Respite and Repose

By Marc Thomas Engberg

Every man reaches his breaking point. I nearly reached mine two weeks ago. Less than twenty-four hours after President Bush made his ominous war announcement to the nation, the Berkeley Stop-the-War Coalition launched its long awaited, full-scale, Sproul-Plaza-invading anti-war protest. The usual suspects were close at hand. Snehal ranted, scantily-clad hippy-intellectual throwbacks paraded, a pseudo-Bob Dylan sang, and, as always, anti-Americanism abounded.

It was a beautiful sight, I must admit. How glorious it is that we live in a nation where the freedom of speech may be exercised without fear of amputation. I may not agree that the U.S. is an imperialistic neo-colonizer, and I typically reject comments like, "I don't want to say Saddam is good or bad, but he's an angel compared to Bush," as obscenely unintelligent, but I revel in the fact that such things can be said, that they can be legally voiced. Still, I had to put in quite a fight to keep my gastric acids settled.

How ironic it was that these people on the steps of Sproul Hall were exercising and enjoying a freedom we are fighting for overseas - a freedom which is virtually unknown in Iraq. How ironic it is that these people ostensibly place such high value on the lives of the Iraqi people (which I do as well) but seem to care not about their present state of misery, their dearth of civil liberties. And I am not speaking merely from an American perspective here.

On March 20, two Berkeley students with familial ties to Iraq pushed these same concerns in an article printed in The Daily Californian. Assyrian-born Berkeley student, Ramond Takhsh, explained, "You don't appreciate something until it happens to you, until it hits close to home. [Some] are uncomfortable that people will die in a war, but for the sake of freedom and liberation, it is worth it." The article made it clear that neither Takhsh nor his fellow Assyrian classmate Ben Aziz are Republicans. They are just two freedom-valuing men concerned for the family and friends they have in Iraq and hopeful for the prospect of liberty.

Clearly, war is a measure of last resort - an inherently evil institution which arises only in the darkest hours of diplomatic failure. But, alas, it has arisen once again. Now we must deal with it.

I am filled with pride when I see anti-war protestors freely preaching their dogma in the true spirit of democratic freedom, but I am overcome with an acute sense of disappointment when I hear what they are saying. Somewhere deep inside, all of these protestors know that their ranting and raving isn't going to change a thing, but they insist on being heard. All the power to them, I suppose. Still, what kind of message are protestors sending to our troops overseas whose lives are at as much at risk as every Iraqi in the region - troops who have willingly left loved ones in the name of freedom, and ironically, peace. Ingratitude is the only message they hear. And that does not do much for morale.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again. With every freedom we are granted there comes an indispensable degree of accountability - an obligation to exercise our rights with responsibility and with sensitivity. Some, unfortunately, choose to abandon that responsibility. I'm not asking for absolute nullification of the anti-war voice. That would be most un-American of me. All I am asking is if there can exist some effort to simultaneously sustain patriotism. Can't there be any respite to the incessant anti-American politicking? Can't we accept the truth of our times, support our troops who are making every effort to spare civilian lives, and pray for a quick end to the madness?

I think we can. Remember the three-week bipartisan lovefest we experienced after 9/11? Why did it occur? It occurred because abnormal times mandated a deviation from normalcy. Under normal circumstances, our nation is divided strictly along partisan lines. We often forget that we are Americans. Now, however, the time has come to remember once again that we are not identified by the party we vote for, but by the country we live in. Still, in a time like this, we are defined as much more than Americans. We are identified by the freedoms we enjoy and uphold - freedoms which are not exclusively American, or British, or Spanish, or Australian, but universal.