Four months since the last 'Green Letter'; four months of intense culture shock; two spent in Ireland where I had lived for 12 years, but on a small, windswept, electricity-free island for the most part uninterrupted by the ravages of Modern Civilization.
I returned to a country criss-crossed with motorways and cars, to a throwaway 'culture', to the shock of strange urban savages with rings through their noses - and everywhere else besides (they don't do that in the jungle!), to school-uniformed children smoking in bus shelters, to the smell of cigarette smoke everywhere (peasants and Indians for the most part don't smoke - they eat), to people talking to themselves in public places (so I thought, till I saw the strange machines held to their ears), to houses choc-a-bloc full of things you can't eat, clothe yourself with or lie under - a mass of THINGS everywhere: and wierdest of all, no poor people to give away Unwanted Things to, unless you count the able-bodied bedrugged young men huddled in the doorways of Cork and Dublin begging ... for what?
Two months with my daughter Becky, mother of my murdered grandson Tristan, helping her to give up Things, to move from House to Caravan, then Caravan to Boat, so that she too can eventually leave Europe, taking her floating home with her, which will double up as a mobile office and campaigning centre, sailing wherever our boat can be useful in a sinking world. Travelling times, meeting Mary Kelly off the plane, deported from Palestine where she accompanied men besieged by the Israeli army and perhaps helped to prevent yet another massacre; travels round Ireland, to speak on Colombia, to listen to Mary talk on Palestine, to take part in a demonstration in Galway against a hideous display of military murder-potential in the sky, to support the Palestinian Ambassador in a debate with a representative of Israeli policies ("There was no massacre in Jenin" - I walked out of the meeting in protest). Hitch-hiking times, all over Ireland, listening in astonishment to the level of political awareness of my drivers regarding the Palestinian situation ... Ireland knows what it is like to be an Occupied Nation.
In Ireland, I met Palestinians, beautiful people in tears of agony for their country. Their simplicity, passion and extraordinary level of culture confirmed me in my determination to do all in my power to support their cause.
Then over to the Hebrides, Scotland, and England, meeting some of the faces behind the long years of letter writing during our Green Campaign, working in people's gardens, spending two days in a prison cell after a demonstration against the pending war on Iraq, where we 'died' on the road outside the nuclear submarine base at Faslane, where two years ago my daughter Louise swam in those cold waters to symbolically 'hammer' on the iron monsters lying there. And then down south, slowly down, sitting for hours astonished, almost amused, in stationary lines of traffic on pointless motorways to reach Hell - a city called London where trees and gardens try to grow and people try to live, and I can't hear anything except airtraffic and road traffic, can't breathe, can't smell anything but fumes. And everyone walks around as if this is Life.
Everywhere I have travelled and stayed, I have met with extreme kindness, generosity, hospitality. And everywhere I have agonized, with a deep gnawing pain inside me for the Silence, the mountains, a green rustling simple logical existence where nothing is wasted, all is recycled, all is food-growing and physical work, and real rest, and communication at its most vital level, no trammels, no niceties, no confusion, and no too-much-of-everything-ness. Wooden cabins, a life lived outdoors all day, no machines, a world without the constant hum of electrical appliances, which no-one seems to hear any more, without flashing artificial lights, which noone seems to see any more, a totally physical life, which so few people have any more.
"Aren't you scared to go to Palestine?" is the natural question I am
constantly asked. How can I explain that I am far more terrified of
staying another day in 'comfortable' Europe?
A quote from an old issue of Organic Gardening Magazine, USA:
"Electricity is the handmaiden of modern technology whose inexorable
advance is really terrifying. Once you have the use of electricity, you
cannot get along without it. The memory of happy, less frenetic days B.E.
is lost ... The proliferation of electrically-operated gadgets shows no
sign of abating. Until it does, there is not much sense in getting upset
about the deterioration of our environment. .. The depletion of our
natural resources and the fouling of our environment spring from this most
important single source."
Back home in Colombia, Anne Barr has something to say about 'civilization' - and Homelessness:
"Today I was reading in 'The Ecologist' about the beautiful Kalahari Bushmen being wiped out, and tears began pouring out of me. I couldn't bear to think of these people torn from their desert home, though it looks to me like the most inhospitable place on Earth. And I read of an indigenous tribe in Canada who when 'resettled' began to commit collective suicide through drugs and alcohol. ... How many peoples on the planet still have a sense of home, family and tribe like these folk have? I think of the Palestinians, craving their homeland. The parents of a Palestinian friend of mine here in Colombia still have the keys of their house which is now inside Occupied Jerusalem. It's 40 years since they had to leave. "I look around my little group of friends and family, our commune called Atlantis, and feel complete gratitude that I have them. I would feel lost in the world without them. Life would have no meaning. We've lost our land twice in the civil war here in Colombia, but we are experienced 'gypsies' so that didn't hurt too much. We have the confidence that comes from being white, European and over-educated, so being torn out of the soil we had so carefully built up with compost and hard slog on our lovely farms in Tolima and Caqueta didn't destroy our sense of self like it does to so many campesinos. Yet it still did us irreparable damage, when two of our young men went back to our old area seeking family ties and were brutally murdered by a psychotic group of FARC militiamen. With the hindsight of 2 years since they were killed, I can see now how the stress and instability of being made rootless made me and them disregard the dangers that led to their deaths. How many more people suffer disasters and tragedies because of the confusion that being forced from your home by violence brings?
