|
CounterPunch
February
17, 2003
Compass Roses
From
the Seeds of Antiwar to a Flowering of Global Democracy
by SAM HUSSEINI
As Bush plunges us into war, he forces our hands.
He forces our hands to reach out to our
neighbors to talk to them about war, to share information not
polluted with propaganda. He forces our hands to join with others
around this world and the vast majority who do not want war.
He forces our hands to act, to organize,
to draw lines of our own in the sand.
As an unprecedented day of protest takes
place globally today, we have the opportunity to go from the
seeds of antiwar to the flowering of Global Democracy. We are
not just against Bush. People attuned to conscience and vision
must be for something and must show it.
The world should be one. For that not
to be means continued needless suffering on a massive scale.
From war, from exploitation. Nation and civilizations pitted
against each other for the illusionary benefit of a few.
We must make our mark. We must claim
the Earth for peace and justice. We must make it visible. We
must make our conscience and our consciousness of one world visible.
While we protest today and thereafter.
One world. Everwhere is Holy. No place
should rule over any other. In New York this day, friends and
I will draw compass roses on the sidewalks and the streets.
Compass
roses like on old maps. East,
West, South, North. Get a compass out. Look to the East -- think
of what is there, what people, places things. To the West and
all that lies there. To the South, all that has been and might
be. To the North, think. Think of the reality of all that is
around you. Of the people around this globe that sustains us.
Compass roses -- drawn on the sidewalk
in front of the White House and in front of a storefront mosque
in DC; on Wall Street near where the World Trade Center stood
and on 125th Street in Harlem; by the Grand Canyon and by the
river Jordan; in front of the US mission to the UN and in front
of the Iraqi mission. Each compass rose is different, yet they
all point in the same directions. They will fade away, but they
will still be true. Compass roses -- in subways and elevators
-- where people are not cognizant that they are on "land"
or part of the "Earth." All places are holy. We are
inter-connected. The compass rose is an immediate symbol of the
fact that we are all on the same planet; simultaneously global
and local.
Draw your own compass roses copy designs
you have seen -- of compass roses, or patterns that are like
compass roses. Or could be. Or make up your own. Draw them outside.
Draw them where people can see them. Draw them where no one can
see them. Draw them here, draw them there. Think of the East,
the West, the South the North. Think of what is in each direction.
Think of where you are and what you can do to connect with people
around our globe. Draw compass roses. Note the web page -- http://www.compassroses.com
-- on the side if you like, so people who see it can find
more. Draw compass roses with chalk, with pastels, with paint,
with lined-up stones, with sand, in the sand, in the snow --
anyway, anyhow, draw them. Open your heart to the World, make
a mark alone or with a friend and claim the Earth.
Compass roses in front of embassies and
missions. All diplomats must begin to understand that we are
all one. Compass roses in front of schools, teaching the next
generation better than we have been taught. Compass roses where
rich dwell and where poor struggle. Compass roses as a constant
reminder of what we all know:
As Studs Terkel has written: "Four
hundred years ago, Galileo challenged the doctrine of the announced
idea. On seeing the heavens through his telescope, he discovered
that Copernicus was right. The earth was not the center of the
universe, but merely one part of a greater whole. A respected
part, but no more than a part. And what is the great discovery
of our age? It is that no one race, no one people, no one land
... is the center of the earth. Rather, all races, all lands,
all societies are individual centers, all respected parts of
a greater whole -- the Earth."
Martin Luther King, Jr.: "In Christ
there is no East nor West. In Him there's no North and South,
but one great Fellowship of Love throughout the whole wide world."
Joseph Campbell: "The only myth
that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future
is one that is talking about the planet ... and everybody on
it."
But the reality of one world is no myth.
It's the clear reality. Nations are hallucinations. People are
real. Nature is real. Peace is real. Justice is real. One World
is real. It must be One -- and it must be won.
Sam Husseini
has helped launch the web page www.compassroses.com.
He can be reached at: sam@accuracy.org
Yesterday's
Features
CounterPunch News Service
Slow
Lerner: It May Not Help Kids in Iraq, But It Sure Got Michael
Lerner Airtime
Andrew Murray
Tony
Blair Versus the British People
Ben Tripp
President
A**hole
Peggy Thomson
My
Close Encounter with Saddam
Gary Leupp
Meet Mr. Blowback:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, CIA Op and Homicidal Thug
Saul Landau
Bush and Corporate Fraud
Adam Engel
A Civilian Occupation:
The Politics of Israeli Architecture
Anthony Gancarski
Jacksonville in Crisis
Rick Giombetti
Specific Threats to Democracy
Jean-David Levitte
A Warning on Iraq from France:
Make War the Last Option
Ian Gurney
Whose Side is Bush On?
Maria Engqvist
Did
the FARC Shoot Down a US Military Plane in Colombia?
Ron Jacobs
This Madness Must Cease
Josh Frank
Call to Washington:
Stonewall Bush
Website of the Day
Rock
Out Against War
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|