Today a New Dawn Calls: A Poem Read on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

 

“Today a New Dawn Calls” (Written by Joey Madia on the occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 for presentation at the Fairmont Council of Churches in Fairmont, West Virginia)

Based on my performance piece, "I am Not Other," performed by New Mystics and Seven Stories Theatre Companies from 2010 to 2014. 

 

It has been said that if you

Control the Word

You Control the World…

 

Words do have power.

Words from a book or a play…

Or a charismatic speaker…

Can motivate the masses to act.

 

To rise up or lay low, to initiate change or perpetuate myths through inaction

and tolerance for policies they know to be wrong.

Preying on the poor, the desperate, the socially outcast.

Closing doors and pointing fingers.

Convinced it’s US or THEM.

 

In the beginning was the Word, passionate and full of Life;

then came the Voices of Anger and of Battle

yelling HUZZAH! HUZZAH! HUZZAH!

 

At the end will there be Screams? Whimpers?

Whispers? Silence?

Is there safety in such silence?

Is there any strength in rage?

 

Control the Word and you Control the World.

 

In the beginning was the Word—

All that we are and might become began with the Word.

 

Words do have power:

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me…”

 

Whoever said that was never the target of vicious slurs, racial epithets,

ethnic profiling, or so-called colorful euphemisms that are nothing more

than the creative use of language to express Intolerance and Hate.

 

It is, simply put, bullying. And Bullying is using the Word to

create manipulation thru Fear.

 

Throughout its history,

Humankind has waged wars of Hate upon its own.

Country against country, culture vs. culture,

group against the one, one against the Other…

This violence is societal, this violence is domestic,

This violence is sexual, racial, and mindless,

This violence brings the night…

This violence grips our schools, our temples, churches, mosques;

Violence can be physical, emotional, psychological;

Violence can be war, or a harsh word to a child;

Violence ruins freedom;

But Violence is a CHOICE.

 

Let us say now what needs to be said—

Come together instead of breaking apart—categorizing, stigmatizing, labeling,

and limiting what another person or group of people can be or achieve.

 

EP Thompson once remarked: “We kill each other in euphemisms and abstractions

long before the first missiles are launched.”

 

What do you do when you don’t fit into the boxes

they use to categorize and track minorities?

 

They ask you to check Other.

Other??

I am not Other—I am a person—I am Every One of Us.

But I am not Other. I am all of You and I am the Uniqueness of Me.

 

Did you know that the average American spends

15 times more hours in front of the Television

than he or she spends reading?

 

And yet we need to hear the voices of our best and greatest

Writers now more than ever.

 

Let us listen closely to the cautionary tales woven in the rhymes of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Let us listen closely to the folk song “If you study war no more,” sung by Willie Dixon.

 

The burning of books by those who live in Fear narrows our vision and limits our Possibilities.

 

When Pablo Neruda said to the soldiers sent for him by the Chilean dictator Pinochet:

“Look around—there’s only one thing of danger for you here—poetry,”

he was answered with Voices of Violence.

His poetry was outlawed for 17 years.

 

When you Control the Word, you Control the World.

 

Jazz poet Vernon Frazer said “Human rights is civil rights.”

So let's put the Words of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights into Action

And refuse to be bullied by those who would have us cower in a corner

in Fear.

 

As we come together today and remain in spirit together every day after

Let us find our way in Peace by embracing the World’s many Wisdoms:

 

Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin based the US Constitution

on the three branches of the Iroquois Confederacy—with one notable exception…

…The executive branch was often women or tribal elders who would banish warlike chiefs.

 

Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux medicine man, spoke of a sacred hoop and

holy tree, which he saw in a vision as broken, but which could be repaired

and made strong because of the strength of its roots.

 

Poet Maya Angelou spoke of the Tree 120 years later at

President Clinton’s inauguration.

 

How do we honor their vision and help the tree grow strong?

 

Give voice and birth to the dream as Martin Luther King asked of us.

Imagine, as John Lennon asked of us.

Practice kindness as our religion, as the Dalai Lama asks of us.

Be impeccable with our word, as the Four Agreements of the Toltecs ask of us.

Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world

as Robert Kennedy asked of us.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,

as John F. Kennedy asked of us.

 

And now, in the twenty-first century, it’s time we start to ask,

“What can we do for our world?”

 

Living in a democracy means educating yourself to the facts, hearing and

understanding all points of view and making an informed decision.

The right to vote is a privilege and one of our greatest responsibilities.

Every vote counts. Even the ones not cast.

We all want to contribute to society. To make a difference.

And so many are never given the chance.

 

Today of all days, as we mark with heads bowed, a calculated act

And the 10 years of responses to it that have followed

Let us remember that Humans beings are not violent by nature but

become violent when their basic needs are not met.

