Feature Stories

Local Woman Uses Art to Express Feelings about War

| Submitted by admin on January 26, 2006 - 1:11pm.
Editor’s note – Rose Musacchio, a retired English teacher, moved to Dunkirk in 2003.  For a sculpting class she audited at SUNY Fredonia, she created a sculpture that reflected her feelings about war and its misery.   Rose wrote the following to describe the work.  Although photos could not be adequately reproduced here, Rose’s words are eloquent and evocative.  She brought the piece to the January 31 CPJ meeting and discussed its meaning. 

“The Spirit Groans”

This sculpture is a response to the suffering of the innocent people in Iraq who are caught in yet another war, another struggle for power. In particular it is a response to a newspaper photograph of two Iraqi women, both of their faces expressing profound pain and suffering. What horror have they seen? How have their lives been torn apart? Are there experiences that destroy our souls? Are there sights that we as human beings should never see? Is there grief that wounds us beyond healing? The man with them is trying to prevent them from seeing whatever it is before them, but it is too late. Now they must go forward in life with whatever strength they can draw from. How are we here, in our lives full of comfort, to comfort them?


I don’t know how we can comfort them, unless it is that for a moment we enter into their pain.  But to do that we need to draw upon our own painful experiences, allow our own pain to come to the surface again. No anesthetizing of feelings allowed. We look at the outstretched arms, we see the agonized expression on the face. Can we pick up that mask, hold it up to our own face, and just for a moment, be the suffering woman in the photograph? Please feel free to place the mask on your face if you are moved to do so.


Although the sculpture is in part a political statement against a war I do not understand, or that I perhaps understand only too well as a struggle to maintain American dominance, it is also a response to the suffering that is always a part of human life. War is a constant event.  There are many wars going on in the world, between and within countries which we as a nation see as unimportant because they are of no strategic importance to our global power. But war has many other forms beyond the military as well: wars between factions in communities, between strangers, between friends, between family members, and ultimately within ourselves, within our own beings. That is the inescapable horror of war. As Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

Lord have mercy on us for what we do to one another.

* The title of the sculpture, The Spirit Groans, is taken from Romans 8:26 which reads as follows: “Likewise the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know for what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered in words.”

[Rose played the following music in the background as her fellow students viewed the sculpture:]

Maria Callas singing the aria, La Mamma Morta, from the opera Andrea Chenier, by Umberto Giordano. The aria is an expression of a woman’s profound grief following the murder of her mother during the French Revolution of 1789, a peasant uprising against the injustice of poverty in the midst of the obscene wealth and power of the aristocracy. This aria was also used as the theme music for the movie “Philadelphia,” in which Tom Hanks played a young lawyer, a homosexual with AIDS struggling for justice in an uncaring world.
                                                                                - Rose Marie Musacchio

Center for Peace and Justice - How did we begin?

| Submitted by admin on October 6, 2005 - 8:37pm.
(Published in the Fall 2005 issue of the CPJ Newsletter.)
Editor’s note – As a relative newcomer to the CPJ, I was curious about the group’s origin.  Perhaps others may be as well.  I talked to three local residents and long-time CPJ members, Willard Gaeddert, Rodney Houck, and Dan O’Rourke, to learn how the organization came into being. 
- Cindy Yochym, Newsletter Editor

In 1962, as U.S. involvement in Vietnam was escalating, Willard Gaeddert participated in a public forum on the topic - “A Just War?”  Mr. Gaeddert had just moved to Fredonia that same year to teach physics at the State College.  This was only one of the many expressions for peace that he has made, including being one of the founders of the Dunkirk-Fredonia Center for Peace and Justice.

Raised in the Mennonite faith in Kansas, and now a Quaker, Mr. Gaeddert was a religious objector in World War II. He served by helping forest fighters in a Civilian Public Service Camp in Idaho.  In the following years, he held teaching positions in colleges around the country.  By the late 1960’s, when the Vietnam War was at its height, Mr. Gaeddert joined with others of like minds in the Dunkirk-Fredonia area who opposed the war to form the CPJ.  These individuals participated in protests and counseled conscientious objectors. 

