OPINION
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Brown: There is a fine line between maintaining a position and living in denial.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2007 PAGE 7A
COMMENTARY
Terrorist attacks not the only Sept.11 atrocity Coup anniversary a reminder of unjust policy
DRAWING BOARD
Exactly 28 years before terrorist attacks claimed 3,000 lives in the United States, an event took place that would symbolize the terror endured by South American countries for decades to come.
On Sept. 11, 1973, a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende and installed a brutal military dictatorship. The military and right wing of Chile opposed Allende because of his Marxist positions.
Similar events happened in several South American countries around that period. In Brazil, a military coup had already occurred in 1964 under similar conditions, and in 1976 a military junta took power in Argentina.
Because of the Cold War, the United States supported these right-wing military dictatorships and was involved in many ways. The United States recognized these authoritarian regimes, provided intelligence to them, trained various militaries—who would latter engage in torture and death squads—at the School of the Americas and, if ever needed, would've provided military support. All of this despite the human rights abuses and authoritarian measures taken by these governments.
Although I was born two years after the dictatorship ended in Brazil, the horrors of that period are still in the public consciousness. Several figures in my life were affected by it, and South America as a whole is still scarred.
My high school history teacher had a sister who was tortured. My dad's friend was "asked" to leave the country. My friend's dad had to hide a student militant in the countryside.
Students and artists were specifically targeted because of their leftist tendencies and calls for democratization. Student leaders would disappear and be tortured or killed. These were
people around my age now. Some of the torture methods included driving needles under fingernails, whipping the feet with bamboo sticks and electric shocks.
Throughout high school I heard about Victor Jara, a Chilean musician and activist who was arrested, tortured and then gunned down because of his political views. And about Stuart Angel, a Brazilian student militant who, after being tortured, had his mouth tied to the exhaust pipe of a jeep and dragged behind it until his death. Every year there would be news about the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo weeping for their thousands of children who disappeared during Argentina's Dirty War.
The healing process is still going on, especially since new information about that period is still surfacing. Distrust towards the military and police still exists, and anti-Americanism in the region is related with American involvement during that period—especially the hypocrisy of rhetorically supporting democracies and human rights, but in practice doing the exact opposite.
That dark period has now passed, but it shouldn't be forgotten. However, it shouldn't be remembered only by the people who suffered it. The process of suffering, mourning and healing should be a global one if we truly want to avoid tragedies like this in the future.
It may sound hopelessly utopian, but the prospect of a better world is deeply interconnected with the ability to sympathize and empathize with other people's suffering. Although we may disagree with everything else there is one thing we all have in common: we suffer. Only when we start valuing this human connection more than ideologies, politics and power struggles—whether they be colonialism, capitalism verses Communism or the War on Terror—will a more peaceful condition be possible.
So, when we remember Sept. 11, 2001, let us also remember Sept. 11, 1973.
De Oliveira is a Belo Horizonte, Brazil junior in journalism, history and peace and conflict studies.
THE LIBRARIAN YOUR PARENTS WARNED YOU ABOUT
Mother Theresa's crisis of faith is an inspiration
Struggling believers can find solace in the humanitarian's own personal struggle with doubt
Apparently, Mother Theresa was a hypocrite and a liar.
Those are just a few of the words that have sprouted up in reference to her newly released book of letters and journals that portray her spiritual doubts. The letters reveal her deep crisis of faith with quotes such as, "Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul."
resa than God's own son? These letters in no way undercut her works. Her works are only emphasized by the fact that she did not believe they were giving her a direct path into heaven. As any other deeply spiritual person, she questioned whether there was a heaven and whether or not she was the type of person who could get in.
But even Jesus had his doubts while on the cross. Why are we expecting more of Mother The-
Time magazine compares her letters and journals with her Nobel Prize speech, calling them "extravagantly dissonant" and remarking that her works contradicted her feelings and letters. It portrays her as being hypocritical. I have to disagree. Never did Mother Theresa say, "You should be more like me," or "You should love God and your faith the way that I do." Her recommendations and reproaches are no less helpful because she was not a perfect example of faith. They are even more important because she knew what it was like to feel like God was not there.
If anything, Mother Theresa now seems more holy and self-sacriplishing. How amazing that even though she was having a very deep crisis of faith, even though she believed that God was not with her, she still gave her whole life to the church and to helping the less fortunate. How many of us, in our happy and untroubled lives, do a fraction of what she did in the throes of a dark unhappiness? It would be unbelievable if, constantly surrounded by the dying, the sick and the poor, she never doubted God's existence. How many Christians have wondered why God lets horrible things happen to good people or even bad people? That doesn't make them "bad" Christians. We are all just trying to quantify and understand something that cannot be explained.
Mother Theresa herself understood the potential evils of these letters being publicly released without realizing the ways it could help those struggling with their faith. She had requested all her letters and journals be destroyed upon her death, but her church overrode her request. Obviously, the church, as I do, saw their potential for helping doubting Christians.
A professor at KU once told me, "We will never know if there is a God until we die. You can spend your whole life believing there is and working towards heaven, and if you're wrong, you're disappointed. Or, you can believe that this is all you get and only live for yourself, and if you're wrong, you end up in hell for eternity. It's obvious what the best bet is."
Even though she had her doubts, Mother Theresa merely took the best bet. I hope it panned out for her and that it will for me as well.
Gentry is a Kansas City junior in English and pre-medicine.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Acts of kindness don't go unnoticed
To the Editors,
I never thought I would be writing one of these letters, but due to circumstances beyond my control, here it is. I would like to thank the four or five students and one instructor who stopped to help me Wednesday morning around 10 a.m. when I gracefully took a tumble down
the concrete stairway between Murphy Hall and the Art & Design Building. I fell forward on my forehead and I can't remember anybody's name—that's my story and I'm sticking with it! All I know is that KU has some very caring and compassionate students who make me proud to be not only an employee but also an alumna (MSJ'86) of this
wonderful university of the Midwest. Many, many thanks to my good Samaritans--you know who you are! I shall pay it forward now.
Nancy Hawkins Gorton Music & Dance Library
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I just wanted to say McCollum is pretty much the best place to live, ever. If you're too prissy to handle it, go to Mizzou.
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The next time one of you bicyclists runs a red light, I'll run your ass over. You mess with the bull, you get the horns.
I think Satan just entered my room. I was singing the Pizza
Street song and a Spangles commercial came on.
I think that professors should be banned from using a book that they helped publish in their classroom, because then it just spurs them to make as many editions as possible, greedy bastards.
possible, greedy bastards.
I'm looking for my purse! Oh, there it is.
It's a bad sign when it's early September and you already don't want to go to class. I'm doomed.
To the guy who said swimming is boring: You're a freaking idiot. We work harder than any other sports team at this university, and we're fun to watch.
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Parking on campus freaking blows.
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