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| Journalist’s work inspires many to social activism COMMENTARY BY IRIS KELTZ Cassandra the Greek prophetess was gifted with the ability to foretell the future, and cursed by having no one believe her warnings. Miriam, sister of Moses, danced round with her timbrels giving courage to the Hebrew slaves as they walked through the parting waters of the Red Sea. The lovely Esther from Persia secretly worked her wiles by enchanting the king with her loveliness. The Arabs remember Sheherazade weaving one thousand and one stories to save her life and the life of other young virgins. |  | ||||||||||
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| Amy Goodman is a modern day Cassandra, Miriam, Esther and Sheherazade
rolled up into one surprisingly petite woman. On Jan 18 the crowd in Popejoy Hall got to their feet for a standing ovation for this woman with the strident voice, even before she spoke. This was my third
time to see her in person. She is always dressed in camouflage, with lace-up boots and a
vest with pockets large enough to carry her passport, notebook, recorder,
tapes and other tools of the journalist. Everything about her is compact,
portable, economical, understated, as if she could pack up and take off on a
moment’s notice.
Unlike Cassandra, Goodman’s words are heard and taken to heart by millions of faithful
followers who religiously listen or watch her program every day. Like
Miriam and Esther, she has the courage of a one-woman army, a warrior woman
who leads by example. And like Sherazade, she artfully weaves her stories
into a complex tapestry that astonishes the listener, leaving us
breathlessly waiting for the next one. The large story always focuses on the
necessity of a strong independent media to sustain a democracy. Her program, “Democracy Now,” is a lifeline for news and stories from around the world that we hear nowhere else.
She was quite possibly the only Western journalist to witness the
brutality of the Indonesian army in east Timor. Her eyes light up as she
takes us back to this island on the day of their hard-won independence. She
takes her audience to a showdown between the U.S. military and local resistors on the
tiny Puerto Rican island of Vieques, where the U.S. military practices regular
bombing missions. She gives a voice to teenagers falsely accused of raping a
jogger in Central Park, and of a black man executed by the New York City police
as he was reaching for his keys in the lobby of his apartment building. In
the mountains of Peru, we listen to an interview with Lori Berenson, an
American human rights activist held prisoner under very harsh conditions.
Mumea Abdul Jamal, a black journalist on death row, has an editorial voice
on her program where he comments on events happening in this country and the
world, astonishing everyone with informed, articulate eloquent opinions,
leaving us to wonder how he, an inmate on death row in prison is better
informed than most of us on the “outside.” And who could forget the mesmerizing interview she did with President Clinton on that fateful Election Day 2000, when he called the program hoping to pressure her to influence and encourage listeners to vote for Gore. For months, there had been much discussion on whether to vote one’s conscience (Ralph Nader) or for the lesser of two evils (Al Gore). Early into their live radio encounter, Clinton realized he had met his match. She was prepared. Neither the power of his office, his personal charisma, nor his brilliance affected her. Several times he tried to disengage, as he realized he had jumped into a quagmire. So sharp and relentless were her questions, so informed and armed with facts was she that he simply could not justify himself. Before Amy Goodman speaks of Israel and Palestine, she shares her impeccable Jewish credentials – that her grandfather was an orthodox rabbi, that there are Holocaust survivors in her family, that she spent part of her youth in Israel. And then she gives one of the few media voices to the Palestinians. Through cell phone conversations she brings us inside the church of the Nativity while it is under siege. We meet Adam Shapiro and his Palestinian-American fiancé, part of the international witnesses who got caught in Yasser Arafats¹s bunker. We hear the voice of Edward Said, a leading Palestinian intellectual and literature professor at Columbia University. Hanan Ashrawi speaks on behalf of her people suffering under a long-term brutal occupation. I cry when Ashrawi thanks and acknowledges an international group of Jews who gathered in Chicago under the banner “Not in My Name,” because I was one of them. In Jenin, she interviews witnesses, journalists and local residents, trying to uncover the truth about what is happening inside the refugee camp. She did not delve the harsh details of the Palestinian occupation during her recent Popejoy appearance. She did, however, identify herself as Jewish and share her horror of having seen the sacred Star of David hanging from Israeli tanks and from bulldozers used to destroy homes and olive groves. On Jan. 18 Goodman was focused on preventing a war against Iraq. She reminds us that innocent Iraqi civilians, not Saddam Hussein, are suffering the consequences of U.S. sanctions and the Gulf War. To her they are not “collateral damage.” She knows all too well what price the people have already paid, that hospitals are filled with children dying of cancer or born with horrible birth deformities, that there is not enough medicine, drinking water, food or electricity, that the civilian population of Iraq will not survive another U.S. onslaught. “Democracy Now” has brought us inside Baghdad and allowed us to hear their voices and eyewitness accounts from doctors, journalists and international witnesses. Some people read the Torah and bow before a paternalistic God who judges and declares “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Others understand that “Never Again” means never again remain silent in the face of witnessing a holocaust of any people. Amy Goodman¹s words connect me to the ancient path of social justice. They remind me that if we treat our neighbors justly, we can turn our swords and weapons of mass destruction into plowshares and sit in our vineyards and olive groves enjoying a sustainable life style. Now that¹s my kind of Judaism! | |||||||||||
