This has nothing to do with unicycling but relates to various conversations that have gone on on RSU. As all the readers on this list are part of a community that I value, I share these words in the hope that they will be read and considered. I have not brought them up in any of the previous threads I have participated in because I did not want others to be influenced by them one way or another. I write them now because a) I want to and b) you all have a right to know where some of my words come from.
On 9/11/01 my uncle, my mother Rita Lasar’s broAnd we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight floors to safety. A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burn victims. "ther, was killed at the World Trade Centers. He died something of a hero by virtue of his remaining behind with a wheel-chair bound friend who could not get out alone. He insisted that his friends nurse/care-giver leave because she had children; he did not. When a fireman, Capt William Burek, did arrive, it was too late for them all. They were on the 27th floor and my uncle could easily have escaped. His name was Abe (or Avrame or Abraham) Zelmanowitz and you can find his story on the web in various places. What remains of his body was identified about a month ago and he was given a heros burial in Israel.
I managed to get into Manhattan to visit my mother the Friday after 9/11. That evening we watched President Bush’s speech at the National Cathedral where he praised my uncle (although not by name) among others. Here is the quote:
“And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend.”
Although I did not, my mother immediately realized that her brother’s name as well as those of the thousands of other victims’, would be used as part of the justification for going to war, bombing Afghanistan as well as other military actions. This she could not tolerate. She wrote a letter to the New York Times, published on 9/18, expressing her hope that the United States would not rush to war and bombing as the only solution. Just before Rita was to address a peace demonstration at Union Square Park on October 7th (I believe) the news arrived that we had begun to bombing in Afghanistan of Al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds.
Sometime after this my mother was invited by a peace advocacy group called Global Exchange (http://www.globalexchange.org) to visit Afghanistan with other family members of those who died on 9/11, to meet with victims of violence, particularly US bombing. As it turns out there was a small, but growing contingent of families who suffered loss on 9/11 who felt that war and particularly the killing of civilians, i.e. collateral damage, were unacceptable responses to these terrible events.
8 people including my mother were scheduled to make this trip in January of 2002. 4 wound up going the other 4 backing out after changing their minds or being discouraged, mostly for safety reasons, by their families. The experience was life changing, needless to say, for all who made the trip. The trip is well documented on the WWW, but the highlights include seeing training in identifying cluster-bombs at the primary schools, meeting with families whose homes were completely destroyed and who hoped that the US would make some attempt to compensate them - I note that most of these families were grateful to the US for expelling the Taliban and Al-Qaida; sharing the grief of losing loved ones, which they all did abundantly.
While there they began the work of establishing an Afghan Victims Fund designed to compensate individuals who lost life, limb and home as a direct result of US bombs. One woman who lost 5 children and her husband and who went to the US Embassy on her own to seek help was turned away and literally called a beggar woman by the guard there. (http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5538). Currently around 30 or so members of Congress are endorsing this fund which is distinct from monies allocated to rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure and military.
Since this trip my mother and other’s like her, families and individuals who experienced loss on 9/11, have worked tirelessly to lobby congress for the fund and to promote a message of peace. This past month she was in Japan on the anniversary of the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima and addressed several organizations and peace rallies. She and others speak at churches, union halls and wherever they are invited.
Needless to say I, as does my brother, support my mothers’ activities completely and are very proud of her. She wrote an op/ed piece that was picked up by Knight Ridder and you may wish to read it to hear it from her mouth: http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/opinion/4045231.htm .
In addition, she and others founded an organization called Peaceful Tomorrows which has information and background on their activities: http://www.peacefultomorrows.org .
My mother and her companions as well as my brother and me have been praised for our stances, ridiculed, called naive, held up as role models and threatened with death. For my family our position on war pre-dates 9/11 but our resolve has been enhanced. For some of our colleagues in this effort an anti-war stance is new.
I will add only that all of us feel very privileged to be Americans, a people who have many choices not available to citizens of most other countries. We cherish these choices, but also believe that having them also involves our having responsibilities, too. My mother has been an activist in making, what we believe, are the right choices. I only wish I were as committed and brave.
So, this is where I come from. I early on dubbed these activities, “the cycnical use of the death of a loved one to promote the cause of peace” a cause well worth it.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
