’s wings,

holy books … and an identity wound

To our land,

and it is the one surrounded with torn hills,

the ambush of a new past

To our land, and it is a prize of war,

the freedom to die from longing and burning

and our land, in its bloodied night,

is a jewel that glimmers for the far upon the far

and illuminates what’s outside it …

As for us, inside,

we suffocate more!

Mahmoud Darwish, “To Our Land” from The Butterfly’s Burden. Darwish was regarded as Palestine's national poet.

Children by Abu Al-Hayyat (translated by Fady Joudah)

A child’s hand sticks out of the rubble

and sends me counting

my three children’s limbs,
their digits, examining their teeth
and eyebrows.

The silenced voices in Yarmouk
turn the volume up on my radio, TV,
and drown the songs on my laptop.
I pinch my kids in their love handles:
let there be crying,
let there be noise.

And the hungry hearts
at Qalandia checkpoint open my mouth:
I’m ready for my extra salty
emotional eating to feed weeping

eyes everywhere.

You Can Be the Last Leaf, selected poems by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

If I Laid Them End to End by Kimberly Blaeser

That old guy with the muskrat soup

slurps it loudly from the ladle

Hoowah, pretty good stuff!

You shift your weight on the stool

raise the bad leg just enough

and retrieve the red bandana hankie.

Talk still spills like sunshine

over the knife-marred counter

as slowly you wipe the can

push the cloth back in your pocket

and cough down the grape pop

glancing at the bobbing black head

where it surfaced in the pot.

The burned farm. That hungry year.

The long walk from Strawberry Mountain

warmed now with the weight

of fresh butchered wiiyaas in your pack.

Mum’s baking soda biscuits mixed and cut

lined waiting in the tin pan

like our little kids’ faces at the window.

Sure took the wrinkle out of our bellies that night.

One opening day when those two old fishermen

ended up drunk clinging to the canoe.

The hunt for diamond willow,

beaver camp on Easter weekend,

the whitefish feeding on wax worms,

the string of crappies slipped from your hand,

the missing outhouse floor,

training waaboose,

feeding the least weasel,

tales from working on the ships,

from boiling sap, planting trees, pounding, carving,

and then the cigar box memories

of those old time Indians

who could really tell stories . .

Kimberly Blaeser is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation and grew up on the reservation in northwestern Minnesota. Blaeser worked as a journalist before earning her PhD from the University of Notre Dame

Stone Mother by Tanaya Winder

I was born in the desert
learned to cherish water
like it was created from tears.

I grew up hearing the legend, the lesson
of the Stone Mother who cried
enough cries to make an entire lake
from sadness. From her, we learned
what must be done and that the sacrifices
you make for your people are sacred.
We are all related
and sometimes it takes
a revolution to be awakened.

You see, the power of a single tear lies in the story.
It’s birthed from feeling and following
the pain as it echoes into the canyon of grieving.
It’s the path you stumble and walk
until you push and claw your way through to acceptance.

For us, stories have always been for lessons.

Tanaya Winder comes from an intertribal lineage of Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Duckwater Shoshone Tribe

After Sacred Water by Kinsale Hueston

[…] IV. In the third world, coyote took the water monster’s baby

so the water monster decided to make it rain endlessly
the water rose and flooded and choked the peaks
of sacred mountains
and the beings that lived there
did not know where to escape the flood
what saved the world was a reed curling
into the sky a way to climb out into the fourth world
an offering by First Man beloved by the gods
the one from which we all were formed

there are things that remain stolen that holy people
weep for and others look to us with upturned hands
ask where the reeds come from flee to the highest peaks
dream of another world they can scurry into
through a wound in the sky
we have no answer for them we have known this the entire time
tell our stories go to the water
tend this land
and remember

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/five-indigenous-poets-explore-loss-and-love-their-native-lands Kinsale Hueston is a Diné poet, performer, and junior at Yale University studying the intersections of cultural (re)vitalization movements, Indigenous poetry, and Indigenous feminism.

