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Dear Anand,
When my son, David invited me (and everyone else he knows in NYC) to
attend the showing of your film at MOMA, I felt willing to go. However, deep
inside without realizing it, I put up a familiar wall of skepticism that would
keep me safe from "getting involved."
Watching the movie, I felt like I was having an incredible conversation with
someone on issues that are hard to talk about - and hard to step up to the plate
and take a stand on. The movie was like having a conversation with a dinner guest
- someone whose opinions and point of view are nothing less than life change.
What I mean is, there is no place for mere "intellectual curiosity" in
seeing your film. I think there are only two ways to respond - one is to join
those who are in denial about the horrific effects of war or two, actively join
those who are working for peace. (Is this just black and white thinking?)
I wanted to ask a question at the end of the film - but I couldn't articulate
my feelings, doubts, fears. It has taken these many days since the film to sort
them through.
My thinking/questioning/discomfort is at the heart of why I stepped away from
activism many years ago. Does it really do anything, I wonder? Or do the loudest
voice for peace and justice just get killed.
Sorry to be so cynical - but that is where my passion for peace and equality
is buried. There was such an annihilation of all of those passionate voices in
my 20's -shocking, overwhelming, and silencing.
Also, it was messy. I didn't always agree with the organizers of the peace movement
or the civil rights movement. It was confusing to choose a way to belong - to
join my passion with others in a way that maintained my separate voice. How do
you join a group so that your voice helps to make the point and yet how do you
have some leverage over the way those leaders behave?
It is hard to wake up from the trauma of that error/era - the horrific violence
to Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and Kent State. At some unconscious
level, I buried my outrage - I put my sense of justice and fighting for the underdog
deep inside and I set up a life that got filled up with children and making money
and buying a house and things and creating a career and getting recognition.
I had a voice for local injustice - for small scale injustice...but I left behind
the moral outrage, the connected passion for global survival - for humanity's
call to live life in peace and love and connection to the Creator.
And your film, awakened that in me again. It awakened the desire to make a difference
and the fear of having my voice not matter at all. It awakened in me the outrage
at the euphemism and lies that war-mongers espouse and it uncovered the timidity
of joining my unsure voice with others that I don't trust.
No small feat for one little film.
Thank you for the wake-up call. I wish you well in your pursuit to get your voice
heard. The timing is perfect. The world needs you right now. I, too, wish I could
help. Now I must find my voice and my action.
All the best,
Connie LaMotta
Click to see letters
by Anasua, Richa, Aakansha, Sonam, Ritu, Connie, Rahul, Moinak
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