"[Woman]:" "We need to understand the darkness." "Mostly, we're facing the light." "If we turn around, there's just darkness." "That's not to say that the light doesn't balance it, but it needs to be balanced." "It's hard the other way, but that's where the nourishment is." "That's the womb of potential." "[car passes]" "[###]" "[Velcrow Ripper]:" "When I was a child," "I would choose my dreams each night." "It was like creating my own movie where anything was possible." "My favourite dream brought me on a journey to wondrous lands, with a pet chipmunk that liked to sit in my shirt pocket as we travelled." "Nowadays, my subconscious is running the show, and my dreams are getting darker and darker." "[###]" "[gunshot echoes]" "I live on a paradise island off the west coast of canada." "It's the year 1999." "The millennium is approaching, and though I'm not expecting the apocalypse, every week, there seems to be a new war, another extinct species, diseases running wild, more hungry people." "I've been struck with an underlying sense of fear that I just can't shake." "One night, I dream that I'm awakened with shouts and cries." "Then I'm pushed and shoved into a cattle car filled with starving people." "An old woman sitting next to me sighs," ""it's finally happened." ""we're on our way to the camps." ""so it's our turn now." ""l always thought," ""it's happening to them, not to me, to them." "Always to them."" "In the light of day," "I realize that it's impossible to run away." "So I've decided to take the opposite approach," "I'm running towards." "I'm setting out on a journey that will eventually consume five years of my life and take me to the ground zeroes of the world, searching for possibility in the darkness, for the sacred inside the scared." "[jet passes]" "The first time I flew in an airplane," "I was a nine-year-old Baha'i, on a pilgrimage with my family to the Baha'i holy places of Israel." "I was a little holy roller, with that sparkling, unsullied devotion of the child." "As a Baha'i, I was taught that humanity is on a path of spiritual evolution, similar to the growth of the individual." "Right now, we're in the adolescent phase." "It's 25 years later, and I no longer belong to any one belief system, but as I head out into the world," "I can't help feeling that, like so many kids these days, the planet might not get the chance to grow up." "[Muezzin calling to prayer]" "[Man]:" "They are laughing, you know." "[kids laughing]" "They are kids, laughing." "[speaking another language]" "How do you say that?" "What's that mean?" "Move a bit." "No, no, no, no, no." "[kids all shouting loudly]" "[Ripper]:" "I evade the kids, slip past the the guards, and crawl under a barbed-wire fence into the toxic site of the world's worst industrial disaster, the union carbide pesticide factory." "One night back in 1984, a valve ruptured, releasing a cloud of pesticide gas into the sleeping community." "As many as 8,000 people were killed on the spot, and thousands more continue to die as the years pass." "[Woman]:" "My husband used to work in union carbide, and he knew that there was something deadly going to happen one day." "[lnterpreter]:" "I remember the day before on the Sunday we went very happily because all our family was together." "We were all feasting, and we went in a happy way." "[drumming]" "That day, everyone was stopping us in Bairagarh on Sunday night, and they kept telling us," ""don't go back, stay behind, go tomorrow morning,"" "but my husband had to go to union carbide for his work." "When we came back from there, we went off to sleep." "I put all the children to bed." "I couldn't sleep somehow." "I was very, very restless that night." "I don't know what it was, but something just didn't let me sleep all night." "In the middle of the night, we woke up choking." "I started coughing, and my eyes started watering, and I heard voices outside the house." "People were screaming, "run!" ""run for your life." "There's a deadly gas."" "And we could not run away because all our children were very small." "I remember that morning, when I woke up, and I had my dead son in my arms," "I couldn't even open my eyes to see him, to see the last of him, because my eyes were so swollen, that I had to force them with my fingers." "I remember that there was a tree outside my house which had lovely fruit, and that one tree had gone black the next morning." "[Man]:" "I came in the train, and I went out of the train station, and there were all over, people groaning in pain, and people falling down and fainting." "Hundreds and hundreds of people like this, in pain, and there were some volunteers who were giving some medicine, some food, some water, so I came out of the station, and I joined these volunteers." "After working for a week in trying to provide relief, what was very