On Vietnam memorial:
Few controversies have faded faster than the one over the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, but while it lived it was nasty. The V-shape was an iconic reference to the peace sign of the anti-war movement. Its color, black, connoted defeat and shame. It was sunk into the ground as if trying to bury the memory of the war dead. It wasn’t virile and heroic like the capital’s other war memorials. The designer was a 21-year-old college student of Asian descent and somehow that seemed wrong too.
That student, Maya Lin, designed what quickly became the capital’s most emotionally powerful memorial. With a ceremony on Veterans Day, it is marking its 20th anniversary, and in that time 40 million visitors have followed the columns and columns of names – 58,229 – down its gently descending walkway.
Most of the capital’s monuments and memorials are imperiously sited so visitors can’t avoid them, but they must seek out the Vietnam Memorial. It is screened by trees and landscaped groves and is almost unnaturally quiet. School groups who only minutes before have been clowning on the steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial suddenly turn orderly and respectful. If there are any number of people there – and the memorial never seems to be alone – some of them will be in tears. Lights have been added because so many come at night.
The memorial is almost loved too much. People feel compelled to touch the names, tracing over the letters with their fingers; many trace the names with pencil and paper; and they are encouraged to do so. The Park Service regularly cleans and freshens the black granite and gathers up – and saves in a special warehouse – the remembrances left behind, bouquets, letters, medals, stuffed animals.
Twenty years later, the power of the Vietnam Memorial is not its site, the stone so shiny it eerily reflects its visitors, or the memories of that time, but the names, the names.
On end of Sharon government:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday asked President Moshe Katzav to dissolve the Knesset (parliament) and call early elections. After 20 months, the Sharon government has finally come to an end, and with it the 15th Knesset. It now appears that elections for the 16th Knesset will be held at the end of January 2003. …
In the name of unity and the need for stability, Sharon expected the Labor Party to back a national order or priorities that clearly put the settlers above the indisputable interests of a majority of Israel’s citizens at the expense of the weakest sectors of Israeli society.
Very belatedly, Labor’s chairman reached the conclusion that he could not be a partner to the prime minister’s policy. … Despite the heavy price that a political crisis will exact … the collapse of the outgoing government can only be welcomed. It will be remembered as one of the worst governments in Israel’s history. It must now be hoped that the upcoming election will produce a coalition wise enough to repair the damage and restore the country to the right path.
On holy month of Ramadan:
With the onset of Ramadan, Muslims around the world begin a month of spiritual rebirth. This is a time of inner cleansing, soul-searching and of coming closer to God. …
But this year the Muslim communities of the world, particularly the Arab world, begin their month of fasting with trepidation. Brothers in Palestine continue to face a fierce occupation by an Israeli government that can only be seen as even more dangerous following the breakup of the Sharon coalition and the arrival of Likud hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu as temporary foreign minister.
Brothers in Iraq continue to suffer under more than a decade of U.N. sanctions compounded by fears of an attack by the U.S. Many in the region have a sense of hopelessness, and they fear drastic changes are in store for this part of the world.
Jordan prides itself in continuously striving for peaceful means to resolve conflicts. Its voice abroad has spoken volumes of what can be achieved by practicing moderation and tolerance.
These are the messages that need to be heard. As Ramadan is a test of one’s endurance, the work to get these messages out should not stop.
On the Yemen missile attack:
Zap! Pow! The bad guys are dead. And they never knew what hit them. Living his presidency like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, George Bush etched another notch in his gun butt this week, blowing away six “terrorists” in Yemen’s desert.
Their car was incinerated by a Hellfire missile, fired by a CIA unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone. Dealing out death via remote-controlled flying robots could be the spooks’ salvation after the September 11 and Afghan intelligence flops. It makes the agency look useful. …
Zap! Ping! Even as the bullets ricochet, it should be said there are some problems with this approach to international peacekeeping. For a start, it is illegal.
The Yemen attack violates basic rules of sovereignty. It is an act of war where no war has been declared. It killed people, some of whom who may have been criminals, but who will never now face trial.
It assassinated men who may have been planning attacks. But who can tell? It is, at best, irresponsible extra-judicial killing, at worst a premeditated, cold-blooded murder of civilians. And it is also, and this is no mere afterthought, morally unsustainable.
Those who authorized this act have some serious ethical as well as legal questions to answer. That there is no prospect at all that they will, and no insistence by Britain or others that they do so, only renders ever more appalling the moral pit which gapes and beckons. …
Stateless gangster terrorism is a fearsome scourge. But state-sponsored terrorism is a greater evil, for it is waged by those who should know better, who are duty-bound to address causes not mere symptoms, who may claim to act in the people’s name. As Alexander Herzen said in another age of struggle: “We are not the doctors. We are the disease.”