Friday, July 07, 2006

Testimony not borne

Many people today have used the phrase “I’m thankful for our freedoms.” I would also use this phrase to describe how I feel about my country but my definition of these “freedoms” would focus on what I believe is the most important freedom. I’m most thankful that I live in a country where, by and large, protest is protected, protest of war, protest of the government, protest and even hate for a president. In Mormon-speak we often refer to the US as the promised land. I believe the essence of a promised land is one that affords us the freedom to speak out without fear of death or violence from our government.

Even though the public may not know “everything” going on in a war or crisis situation, it’s clear that many times our government does get it wrong. Not so long ago our government supported the persecution, murder, and expulsion of members of our own faith. It’s too bad that more citizens didn’t take their patriotism—their commitment to freedom and justice—more seriously; if they had there would have been demonstrations in support of Mormons spread out from Nauvoo to Palmyra. I hope we remember our divine right to speak out against injustice and even immorality. Many of you, if I recall correctly, took up this right with much vigor, sometimes with more vigor than suited my tastes, in criticizing President Clinton. Even though I often didn’t agree with the rhetoric of impeachment and complete moral failure, I would defend your rights to protest what you saw as immoral and wrong.

I pray we would all defend this right, not only when we agree with the position taken, but even when we do not. If one has held onto to some sort of hope that what Bush did in Iraq was moral, I certainly expect this individual would not deny anyone the right to question, to protest, to disagree with our president. Being patriotic, which we often discuss as a religious duty, allows, even demands, that we give support to what we see as truth and justice, never yielding to blind support of a political party, our country, our president.

My father fought in Vietnam from 1966-68. While I’m grateful to the citizens who supported him personally in the short-term as a soldier, I wish more citizens, more Saints, had supported him in the long-term by protesting the war. If only Vietnam—a war started on false pretenses in the Gulf of Tonkin—had ended a few years earlier, then maybe I’d have that part of my father whhich is now gone and ruined: the emotional void I sometimes see in his face and the occasional tear he has shed after one too many. And maybe the emotional connection I yearned for as a child would have been realized. I too am thankful for our freedoms but let us not imagine that our freedoms are always, or even mostly, threatened from some outside enemy. When patriotism is not allowed to include dissension and critique, our promised land status is put into peril.

3 comments:

Lisa B. said...

My own dad is a Vietnam vet, so I identified with that part of your testimony especially. I like how you're testifying--bearing witness--of your own experience and what it tells you about all this.

My son's good friend went to Afghanistan. He went in carrying plenty of damage already. It hurt to hear that rhetoric of pride in serving one's country--as if it might not be a greater service to help this young man heal, rather than endorsing this kind of service that is guaranteed, practically, to damage him further, as it indeed has.

Dr. Write said...

Well done. I like the idea of testimony not being only one's narrative of personal faith, but also the things one cannot help saying because of this faith.
Carry on!

shane said...

Well put. I wish it weren't "testimony not borne", though.