Imagine There's No Country
Ever since the dawn of the human race, there has always been wars. Because humans are imperfect beings who often times being reigned over by strong irrational emotions, self-interest and the need to extend territory and the mistrust between groups of people always give causes for military conflicts. Because this is a fact, we all need to respect and appreciate the men and women in our nation's military. When our country is fighting a war, whether we think "our side" is justified in fighting it or not, we as civiliants who function relatively safely on our land are being protected by our military force.
However, because of our right and privilege in choosing our expression of patriotism, like Jesus acclaimed in his Sermon On The Mount: "Blessed be to the peace makers," there are those who dedicate their lives to creative peace missions.
In 1989, when Russia was still being known as the Soviet Union, the Soviet/American Joint Editorial Board of the Quaker US/USSR Committee succeeded in publishing THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE, an anthology of American and Russian contemporary poets and authors. The people from both nations who worked on this project wished to bridge the citizens of the two world powers that were politically at odd with each other. In the Introduction of the anthology, the Joint Editorial Board stressed that, "(It) represents the spirit that unites us in spite of cultural and political differences. Although the settings and characters of these stories and poems reflect specific cultural contexts and situations, their themes--growing up, working, relationships, old age, mortality--are universal. For the first time, American and Soviet readers will have a chance to compare and contrast some of their best writers within the covers of a single volume...(and) the 'spiritual linkage' that is the similar forces of inner life and the connectedness we all share...The writing in this book are about everyday life, and the infinite world of each human being which transcends national, political, and social differences." It quoted Leo Tolstoy in his MY RELIGION (1884), "I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and governmental orders."
In THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE's Foreword, Dannil Granin elaborated further. He spoke of trust as depending upon openness, "Trust requires openness. The problem of trust has turned out to be the key problem today. Everyone is afraid to be the first to put down his gun. All you can see through the gunsight is an enemy, an adversary. In (art) we can see our common human element...People on both shores, separate by an ocean, are alike in the ways they love, suffer from loneliness, act foolishly, fear death, and are vulgar, brave, or evil. Feeling the oneness of the earth and recognizing your own thoughts and feelings in other people is the best pathway to trust." Dannil Granin clarified that because of the nuclear threat, each nation needs to be concerned with the general security of the whole globe and moderate their customary self-importance. It can no longer justifiable to have the sense of superiority over other peoples when people from different lands know deeper about each other. "Sooner or later we all have to admit that our own social thought is not the only correct thought, that our own system is not better than others, that people may live in different ways and have different ideas about justice and happiness." It is the attempt to advocate toleration as a survial mechanism. People want to understand what happen to them, what has to be changed, and how to do it. "Probably the best way to change the world is to understand it. When people are unable to understand, they change their world through violence; that how people behave who do not believe in the power of reason." It moves me greatly to read THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. It is like a torch in the wilderness warming my hope as I live in "a time of relative peace marred only by the incendiary triabal wars that dot the planet and that are accepted at last as part of the inevitable status quo." (William Styron)
Like the front gates that lead into a garden, THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE begins with two poems, one by American poet Wendell Berry, "To A Siberian Woodsman," and the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "On Borders."
In "To A Siberian Woodsman," Wendell Berry posed his questions and reached for an answer:
Who has invented our enmity? Who has prescribed us hatred of each other?
Who has armed us against each other with the death of the world?
Who has appointed me such anger that I should desire the burning of your
house or the destruction of your children?
...
There is no government so worthy as your son who fishes with you in silence beside the forest pool. There is no government so worthy as my son who laughs, as he comes up the path from the river in the evening, for joy.
The Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "On Borders" is so beautiful, deep, and so powerful in its simplicity that I cried the first time I read it, and still moved as I reread it. It reminds me of John Lennon's "Imagine" and the works of such peacemakers as Thoreau, Emerson, Walt Whitman, Tolstoy, e. e. cummings, Kurt Vonnegut, ect. The tears that "On Borders" brought to my eyes reminded me of the tears I cried when I read the answers to the question posed in my daughter yearbook of the eight-graders, "If you are granted a wish what would you wish for?" All the answers was the same: "World Peace."
In every border post
there's something insecure.
Each one of them
is longing for leaves and flowers.
They say
the greatest punishment for a tree
is to become a border post.
The birds that pause to rest
on border posts
can't figure out
what kind of tree they've landed on.
I suppose
that at first, it was people who invented borders,
and then borders
start to invent people.
...
while border still stand we are all in prehistory.
Real history will start
when all borders are gone.
...
While we still have invisible threads
joining each self with million of selves,
there are no real superpower states
Any fragile soul on this earth is the real super power.
My government is the whole family of man, all at oneness**
...............................................................................................
**translated by Antonina W. Bonis & Albert C. Todd)
THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE--Contemporary American and Soviet Fiction and Poetry
Publishers: Alfred A Knopt-New York, 1989
Khudozheestvennarya Literatura--Moscow, 1989
