THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN ‘DISPLACE ME’ EVENT Inview - Part 1
ENDING A WAR THE GRASSROOTS WAY
Somewhere between the avenues of ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ lays the crossroad of ‘determination’ and ‘commitment’. This is the spot where approximately 100,000 people, college and high school ‘kids’ mostly, decided to build cardboard ‘huts’ in 15 different locations across the nation (see archive article ‘Get Displaced In These Cities’). The following is the Full Value Review ‘inview’ of one such site, the one leading in people numbers as of April 28th; the LA ‘Displace Me’ site at the Pomona Fairplex.
Pomona, CA – Arriving at the Fairplex in the afternoon of Saturday, April 28th, the first thing to hit me was the steady stream of young people with a scattering of older parent types, all lugging various amounts of cardboard, sleeping bags, water, and saltine crackers. This was impressive because event registration had started hours earlier. Following on the anniversary of the GNC (Global Night Commute, see archives) staged last year to bring attention to the harrowing situation gripping children of northern Uganda who commute nightly from the bush to escape from being captured by the LRA, ironically named the Lord’s Resistance Army. The abducted children were being traumatized by having a younger brother, aged 4-7, macheted in front of them and then told the same thing would happen to them unless they joined the rebel army to fight the government. Children, males mostly aged 8-14 had been deemed the optimum recruitment age bracket by the LRA. The young girls from 12 or 13 would be made ‘wives’ of the rebel officers with some bearing children by the age of 13. This despicable situation, this unseen war, carried on for over two decades was unseen by the western world’s media whose focus is a ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ mindset (que Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry’), until three ‘surfer dudes’ from San Diego went there and filmed this ‘night commute’, producing a documentary called INVISIBLE CHILDREN. “(This documentary) is not only breaking new ground, but has had a greater impact on my life than any other documentary I’ve ever seen,” touted Jon Turteltaub, Hollywood director. It had the same impact on everyone the three San Diegans showed their film to, leading to a grassroots movement that included 2 Million viewers from churches and high schools across the country in the first year alone. This ain’t your Grandpa’s ‘March Of Dimes’, Sports Fans.
The event this year, called ‘Displace Me’, was held to bring attention to the IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) Camps, where up to 1000 people die a month due to the horrid conditions of these camps. For instance, our site had 40 Porta-Potties whereas a camp there with as many people as we that day will have only 3. The fact is that these IDP Camp people who have been ‘reduced to the level of beggars’ rely solely on food stuffs from ‘outside’ charitable sources. To make this situation more visible the amount of IC site locations was cut from 130 to just 15 to concentrate larger numbers of people in a ‘IDP camp’ situation. This cutting down of locations also upped the ‘determination’ factor in those who chose to participate. Like I said, this ain’t your Grandpa’s march of dimes where you slide a dime or two into the green slots as a ‘good’ Santa rings his bell on your way to drop Christmas dollars at your favorite merchant or mall. Jason Russell, one of the three ‘amigos’ with Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole who filmed INVISIBLE CHILDREN, was our site host. The event got underway promptly at 7PM. Being both charismatic and affable, Jason (‘Jay’ to his friends, see accompanying back story, ‘For Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected’) explained that we were going to shoot some footage for the next DVD to come out before the sun went down. At his direction from the stage, the crowd which had grown in numbers still from when we got there, was put through their paces as a news chopper circled overhead and the sun began to wane. The energy of the crowd was dynamic. The video portions were shot by Gavin Kelly, part of the Oscar© winning crew of West Bank Story. Unlike the government’s treatment of Katrina victims which continues to still make news (see Washingtonpost.com – ‘Katrina foreign aid rejected, unused’), the word ‘half-assed’ is NOT in the vocabulary and nowhere to be found in the Invisible Children movement. But there was to be more to this gathering than awareness and visual effects, as I should have guessed when I saw ‘I don’t want coins, I want change!’ printed in large crayon letters on the side of one of the cardboard tents.
As the night got started after darkness fell, Jason was the first speaker and told a cheering crowd that the time was right to actually end this ‘unseen war’ (see IC’s updates at the Invisible Children dot com site) by calling President Bush direct (202-456-1414) this Monday morning requesting him to send an American official to the peace talks. Yes this number does work; I called today and left a comment. No money or troops are needed, just the AMERICAN presence and influence. Jason also told the crowd just how he got the motivation to start this adventure in the first place by reading the book journal of Dan Eldon, a photographer who was stoned to death with three friends in Somalia after first exposing the devastating starvation taking place there. His photographs made the cover of Newsweek and other magazines signaling an ‘SOS’ to the world for aid. A year later when the UN mistakenly bombed a house where peace talks for the area were going on, the angry crowd turned on Dan and his friends, killing them in the way people did in Jesus’ time. He was 22. A replacement photographer from Reuters was coming that very day. He had made and kept journals from high school but somehow his 17th journal, unfinished like his short life, found its way to Jason who was moved to inspiration by it. The idea to go to Somalia was discussed with Bobby and Laren in the garage and the three surfers left to find their greatest wave of adventure.
