THE
VigilanceVoicev
Monday-- May 6, 2002—Ground
Zero Plus 237
Vigilance vs. Protestors Of Terrorism
by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News
GROUND ZERO, New York City,
May 6--Terrorism has many faces. Some days it takes on the
appearance of Vigilance.
That was how I felt yesterday at the
54th Anniversary Parade of the Jewish State. It was held in
New York City where an estimated 500,000 people lined 5th Avenue as Israel
supporters marched and cheered while anti-war and Palestinian protestors booed and ranted.
I went uptown early and took a prime seat
on a bench in front of FAO Schwarz's toy store. It seemed ironic
that one of the world's happiest and most peaceful toy stores was the site
of the start of one of the biggest confrontations of war and peace.
Protestors were
lined up on one side of the street at the corner of 59th and 5th Ave.
They were herded into a central arena, surrounded by a mass of mounted and foot
police who could keep a watchful eye. Bomb sniffing dogs patrolled
the area with their K-9 NYPD handlers and I'm sure SWAT teams were hidden
out of sight, their rifles and sniper's scopes at the ready in case of an outbreak
of violence between protestors or a possible Terrorism attack.
Placards on both sides flashed angry
messages. Voices jeered one another as pro-Palestinian and anti-war protestors railed about
driving out the Israelis from Palestine. Countering their cries and
chants was the Jewish contingent who
retaliated with cheers of support and glorification of the Jewish State.
It is hard to describe all the mud
slung from both sides, so I have elected to show a number of pictures I
took of the event and let you chose how you feel.
What struck me hardest about the event was
the number of children who accompanied their parents. Perched on
their parents' shoulders, they were inundated with the visions and sounds
of the anger and resentment hurled between the pro and anti forces,
facing each other on opposite sides of the street, absorbing the
machine-gunned invectives that cleaved any hope of reconciliation.
I thought of how a child's soul must harden
itself with hate and anger, absorbed through these emotions from his or
her parents toward another group of peoples, and how the deep roots of
hatred is seeded in a child's innocence. As that child grows, those
roots don't disappear. In some cases they thicken and gnarl
themselves around the rocks of hate, fear, anger, resentment and, often,
culminate in violence toward others who represent the root of the hatred
their parents passed on to them through their actions, their words, their
prejudices.
I only hoped the Parents of Vigilance on
both sides sat their children down either before or after the event, and
explained to them that whatever was going to happen that day was not how
the world should be. And, that what "mommy" and "daddy" might
say in a heated moment should not necessarily become their children's way
of thinking. That instead, they, the children, should make up
their own minds as time passed how they felt about who was right and who
was wrong.
Let the pictures tell the story.