The Archive of Our Relation by Edyka Chilome

I admit, the mourning is constant
the names, the words, the whispers
colors and textures that were lost,
persecuted, poisoned, disinherited,
extracted, cut down, shaved, kidnapped,
unclaimed, and forgotten. An endless war

I too report, my silence has not saved me
yet running water calls spirits/hidden in me carefully
waiting for me to quiet the mind/ so they may wake me right on time
to witness the great expanse/a dance so tender
it gently wakes the sun

In gratitude the sun rises/ offers its power
so that we may see/ all that has been done
all that is yet to come

In humility and courage/ I rise, offer my power
so that I may see/all that has been done
and you who has yet to become

Tumal sinú
may the sun always shine on you
a prayer weaved by/ the most precious parts of me
a breath/ the most potent offering
to our becoming

I report, the water, the earth, the seeds
and the grace of a dancing sky
remain a pure reflection
the wealth of our inheritance
the heart of our connection
the archive of our relation
if we so choose to co-conspire
to re-member

Agua es vida, Water is life/we are the water and
remembering has offered us
our lives, love letters bloomed beautiful
in anticipation of you//travel guides to the
ancient futures that are due/ living memory of
gestation and labor/ humble testimonies
conspired in your favor

You see, more than hope
we hold a deep knowing
all creation moves in circle
all that was once dead is reborn
the breaking of the seed
a necessary violence
forgiveness a necessary blooming
resistance a necessary rooting
rebuilding a defining act of courage
letting go a radical act of love

I too agree with trees
I do not shy away from the darkness
Nor do I fear the wind
I remember the water
and take root in the memory of you
the living archive of relation
a sweet and sacred confirmation
that we are still alive

Edyka Chilomé is a poet, and child of migrant activists from the occupied lands of the Zacateco (Mexico) as well as Lenca (El Salvador) people

K.YAH/SAAD: TOWARD AN OPEN POETICS by Jake Skeets

I admit, the mourning is constant
the names, the words, the whispers
colors and textures that were lost,
persecuted, poisoned, disinherited,
extracted, cut down, shaved, kidnapped,
unclaimed, and forgotten. An endless war

I too report, my silence has not saved me
yet running water calls spirits/hidden in me carefully
waiting for me to quiet the mind/ so they may wake me right on time
to witness the great expanse/a dance so tender
it gently wakes the sun

In gratitude the sun rises/ offers its power
so that we may see/ all that has been done
all that is yet to come

In humility and courage/ I rise, offer my power
so that I may see/all that has been done
and you who has yet to become

Tumal sinú
may the sun always shine on you
a prayer weaved by/ the most precious parts of me
a breath/ the most potent offering
to our becoming

I report, the water, the earth, the seeds
and the grace of a dancing sky
remain a pure reflection
the wealth of our inheritance
the heart of our connection
the archive of our relation
if we so choose to co-conspire
to re-member

Agua es vida, Water is life/we are the water and
remembering has offered us
our lives, love letters bloomed beautiful
in anticipation of you//travel guides to the
ancient futures that are due/ living memory of
gestation and labor/ humble testimonies
conspired in your favor

You see, more than hope
we hold a deep knowing
all creation moves in circle
all that was once dead is reborn
the breaking of the seed
a necessary violence
forgiveness a necessary blooming
resistance a necessary rooting
rebuilding a defining act of courage
letting go a radical act of love

I too agree with trees
I do not shy away from the darkness
Nor do I fear the wind
I remember the water
and take root in the memory of you
the living archive of relation
a sweet and sacred confirmation
that we are still alive

Jake Skeets is a poet and teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, located within the Navajo Nation. His first book is Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, a winner of the 2018 National Poetry Series.

THE REZ SISTERS II by Billy-Ray Belcourt

After Tomson highway

girl of surplus. girl who is made from fragments. she who can only

be spoken of by way of synecdoche. she whose name cannot be

enunciated only mouthed.

mother of that which cannot be mothered. mother who wants

nothing and everything at the same time. she who gave birth to

herself three times: 1. the miscarriage. 2. the shrunken world.

3.the aftermath.

sister of forest fire. sister who dwells in the wreckage. she who forages

for the right things in the wrong places. nothing is utopia and so she

prays to a god for a back that can bend like a tree splitting open to

make room for the heat.

aunt of the sovereignty of dust. aunt of that which cannot be

negated entirely. she who is magic because she goes missing and

comes back. she who walks upside down on the ceiling of the

world and does not fall.

kookum of love in spite of it all. kookum who made a man out of

a memory. she who is a country unto herself.

father of ash. father of a past without a mouth. he who ate too much

of the sunset.

Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta, and a 2016 Rhodes Scholar who holds a M.St. in Women’s Studies from the University of Oxford.

I LOST MY TALK by Rita Joe

I lost my talk

The talk you took away.

When I was a little girl

At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:

I speak like you

I think like you

I create like you

The scrambled ballad, about my word.

Two ways I talk

Both ways I say,

Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me.