clear was it was too big." "There were too many people crying out for medical relief and care, and it was impossible for private bodies, or non-governmental bodies to do this, and what was very clear was that-- by that time, it was becoming clear" "that the government would not help people on its own unless it was pressured into doing this, and the third thing that was very clear was that the indian government and the multi-national union carbide were together." "[Ripper]:" "After the disaster," "Union Carbide focused its resources on evading responsibility." "When doctors asked for the ingredients of the pesticide so they could find a way to treat the wounded, the company said it was a trade secret..." "And even as the graveyards and crematoriums were filling with bodies, they insisted it was nothing more than a potent tear gas." "A phase the survivors call "revictimization" began." "[lnterpreter for Mehboob Bi]:" "I'm sure my husband watches me from somewhere, and his soul must be in pain." "He was an educated man, and we wanted us to grow up in a certain way." "There's not a day that goes by when I don't think about the people who I've lost." "This is my youngest, and every time I look at him, and I feel that maybe there is hope, maybe the world isn't that bad, but then my memory keeps going back to the people I have lost in this world." "[Ripper]:" "When you first came here, in that really desperate time, if you can think about a single, sacred moment that comes to mind." "[Satinath Sarangi]:" "I think, for me, the collective spirit is sacred." "The times, like when we set up the first clinic." "Because what had happened was there was 100, 150, 200, a slowly growing number of people who gathered at the Union Carbide gate, and this was one place that was-- people were forbidden to enter," "but that day, something happened, some magic happened." "Wives singing songs and chanting slogans." "Simple women, who maybe wouldn't cross the threshold of their house, they came into the gate and broke the damn gate, broke this old big iron gate, and they just went in, and immediately, it was like..." "You could see, there was not a single person who was crying." "Everyone was so happy that they finally entered." "It had become symbolic." "It didn't mean nothing." "I mean, it didn't affect Union Carbide shares or anything, but just in terms of assertion of power, it was magic, and what, I think the same evening, someone brought wood, someone brought these sheets of iron," "and the whole clinic was ready before you could-- you could even come to terms with what was happening around." "So that was the first clinic in occupied zone inside the factory campus." "[Ripper]:" "Did you have any idea that, 15 years later, you would still be here?" "[Sarangi]:" "No, not at all." "[Ripper]:" "Today, Satyhu and the survivors have created the Sambhavna Clinic, their most ambitious project so far." "It's a center that offers holistic medical care for the gas survivors, at no charge." "For the first time, a combination of ayurvedic medicine, yoga, massage therapy, and western medicine is being used to treat victims of chemical exposure, and it's working." "[Sarangi]:" "This is the happiest time I've had in Bhopal, actually doing something, actually doing something new that's really helping people, and also, at the same, making an impact on this whole area of chemical exposure." "It's not at all a question of leaving Bhopal." ""Sambhavna" means similar feelings, which is compassion." "The name of our clinic suggests that there is possibility if there is compassion." "You can talk to the simplest Bhopal person, and the person will say if you ask him," ""What is your fondest wish?"" "And she will say, "What I have undergone shouldn't happen to anybody."" "80% of them are people living on physical labour, who are not today in the new globalized world, neither in the production stream nor in the consumption stream." "They're not in the market, so they're expendable." "What we're trying to do, again, in our small way, is to assert the right of the expendable to live." "We have a right to live." "[Ripper]:" "A man plunks himself down into my train compartment and says," ""Hey, why aren't you happy?" "You seem unhappy."" "I smile, "I'm just tired, that's all,"" "but he has picked up on something." "I'm sad to be leaving." "Two months ago, Bhopal was just a toxic wasteland." "Now I see a city populated with the inspiring faces of people who refuse to give up." "The plane to Cambodia is deserted." "It's an old Russian model that fills with a thick cloud of odourless white smoke while we sit on the runway." "Apparently this is normal." "I mutter the prayers of all the different faiths I know as we begin our decent towards Phnom Phenh, but we touch down on the cracked pavement of the tiny airport without