By the 1970’s, the CPJ addressed the nuclear freeze movement.   In the years since the Vietnam War, CPJ activities have included the support of Habitat for Humanity, the annual Dunkirk-Fredonia Holocaust Remembrance, disaster relief efforts, and the annual appeal to help Ann Marie Zon’s mission in Nicaraugua.  The CPJ has contacted elected officials and local media to support pro-peace positions.  It has organized public gatherings and peace vigils.  Members have marched in Dunkirk’s Memorial Day Parade under the banner, “Remember the Dead; Work for Peace,” and participated in informational presentations to increase public awareness.   

There have been times when membership has been very small and interest waned.  Thoughts of dissolving the group were raised.  However, stalwarts expressed the belief that there needed to be the continued local presence of this group to serve as a witness for peace and examine non-violent approaches to conflict.  Members did not give up, and the CPJ has been in existence for over 35 years.  For the future, the group hopes to continue and grow with increased involvement of college students and younger members to address the questions of war and injustice.  

Local Fulbright Scholar Sees Need, Takes Action

| Submitted by admin on July 31, 2005 - 9:42am.
(Published in the Summer 2005 issue of the CPJ Newsletter)
Susan Besemer, director emeritus of SUNY Fredonia’s Reed Library and Fulbright Senior Specialist, knew that the purpose of her 2004 Fulbright grant at the Royal Academy of Cambodia would be to teach library management. She did not know that she would become the creator of a program to build a needed reference collection for this university located in the capital city of Phnom Penh.

During her six week assignment, Susan worked closely with library colleagues at the Royal Academy and made recommendations regarding collection development, the use of electronic resources, and other aspects of library science. She also saw the profound needs in Cambodia. One of the poorest nations in the world, the average income is $280 per year. In the latter part of the 20th century, Cambodia suffered tremendous hardships. The death and destruction of the Vietnam War linger to this day. Although demining efforts are underway, landmines are still common. In 1975, Cambodia endured one of the most horrific episodes in human history. The Khmer Rouge regime, under the leadership of Pol Pot, took over the government and proceeded to exterminate almost two million Cambodians. Especially targeted were educated, professional, and religious citizens, as well as centers of learning. For example, approximately 75% of the National Library’s staff was assassinated and most of its books were destroyed, as were the holdings of the National Archives. After several years, with the death of Pol Pot and the help of the United Nations, the government is now a democratic constitutional monarchy striving to foster education of the population.

At the Royal Academy, Susan saw that the students needed a useful reference collection, which financial resources were unable to provide. She began to think of how she could help. She created the Naga Project for Libraries. (Nagas are benevolent creatures in Buddhist mythology. One is on the logo of the Royal Academy.) Recent, superceded editions of relevant reference books in good condition are donated from libraries and publishers, and funds for shipping are collected. (It costs $1.00 to ship a book.) Friends of Reed Library help sort, evaluate, and catalog the books, which are then sent to the Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia warehouse in San Francisco. There they are packed and shipped to Phnom Penh. Through this coordinated effort, 394 books with a cumulative value of over $13,000 have been collected and shipped. Sue’s goal is for 1,000 books to reach the library of the Royal Academy.

Susan’s goal is also to increase awareness of the needs of developing countries. Those needs include information and education. To quote Susan, “If knowledge is power, the positive influence of libraries can create much good in our world.”

Susan has agreed to speak at a meeting of the Center for Peace and Justice in the fall. Please look for future announcements about the date and location.

For additional information about the Naga Project, see www.ideafusion.biz/NagaProject.
You may also be interested in Room to Read (www.roomtoread.org), an organization that builds libraries and schools for young students in developing countries. The SUNY Fredonia community has contributed to this project. Its founder, John Wood, was the Maytum Convocation speaker in April 2005.

For more information about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia see:
www.yale.edu/cgp
www.dithpran.org/killingfields.htm

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