9/11:
Their Voices Cry Out
To Peter
Dale Scott and ‘Deep Politics’
Brittle brown, red and rust leaves
had fallen, I
was on Sabbatical, children had
just left for
another day of school.
It was a blue sky day in Abbotsford,
not so elsewhere.
Terrorists had hijacked planes, towers
were sliced through like scissors
through thin paper, down, down
went the citadels.
Tender calls from cell phones bid
adieu to helpless, desperate
families, voices of pain,
helplessness, anger
heard, heard with greater
intensity, carnage,
fire, an inferno beyond
Dante’s depictions.
We, as
Canadians, in this moment
of crises, were expected to
feel with, join our southern
neighbours in their
agony, pain, sorrow and
grieving. Bush would
reply in kind, no questions
asked, patriotism the only
response.
Who could not but hear
their voices cry out?
Sunera Thobani heard other
voices, those the CIA in
many covert operations
had silenced, disappeared.
What of those in Iran that the
Shah tortured, and the American
support of Hussein against
Iran when more than a
million perished?
American support of Zionism
and the plight of the Palestinians
must be noted-can’t forget
Syria in 56-57, Libya 81-89
and Afghanistan 79-92—list goes
on, on, on.
She heard these voices cry
out, pleaded with us that
we hear them. She was
turned on, reviled, media
savaged her as being
unfeeling, unpatriotic.
Voices cry out, attentive
ears hear, hear much
that is often missed by
1st world tribe and
clan.
Ron Dart