zoe garnett

Dearest Eve-- I have been wanting to write spontaneously about this since it happened. Thank you for creating a zone (and if I'm supposed to go to the site to do it, please let me know. In the meantime, please send this over there and TechnoTwit will do it right next time).

Even though there have been violent acts in the US always, and acts against specific peoples not infrequent (the line from lynching of what were called "Negroes" to the killing of Amadou Diallo *is* a straight line), the recent spate of attacks there (I say "there" because I am a Canadian, and posting from there) have been different. Oklahoma City, World Trade Centre in 1993 and also Columbine, which for me belongs to the "I am too long aggrieved--I am taking lots of people, including myself, out!" type of attack.

I was in Greece when NATO started bombing the country next door (Serbia). I could, for the first time in my life, drive to the war in 10 hours. All around me, the people, and the animals (Donkeys, cats, dogs, birds) were terrified, as were the babies. All those who could just *feel* the energy change. The adults were terrified too. It was Greek Independence Day, 25 March. In addition to terrified, they were angry. Not out of any love of Milosevic, but because they felt that the US could bomb anyone at any time without clearing it or consulting in the region re anything but "staging bases".

I've also been in London when Irish Organisations bombed the underground train stations and people died or were wounded, or had shock-heart-attacks and died of those. I've seen Arab terrorists blow up a small cruise boat in the Aegean, I've seen (on television) the assassination of the prime minister of Israel by a Jewish terrorist. Letter boxes explode because there are bombs inside them. Forests are set alight by shadowy groups with collective names.

If you travel, you see such things. The US, even after Oklahoma City (and, for that matter, Waco) seemed safer than other places, at least to itself, and that confidence extended to the rest of us. Taking a train trip to New York from Toronto, it is always the darker skinned and younger who are interrogated at the border; sometimes escorted off the train and not permitted to cross the border. did those actions save lives or was it racism? Both? I have never known. When those things happen, all the rest of us get very quiet.

On Tuesday, 11 September, Toronto, my city, was in the middle of...a Film Festival. People had come, with there films, from all over the world, with their films. Some had spent all their money to make and bring their film. Others were big Hollywood films with starry actors and guarantees of theatres in the future. Lost, frightened, unable to find my local friends at home. I went to the Festival "home base" hotel. There I found film people from all over the world, in the lobby, watching CNN or CBC. I joined this group. Everyone was using every word they knew in a variety of languages. We watched, talked, cried, held each other. Some of these film people came from places filled with land mines and repression. We *all* came from places where things can go suddenly violent, suddenly ugly. And we all *now* live in a world where travel has changed radically for the forseeable future. My little Swiss Army knife, indispensible travel-aid since I was 15, is now a weapon. The person next to me can be a weapon too. That was always true--it is now "hyper-true".

I believe that if the US does not address the long-standing grievances in the middle-east and the perception of its indifference to the non-Israelis there, they will continue as aids in the training of terrorist children who will grow up to be terrorist adults. This perception of indifference, in the face of Arab deaths and deprivation in the mid-east, is the fertile soil in which the terrorist "alternative" thrives. I know the doers of the terrible deeds in NY, Washington and Pennsylvania need to be found and dealt with. I also know that, without a parallel track that shows the West cares about Palestinians, about Iraqi families (only the Tikriti family, Saddam's, is doing well), this will "keep coming" for generations, no matter who is named, demonised and "taken out". As people did on that lost and scary night in the Film Festival Toronto hotel, we need to hear each other, help each other, learn from each other. If we don't, all the death and destruction will be nothing more than bottomless sadness for the aggrieved and momentary atavistic blood-pleasure for the grief-bringers.

Thank you for reading this. I will write again, and, I promise, shorter. This is what I've been carrying and I needed to let it go out to others. Thank you and bless you eve b. for doing this. Thank you also for being my Friend.

Zoe Garnett, Toronto Canada


	Dearest Eve-- I have been wanting to write spontaneously about this since it happened. Thank you for creating a zone (and if I'm supposed to go to the site to do it, please let me know. In the meantime, please send this over there and TechnoTwit will do it right next time). Even though there have been violent acts in the US always, and acts against specific peoples not infrequent (the line from lynching of what were called "Negroes" to the killing of Amadou Diallo is a straight line), the recent spate of attacks there (I say "there" because I am a Canadian, and posting from there) have been different. Oklahoma City, World Trade Centre in 1993 and also Columbine, which for me belongs to the "I am too long aggrieved--I am taking lots of people, including myself, out!" type of attack. I was in Greece when NATO started bombing the country next door (Serbia). I could, for the first time in my life, drive to the war in 10 hours. All around me, the people, and the animals (Donkeys, cats, dogs, birds) were terrified, as were the babies. All those who could just feel the energy change. The adults were terrified too. It was Greek Independence Day, 25 March. In addition to terrified, they were angry. Not out of any love of Milosevic, but because they felt that the US could bomb anyone at any time without clearing it or consulting in the region re anything but "staging bases". I've also been in London when Irish Organisations bombed the underground train stations and people died or were wounded, or had shock-heart-attacks and died of those. I've seen Arab terrorists blow up a small cruise boat in the Aegean, I've seen (on television) the assassination of the prime minister of Israel by a Jewish terrorist. Letter boxes explode because there are bombs inside them. Forests are set alight by shadowy groups with collective names. If you travel, you see such things. The US, even after Oklahoma City (and, for that matter, Waco) seemed safer than other places, at least to itself, and that confidence extended to the rest of us. Taking a train trip to New York from Toronto, it is always the darker skinned and younger who are interrogated at the border; sometimes escorted off the train and not permitted to cross the border. did those actions save lives or was it racism? Both? I have never known. When those things happen, all the rest of us get very quiet. On Tuesday, 11 September, Toronto, my city, was in the middle of...a Film Festival. People had come, with there films, from all over the world, with their films. Some had spent all their money to make and bring their film. Others were big Hollywood films with starry actors and guarantees of theatres in the future. Lost, frightened, unable to find my local friends at home. I went to the Festival "home base" hotel. There I found film people from all over the world, in the lobby, watching CNN or CBC. I joined this group. Everyone was using every word they knew in a variety of languages. We watched, talked, cried, held each other. Some of these film people came from places filled with land mines and repression. We all came from places where things can go suddenly violent, suddenly ugly. And we all now live in a world where travel has changed radically for the forseeable future. My little Swiss Army knife, indispensible travel-aid since I was 15, is now a weapon. The person next to me can be a weapon too. That was always true--it is now "hyper-true". I believe that if the US does not address the long-standing grievances in the middle-east and the perception of its indifference to the non-Israelis there, they will continue as aids in the training of terrorist children who will grow up to be terrorist adults. This perception of indifference, in the face of Arab deaths and deprivation in the mid-east, is the fertile soil in which the terrorist "alternative" thrives. I know the doers of the terrible deeds in NY, Washington and Pennsylvania need to be found and dealt with. I also know that, without a parallel track that shows the West cares about Palestinians, about Iraqi families (only the Tikriti family, Saddam's, is doing well), this will "keep coming" for generations, no matter who is named, demonised and "taken out". As people did on that lost and scary night in the Film Festival Toronto hotel, we need to hear each other, help each other, learn from each other. If we don't, all the death and destruction will be nothing more than bottomless sadness for the aggrieved and momentary atavistic blood-pleasure for the grief-bringers. Thank you for reading this. I will write again, and, I promise, shorter. This is what I've been carrying and I needed to let it go out to others. Thank you and bless you eve b. for doing this. Thank you also for being my Friend. Zoe Garnett, Toronto Canada
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