HELLO-is anyone out there listening???!!
SPEECH: AUGUSTA PEACE RALLY, OCT. 26, 2002
by Charlotte Aldebron, 12
I've been
speaking up a lot since September 11. On February 12, I wrote an essay for
school saying that we care more about the American flag than about living up to
what it stands for. On March 22, I told Senator Snowe's staff in Presque Isle
that you grown ups were hypocrites because you tell kids to solve problems with
words, while you kill people in Afghanistan. On March 28, I said the same thing
to Senator Collins in person. She told me that because we invaded Afghanistan,
little girls can go to school and learn to read. Some choice: learn to read, or
have a mom and a dad.
On April
3, the Common Dreams website posted my flag essay. It got lots of attention and
was reprinted and read on the radio. I got 800 emails. I was surprised to get
such a response because I'd started to believe that solving problems by talking
was something only kids had to do, but that grownups could fight all they
wanted-like they get to drink and swear, but kids can't. On May 12, I spoke at
the Peace Rally in Bath. On May 20, I talked to Chellie Pingree and Tom Daschle.
I suspected that Tom Daschle was not paying attention because, with a glazed
look in his eyes, he stuffed my flag essay in his pocket, unread. On June 22, I
spoke at the Maine Green Independent Party Convention. Now here it is October
26, and I am giving another speech. That's a really bad sign because it means we
still don't have peace-in fact, we're about to go and kill even more people.
Well, I'm getting a little sick of hearing my own voice! HELLO-is anyone out
there listening???!!
I guess
my own voice is too small to make a difference. So this time, I'll add the
voices of other children, and maybe together we'll be loud enough.
Children
like Ali, who was three when we killed his father in the Gulf War. Ali scraped
at the dirt covering his father's grave every day for three years calling out to
him, "It's all right Daddy, you can come out now, the men who put you here
have gone away."
And Luay who was 11 at the time and was glad he didn't
have to go to school or do homework. He went to bed and got up whenever he felt
like it. But today he has no education and still hears the explosions in his
head.
And the
children in Basra, southern Iraq, who today play in the dust while air raid
sirens scream around them because we keep dropping bombs.
And all the children
in Iraq who will never grow up because they have leukemia and cancers from the
depleted uranium in our missiles, and they can't get any drugs or radiation
treatment because we won't let their country have them. I don't know the names
of all these children.
Can you
hear our voices yet?
I'll add 10-year-old Mohibollah in Afghanistan, who was out
collecting firewood for his family when he found one of those bright yellow
soda-can-sized cluster bomblets with parachutes. What child could resist? He
ended up with mangled flesh where his left hand used to be.
President
Bush asked each American child to give a dollar to help Afghani children. Here
is my dollar's worth: it is the voice of:
6-year-old
Paliko who was carried to the hospital still wearing her party dress from the
wedding that we bombed for two hours, killing her whole family-by mistake.
And
2-year-old Alia, who was dug out of the rubble where her family was crushed when
we blew up their village-again, by mistake. Afterward, our soldiers said they
were sorry. Among themselves, they called the Afghans rag heads. Like I said in
my flag essay, we are better at caring about symbols than real people.
Can you
hear us yet?
Our government is paying for educational theater in Afghanistan
that teaches kids to fight with pen and paper, not guns, and tells them to
"join the educated culture of the world." They call it the Mobile Mini
Circus for Children. The performers are orphans who live just north of Kabul, in
an orphanage filled with 2,000 victims of our air strikes, our greed, our
comfort. When are we going to join the educated cultures of the world?
Maybe
you'll hear the voices of Palestinian children:
Sami, shot in the head by an
Israeli soldier the day before his 12th birthday;
10-year-old Riham, killed in
her schoolyard by an Israeli tank shell;
and
14-year-old
Faris, who told his 8-year-old brother Abdel to go home when he followed him out
to buy groceries. Abdel refused, so he got to see the tank shoot his brother
dead in the street.
And the six Matar children, ages 2 months to 17 years-all
killed when an Israeli pilot flying an American-made jet dropped a one-ton bomb
on their home. The pilot was sent by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who
our president calls a man of peace.
Can you
hear us yet? How about the voices of Israeli children? Like: :
14-year-old
Raaya and 2-year-old Hemda, killed with their parents by a Palestinian suicide
bomber when they went out to eat pizza;
9-month-old
Avia, killed by Palestinians who shot and threw grenades at cars;
and the
12 teenagers killed by a suicide bomber at a nightclub. Can you hear us now?
How many
more children must suffer or die before you hear us? No offense, but I really
don't want to have to make another peace speech ever again!
[Charlotte Aldebron, 12, is a 7th grader at Cunningham Middle School in Presque Isle. She has lived in a number of countries in Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, and has experienced different cultures and lifestyles. She is committed to making the world a better place.]