Born in Whycocomagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Rita Joe was the author of six books, including her 1978 debut collection, Poems of Rita Joe

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THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR IN GAZA

Posted on December 7, 2023 by HCCN

MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF GAZAN WAR by Hugh Curran

The moral high ground has been lost by Israel in the Gaza onslaught while it attempts to avenge the Hamas attacks on Oct 7. The leaders of the Knesset seem convinced that the slaughter of 15,000 civilians is justified and that there will be no moral consequences. Does this attitude rest on an ancient Biblical story concerning the Amaleks who became the enemy of Israel. “God then commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites by killing man, woman, infant and suckling” This kind of revenge is primitive in the extreme but Netanyahu has been quoted as saying Israel needs an Amallek response, Whether this is metaphorical or not, the bombing of Gaza is a primitive act of wanton destruction on a scale reminiscent of WWII.

For Americans a question that should be asked is why Israel is receiving $3.8 billion annually from the U.S. in military aid with another $14 million being promised by the Biden administration. This is taking place while one million Americans are homeless and many more are living near the poverty line? Under such circumstances why is America enabling the destruction of Gaza, the forced homelessness of tens of thousands, and on the West Bank the continued expropriation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers. America is making itself a moral spectacle to the world as it becomes an accomplice to the deliberate destruction of an indigenous people.

In her book “And Then your Soul is Gone” Kelly Denton -Borhaug describes “moral injury and war culture”. She writes: “U.S. citizens don’t really want to know what has gone on in our name, with our money and with the tacit permission…of U.S. violence around the world”….we distance ourselves from the suffering caused by war yet “moral injury results from participation in the moral distortion of the world that is created by war”. The writer quotes Hannah Arendt concerning the “banality of evil” when Arendt notes how [moral injury] becomes most pernicious when it is “routinized and normalized”.

What is taking place in Gaza is the most transparent of age-old motives: to dispossess the indigenous people of their land by any means possible. The truth is that dispossession of indigenous land worldwide has a long sordid history, often dressed up in religious language such that, as Borhaug notes: “to present a divinized portrayal of war and militarism as a sacred enterprise”.

The recent display of overwhelming military power by Israel is also intended to cast fear into “enemies” nearby, but in this war against the Palestinians it is achieving the opposite effect. Arab countries are not in awe nor are they made more fearful, even as the American navy sits at anchor ready to intervene. Large segments of the population of Arab countries are disgusted and are taking action by boycotting businesses and products coming from America and Israel. We may see that small actions, carried out by large numbers of people, can result in widespread consequences.

The Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, in a talk at the Israel Lobby spoke of three principles believed in by Israelis: 1^st is the belief that Israelis are the chosen people”; 2^nd is the belief that Israelis are always the victim; 3^rd is the belief that Palestinians are less than human, compared to Israelis.

In another talk Gideon Levy noted that “Israeli rage and desire for revenge are not justified…you have to completely ignore the last 100 years in order to believe that Israel is entitled to revenge. They have far more to answer for than the Palestinians. The only way all this can possibly end well is if the U.S. intervenes. I don't see Israel coming to its senses and developing a conscience without pressure from the outside”.

He also noted that “ethnic cleansing” by the settlers in the West Bank is supposedly “illegal” but the Israel military protects the settlers. These are Jewish terrorists…burning down houses and fields of Palestinians…under the smokescreen of the Gazan war, There is encouragement of the government…the suffering of Arabs in East Jerusalem…still to some extent, Jerusalem has been annexed by Israel, so these neighborhoods have been invaded by settlers with the help of the police…”

This dehumanization of Palestinians is not a new phenomenon. When the British General Dyer massacred 500 nonviolent protestors in Amritsar, India in 1919 he was not reprimanded by the British hierarchy. This flagrant injustice ignited all of India against British rule while Gandhi, who at one time admired the British, became extremely critical of the “evil” that British leaders had succumbed to. Despite being frequently jailed by the British he continued to devote two decades to expelling Britain from India.

Coincidentally, Britain, during the same period placed tens of thousands of troops in Palestine and assigned a High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel who encouraged Jewish immigration. Following him were eleven other High Commissioners who held authority over Palestine until 1948. The British withdrew from India and Palestine in 1947 and 1948, within a year of each other, even as violence was widespread in both withdrawals. Some parties were aggrieved for differing reasons. In India it was a partition between a Muslim and Hindu territory and British withdrawal in August, 1947. In Palestine the Zionist leadership attacked both the British and the Palestinians but withdrawal did not take place until May, 1948. Gandhi did not live to see the formal withdrawal due to his assassination by a Hindu nationalist in January, 1948 who was convinced that Gandhi was too supportive of Muslims.

