Do citizens of the United States truly live in a free country? A free state of being? of doing? of acting in the world?
Today I am inspired by the example of journalists such as Jean Dominique whose indefatigable spirit triumphed for years during his lifetime over the oppressive regimes of power-politics in Haiti, and promises to bear witness, with us, to the true calling of all people to be free from censorship, state and corporate aggression and surveillance in articulating their desires, their complaints, fears, and destinies. I could not recommend more highly the documentary The Agronomist which portrays the vivacious and steadfast character of Dominique and his struggle with the Haitian people for justice and equity.
As Brazilian poet, musician, activist and historian extraordinaire Caetano Veloso urges:
Pensa no Haiti, reza pelo Haiti. O Haiti é aqui, O Haiti não é aqui.
Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti. Haiti is here, Haiti is not here.
What does Caetano mean by singing "Haiti is here"? It seems we get a clue even in “Haiti is not here,” as we are reminded that “we” are all sorts of various collectives. We can refer to the us that is "our" country, "our" foreign policy. "We" also, is each of those, including ourselves, who stand in relation to Haiti. Certainly, Caetano's maxim is equally true for Haitians. Haiti is there, and not there, is here and not here for Aristide, or Dominique - this is the entire point of their lives and struggle. The Haiti that is vs the Haiti they want to be. The Haiti we pray for, and the Haiti we pray to (see). Yet, in the less mystical variation of the "we" as outsiders, witnessing the strife of Haiti's beleagered nation, the over“there”-ness of Haiti is penetrated by the influence of our lives, our thoughts, our foreign policy, our apathy, our care IS there in Haiti, just as Haiti’s strength, life, hope, pain, destitution is here; in our hearts, our greed, our flagging confidence in the possibility of our own freedoms.
It has been fun to follow the news stories about China's preparation for the Olympic games as it ambles up to welcome the world so to speak. I'm interested in the auxiliary effects on the status of Chinese people's access to information and freedoms of expression.
In the last few days websites that were previously blocked in China - some websites - are now currently available in Beijing, Shanghai and perhaps other parts of the country.
Or, check out this headline:
Reporters Without Borders website accessible in China for first time since 2003
Port au Prince to Beijing, Portland to wherever you are reading this, there is a liberty at stake, one worth dying for, itself dying to be exercised. I write, today, to remember that right, and to grow closer, if this can be done, to understanding what, recently, Edwidge Danticat concluded in her Toni Morrison Lecture at Princeton University, that we have a responsibility to history to "write dangerously." I have been thinking about this, and more to come (perhaps on the speech, but certainly on the proposition of writing dangerously). For me, the premise is somewhat tricky. It may very well be dangerous to write, but this does not require that one write dangerously. It seems all the more likely that to truly write, under dangerous conditions, would be to write well. To write dangerously well - this is my motto, my aim for today. That I am writing at all, is, in fact, a marked improvement over the alternative which it seems, for some reason, I've practiced so long, and so well. And so fitfully, yet safely. I write in peace, today, knowing the storm is coming tonight to the homes of those whose freedoms have come at the price paid by Dominique, and X, and King, and so many other special friends.
Free Mumia! Yes. And, further, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery..." and, further,
free our tongues to speak this freedom - or, better yet, to sing!....
