Civil Disobedience in Size Ten

by Pa Rock
Cultural Commentator

George Bush was making his Grand Farewell Tour of the Middle East on December 14th of the year just past, when the relevancy of his entire presidency and foreign policy was knocked into a cocked hat by a couple of flying shoes. He was in the middle of a large press conference in Iraq when an angry Iraqi journalist named Muntadir al-Zaidi loosed a barrage of hostile Iraqi verbiage that declared Mr. Bush to be a dog, and then he let fly with one of his shoes - and then the other. Our President, surprisingly agile - possibly due to his cheerleader training at Yale - managed to successfully duck the flying footwear. In an effort to recover some of his dignity, the President joked that he thought the shoes were a size ten.

The incident resulted in al-Zaidi becoming a hero throughout the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular (with shoe sales of that particular model going through the roof!), quickly disproving the CIA and Blackwater claims that we are generally seen as liberators by the people of Iraq. The famous shoe-thrower has been in jail since the incident where reports indicate that he may be recovering from broken bones and cigarette burns. A trial date is pending which could result in him being subjected to some serious punishment. Clearly Iraqi officials do not view al-Zaidi with the same adulation as do the common folk of their country!

Jump forward a couple of weeks to an orphanage in Tikrit, Iraq, the hometown of Sadam Hussein. The reason the orphanage exists is due to the abundance of war orphans. It is understandable that the city might be somewhat hostile to the country that they view as responsible for the deaths of their favorite son and the parents of the orphans.

An Iraqi sculptor by the name of Laith al-Amiri managed to raise $5,000 to build an outdoor sculpture at the orphanage. Some of the orphans even helped with the project. The result was a giant shoe sculpture on a large concrete base. The statue measured over 11 feet in height, over 8 feet in length, and was nearly 5 feet wide. The shoe itself (sitting atop the concrete base) was the size of an Iraqi sofa. It was made of fiberglass covered in copper. In a nod to the environment, not a hot George Bush priority, the giant shoe doubled as a planter for a big green bush. Iraqi government officials quickly ordered the big shoe's removal - the will of the people be damned! So much for freedom of speech - and all that jazz!

Jump across Europe and the English Channel to Great Britain. Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboa was speaking at Cambridge University last week when an audience member blew a whistle and shouted: "How can the university prostitute itself with this dictator? How can you listen to him unchallenged?" Whereupon, he took aim and threw his shoe at the premier, missing his mark. He, too, was arrested and remains in jail.

So where do fair-minded people come down on this particular type of protest? Do we label it assault or attempted assault and demand a criminal penalty? Or do we go to the other extreme and declare it a harmless act of civil disobedience? Never mind Jesus - what would Henry David Thoreau do?

My thoughts on the subject are evolving, but I feel the need to give fair warning that the older I get, the meaner I get - and I wear a size ten!

Russia (3) The House of the Child

The House of the Child was one of the most disturbing places that I experienced while in Russia. It was a large building in Moscow that housed and educated youth who had no parental support. One of workers at the institution said that the parents of many of the children simply refused to take them home. Other parents were in prison or had lost their parental rights. Some children came in from maternity homes.

There were 100 children at The House of the Child. They ranged in age from birth to four or five years of age. If they were not adopted by age five, they were transferred into facilities for older youth. Our guides told us that there were 25 facilities like this one in Moscow.

The entire operation was similar to an American group home. The children lived on the premises, and it was staffed twenty-four hours a day with staff members working twelve-hour shifts. The curriculum was, according to staff, individualized to meet the needs of each child. All teachers were graduates of teacher training colleges. Children were placed in groups of sixteen, and each group had two educators and a nurse.

Before the trip I had done some reading on the importance of bonding and attachment, especially bonding between mother and child. I had also read a story in a popular magazine about a family who had adopted a two-year-old boy from Russia. The child had been fine for a couple of years, but then began acting out toward his adoptive mother. Although there had been several attempts to provide psychological assistance to the family, the mother eventually murdered the child. The prevalent theory on the child’s behavior toward the mother, which was extreme, was that he had been raised in relative isolation in an orphanage for his first two years, with minimal human contact. The article’s author stated that infants in Russian orphanages were often kept in tight swaddling by themselves and only had contact with adults for physical necessities such as feeding, bathing, and diaper changes, and even at those times orphanage staff did not show affection to the infants. The young boy had missed the crucial experience of bonding with an adult, especially a nurturing female, during his infancy, and he consequently could not form an attachment to his adoptive mother. She, in turn, had wanted a child desperately enough to adopt from overseas, and could not cope with the fact that he rejected her.

We went upstairs to see the bays where the children slept. We were also shown a kitchen where some of the kids were learning to help with the cooking. But the image that sticks with me most clearly was the nursery. We were allowed to step into a large bay with fifteen or more bassinettes, each containing a tightly swaddled infant. Most were quiet, but many of those were awake just staring into space. There was no interaction occurring between the staff and the babies. Later, one of the administrators at the orphanage said matter-of-factly, “All of our children are mentally retarded.” Small wonder!

Adoption was a very controversial topic in Russia in the early 1990’s. The Soviet System had fallen, and the Russian government was still struggling to define itself. There was a strong international demand for babies, particularly Caucasians. Having Russian children adopted out of the country was a direct affront to Russian pride, so the government was beginning to create obstacles to the process. The result was that by the time all of the various bureaucracies were satisfied, the infants would be two-years-old or older - and already missed the critical period where they needed to be bonding with adults.

The workers at this facility told us that their children were being adopted by Swedes, Italians, and especially Americans. All potential adoptions had to be cleared through Central Adoptions in Moscow.

The House of the Child was a sad experience. The children were living in a place that looked and felt like an institution. There was little warmth and love in evidence, especially with the infants. Fortunately, our next stop of the day would go a long way toward restoring my waning faith in humanity.

Coming Next: The 24th Hostel for Orphan Children