Chris,
as I said later in the post:
>We all have our
>Jerusalems and as a member of the First Nations here, you are
>living in mine and you are living on my land. Does that give
>me the right to hate you at all costs? Maybe, but it seems like
>a useless thing. A waste of the genius that we all carry within
>us. An insult to the Creator of us all.
As for Vietnam or any other war fought by the U.S. there have
always been Native warriors in the Armed Forces. Sergeant York
was Cherokee in the First World War and many of my family
including my adopted Father fought in the second. He carried the
Purple Heart for being wounded, had four ships torpedoed by
the Germans and spent on four different occassions over forty
days in life boats. He was then drafted by the Army of North
Africa (because he was an Engineer) and sent to Africa, the
Middle East and eventually the Army of Asia.
When he was in Yugoslavia after the war, building a refrig-
eration plant for Tito, the resistance blew up the plant and
added one more wound to his string of war wounds that
eventually destroyed his legs (osteomylytus) and caused him
to loose all of his teeth. He was also a Master Chef trained
in Caans France and his teeth were the cruelest cut of all.
Eventually the wounds killed him at the age of 76 after he
had seen the Freedom of Religion Act of 1978 make it legal for
him to practice our religion since he was the high Priest of the
Wolf Clan and later the Peace Priest and Chief. At the time
when we needed his knowledge, hidden for so many years, he
was finally killed by the wounds inflicted by among others, the
Serb anti-communist resistance
But Chris, in spite of all of this, he taught us to live in the
present. That the Creator was the Creator of all peoples and
that we had to learn to live together. Vietnam was a mistake and
it created great evil in the lives of our people who participated,
but does that mean that we must stop, not have an army or
treat the world as if evil does not exist except
from large structures like Capitalism, Communism or any other
"ism?"
Consider whether the self-serving attitude of those who come
here and undercut the salaries of those who have spent hundreds
of thousands of their personal dollars to train themselves while
the newcomers were trained by the state for free, is an evil act
against our families. I understand the Serb complaint but they
are on the other side of this here.
When someone from a Communist country lies about their
oppression while an Indian from El Salvador has been
oppressed by the U.S. Fruit companies in league with their
dictators and is denied entrance except illegally and is then
harrassed by the business community, then I think that the
former Communist's entrance into this country is a theft,
an evil act.
Should we have been in Vietnam, no but neither should the
Communists, the French, the English or any others. The land
belonged to Vietnamese and their traditions. In Vietnam,
Cambodia, Tibet, etc. these evil forms of Western thought
continually destroys thousands of years of evolution in the
service of the Western ideas in the minds of a few Western
so-called Intellectuals. Since the expansion of Rome there has
been no compromise and no quarter and their arrogance has
ruled supreme.
In happened in my nation in the early 19th century when the
Christian Democracy folks said that if we would accept Jesus,
learn to read and write and recreate our government in their
image (Democracy) then we would have the right to our own
lives and government just like any other state in the Union.
These creeps broke their own laws and marched us to Oklahoma
trying to destroy our spirit our hope and our intelligence. They
were dismal failures at those three although both of my direct
ancestors along with thousands of elders, children and women
were murdered on the death march.
So how do we accept this? Like the Serbs? Or like the
Castillians who threw out the Moors and abscounded with
moorish culture after 700 years? Naw! they were much
better at the death than the Moors who let them live although
as second class citizens.
The Spanish and other Europeans murdered, out of 100 million
people in north and south America 23 out of every 25 people
and allowed a paltry birth rate so there was little replinishment.
America with its constant Immigrantion has not
built the kind of culture that would calm that down. Every new
wave treats us as if they were the first wave so there is less Indian
people in the U.S. than there are Hindus, Orthodox Christians
or Moslems.
So l have a lot to be angry with and about but it is a useless thing.
If I could would I remove 300 million people, like the current
affair, back to their relations or let them die? It would be stupid,
a slap in the face of the Creator that my people have always
worshipped. the Creator has made a magnificent circle of nations
in this place and has given us another chance.
My Father said that I had to make peace for my own soul.
That, indeed, was the reason I am here on this earth.
So I did. I live with my neighbors of every hue, gender
preference, religion and political party. I argue but I
do not steal or force them to follow my ways. My company
works to preserve the ways of all peoples who are now in this
place. We give over $105,000 a year in training scholarships
to Indians, Gypsies, Jews, Blacks and European Opera singers.
But as my Father also said I am not to take abuse from anyone or
allow my family to be abused.
In Europe they are eating each other, here we are feeding each
other. Milosovic went to Dayton and was forced to see another
way. Dayton a hotbed of Serbs living with Croats living with
Slovenians, living with Bosnian Moslems living with Montenegrins,
living with Macedonians, living with Albanians from Yugoslavia.
Tito would have drawn and quartered
Milosovic and his crew but there is no Tito left in Yugoslavia
and when Milosovic left Dayton he went home and they allowed
him to continue in his Provencial ways.
As their magnificent City is sacked, they will hate for another
thousand years never bothering to move outside and relate
to the great ideas and art of the West. They could have had
it. It was starting in some very profound thinking coming from
Yugoslavian artists at the end of Tito's life, but that is dead
and the hicks have won.
How do I know this. I let Slovenian Artists in my company from
Tito's time. At the invasion of Bosnia they kept repeating "but
these people are my brothers, how could we do this?"
I agree!
So Chris, I have to get to work. My company is in need
at this time but if you have other questions I will try to
answer them but my time is short and I write this only
because we have always been generous with one another.
Something that I appreciate.
Regards
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble of New York, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Christoph Reuss wrote:
> On Sat, 08 May 1999, Ray E. Harrell wrote:
> > I am proud to be Native and an artist.
>
> Why, then, did you work in the Army in Washington during the Vietnam war ?
> By doing this, you supported the same Army that destroyed your people, to
> destroy another people.
>
> Chris