event." "And I arrange a ride into town." ""Why not go to the killing fields, too? "" "My driver suggests nonchalantly, as if it were just another tourist attraction." "I reply, "Sure." "Why not? "" "A dark mood descends upon me as we scooter down the crowded road towards the horror and genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime, which terrorized Cambodia throughout the '70s." "We pull up outside a muddy field." "Inside is the Toul Sleng concentration camp, where hundreds and thousands and thousands of people were tortured, disappeared." "I find myself questioning my journey." ""What kind of person would travel the world in search of these places? "" "The driver asks me how long I'll be." "I can't say." "How long do most tourists spend?" "My mood brightens as I ride my rented bicycle through the sprawling ruins of Angkor Wat." "There's no place on earth like this." "The giant stone faces of the Buddhas of compassion, crusted with lichen, split by roots, patiently eroding." "[speaking Khmer]" "[Ripper]:" "Can she tell me why?" "[kids laughing]" "[Ripper]:" "A sudden sun shower sends me to seek refuge in a dark sanctuary." "Two monks slip in to share my shelter, fluorescent orange robes glowing." "They soon run out of English as they attempt to explain enlightenment." "They laugh, and with sweeping gestures with the head and to the sky, paint their quests as monks." "It's only recently that they could openly practice their beliefs." "These monks survived the years of Pol Pot, though their families did not." "[speaking Khmer]" "Even the statues were tortured." "Buddha was considered a counter-revolutionary." "The fact that most people in the country were Buddhist was easily dealt with." "Most people in the country were also deemed counter-revolutionaries." "One young monk reaches into his robes to produce a cigarette." "Puffing cheerfully, he explains that they're skipping out of their afternoon meditation." "The sound of music leads to me to a grassy plateau atop the temple complex." "I find a group of musicians who've all lost limbs through land mines, the lasting legacy of war." "There are an estimated three million land mines scattered throughout Cambodia." "Just outside the temple gates of Angkor Wat," "I follow a sign that reads "Land Mine Museum."" "There, I encounter the proprietor of the homespun museum, a man named Aki Rah." "Aki was only five years old when he captured by the Khmer Rouge." "He was taught to fire guns, rocket launchers, to make simple bombs, and because he was small and light, to lay land mines." "When they kill," "like, they kill my friend, they kill my family," "I cannot do anything." "If I angry, they kill me too, so I have to keep quiet." "Make my life safe, and they want me-- you laugh." "I laugh." "Ha, ha, ha, you know." "We cannot say, "no, you not kill my brother, sister, or my father."" "No, we cannot say." "We can look and smile, and just like that, they want." "They say you can't cry." "No." "[Ripper]:" "Aki's father was killed for the crime of being a high school teacher." "His mother was killed for giving extra rice rations to a hungry old man." "Yeah, they make die." "They kill." "Just a little bit do something wrong, they kill." "[Ripper]:" "When the vietnamese invaded," "Aki switched sides and fought against the Khmer Rouge." "When the U.N. finally arrived, he joined them, disarming the very land mines that he himself might have planted." "Today, the international peacekeepers have left, but the job of de-mining Cambodia is far from finished." "Some army, some soldier, they tell me they lay mines around here." "They tell me they started from here and here..." "Have mines, yeah." "They just bury in the ground a little bit." "Not so deep." "Just like this here." "Yeah." "[tapping hard surface]" "Yeah, you hear, "click, click."" "Maybe..." "Yeah, plastic." "Slowly, take the mine like this." "You can do like this..." "Yeah, no problem, like this." "No?" "Yeah, and be careful on the top, but we can do like this, no problem, a little bit, yeah." "Hmm." "And..." "Here, the fuse." "We take the fuse off, and it's safe." "Some days, I clear 50 mines a day, and some days, we clear a hundred mines a day." "Many, many mines." "[Ripper]:" "Aki remains committed to ridding his ravaged country of the deadly devices." "With a simple wooden stick, he wanders the dangerous fields and jungles decommissioning thousands of land mines each year." "It's become his life's work, a way of healing both himself and his broken country." "On my way to the airport, the moto-rickshaw driver asks me if I had a good "holiday in Cambodia."" "I think for a moment before responding." ""You know, I wouldn't call it a holiday, but yes, it was good."" "The sacred did appear." "It was just buried next to a land mine in the jungle." "A man notices me