Kurds: US Sleeping? UK Sidetrack?

[aldopacific at gn.apc.org]

That's a magic meditation on suffering. Yes!

I've been wondering why I've been all worked up about the 
Kurds, while friends are going round with badges saying,
"I've not forgotton Africa". I actually bought one of these
badges the other day, but then didn't put it on because I
thought that in honesty, I had rather forgotton Africa, at
least in the sense that I wasn't active on it.

Why? I think because we're so very obviously implicated
in the suffering of the Kurds and the Shi'ites. Acting on
there behalf feels like also making a statement that 
WAR DIDN'T WORK! And that's important, when we recognise
that war, or the mentality which causes war, is at the 
heart of so much famine etc. in the world.

I think another thing has been that I love Africans - 
so much so that I filled in the infamous census question
the other day saying my "race" was "Celtic - but with
a black heart". But in the past I've felt ambivalent
about peoples of the middle east. One of the good things
to come out of the war has been the need to re-examine
such stereotypes, and start to understand middle eastern
peoples. Identification with their suffering at our hands
has, for me at least, achieved this. It's maybe still a
bit hollow - I don't know any Kurds personally, for instance,
but the attitude shift is there, so that's a start.

I suppose this admission might land me some hate mail,
like in forum when I asked who Malcolm X was. But I hope
not (says he pre-emptively!), because acknowledging the
reality of our prejudices, our racism if you like, and 
not pretending we've already arrived and are totally
right-on, is surely an essential first step for many
of us in the society of the "allies" if we are to have
any hope of averting future wars.