 

Psychologist Abraham Maslow did a study of exemplary people like

Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, and Frederick Douglass.

Safety, love, self-esteem, and education are the keys to self-actualization

and maximizing potential.

 

When people are told they are the Other,

They live in-authentically, and do not live their Truth

 

When you make me Other, it is easier for you to hate me.

And the moment that you Hate me, I am no longer Safe.

 

Genocide was defined by the United Nations in 1948 as any acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

 

It has taken place in Bosnia, Rowanda, Romania, Armenia, Cambodia, and Iraq.

We will never forget the horrors of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka,

The murderous acts of September 11, 2001

Or the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

 

But we must try to forgive.

 

Sometimes forgiveness takes decades.

Often forgiveness is hard.

 

Dr. King once said: “One who condones evil is just as guilty as the one who perpetuates it.”

 

So who will be our heroes? Those who serve power and the accumulation of wealth

or those who will speak out against:

 

Hate, Annihilation, Desecration, Segregation, War, and Prejudice?

 

It is not an easy thing to stand up for the Other.

 

When Mohandas Gandhi said “An eye for an eye only winds up making

the whole world blind,” he was answered with Voices of Violence.

 

When Nelson Mandela said “The struggle is my life” he was answered with

Voices of Violence. 

 

Sometimes change takes decades.

Often change is hard.

 

Sometimes forgiveness takes decades.

Often forgiveness is hard.

 

Mohandas Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

 

In August of 1963, Martin Luther King was that change.

 

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial he gave one of the most moving

and enduring speeches in U.S. History:

 

[when I raise my hands like this, can you all please say “I have a dream”]

 

"the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination";

EVERYONE: "I Have a Dream"

 “we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition”;

EVERYONE: "I Have a Dream"

"remind America of the fierce urgency of Now";

EVERYONE: "I Have a Dream"

“In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds”

EVERYONE: "I Have a Dream"

"we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence."

EVERYONE: "I Have a Dream"

 “Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

EVERYONE: "I Have a Dream…"

 “… that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

 

On September 15 of that year—in Birmingham, Alabama—4 little girls dressed in white…

Denise, Carol, Addie Mae, and Cynthia

were killed when their church was bombed; they had just heard the lesson "The Love that Forgives."

The poet Langston Hughes, wrote of them: “Four little girls might be awakened someday

soon by songs upon the breeze as yet unfelt among Magnolia trees.”

It took nearly 40 years to bring all of the perpetrators to justice.

 

Sometimes change takes decades.

Often change is hard.

 

Sometimes forgiveness takes decades.

Often forgiveness is hard.

 

When Dr. King said “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”

he was answered with Voices of Violence.

 

On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, those Voices of Violence

shouted so loud that all the world grew silent.

 

[MOMENT OF SILENCE]

 

Sometimes change takes decades.

Often change is hard.

 

Sometimes forgiveness takes decades

And we know that forgiveness is hard.

 

Forward momentum is often stilled in the face of a cold Truth:

Violence is the darkest act we know.

Its damage cannot be fixed.

Its power can only be stopped but not undone.

It is a beast best locked away.

Its enemy is love, in whose path it has no hope.

It’s easy to rise to anger, plotting revenge to take a tooth for the one you’ve lost.

It’s easy to point fingers and lay blame; it’s easy to talk about Them and Us,

but Violence doesn’t discriminate.

Violence doesn’t care about who is the Other.

We’re all the Other.

Violence feeds on anger, justified or not.

It spirals on and on until someone is brave enough

to stand without weapons and say.

“Enough!”

That’s when the night will end.

That’s the time a new dawn calls.

A new dawn, when we can say with the Christians, “Peace be with you” and mean it with all our hearts

When we can say, with the Jews, “Shalom” and mean it with all our hearts

When we can say, with the Muslims, “As-Salaam-Alaikum,” and mean it with all our hearts

When we can say, with the Hindus, Buddhists, and Taoists, “Namaste” and mean it with all our hearts

When we can say, with the Lakota, “Mitakuye Oyasin” and truly mean All Our Relations

No matter their

Color

Creed

Politics

Or social class

 

When we can come together to build a monument of stone

On the shores of the River of Humanity

That will last for all time in Peace and Love and Understanding

 

When we can move past mere Tolerance and into Acceptance

And live in a world Where there is no Other

But a tribe of individuals working together

For a truly common good

That lifts us all into the Light

 

When we truly are the change we want to see in the world.

 

Then the Dalai Lama’s call for compassion will be practiced by us all

Then Black Elk’s sacred hoop will have been mended

Then the songs Langston Hughes spoke of will live upon the breeze

And Dr. King’s dream will have come true.

 

Then we will know that the long night has ended.

And we’ve answered a new dawn’s call.