filming the bones of war." "Pointing to the pavement, he says," ""This is where 22 people were killed by a bomb." ""They were simply waiting in line" ""for a few crusts of bread." ""One of our artists has filled in the places" ""where the bombs fell, because we need to remember."" "[Ripper]:" "Amina still lives in that same apartment bordering the infamous snipers' alley with her husband Nejadad." "They're both artists who never stopped creating throughout the four years of the siege of Sarajevo." "Serbs, they're always shooting in one rhythm, you know." "Tum ta-ta-ta tum, tum ta-ta-ta tum." "It's one music phrase, their nation song, you know, and after three times, tum ta-ta-ta tum, they've spent 30 bullets, and their magazine is empty, and I know that they have to put this magazine," "to take a new one to put in the rifle, to, you know, to find..." "And it's a few seconds, you know, and this was a chance for me to run across the street." "[Ripper]:" "Throughout my life," "I've tried to make sense of the world by making art." "For Amina and Nejadad, trapped inside a crumbling city, making art became a tool of survival." "[glass crunching underfoot]" "[Nejadad]:" "When one grenade is thrown on a roof or building, or museum," "I was running to collect some interesting pieces..." "And, in fact, my idea was to transfer, you know, to exchange negative images of the war into a positive celebration of the human soul." "If I just hide against, you know, snipers, against shells," "I'm not sure shall I stay normal, and my work was something as my therapy." "[Nejadad]:" "We were in a space as a prison." "You know, we didn't have freedom, but inside your mind, you were free, without rules, without any borders, and you had the chance to use this freedom." "[flapping of wings]" "[Ripper]:" "During the war, there was only one way to escape Sarajevo, through a secret 800-metre-long tunnel that took you to the airport, controlled by the U.N., and out of range of Serb snipers." "From there, if you had the right papers and enough money, it was only a short flight to freedom." "Today, the guns on the hillsides are gone, but you still need the right papers to get out of here." "A few hours after leaving Bosnia," "I'm already deep in the London underground." "It feels, somehow, too easy." "[underground announcer]:" "Mind the qap." "Mind the qap." "[Ripper]:" "I buy a car in London." "As soon as my foot hits the gas," "I'm seized with a nervous fervour, a sense that the world is too big, and I have to go everywhere, now." "I begin racing around Europe, a day in Auschwitz, half a day in Flanders Fields, a few hours at the spot where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake." "[crowd singing]" "I stop in for a quick miracle at Lourdes." "As is often the case, it takes me a while to recognize the miracles I receive." "First, my video camera is stolen from the car, and then, a few day later, the car itself is stolen, and I'm left on the street without even a coat on my back." "My frantic rushing has been brought to a sudden stop." "In the silence that emerges," "I realize that I had become a tourist of darkness." "I was filling my pockets with images while leaving my heart untouched." "The Sufis would say I had lost my grace." "Then they might add, "die, before you die."" "I need to go inwards." "I begin studying with the Sufis of Turkey, and the Tibetan Buddhists, exiled in India." "[Gong rings a hollow note]" "[small bells ring, a horn blows]" "From the outside, meditation can look like escapism." "I soon discover that it's the opposite." "As the weeks pass, every demon I've tucked away comes up to say hi." "I learn not to push them away or feed them or become them or studiously ignore them." "In Buddhism, everything that happens in life, even death, is seen as an opportunity for awakening." "The Tibetans I live with embody this spirit of resilience." "Chased from their homeland by the Chinese occupiers, many of them have spent over 40 years in the refugee camps of India, yet they have managed to recreate their culture in exile, keeping it alive and vibrant." "[firecrackers pop]" "[bell rings rhythmically, monk speaking quietly]" "After a day of meditating under the Bodhi tree," "I go out to get my shoes, only to discover that they're gone." "Naturally." "I walk out of the temple complex onto the dusty streets, embarrassed by my bare feet." "The locals will probably think" "I'm some kind of gringo renunciant, trying to lead a pure life unburdened by shoes." "When I arrive back at the monastery, the monks laugh and tell me a story." "Ryokan was a hermit who lived a simple life in a simple hut at the foot of a mountain." "One night a thief broke in, only to find there was nothing to steal." "Ryokan said, "You may have come a long way to visit me," ""and you shouldn't return empty