The second speaker was ‘West Wing’ actress Melissa Fitzgerald (Carol Fitzpatrick) who was so moved by the people when she visited an IDP camp there that she is mounting a production this July using Hollywood talent and writers. “Everyone in the camp has lost an immediate member of their family, a brother, sister, yet they remain full of hope rather than despair. One woman even made homemade wine for my birthday.” This was a woman whose brother had been abducted, escaped, then abducted a second time. He escaped a second time but this time he came back ‘haunted’. Only God and the Devil know what atrocities he witnessed that took his soul away. Another man she talked of was Joseph, an aids worker who staffs a medical facility just outside the IDP camp and therefore had no government protection. It had been raided numerous times for supplies by the LRA and when she asked why he still worked there, his reply was, “These are my people, my brothers and my sisters.” The Philly native then shouted out to the crowd that she was returning because these people are ‘our brothers and sisters.’
The next speaker was Dan Eldon’s mom, Kathy. She talked of her son like any proud mother, sharing tidbits, memories, and recollections but two maxims stand out in my memory about a man who was ‘willing to die to tell the truth’. ‘As you search for clean water in a swamp, there is little difference between being lost and exploration’; and ‘The journey IS the destination’. As you look at ‘Life’ you see that while it isn’t ‘fair’, but all it takes is one person to change the world around you, i.e. Jesus, Rosa Parks, MLK, and Dan Eldon. On the night of April 28th, 2007, at 15 different U.S. cities, over 100,000 ‘one persons’ chose to sleep outside, having only saltine crackers and (clean) water for din-din, in an effort to change the world around them. (ed note: I am thankful this is written electronically so the only private evidence of my emotions is the pile of wadded up Kleenex beside the keyboard, my red eyes, stuffed up sinuses, and a pounding headache.)
The last speaker was John Prendergast, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group, a leader of the ENOUGH campaign, and author of the book, ‘Not On Our Watch’. John worked at the White House as an advisor for Bill Clinton and the phone number listed above in bold is from him. He informed us that all it will take to end this war is ‘political will’. Having just recently returned on a visit with Ryan Gosling (nominated for ‘Half Nelson’), John told the story of a Ugandan boy named Bosco, who boasted in class one day that he had killed 82 people, turned to the kid next to him and said, “You’re going to be my ‘83’,” lounging for the classmate’s neck. He was pulled off the other student and is receiving psychiatric help made possible through Invisible Children funding.
Besides the speakers, and the letters written to our US Representatives, Jason led us in a 21 minute pause of silence to commemorate the twenty-one years of enduring war in Uganda. For 21 minutes the only sound you could hear in the library quiet setting were footsteps trodding on the soft infield grass, the tearing sound of tape from people still constructing their cardboard tents, and the distant whinny of a horse, a stark contrast to when the WARPED TOUR is staged in the same infield. Lightening things up a minute, Jason called for the people who had come the farthest to be there. A young volunteer ‘War Stopper’ from India pegged 6000 miles, and was joined by two people from Japan and one from Italia. When the call went out for the youngest, an impetuous 4 year old hopped up on stage and spoke into the microphone, but he was upstaged by a shy three year old in his mother’s arms. (The next day just after 6AM I spotted a mom with a four month old ‘activist’. ‘It’s his first protest,” said his young mom.
After telling us that so far this year, IC has raised a half million grassroots dollars and that ‘everyone in Uganda knows about the (‘Displace Me’) event, Jason said, ‘we are ending this, so dance like the war is over,’ as he plugged in his iPod to play some Gulu music, causing a mass conga line to break out under the big white ball lights that Waylon Smithers would be proud of. As I walked back through the cardboard city, guided by the distant blue beam from the Universal Finger Light I had duct taped to the back corner riser, I thought to myself that when the Day comes and I have to present a reason to God for my passage to the ‘up escalator’, my only defense for this blessed and charmed life I lead will be the words, “I was shown a ‘wrong’ and I tried to help ‘right’ it.” Also thanks to my tent city mates:
· Ms. Lauren Hogerheiden
· Mrs. Therease Humpston
· Kieranne Humpston
· Kelly Fox
· Erin E.
· Alyssa Schaan
· Lewis Sequeira (fresh from Canada)
· Nikolas Acosta (from Venezuela)