“It was as if the last day, as people say in the Bible, that there will be a last day that Jesus Christ will come, and whatever on Earth will be judged. That was my imagination. I thought that God felt tired of people on Earth here, felt tired of the bad deeds, the bad thing that we are doing, yet God is watching on us. I thought that God got tired of us and he want to finish us.”
- John Bul Dau
For our November meeting, our movie group watched the documentary God Grew Tired Of Us. Narrated by Nicole Kidman, this film tells the compelling story of three “Lost Boys” John Bul Dau, Panther Bior, and Daniel Abol Pach. After fleeing the civil war in Sudan as boys and spending more than a decade as refugees, these young men were given the opportunity to resettle in the United States. The film documents their amazing journey from a refugee camp in Kenya to their new lives in New York and Philadelphia.
In our discussion after the film, the theme that came up again and again was the concept of community. Aubrie commented on the striking contrast between the men’s lives in the African refugee camp where they did everything together and in the United States where they struggled with a sense of isolation and loneliness. Amy noted that in the refugee camp they had “hope and humor and love and community” and she observed that while they were happy to leave the camp for a better life in the US, they also experienced a deep sense of loss in leaving their friends.
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11-16-2007 |
3 Comments »I think the human race needs to think more about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good? We saw Vietnam as an element of the cold war–not what they saw it as– a civil war. We were wrong. We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should *ever* apply that military, economic, or political power unilaterally. -Robert S. McNamaraWe have declared war on tyranny and aggression. -LBJ
To the best of my understanding, a lot of people think that Robert McNamara is, to use his own words, a son of a bitch. As secretary of defense during the Vietnam War, McNamara oversaw some really horrific stuff. I had the great privilege 16 months ago of taking part in a 15 credit multidisciplinary class in which we spent 3 hours a day, 5 days a week for 10 weeks looking intensely at the modern history of “southeast Asia”, specifically at Vietnam. Near the end of the course, we watched McNamara’s 2003 movie. After having immersed ourselves in the darkness of that conflict for weeks, many of my fellow students expressed a sense of being unconvinced that McNamara’s frank discussion of what he has learned and where he and the U.S. were wrong, along with the ‘good works’ he has done since that time with the world bank and other organizations were anywhere close to enough to exculpate him.
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03-23-2007 |
1 Comment »“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
For the first meeting of our monthly movie group, four of my friends and I watched the documentary Why We Fight. The film is inspired by President Eisenhower’s famous Farewell Address in which he warned Americans about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.” Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki takes a brutally honest look at the American war machine, using interviews with ordinary Americans and Iraqis, as well as commentary by military and Congressional insiders. Jarecki takes us to a munitions factory, a military trade show, and an Iraqi morgue.
We all agreed that it was an excellent documentary. According to Amy, “It leaves you furious!” And Aubrie commented that she learned many things that she had never heard reported in the mainstream news. Aubrie also noted how many times the word “supreme” was used to refer to America and asked, “Aren’t we who are Christians supposed to believe that God is the only supreme one?” Amy observed that when America was referred to as the “greatest nation on earth” that “greatest” always seemed to mean “the most powerful.”
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03-16-2007 |
8 Comments »