handed." "Please, take my clothes."" "The thief was bewildered but took the clothes and slunk away." "Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon." ""Poor fellow," he mused," ""l wish I could give him this beautiful moon."" "[announcer speaks to crowd] [horns blow]" "So, uh... [laughs]" "I lost this sentence." "Oh, uh..." "The next sentence-- no." "No." "[laughs]" "[Ripper]:" "After six months," "I decide it's time to get off the cushion and back into the world." "Humans are the only creatures that know we will die..." "As much as we try to avoid the thought." "We used to be able to find a measure of comfort, a sense of immortality in the marks we might leave in the world, through our works, or our children." "At 8:15 a.m. On August 6th in 1945, humanity lost its illusion of immortality." "It's dawn, August 6th, 2000." "In a few hours, it will be the anniversary of the day we dropped the first atomic bomb." "The Hibakushas, the A-bomb survivors, arrive early, memories flooding back as they sit in silent prayer." "For a decade after the blast, they were denied the right to tell their stories, shamed into silence." "It was a second act of violence." "Kae Goh Ogura was just a little girl playing in the streets of Hiroshima on that awful day." "She was also told to be quiet." "[Woman]:" ""You shouldn't complain." ""Many people had the same experience." "You are not special," they said." "Then we tried to forget, not to tell our story." "10 years later, when we had the bikini atoll nuclear test, too..." "And we were so surprised, and we became so desperate." "That was the end" "Japan was the end of nuclear war, but, oh, they are still producing nuclear weapons." "Do they know what a dreadful, miserable day that we had?" "We need to tell our story." "[Ripper]:" "As darkness falls," "Ianterns of memory are released on the Otogawa River." "Hiroshima no longer tries to forget." "For Kae Goh Ogura, the act of telling and retelling her story has become a way to transform her tragedy into a force of change." "I was eight years old." "I clearly remember that..." "The steps I climbed up once." "I tried to see the whole city, and behind my house there was a shrine on the hill and stone steps." "Each step, people were dying." "Those dying people squeezed my leg, caught my ankle." "I was so scared." "Everybody was shouting, "help, help."" "I saw the city." "The city was just dark." "Black and red." "In flame." "Trees were burning." "People were asking, "Water, get me water."" "so I wanted to give those dying people-- to give water, but as soon as they drank water, died..." "In front of me." ""Water, get me water."" ""Water, get me water."" "We need to know each other." "I'm one of the A-bomb nuke survivors." "I experienced this, so I can understand other people's sorrow and agony." "[Ripper]:" "After leaving Hiroshima," "I need time to reflect." "I find a sanctuary amidst the graves and stupas of Mt." "Koyasan." "I close my eyes and bring to mind a person I've met on the journey." "Then I imagine breathing in their suffering, in the form of a dark cloud, drawing it into my heart." "As I breathe out, I send them compassion." "Breathe in suffering..." "Breathe out compassion." "[Woman]:" "I'm from Afghanistan, and I'm 20 years old." "And since 20 years, the war has been going on in my country." "Now our country is turned to a cemetery." "Now our people are like moving deads." "They're alive physically, but not mentally." "So there's no beautiful things." "There's no happy experience that I can tell you." "[Ripper]:" "A human reaction in the face of overwhelming suffering is to go numb." "Robert Jay Lifton describes it as like a photographic plate that has become overexposed." "A protective shell is formed that can serve a function, but it comes with a price-- it fogs the rest of reality." "In this drought-stricken summer of 2000, there are four million Afghan refugees around the world, and almost a million more inside the country itself." "I've come to the refugee camps in Pakistan to meet a group called Rawa, the revolutionary Afghan Women's Association." "My guide is a young member who's code name is Zoelya." "I'm covering my face because all Rawa's members are facing danger." "We receiving death threats from the Taliban and other fundamentalists." "These fundamentalists are created and nurtured by other countries." "Foreign countries impose these criminals on our people." "[Ripper]:" "Zoelya leads me through a tiny doorway, into one of Rawa's secret schools for girls." "They run a network of these underground schools, orphanages, and mobile health clinics for women throughout Afghanistan and here in the refugee camps of Pakistan." "For these girls, this is their only chance to get an education." "Whenever they're discovered by the Taliban, they're forced to flee." "Zoelya