My
memory has been sparked all over the place this past week, and there’s nothing
like a photograph to set one’s memory going.
I’ll get to this week’s photo—taken by one of our youth
photographers—but first a couple of memories.
Twenty
nine years ago, I was privileged to return to the Soviet Union. I had been
there in 1982, as part of a group of seminarians, visiting Lutherans in the
Baltics, and Orthodox in Moscow and Leningrad.
I had brought out my college Russian text book, bought some flash cards
and tried to beef up my dormant Russian, which enabled me to order tea on the
train, introduce myself and greet people, tell them where I was from and so on
(and then listen to a Kalashnikov-speed reply from a Russian, of which I got
about every sixth word). I was
frustrated and wanted to speak better. Curiously, when I was trying to speak
Russian and got stuck, the English word did not come to my mouth, but Spanish.
I was not fluent in Spanish at the time, but conversant enough. (I went to Amsterdam after being in the USSR
for three weeks and spent part of an afternoon with a person from
Barcelona. When I got stuck on a Spanish
word, Russian, not English came out!)
By
1985, I was fluent in Spanish, and not much advanced in Russian, but I got out
the flash cards. I told a fellow
traveler (pun intended) that I hoped I met someone in the Soviet Union who
spoke Spanish. I did. The first night.
In Red Square, I met a couple of Cubans who were studying in Moscow, and we had
a nice conversation. I remember the last
thing I said to them: “I hope relations between our countries are normalized
soon.”
I’m
still hoping, but not holding my breath.
Of
all the stupid things we’ve done as a nation, the Cuban embargo has to be one
of the stupidest (among other things, opening up their economy to Disney and
Apple and McDonalds would be the surest way to subvert any socialism). It has been in place for 55 years, más o
menos. Has Cuba “changed”? Have “we” gotten anything good out of
it? (The shame of Guantanamo only adds
to the stupidity of it).
Yes,
I know the human rights record of Cuba is bad.
But we’ve endorsed and funded and supplied with arms worse countries and
dictators, from Rios Montt in Guatemala to the Somozas in Nicaragua to a series
of military governments all over South America.
Yes, Cuba’s form of government is not democratic, but they have
universal health care that is marvelous and a literacy rate that is the envy of
many developing countries. And please don’t tell me it’s because they’re
communist. We have huge trade with Viet Nam and China who are communist
(besides being great capitalists, which is another story!).
Which
brings me back to the photo one of our youth took.
I
want my country to shut up talking about democracy and human rights. I want it to stop sending guns to Israel and
guns to Iraq and guns to Colombia and guns to Mexico. I want it to shut up talking about climate
change, and do something about it. I want it to just shut up about how being exceptional,
and start being compassionate. I wouldn’t
mind if the whole collective nation just took a month-long reprieve from
talking and just listened.
Enough
of that rant. A friend this morning
reminded me that it was August 1, and seven years since the I-35 bridge
collapse, which took place two days before our dear Talia’s 7th
birthday. Which means now that Talia has
lived half of her life since that terrible day.
I hadn’t thought about it for awhile, which shows, I guess, that it
doesn’t have the same power over me that it did. (And as a friend noted last
year, August 1 last year was the day Marriage Equality came to happen in
Minnesota, a much better anniversary to celebrate). Of course, I will never forget that day seven
years ago, and it will come to my present memory when it will.
We
are often told as a people that we should never forget: never forget 9-11-2001,
never forget Pearl Harbor and so on. I
don’t think it would be possible to do so, even if we chose to. I still hope we
will start to remember: what we did on 9-11-1973 in Chile, what we’ve done for
decades all over the world, what we are doing right now in Gaza, with bombs
paid for by us, and sent with our best wishes.
Be
justice. Be beauty. Be remembering.
Patrick
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