tp180.xml

tp180.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-03-03

"Toward a More Perfect Union","Living in Rome
Living in Rome, you could be forgiven
For forgetting your country is at war.
You could be forgiven for believing
That while you might be inconvenienced by that war,
Most likely you wont,
And that while the daily news may seem a bit darker these days
In the end it will all come out right.
There is nothing so telling
As a room full of self-satisfied patriots
Warming each others hearts with assurances
Of just how beloved their nation truly is,
How powerful,
How just,
How free,
How innocent.
There is nothing so telling as a nation that sings itself to sleep each night
With love songs to itself.
There is nothing so telling
As a national war machine that only grows stronger
And richer
Each day that passes without peace.
Living in Rome
You could be forgiven for wanting to win the war
Without having to fight it,
For refusing to allow for the possibility that those who hate you
Might have some justification,
For denying the accusation that your countrys heavy-handedness
And self-interested myopia
Might be treading just a little too painfully
On the very peoples you swear
Youre only trying to help.
Living in Rome you pray for peace.
You pray for strong leadership.
You pray for re-isolation from the ills of the world.
You pray that your children will not have to be afraid
Of bogeymen who wrap themselves in sheets
And religion
And a terrible hatred
And come to insane conclusions
About just what must be done.

Living in Rome
Its easy to forget that the vast majority of the world
Doesnt.
Its easy to be ignorant of the fact that what you see as the Imperial Might of Rome
May be felt by others as simply a heavy black boot
Pressing down hard on their scrawny necks,
May be considered by others not such a great thing,
As a nightmare of epic proportion,
A thing that will throw a giant dark shadow across their doorways
And their childrens doorways
And their childrens doorways
Until something is done.
Living in Rome you might be excused if you cannot believe
That anyone would wish for something to be done,
That anyone might wish to remove the heavy black boot
From his scrawny neck.
Living in Rome you never think about the sixty million civilians,
Innocent victims of twentieth century armed conflict,
Nor of the forty million soldiers who passed
Along with them.
You think that you live in a safe world,
A world in which security is a birthright,
Happiness a pursuit,
And a peaceful retirement is something you earn.
You think that forty thousand children dying everyday from hunger
Out in the rest of the world
Is a problem, yes,
And a cause for great concern,
And you want someone to do something about it,
But at the same time you cannot conceive
That somebody living somewhere else,
Somewhere not in Rome,
Might hold you responsible,
You or someone who lives just next door,
Someone who shops in the same supermarket you do,
For the death of a child,
Perhaps her child,
Perhaps even today,
Because there was not enough food to eat.
I live in Rome, you would say
(and you might be forgiven),
I do not live in Africa,
I do not live in Afghanistan,
I have nothing to do with the rain,
I have nothing to do with the seed that refuses to sprout,
The grain that refuses to grow.
I cannot make it grow.
I may live in Rome, but that does not make me responsible
For every drop of rain that refuses to fall
In Afghanistan.
Living in Rome you would be right, of course,
Exceedingly right.
The raindrops that refuse to fall in Afghanistan,
The seeds that will not sprout in Africa.
The fish that no longer swim in Lake Victoria
Are not your responsibility.
Even though you live in Rome
Your wish alone is nothing more than a wish,
And, contrary to what some TV preachers or politicians
Might lead you to believe,
Your prayers do not ring any louder in heaven
Simply because you live in Rome.
Living in Rome you might have forgotten this simple truth:
That we are all one.
You might be living in the mistaken belief that your own life
Or the life of your child
Is not inextricably linked
To the lives of others.
You might be forgiven for believing that a child who dies for lack of food
In another remote part of the world
Is a tragedy,
But not one that will ever affect you.
You might be forgiven
For not wanting even to be reminded that the child has died
Since there was nothing you could do anyway.
Living in Rome you are proud to be a Roman.
You are free and you are fed and
You are as generous as you can afford to be.
You might even wish that the entire world could live in Rome,
But only in some theoretical way
Which will not threaten your standard of living.
And living in Rome there may come a day,
An awful day,
An unforgettable, traumatic, miserable day
When from somewhere outside of Rome
A message will come,
A terrible message.
A message of anger, a message of hatred,
A message of inconceivable inhumanity and consequence.
And living in Rome you may be forgiven
If you are taken completely by surprise.
You would be justified in feeling anger and sorrow.
You would only be human if you felt frightened or self-righteous.
But you would be mistaken,

Living in Rome,
If you failed to hear the message behind the violence,
If you chose to pretend that there was no message at all,
Only insanity,
Only evil,
Only twisted religious fanaticism.
Living in Rome you might choose to believe that life in Rome will go on
As it always has, indefinitely,
That even as the Earth grows smaller,
Even as her population swells,
Even has her resources are stretched to their limits,
You will live in Rome,
And your children will live in Rome,
And their children will live in Rome
As Romans always have ñ
Forgetful and forgiven ñ
But it may not always be so.