leads me through another doorway into one of Rawa's underground orphanages for girls." "[Girl]:" "It was about 2:00 in the morning when they came." "I don't know, my father had no fault, and they just came and killed him without any reason." "They took my only brother, about 22 years old." "My mother..." "My mother could not see their situation, and she became mad." "She could not talk now." "She is really-- her situation is very bad." "She is living with my uncle, and he wanted me to sell to someone else, and he did not know how to do it." "Then he asked one of his friends what to do about me." "They were in contact with Rawa, and they brought me here." "I'm very happy that I am here." "My own life would be now very miserable if I was sold to anyone else in kabul or to another country." "[girls laughing]" "[Ripper]:" "Zoelya tells me that she grew up just like these girls, raised and educated by Rawa, after her parents were killed back in 1994 during the cruel regime of the jihadis, known in the west as the Northern Alliance." "[Zoelya]:" "We understand from the word "fundamentalism"-- anti-religious." "They're the enemy of Islam." "[Ripper]:" "Next week, they'll be marching in the streets, and Zoelya invites me to join them, but she warns me, the year before, both the Taliban and the Pakistani secret police attacked the women." "After Zoelya leaves, my eavesdropping hotel manager says," ""you know what the Taliban will do" ""if they find you with them?" ""They'll kill them." ""Then they'll kill you." ""Real dead, not movie dead." "You don't know what you're doing."" "He's right, I don't." "No one knows I'm here in this frontier town on the afghani border." "I could easily disappear." "[men repeating words in unison]" "[boy singing]" "[Ripper]:" "I don't like guns, never have, which is why I probably look so stunned holding this kalashnikov, but the only way the weapons dealer would let me take a picture was if I was in it." "It's the day of the demonstration, and my paranoia is peaking." "Everyone's watching me, and they all seem to be informers." "Finally, in the distance," "I hear the sound of chanting women." "[###]" "The orphans have claimed the front row." "Zoelya appears holding a megaphone and shakes my hand." "Her face is glowing." "She smiles, then disappears back into the crowd of women who began to sing." "Perhaps this is her sacred moment." "I stand there smiling dumbly, as the singing women stream past." "[Zoelya]:" "In that moment," "I felt that I had the power to resist." "Even though I had no gun in my hand, with others, I can resist." "We hope that one day will come that we will be happy in our country." "[airplane captain]:" "Temperature is about 37 deqrees fahrenheit." "Winds are out of the northwest at about 35 miles an hour..." "[Ripper]:" "I'm coming home to North America, but this week, everything has changed." "[Woman]:" "About midday, someone knocked on the door and told us a hysterical, frightening story that there were terrorists all over the country." "I felt fear, absolute fear-- fear for myself and for my loved ones, for people in the city, for the whole world." "Just a kind of fear." "So we sat and meditated, and I opened myself to fear." "Innocent people die!" "If there is a god, where is he?" "Why isn't he defending us?" "Why isn't he helping us?" "Why are we in a mode of, like, we don't know what's going on?" "[Man]:" "A lot of people were talking about" "This was worse than pearl harbor, so I just wrote," ""if this was worse than Pearl Harbor, will we do something worse than Hiroshima?"" "[street preacher]:" "The time is running to the end." "The time is running to the end!" "[preacher continues]" "My lord jesus, won't you come?" "[Ripper]:" "I emerge above ground at Canal Street, the farthest the subway runs these days." "A heavy odour tells me I'm getting closer." "It's an acrid stench of burning buildings, a toxic stew of asbestos, plastic, pcbs, dust, and ash." "Ash..." "I cough on the thick air, and realize with a jolt that I'm breathing particles of the dead..." "Like all new yorkers these days." "The practice of breathing in suffering and out compassion becomes quite literal." "I walk a few blocks uptown to meet with the Buddhist teacher and zen peacemaker" "Sensei Enkyo." "Her quiet sanctuary is immersed in the smoke of ground zero." "[Enkyo]:" "I was down there the other day, and it was filled with tourists." "Now, one could take the tack that there was something wrong or inappropriate about their going there, but I didn't think so at all." "My sense was people wanted to be close to this place of great suffering so that they could connect, in their hearts, with their own vulnerability." "[people singing]" "[Ripper]:" "In the weeks following 9/11," "Sensei Enkyo, like many New Yorkers, has taken refuge at Union Square