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Ortiz's Moment of Silence

Recently one of the salihin sent an e-mail with Emmanuel Ortiz's Moment of Silence. My wife sent it to a few people most of whom were quite appreciative. But there was one relative who...

But there was one relative who felt that the piece simply spreads "hate". And that Taco Bell, the Internet and Cable T.V have nothing to do with wars but people do- as if those entities can exist without people. I found this disturbing not only because of the startling lack of knowledge of contemporary geopolitics and economics demonstrated by the educated responder but more so in the way it nonchalantly dismisses Ortiz's powerful call to action by appealing to another one of these fluffy abstract concepts that seem to dominate common discourse on these matters- namely "hate".

Hate is one of those terms that like "terror" and "freedom" is responsible for much of the death and destruction we see in the world today. The fact that people can be rallied to action or as is the case with this particular response to Ortiz's piece paralyzed with inaction on the basis of abstract, meaningless concepts says volumes about the modern education system.

But I shan't go into that now for I hope that the following article and the simple comment to follow will suffice as response to all those who for one reason or another don't "get" where Ortiz is coming from. For those in powerful nations who can't seem to get past Ortiz's attack on their "right" to recreate while entire swaths of the planet burn so that they may do so and therefore don't see the relevance of Taco Bell etc. please read this:

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs09112009.html

and understand that the poem was designed to make people uncomfortable. Of course the more one prefers to be blind to the injustices done in one's name so that one may "recreate however one wants" the more uncomfortable one will be with the piece and hopefully one will be motivated to get off one's posterior and try in all earnest to get one's leaders to stop. For this Ortiz should be thanked and not discredited as a hate-monger.

And when it comes to hate. I agree that the poem does spread hate but then hate is not always bad. Jesus hated the money changers whose greed soiled the Temple by their very presence just as greed, not hate, today causes so many wars, injustices and destruction. Perhaps the problem with the word today is that there isn't enough hatred for injustice, oppression, and greed perhaps because there is too much love.

Too much love for corporations that give us cheap goods at the expense of vulnerable people's labor, that give us big cars that burn big gas at the expense of the sovereignty and resources of entire nations, that give us cheap, fast Internet while they consolidate greater economies (and monopolies) of scale in "liberated" lands.

Perhaps the world would be a little better off with a little more of the right type of hate: not the vacuous, abstract hate of those pundits whose armies (and corporations) march through the earth bringing death, exploitation, and war wherever they trample while their people allay their battered consciences with endless moments of silence but the hate of vice that brings with it responsibility, turning away from waste and excess, and confronting uncomfortable realities which we everyday people may in fact be a very big part of. If that is Ortiz's hate then I hope to God he spreads more of it.

و الحمد لله رب العالمين

00:25 , 19 09 09

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