"Why are we becoming a planet of homeless people? Is there some kind of cosmic plan to uproot us all and shake us all up? Or is it just that the rich side of the world hs lost its sense of at-home-ness and wants to force the same feeling of alienation on the 'undeveloped' nations because we can't bear to see that they still have the sense of sharing, family and caring that we have sold for a shiny new car, a TV in every room and the privilege of buying our food in small expensive packets from a supermarket.
"Of all the hundreds of articles I've read about the Israeli occupation of Palestine, one stays stuck in my mind. It was an interview with Ariel Sharon where he admitted his envy of how the Palestinians share each last crumb with each other without giving a second thought. The Jews, the world's eternal wanderers, are trying to feel at home by stealing not just the land of the Palestinians, they want their sense of home too. Their desperate, insatiable greed for Palestinian land is only a symbol of their deeper thirst for home and community. But you can't steal love or force people to hand it over at gunpoint.
"Why are people who defend their land and homes and families now
called terrorists? Let all of us who would do the same if we had to call
ourselves terrorists too. Let us accept that the mass media have changed
the meaning of the word 'terrorist' - Terrorist = a person who is willing
to fight and even die to protect his or her family, home and country.
Under that definition, is there anyone who isn't a terrorist?"
Journalist: "Mr. Gandhi - what do you think of Western civilization?
Gandhi: "It would be a good idea."
Reports from our local area where our community live are already coming in: Anne reports:
"Maria Antonia, leader of the Guambiano Indians in our area, came and talked and spun wool for a few hours while I sewed. She said that the Guambi leaders are preparing their people for a four year war and say they must become self-sufficient as food will be scarce. The Guerrilla have told them they must be prepared to run for the forests as there will be a lot of bombing. She said that if we are threatened in any way, we can get help from her people, and can they come here if they are bombed down in their villages? Bridges are being blown up daily. She agreed it would be a good side effect if people become more self-sufficient and says that the Cabildo (Indian Council of Leaders) in Guambia say people must get used to using only compost as chemicals won't be available..."
And Ned reports from our farm that the Guerrilla called a meeting to officialize their absolute ban on tree cutting for commerce: there would be a one million peso fine for anyone caught, and their chainsaws would be taken away. He also banned hunting and fishing. A Green-Red Army ..
And in the town of Popayan where our 'Green girls' sing, produce theatre, write plays and songs and teach, Anne went to a Peace meeting at the University. She reports: "As soon as I arrived, several middle-class ladies nabbed me and insisted I ring to get the girls to come along as the Government Vice Ministeress of Culture was there and they wanted to show off what 'Popayan' can do! The girls came and closed the meeting with their music - just 3 songs "Seeds of Peace", "A Child Born in the War" and "Colombia the Beautiful". They received a huger-than-ever response. The Vice Minister-ess of Culture who was sitting beside me kept digging me in the ribs as they sang and saying she must take them to Bogota, they are 'jewels', that she's in love with them, how amazing, how sensitive, and how come they understand Colombia better than most Colombians? I left the girls with her, as she wanted them to sing somewhere else, and went home to clean up the house for Katie's 17th birthday party ...
"The Peace meeting itself was really worth going to and yet another
'Colombian surprise'. It was run by the Ministry of Culture so I thought I
might be wasting my time there .. but I listened and I liked everyone who
spoke .. all talked about the need to build a solid people's movement of
non-violent resistance. I listened carefully - did they just mean against
the Guerrilla? No, mainly against America's Plan Colombia, crop fumigation
and the paramilitaries. All the speakers talked against 'the ruling
classes' and my little Minister friend kept nodding her head in agreement!
There were also lots of digs against the University for being snooty with
the ordinary people, and the Dean had to keep defending himself. He was
really friendly to us afterwards. You picked the right town, Jenny!"
"We are not here to tinker with your laws,
We are here to change you from the inside out.
This is not a political protest:
It is an uprising of the soul".
by Robert Arthur Lewis, distributed at protests against the WTO in
Seattle
On July 9th 2002 came the second anniversary of the murder of Tristan and Javier. The day was greeted with the news in the national press and over here in England that the Colombian Army had finally found the mass grave where our boys lay with many other people, including a child and a Japanese man (presumably a kidnap victim).
And recently Laura, 16, Tris's one time girlfriend, produced this dream:
"I was in the big middle room on the farm doing ballet on my own. Somebody knocked on the door and came in. It was Tristan. He looked very happy and had nice rosy cheeks. He looked at me smiling and said: "I have accepted that I am dead and at last I am happy. There are different things after life and some are better and some worse. The moment I accepted that I am dead, I was able to smile again. And I have realized that death isn't the end of life."
"He said this like a speech, and then he said he was in a rush because
there are a lot of things to do after life, and he had to go and tell you,
Jenny, and several other people that he is happy.
"I woke up and hoped that it is true."
On that note, I will end my one and only 'Letter from England' and write next from Palestine. With love, Jenny James
PS Quote from Krishnamurti: "It is not a sign of health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
Personal email: jennyjames1@eircom.net
e-mail in Ireland: atlantisfoundation@eircom.net
email in Colombia: atlantiscol@hotmail.com
Address for writing:
Ireland: Becky Garcia, Atlantis Adventure,
Con's Boatyard, Baltimore, Co. Cork.
In Colombia: Atlantis, Telecom-Belen, Huila, Colombia.