The Gandhian phrase: “an eye for an eye makes everyone blind” was quoted by Ofer Cassif, a member of the Israeli Knesset who was being interviewed. We are, he said “in a vicious cycle”. Most of the people of Israel have to rid themselves of their rage” He said: “the government includes psychopaths and bigots who are happiest when they are destroying the opposition. Such people “don’t even care for Israeli people, they believe in the greater Israel, “Eretz Israel” [the largest expanse of biblical Israel] “Obviously the intention is to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza…to expel the Gazans…it is not a secret….they believe it..there are thousands who oppose this but the majority will only be able to change their minds when it is too late. The fascists in the Knesset do not want to see any opposition. [They now demand] that the police totally forbid any demonstrations against the present war against Gaza. One Knesset member wants to give M16 rifles to the west bank settlers. “Americans must understand that these fascists in the Knesset may use their power eventually against us…the regular people of Israel.”

Ofer has been struggling for many years concerning peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians and their right of return to their homeland. He predicts that “Israel is dooming itself not only by committing genocide against the Palestinians and shocking the entire world, but by arming its own citizens to the teeth. Civil war is around the corner as society grows ever more extremist while its democratic institutions are being dismantled. Unless there is rapid change, Israel will self-destruct from the inside.”

In the case of the bombing of Gaza, a recent poll notes that a majority of Israelis support it despite its lethal consequences, As a result, they become complicit in the sin of a conflagration of another people, and in a vast moral universe of pain and suffering; all this from anger and vengeance and dispossession. When is enough not enough? How long will people suffer the traumas of injury after the death of friends and relatives? There are always consequences to violence, especially on a scale of what is now taking place, whether it is due to Hamas or Israel or America. The bigger the sin perpetrated against others (in this case the Palestinians) the more consequential the long- term psychological suffering, not only to the victims, but inevitably, to the aggressors as well. Moral injury is deep-seated and involves a long difficult process of healing and atonement. Such a process demands acknowledgement of the pain and suffering inflicted, and a willingness to face one’s complicity to the consequences of collective decision making.

Hugh Curran is a Lecturer in Peace and Reconciliation Studies at the University of Maine & is a resident of Downeast Maine.

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MEMORIES, REFLECTIONS ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY

Posted on March 17, 2023 by HCCN

Memories & Reflections on St. Patrick’s Day (La na Naomh Padraig)

St.Patrick, although one of three patron saints of Ireland, has become the most honored in the Irish diaspora around the world. His story is well known among the Irish. After being captured at 16 years of age he spent six years in captivity herding sheep and cattle and escaped by walking the length of Ireland. He then worked his way on a merchant ship to France where he spent 20 years in a monastery before returning to Ireland.

St.Patrick was believed to have spent 40 days on Cruachan Aigle in Mayo, next to Clew Bay. This 2500 ft conical mountain became known as Croagh Phadraig and is a pilgrimage site dedicated to his memory with thousands of pilgrims climbing it every March 17 and an estimated 35,000 on August 1(Lughnasadh). I made this pilgrimage several years ago in early March when the weather was unpredictable varying from sunny periods to rain squalls, and then, arriving at the top, I faced sleet and snow. For summer pilgrims the sanctuary of a small chapel would be open where they could gain some rest before descending again over the rocky parapet near the top. This was not the case in early March when I climbed but I did find a doorway with a jutting roof which provided relief from the weather.

Some historians believe St Patrick entered the monastery of St. Martin of Tours where, in the early part of the 5^th century, he undertook religious training. St Martin was the earliest known conscientious objector who had resigned from the Roman army after converting to Christianity. He was still a young man when he arrived at Tours and devoted himself to an extremely austere life and attracted a number of followers who wished to emulate his ascetic contemplative life. Some historians believe that Patrick was one of St. Martin’s followers.

Patrick, after completing his training, made a vow to return to Ireland and gradually found his way back. He then devoted himself to converting the Irish to devotional religious practices. Other notable monastics were already present, including St.Palladius and St.Declan, who had their own austere religious centers.

Among Patrick’s first converts was King O’Leary of Armagh. According to legend Patrick had to change himself and his followers into a small herd of deer in order to get past the guards,forewarned by the Druids to keep him away.