Park." "Where times square is the domain of the corporation," "Union Square is the place of the people." "Some of you may think it's very disrespectful of me to stand here with this, identifying myself as a middle eastern, as a muslim." "No, not at all." "[crowd cheers agreement]" "Yesterday, two girls, 12 and 13 years old, wearing the headscarf, were beaten to death." "I just want to tell people I understand what's going on." "In our countries, we live what you just went through every day." "We know what it means to go out on the street and be afraid that a bomb is going to explode on us." "[people singing]" "[Woman]:" "I've been here every day until I get tired." "4:00, 5:00, 6:00 in the morning, I don't care." "The reason I keep the candles lit is people need to face reality." "There's still people over there." "There's still bodies." "There's still pieces everywhere, and we need to continue mourning." "Even if the park continues to take it down," "I'll continue coming here and lighting them up, and I keep them lit because I want people to come here and sit down and cry." "A lot of people haven't cried yet." "This is a memorial for people who died." "Yes." "Yes, it is." "People who died." "5,000 people who died." "Right." "You go speak to Kabul." "See if they'll listen to you over there." "I already said, "War is not good."" "Well, then, why are we in a war?" "But" "We're in one." "You say it's not good, but we're in it." "All right, let's lose it." "Let's lose it!" "You've got people there who've been trained from the time they're 10 years old-- you have people there who are starving-- to be murderers!" "...so our our people!" "Our people died!" "Don't you understand?" "Our people died!" "What should we do, ring bells?" "No." "No." "Oh, and say, "oh, everybody love each other?"" "No." "No." "No." "No." "What we can do" "Oh yeah, I'm going to ring your bell." "Hey, hey, come on." "[Enkyo]:" "One can't just squash that reaction of anger." "One has to listen to it, and really examine, what are we really angry about?" "We are not living in a bubble that is separate from the terror and violence, the institutionalized violence, that goes on all over this world..." "And I think this country has been living in a bubble for a long time, not realizing that we're a part of it, that in many ways, we contribute to the conditions that cause this." "[Ripper]:" "We are on an island under siege." "Everything is called into question." "Anthrax is appearing in mailboxes." "The army patrols the streets." "Yesterday, the fbi issued a warning that another attack was expected." "There's a fear that terrorists will use the confusion of Halloween to strike again." "The police department is sending every cop it can spare onto the streets to protect us from the invisible enemy." "God bless America." "If Osama were here, what do you think he'd be dressed up as?" "If he were smart, he wouldn't be here, but if he were here, he'd probably be dressed as me." "Safest thing to be right now in this great land of ours." "Well said." "Thank you." "[toy guns click with simulated gunfire] [girls laugh]" "He's the one-eyed monster." "Kill the one-eyed monster." "[Ripper]:" "That'd be me." "Oh, taxi!" "He won't stop." "Oh, cause we're, like, wearing guns and stuff, right?" "That's discrimination." "[Ripper]:" "The soldiers scare me, but the angels, the angels are glorious." "I am an angel hunter, running down the street at the distant flash of luminous wings." "[Reverend]:" "when they rushed to their cellphones..." "When they knew that something terrible was happening in the jets and in the towers, and they dialed their loved ones, or sometimes they just ended up getting an operator and talking to them," "They said, "l love you." "I will never forget our life together."" "then that came to us, didn't it?" "Do you remember?" "Even your hippest, most irony-ridden friends." "Yeah!" "Because somehow, all of a sudden, they were essentially looking you in your eye, you were looking them in their eye, you were hugging each other, and you were saying, "boy, this is great we're alive." "We value these moments,"" "and we were doing that here in Union Square with each other." "[###]" "[Enkyo]:" "If you were to look at it from a global point of view, through time and space, you would see that actually what has happened here is a gift." "Hard thing to say, difficult thing to say and to really appreciate, but if ordinary human beings in the world can see their own suffering and can really feel their own vulnerability, then perhaps, they become aware" "of the vulnerability and suffering of others." "That's what going to a sacred place, going to a place where great suffering has taken place, that's what that's about." "It's going there and opening yourself completely to your own vulnerability and to pain, and acknowledging