Long Live Zinn

M uch will and should be written about Howard Zinn’s contributions to the world: how his A People’s History of the United States changed how many of us understand America and, like all great histories, shed the greatlightoftruthuponourpresent,explainingwhatcannotbeunderstoodbyofficialpropaganda ;howheplayedapivotalroleinthe civilrightsmovementduringtoughyearswhenhe,likesomanyothers,took enormous physical risks for simply wanting justice; how thousands of people’sliveswerepoliticallytransformedbytheirencounterswithhim. And the personal remembrances of Howard the human being will be no less moving and true. I first met him forty-two years ago, when he and Dan Berrigan passed through Laos on the way to pick up U.S. POWs in Hanoi, andIwasstruckbyhisgenuinedelightinmeetingthericefarmersinthevillage where I was living. Howard was by far the most honest, human, open, kind,generous,gracious,humorous,andcharmingofallthepoliticalpeople I’ve met. He looked you in the eyes. He listened. He reacted appropriately to what you were saying. Looking back on his life, he was as open and honest abouthisregretsandsatisfactionsasanyoneIhaveevermet. But to me there is an even more important aspect of his life—an aspect like that of his friendandcolleagueNoamChomsky—thattranscendsthepersonal. Tomanyofus,“Zinn”and“Chomsky”havenotonlybeenadmirablehumanbeings.They havealsobeensomethingfarmore,somethingdifficulttoputintowords,somethingperhaps evenriskytotrytocapture—butsomethingthat,nonetheless,onefeelsdriventoexpressata momentlikethis. Many of us were upended on the deepest possible level during the 1960s. Growing up in the aftermath of the “Good War,” many of us were the children or grandchildren of immigrantswhobelieveddeeplyintheAmericatowhichtheyowedtheirverylives .Asaresult,we hadaprofoundfaithinAmerica’sgoodnessanddecency.Andwhenwesawbothourleaders and an entire older generation not only betray but also spit upon and destroy these values in what was then known as Indochina, we were undone. When we saw them mercilessly, pitilessly , amorally, criminally, deceitfully, and undemocratically murder millions of innocent civiliansweekafterweek,monthaftermonth,yearafteryearforoveradecade—eachweeka lifetimeofagony—wewerethrownintoanemotional,intellectual,andspiritualabyss,from whichwehaveneverreallyfullyemerged.Ourmoraluniverse—thebasicsetofunderstandingsneededtoremainhuman —wasshattered. It was during those morally chaotic years that Zinn and Chomsky became more than people tomanyofus.Aselderswhodidnotsellout,whoactedaswellastaught,whodidnot compromise, who did not abandon genuine American values and ideals, who did not lose their passion for social justice, who did not fail to side with the poor and downtrodden and victimized,andwhoaboveallspokethetruth,theybecamesomeofourmostimportantsymbolicfigures .Evenifwedidnotalwaysagreewithaparticularposition 28 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 Long Live Zinn by Fred Branfman Howard Zinn, historian and activist, died on January 27, 2010, at the age of eighty-seven. Here he speaks at a rally in Copley Square in Boston on September 23, 2001.© ELLEN SHUB (WWW.ELLENSHUB.COM) (continuedonpage75) Fred Branfman, after four decades of psychological, spiritual, and political work on behalf of the environment, information revolution, and peace, focuses today on cultivating a “life-affirming death awareness,” as described on www.trulyalive.org. Email: fredbranfman@aol.com. FAMILY COURTS/LONG LIVE ZINN M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 75 unmarried parent in our society is also needed. Some advocates for families and I have started talking about a “Commitment to Parenting” ceremony. What if unmarried parents had the chance to stand upintheirplaceofworship(orinaparkor a living room) in front of their loved ones and affirm their commitment to their new child and their commitment to treat each other with respect and cooperation? Spiritualfolksknowthatheartfeltintention isworthmorethananypublicprogram. TheRoutetoReform The ideas I have outlined are all practical steps, grounded in spiritual truths, all imminently doable. We’ve already made progress in this direction: the use of nonlegal professionals to assist parties and advise judges, an emphasis on alternative dispute resolution techniques, better recognition of the important roles played by both parents, and the use of more sophisticated education programs have already made family courts more humane . But the deeper changes that I have proposed will not be easy to implement. The professional skills and instincts of lawyers and judges perfectly mirror the initial impulse of many people in our egocentric , competitive culture to win disputes , not heal them. Legal training and yearsofcourtroompracticehonetheability to deliver the zinging retort intended to demolish an adversary’s position. What Marshall Rosenberg calls “giraffe ears”— ears that can hear behind the critical words of another to identify the needs and feelings expressed so tragically—are not...