all day permanent red
Last night at work as I was reading a back issue of the New York Times, I came upon an article by Sarah Lyall, Aid Workers Are Said to Abuse Girls. I reprint it here:
LONDON, May 8 — Liberian girls as young as 8 are being sexually exploited by United Nations peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers in return for food, small favors and even rides in trucks, according to a new report from Save the Children U.K.
The report said the problem was widespread throughout Liberia, a small country struggling to get back on its feet after a long and bloody civil war.
Save the Children based its findings on interviews with more than 300 people in camps for displaced people and in neighborhoods whose residents have returned after being driven away by war. They said men in positions of authority — aid workers and soldiers, government employees and officials in the camps — were abusing girls.
"All of the respondents clearly stated that the scale of the problem affected over half of the girls in their locations," the report said. "The girls reportedly ranged in age from 8 to 18 years, with girls of 12 years and upward described as being regularly involved in 'selling sex,' commonly referred to as 'man business.' "
In a statement from Liberia, the United Nations said that eight cases of sexual abuse and exploitation involving its workers had been reported since the beginning of the year and that one staff member had been suspended, Reuters reported.
"It's unacceptable behavior," Jordan Ryan, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, said in an interview with BBC radio from Monrovia, the Liberian capital.
Save the Children said Liberia and the United Nations should set up an office to investigate cases of the sexual exploitation and to work to ensure that the behavior stops, prosecuting the offenders, among other steps.
It also said United Nations workers accused of sexual exploitation should "go through judicial proceedings," and if found guilty, should not be sent elsewhere as peacekeepers.
If being witness to the evils of the world is one of the jobs of the poet, or at least one of the jobs I wish our modern poets would take up, then I call upon Athena to guide us in these dark times.
We all hold delusions, illusions, wishful thinking that desperately need shattering. I, for example, hoped that the very Peace Keepers we sent in to help victims of genocide would be better than the thugs and soldiers who committed the original crimes. That the men we bring in to help would … help.
That is, apparently, my own delusion. But I need wisdom as well as rage, as do we all, when contemplating terrible actions. That is why I call on Athena, the Greek goddess of war, as well as the intellect, the arts, industry, justice and skill. The child of Zeus, Athena balances both justice and wisdom to rage and action, something I have seen very little of this century, perhaps ever. Ryan Tuccinardi writes:
In fear that Athena's mother, Metis, would bear a child mightier than himself Zeus swallowed Athena. Metis began to make a robe and helmet for her daughter. The hammering of the helmet caused Zeus great pain in the form of headaches and he cried out in agony. Skilled Hephaestus ran to his father and split his skull open and from it emerged Athena, fully grown and wearing her mother's robe and helmet, armed for battle.
I have been thinking far too much of late. There will come a time, as there always does, when thinking will lead in circles and some sort of action will be called for. The Japanese writer Yukio Mishima based an entire philosophy on that, his frustrations that his writing led to non-actions, that words somehow failed, when what was needed was nimbleness, quickness, savvy activity. But I also know that even as all the world seems to turn permanent red I have yet to act. That is the sorrow and irony I am dealing with. Hurry, hurry, Zachary, I am calling to myself, hurry, hurry.
This is urgent. Here is the first bullet
concealed in the long gun's long chamber.
There are more. Here in the past the poet
has not made the good Peace Keeper, soldier,
legionary, swashbuckler. After
the war, we write how terrible that war
was. And after the rape, pastoral anger
vilifies the man. We know rapists are
not like you, or you, or me … or us. The star
of blood fire Athena is not our fire.
But it should be; let her be our fire, our
star. War goddess, guide us in these dire
times. Will we be like the poets, silent
to this? Pick up the gun. This is urgent.
