Internal Battles, Part 1

I watch it bubble over on the rotating plate and make no attempt to stop it. I'm not a fan. I thought split pea soup was supposed to be creamy. This is just water with hard peas literally split in half all sunk at the bottom with a piece of celery here and there to dress it up. I'm gonna eat it anyway, though, because there are starving children in Africa, and because a enough salt and pepper can make almost anything bearable. I'll even drink the birth water; they can't say I didn't do my part to help the skinny kiddies.


"Myanmar Devastation," "Mexico Drug Violence," "Peru Floods," "Lebanon Clashes" flash past my eyes. Save everything in our jurisdiction. Myanmar out, Mexico in; Peru in, Lebanon out. Each screen shows me some new piece of reality, and it is stark. The news is never good news. And I can't care about Mugabe, because I cared about Kenya. I can't like Clinton, because I love Obama. I have to choose my internal battles.


A recent grain of sand in the ocean of horror -- a pearl really, as it is a product of that ocean, is Sami Al-Hajj, cameraman for Al Jazeera. A name I heard at least once a day, everyday, announced through a picture of a dark-skinned man with round glasses. 2139 days in prison, 465 days on hunger strike.


Now he is freed. No reasons, no apologies, just freed. Can this really be? Can I be witnessing the end of this appalling injustice? One of several festering in my stomach? How do I celebrate the freedom of a man I never knew? A man I effectively helped imprison? A man who must despise me, my country, and everything I believe in? Yes, he has a right to his hatred, too. I daydream about kissing his feet. I imagine bowing my head in shame at the sight of him.

I rejoice at the recognition that I will never have to meet him. I can love him from afar, admire his courage, and say my prayers for him, but I can never face him. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because his imprisonment remains a fact. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because I have no right to. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because I still believe in all the things I believed in before I learned of the injustice he endured. Injustice is a fact, a disgusting, horrifying, relentless fact, laughing in the face of the ancient philosophers. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because I am still powerless to stop that injustice.


My friend's reaction is an easy one. "Did you know that a freed prisoner of Guantanamo Bay blew himself up in a suicide bombing the other day?" This observation echos through me for weeks. I doubt it is enough to make him feel justified, but perhaps it serves as a comfort to him. There is indeed evil everywhere.