Mark Agwonah, We Hardly Knew Ye: So, Why Has Your Death Touched Us So?

[Guest]

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[Jill]

      I told myself I could come online for no more than 5 (maybe 10 minutes....). 
I'm not even going to go to the M.A. Mom's Fund thread, now, because I know I'd get too embroiled.
I'm hosting a gathering today and haven't even begun to get ready...... 
   

       Still, as I was driving down the highway last night, I was reflecting, a bit, on this question, (the name of this new thread),
and I thought it might make a kind of neat thought-provoking Brand New subject to ponder.
     I have a lot of ideas about this myself, but I already know what I think
(but I might, still, contribute some of my thoughts, next week or some time later,
after allowing a number of you to reflect on it, first. 
That is, if you feel like it).
   
I will say, just to get it started
     that I'm 99.99999% sure that a lot of the reasons that got us all

-- to come to Kiva,
-- then that got us hooked on Kiva,
-- and then that now have us nearly Living at Kiva

are reasons related to why Mark's death has so affected and galvanized a sizeable number of us....

    Your turn....

(Oh, and by the way, when on the run,
I was able to get in on one of the Pakistani loans -- what great pictures )

   Bye -- til late afternoon, Pacific Daylight Time -- U.S.A. time

[Laurie]

Jill, there are many reasons I found the story of Mark's death SO compelling, but here is one that is quite clear:

My intelligent, caring, incredibly fair-minded husband is African American, raised in Memphis, TN in a segregated neighborhood.  He was born in 1943, so lived in Memphis during turbulent times.  When he was 17 or 18, he was picked up by the local cops walking home from his girlfriend's house on a Friday night.  He was questioned by them outside her door, put into their cruiser, taken to a remote location, and attacked by one of the cops.  He was able to protect himself ONLY because they had, for some reason, handcuffed his hands in front, rather than behind him.  He also was/is an athlete, so was able to attempt to hold off the attack long enough for the second cop to come to his senses and call off his partner.

Odel ended up in jail, in a cell with a severely beaten young black man (teeth missing, etc.).  He has always felt it could have just as easily gone that way for him, or worse. 

I become ENRAGED when I hear/see the corruption of power.  I can feel Mark's fear to the point that it makes me weak.  I can feel Mark's mother's anguish to the point I find it difficult to fall asleep.  This senseless, HORRIBLE death is pure EVIL.

I can't change it and I can't remove injustice from the world... but I also can't let it go.

Safe travels,
Laurie

[wind5001]

There are, as Jill and Laurie said, many reasons to it for me also.

One is, that I met a Kenyan publisher at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We talked a bit and she told me how difficult the situation HAD been in Kenya, that she had not been able to publish much because of censorship. Then she showed me a crime novel, that she had just published. To her it showed, that things in Kenya had changed. The novel, which I bought and read, is about attacks on local farmers to intimidate them before elections. These attacks took place in the early 90s and the attackers had the secret and sometimes quite open support of the government which feared to be removed from power. I could see that it meant so much to this publisher that she could finally publish such a story. SO, I had had an alright feeling about Kenya. And then, after what I had heared in the news already, Mark's story was posted by Diane. And it reminded me so muchb of what I had talked about with the publisher and read in the novel. It was such a brutal display of arbitrariness. I guess this is what sparked my anger.

Another is that, for me, the state is there to protect its citizens and the people living in the country and the people visiting the country. The state not only has the moral obligation but also a legal obligation to do this. We accept the state's power because he is there to protect us. And what a perversion of protection have we seen in Mark's case. I studied law with a focus on international law and human rights law. I am outraged at what happened there. These are crimes against all of us. Everyone has a right to live his life unmolested by the state (that is, if he has done nothing wrong or against the law). It made me sick. We here enjoy the blessings of a functionning state while so many have to live in fear of their own government.

Maybe, because, of personal reasons, I also took this opportunity to try to direct some of my general anger to something more fruitful and better. Mark's death gave me the chance to step up and do something. I have often thought about whether it is "good" if I help someone to help me also. I think that it does not matter much, what my intentions are, as long as the other benefits from it and I do not want to harm him. So these inner, personal reasons, certainly played its part. And then, in my eyes, it got a dynamic of its own. This tremendous group of people started befiring each other and we came up with idea after idea. I believe that none of us would have done something like this alone. It was the group that made it all possible and I am very happy to be part of such good folks.