The other patron saints of Ireland include St. Columba of Donegal, the founder of Iona in Scotland, and St. Bridget of Kildare. Columba was born about fifty years after the death of Patrick and represented a monastic tradition better suited to the Irish and Scots clan tradition. They founded small churches and monastic establishments with abbots rather than priests and bishops. Contrary to the continental model, the Celtic monastic tradition featured a double monastery with males and females separated only by a dividing wall.

There were many legends associated with St. Patrick, including the monster he fought in Lough Derg, Donegal, hence the name of the lake as red (derg). Lough Derg became known in medieval times as St.Patrick’s Purgatory and was, and continues to be, a rigorous retreat center and pilgrimage site. Having attended a three-day retreat there myself in bare feet on a bread and water diet I can attest that it is still a demanding retreat. The poets Patrick Kavanagh and Seamus Heaney, after their own retreats there, wrote poems about this island pilgrimage site.

Modern celebrations seldom observe the religious character of the day with its traditional Mass and Novenas. But it has become a way to honor Irishness for the 70 million descendants of the Irish diaspora. The color green is associated with Ireland and the Irish, as is the shamrock and various kinds of stout, and in Irish American, corned beef and cabbage.

Although the present St Patrick’s Day parades in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with their marching bands, were not traditional in Ireland, they have become adopted in Ireland over the last few decades. The Parade has become a celebration for the Irish and those who identify with the Irish while others celebrate it as a way to acknowledge the lengthening Spring days with sunshine appearing more often as Winter gives way to the preparations for planting crops and gardens.

In North America there are over thirty million people who claim Irish descent, so it is a day to feel a spirit of uplift and a time to experience traditional Irish music and appreciate everything that is reminiscent of Irishness.

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Fwd: Hancock-Washington Hub of the Maine Poor People’s Campaign: Zoom Presentation on PPC at Ellsworth UU Church This Sunday

Posted on July 13, 2022 by HCCN

Please pass this on, thanks.

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Fwd: HCCN info needed

Posted on June 26, 2022 by HCCN

; text-indent:0px; text-transform:none; white-space:normal; widows:auto; word-spacing:0px”> Martha Dickinson

40 Washington Street

Ellsworth, ME 04605

667-5863

martha.dickinson@gmail.com

Begin forwarded message:

From: Katie Greenman <kgreenman@gwi.net>

Subject: HCCN info needed

Date: June 26, 2022 at 11:05:38 AM EDT

To: Judy Robbins <Judy@RobbinsAndRobbins.com>, Larry Dansinger <larryd@myfairpoint.net>, Hugh Curran <hugh.curran@maine.edu>, Martha Dickinson <martha.dickinson@gmail.com>

Hi Friends,

I’ve been talking with Bob Jones of the Climate Action Network on the Blue Hill Peninsula about networking for greater participation. He is unfamiliar with HCCN and has never received an email from the network.

Could you tell me who the administrator is for HCCN, how one gets on the list, any protocol that’s in place for posting events, news etc.?
How large is the list? Does anyone know?

Is there a public listing of organizations that regularly post to HCCN?

Bob is looking for a better way to network for multiple concerns on the Peninsula since the Peninsula Peace and Justice group is inactive at this time.

Thank you for your help,

Katie

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Fwd: HCCN info needed

Posted on June 26, 2022 by HCCN

Katie, or email to HCCN@mainetalk.org

Martha Dickinson

40 Washington Street

Ellsworth, ME 04605

667-5863

martha.dickinson@gmail.com

Begin forwarded message:

From: Katie Greenman <kgreenman@gwi.net>

Subject: HCCN info needed

Date: June 26, 2022 at 11:05:38 AM EDT

To: Judy Robbins <Judy@RobbinsAndRobbins.com>, Larry Dansinger <larryd@myfairpoint.net>, Hugh Curran <hugh.curran@maine.edu>, Martha Dickinson <martha.dickinson@gmail.com>

Hi Friends,

I’ve been talking with Bob Jones of the Climate Action Network on the Blue Hill Peninsula about networking for greater participation. He is unfamiliar with HCCN and has never received an email from the network.

Could you tell me who the administrator is for HCCN, how one gets on the list, any protocol that’s in place for posting events, news etc.?
How large is the list? Does anyone know?

Is there a public listing of organizations that regularly post to HCCN?

Bob is looking for a better way to network for multiple concerns on the Peninsula since the Peninsula Peace and Justice group is inactive at this time.

Thank you for your help,

Katie

Posted in HCCN | Leave a comment

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