PEACE BY PEACE - RACHEL WONDER
6
Let’s start here: with a child. Late-elementary, maybe. Naive enough that she hasn’t realized how to deal with all the bad in the world yet but smart enough to pay attention, bright enough to grow. Most days, she gets ready as morning television buzzes in the background. Today is Friday. Her holy day, and she’s anticipating the weekly trip to her mosque for prayer later that night. Her older siblings plan to attend a peace protest later that weekend, and she’s excited to see their pictures online because she’s not old enough to go yet. When she’s at school, she listens intently with her friend as they participate in an activity about the causes of the World Wars. Her friend’s dad is deployed in the military---Marines, actually---and this is his third elementary school. He’s already learned about this from his dad and his old school, he says, and don’t you think there’s something better to learn?
She doesn’t understand his question then. But she goes home later and thinks about it anyways. There’s always more to learn. The world keeps turning and they keep teaching us about the past. Why don’t we talk about the present?
So she’s curious now. She switches on that TV in her living room and watches the headlines stroll by on-screen, not just as background noise.
3 killed in terrorist attack. Protesters tear-gassed during peaceful manifestation. Dozens wounded in overseas patrol. The TV anchors recite them in black and white. She can tell the emotion is in their voice but not their eyes. Still, she shrugs and changes the channel. And even when the day ends, similar news appears: big, bold print on her grandparents’ newspapers and her brother’s cell phone.
It’s not until later that she realizes those headlines are still bothering her. 3 killed in terrorist attack. Now she hears her parents dropping her off at school, speaking low and hushed: Be safe, they say. You cannot talk about our worship so freely as others. You know what kind of assumptions people make. Her mind runs silent.
Protesters tear-gassed during peaceful manifestation. Now she recalls viewing her siblings’ pictures of banners smeared with paint and hope: “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.” “COMPASSION IS CHEAPER.” She remembers the links her brother posted on his Facebook for the protest: “WHAT TO DO IF YOU’RE SPRAYED WITH TEAR GAS,” “HOW TO DEAL WITH POLICE BRUTALITY.” Now, worry burrows as grease in her stomach.
Dozens wounded in overseas patrol. Now she remembers her friend with the Marine parent deployed lightyears from home. She remembers him crying for that father, a man who’s seen his own friends wounded in the infirmary after patrol. She feels the guilt, the sorrow, the paranoia, rushing into the veins of her heart. Then, then she understands that the press shrinks humans into headlines.
3 killed in terrorist attack. Protesters tear-gassed during peaceful manifestation. Dozens wounded in overseas patrol.
She thinks. This is the reality: people are planning funerals because of those terrorist attacks,