Rambling - I am moved, and saddened ..
I think thats extraordianary bravery! To continue the creative work that got two of their friends and colleagues murdered. Work whose sole cause is the children, their happiness, wellbeing and healing. Children who have, all of them, suffered terribly at the hands of adult who are violent.
20 year-old Faud Radi and 21 year-old colleague Haidar Jawad are true martyrs, in that their lives were taken because they had taken up the cause of the children, the only genuinely useful cause (as I see things) and as those who espouse other 'causes' see that and are deeply frightened, so they resort to extreme violence to quash or control as a standard tool or mechanism of their cause, and such violence creates a cycle which few can resist. These murders are a 'spin-off' of Blairs War on Terror. A result.
There is some point in comparing levels of violence as control between one society and another, in these times, as the violence has been justified for so long, that an almost genetic acceptance of violence as a political tool pervades the mainstream.
Invading a Sovereign State, under a shifting banner of lies and deceptions, sustaining a war for three years, a war with 200,000 deaths of civilians ....... a war with Depleted Uranium Weapons .... murdering those who would help the children because the religionists say they hate the art .... it's not the art they hate, it's the truth, all of them hate the truth..... and that is why art matters so much now, because it's a way of telling truth.
In south America many artists have taken on the responsibilty of being the communities media, carriers of stories, information, requeims, anthems, messages of hope and solidarity, telling the truth, inspiring, each other to keep the work going.. those aritsts were seeing that they had a role in their society, their communities that is ancient. This awareness is present here too, and it needs to expand, especially as the mechanisms for doing so are at hand. I'm rambling, yet it's been a good ramble. Back to topic.
I am aware that there are other more subtle levels of acceptances, conventions, perceptions and projections that are equally damaging as are the not-so-subtle violent controls, in that these control systems still deflect the person(s) from their own sense of who they are and from the experiential understanding that within themselves is where real authority comes from.
I have experienced this, seen the consequences in my own life, of my own dysfunctional behaviour and learned to deal with my issues, by reflection and listening, by taking time to feel and sometimes to heal, and every day I learn a little more about myself, as I unlearn those many 'acceptances, conventions, perceptions and projections'. So I know this as truth.
Likewise the authority to be who one is. That is truth. Children are born adept at being, and most healthy happy children under the age of 7 or there about retain that quality. It is why they can heal quickly. They are willing to learn new stuff. And there who many are not, many who have already diverted.
We adults, as we grow, tend to lose that quality, or maybe thats just a typical broad-stroke, write them-all-off type of phrase, a 'programmed thought' put in place from reading too many newspapers, too much television ..... i feel that some people just give up on the material they are given, they are smarter yet they 'consume' it (it's so .... inane.... social ....chatter) and just go along with it. And after a while one resigns oneself to the fact that it is this way.
And still, underneath all that there is a spirit wanting to learn, a child wanting to play, a parent wanting to be a childs best friend, a child being her/himself ......
For me that's what politics really ought to be about, it's what grown-up, mature and responsible politics would be about - facillitating the kind of environment that allows children to tell us who they are, to tell us what they want to do, and to feel able to ask us to help them do that.
Left-right.lib.tory.labour it's all a charade! The taliban, the christian neo-cons and all those of religion, be they jew or muslim, hindi or Sikh, who resort to violence or manipulation are charlatans! They have all crafted a belief system, a closed set of concepts that allows no real learning, and they show little willingness to engage with anyone outside their 'group' as real people, equals.
I feel that the best tool for change is the truth. Your truth. His truth. Her truth. What we really feel is information. With the willingness to talk and to listen to each other so that we can begin to integrate our awareness of all the truths with the one truth which is ....... unknowable.
It's not anything other than how we treat each other.