@ Laurie: Thank you for sharing your very personal reasons! They have moved me greatly.

Oli

[Jill]

Hey Laurie and Oli,
        Just wanted to say that what you wrote, the way you revealed yourselves so unselfishly and expressed yourselves and your hearts so beautifully, well, for me, your posts added a richness to both this thread and to our Forum (to my life) that I could not even have imagined I would have the great good fortune of finding, of being able to experience when I came here.

    So, I just wanted to say thank you. 

                      WE    ARE    KIVA.   

Turns out that
your reflections were even more than,
they surpassed
what I had hoped for.

Jill

(And Laurie, my mom, whom I very very much loved but lost four years ago, was born and raised in Memphis,
so sometime, I'd guess that you and Odel and I have a lot of fun and other things we can talk about --
not the least of which will be the BARBECUE there --
but that's for another time and probably, another place).

   
       

[wind5001]

Jill,

I couldn't resist: I went to Memphis 2 years ago with my American mom...we saw Elvis and we went to a BBQ-place under a highway, somewhere in Memphis, I absolutely cannot recall. It was THE BEST BBQ I ever had...

Oli

[Laurie]

Jill, you both started and hijacked this thread, so I don't feel guilty about adding this:

Odel and I visited the Memphis family last spring.  This trip always involves eating "Que" from the middle of Texas through Arkansas (or LA/MS - it was Arkansas this trip) and back again.  Shortly before we left Memphis, Odel's sister and two nieces had a disagreement about which place in Memphis made the best Q, and we were approinted judges.  On the selected evening, when we arrived at their home, each woman had purchased TWO SLABS of ribs (pork, of course) and their favorites "sides" - cornbread, greens, beans, slaw, etc., etc., etc.  The HUGE dining table was covered and the room smelled like a smokehouse.  We five dug in, and it was fabulous!

Thank heavens we were leaving the next day.  It is mind-boggling to me, born and raised in California with a Californian's dietary leanings, to see - and share - a Southern diet, which seems to me to be very well suited to a life of active physical labor (which I do not lead).  It is lucky I don't live there, because I LOVE tender, smoky, falling-off-the-bone Que.

Safe travels,
Laurie
Eating straight from the garden in Canby, Oregon, USA

[Jill]

Laurie --  (Oli, too) --
    Re: Your waxing rhapsodically about Tennessee barbecue....

    Pavlovian response-- salivary glands going into overdrive-- it's actually
one of my favorite subjects in the world.

    I'm planning on doing a little rhapsodic waxing of my own, 
but later, and probably in the
Anything Goes thread:
http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,458.270.html


    I was so incredibly pleased by the tack this thread was starting to take,
thanks, especially, to your contribution and to Oli's,
I'm probably fooling myself (wishful thinking myself) into believing
maybe I can "take it back" and
get more people to make similarly enriching contributions.
Yeah, Right, Jill.  Control freak?  I don't know....

                                                                                                                                             MAY JUSTICE BE DONE.

[wind5001]

Dear Jill,

actually I am still waiting for your topic-related message here... I think, you haven't quite yet told us about your motivations...or have you? You know, I sometimes get confused by your posts...

Oli

[wind5001]

Jill, JI-HILL! 

May I tickle you once again...? 

Still don't want to share...?

Oli

[Jill]

   All right, Oli.  I'm not very good at doing things "On Command," but here's what you get:

God Bless America....

       For years now, that phrase has bothered me.
(Go ahead and call The Thought Police, now, if you must).

       That phrase has bothered me when I've seen it on bumper stickers.  It's bothered me when I've heard Presidents and other Public Figures close their speeches with it.  It's bothered me when I've heard Religious Leaders end their benedictions with it.

      It's NOT because there's anything wrong with God blessing America -- because God/Everybody Knows --
we sure could use some divine intervention these days!   
But for the longest time, my internal -- and sometimes, now, my external and expressed response upon hearing that phrase has been:

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD??

       At some point, I'm not exactly sure when it was, I "woke up."  I woke up to the fact that there is a "Rest of the World." 
I realized that that world extends past my family, whom I love, past my friends, past my community, past my various circles of caring and acquaintanceship, past my country (that I also love but for which, by the way, I feel tremendous anguish and concern). 
       I think it was relatively early on (but I also think it was not early enough) that I realized that there's a whole lot more world out there than the extremely circumscribed one with which I was acquainted.  And intuitively, I somehow understood-- at least, I deeply believed -- that the greatest majority of the occupants of that "Rest of the World" were a whole WHOLE lot more like me and the people I knew and cared about than they were different. 
       That is -- in the things that mattered....
     
        I believe(d) that We Are So Very Much Alike
in so many of the emotions we experience, in so many of the dreams we have, in so many of the longings we feel --
for love and peace and contentment and fulfillment and understanding -- for ourselves and for the people we care about. 

       It  was as though I knew them-- those occupants of the "Rest of the World,"
and by knowing them, by knowing their "insides" as I know my own, I cared about them. 
And I felt for them and I continue to feel for them -- both in times of sadness and in times of joy.
     
      So, turns out --  listening to the News is an emotion-laden often danger-fraught experience for me.
Not always, not by any means -- or they would have carted me away a long time ago,
but maybe too often, I "feel" the news. 
     
      I feel what it must be like for the friends and relatives-- it doesn't matter where they are--
friends and relatives who were waiting, carefree, expecting to see Loved Ones they had every reason to expect to see who,
because of some natural or man-made disaster occurring often, only in a matter of seconds, they learn are now gone from them forever.       

          I feel what it must be like for the people themselves, either for those held captive by some maniac or maniacal group
or for those innocently going about, trying to go about their business, trying to lead their quiet everyday lives
who are under siege--
siege by some internal or external armed force or siege by disease or famine or some other natural disaster. 
I feel what it must be like for people who just want to be allowed to have a decent life -- but can't.

     Truth is -- I don't have a clue as to most of what other people feel. 
It is only as far as my imagination and what empathy I have will take me
that I can relate to the Mark Agwonahs and the Mama Marks of the world. 

       But the little that I can "get" has me relating to them --
has me thinking and feeling about them as though they were me or they were members of my own family --
having to feel what I imagine, too vividly, they probably had to feel.

       So, I hurt for them.  I feel tremendous anger for them.  And I very very much want Justice and Peace for them.

      Because -- in a fundamental way -- they are "Me" and they are "Members of My Family."

 They are part of the world that I want to be blessed. 
They matter.


                                                                                                                                   MAY JUSTICE BE DONE.

     
     

[wind5001]

I knew why I tickled you, and I hope you are not angry with me about it. But I simply WANTED to know what your emotions and thoughts are. Now I know, and I thank you for sharing.

May Justice be Done to all suffering and bleeding.

Oli

[RichardF]

Not long after the beginning of the latest war in Iraq, a local yet world-renowned artist, Nancy Noel, posted a number of highway billboard messages in the area that included an image of one of her angels similar to this with the caption, "God Bless Humanity."

Some of her currently available Colors of Africa seem to be part of a fitting tribute to Mark and his memory.  A short video of Noel's visit there can be viewed by clicking "Africa" from her Videos page.  "The Maasai are an indigenous African ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania."

[Laurie]

Jill, our political views are so similar that I am sometimes shocked to see you post my thoughts on this forum.  For the longest time, I have automatically translated "God Bless America" as "(May the Power that is often called) God Bless America (and all other nations, communities, and struggling peoples of the world).  And, open minds and hearts too, please.

As religious sects attempt to obliterate each other, as nations break/blow apart, as the national borders of our own country prove to be no match for the economic realities of our neighbors... the arbitrary and fluid nature of political boundaries is revealed.  I often think that one decade of severe drought is all it would take for the English-as-first-language population of the southwestern states to abandon those harsh, arid climates to the Spanish speakers who live in closer harmony with that environment (at least where they are less influenced by our border communities).

My mother and I have different religious/spiritual beliefs, but I do like her sentiment: God works through our hands.  Kiva seems to me to be one of these good works.

Safe travels,
Laurie