it, and not blocking it out." "That's the transformative moment." "When you begin to see that you're not separate from any of the people involved in the situation, and then change can happen." "That's why people need to go to Hiroshima, Nagasaki." "They need to go to Cambodia, and now, here." "[doors creaking]" "[singing]" "[Ripper]:" "The plane to Kabul is packed with pilgrims returning from the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca." "Afghanistan unfurls below me." "Bombs are still falling on buildings that have already been bombed, again and again." "I've been drawn here." "I want to see if there's any spark of hope to be found in Zoelya's country today." "On my way into town, the taxi driver fills me in on the latest." ""a rocket just exploded." ""usually, there's two or three a week." ""the rest of the country is much worse." ""be careful filming the tanks that the Americans bomb," ""they're infected with this, how do you say," ""depleted uranium." ""if you must, film the Russian ones," ""and whatever you do," ""don't film the American soldiers." ""they'll think your camera is a gun," ""but most especially," ""be aware of the traffic." ""we Afghanis don't like to listen very much to the traffic police."" "[car horn honks]" "He deposits me on a muddy side street, and I move my things into gandamak lodge, famous for being the Kabul home of Osama Bin Laden." "During the time of the Taliban, this place was empty, its movies banned, as was a long list that included dancing, wearing white socks, fireworks, and kite flying." "Today, you could show as many films here as you like, except there's no projector, no projectionist, and no audience." "[Ripper]:" "One morning, I receive an e-mail from the Revolutionary Afghan Women's Association." "Zoelya is alive and well, but she can't meet me because it could put her at risk." "They're still receiving death threats." "Not long ago, one of their schools for girls was burnt to the ground." "[girl reading aloud]" "Arundhati Roy recently said," ""Did we really think we could bomb our way into a feminist paradise? "" "The old jihadis are back at the helm," "Shariah Law is alive and well, and Rawa is as crucial to Afghanistan's future as it ever was." "[man sings]" "CBC?" "No, just tourist." "Huh?" "Tourist." "[Ripper]:" "Back in the refugee camps of Pakistan," "I was told a story about a man from Afghanistan-- a singer, a sufi, once known as a great musician, but because of the Taliban, he was prevented from performing or even listening to music," "but he couldn't live without music." "One day, he discovered a way out." "They had said nothing about owning birds." "So he began to gather songbirds, selecting them not for their plumage, but for their melodies." "Soon his house became filled, once again, with song." "[birds sing]" "I set out in search of the bird man." "I don't know his name, or even where he's from, but nonetheless, I head for the bird bazaar of Kabul, hoping that someone has heard of his story." "The first person I talk to has never heard of the bird man, but he offers me tea." "I wander back and forth across the market." "No one's heard of this man." "The last person I speak to politely explains that I'm in the bird bazaar." "Since I'm looking for a musician, perhaps I should go to the musicians' bazaar." "In the musicians' bazaar, the first shop I enter is that to Youssef Kadiri, whose family has been making lutes for over 400 years." "He's not heard of the bird man, but thinks his brother might know of another sufi musician who was also forbidden to play." "My quest takes a left turn, but I follow it along." "[Ripper]:" "The next thing you know," "I'm on the way to this unknown Sufi's house." "Here's my father." "We're not in the way?" "No problem." "Come on." "Nice to meet you, sir." "[chuckling]" "[Ripper]:" "After four years of exile," "Sarwar Jan was finally able to return to what was left of his home." "He says that we will make a very good thing which will shake the world." "[all laughing] [plays lute]" "[man sings melancholy tune]" "[man]:" "There's a teaching that sees a person or a people going sometimes to a very, very dark-- and seemingly very far away from life, and yet, that this is seen as a preliminary fall for a subsequent, much higher rising" "beyond where you were before you fell." "That cycle..." "With tremendous trepidation and hesitation, can also be looked at with the Holocaust." "It's a dangerous one because people will say, "ah, justification," ""and so it was all for the good." "Let's go out and kill a few more," you know." "That's not what this teaching is about." "It's not saying, "go out and seek suffering."" "It's not, "go out and make others suffer," ""lt'll be good for their, you know, psychological, spiritual development,"" "but it's a recognition that often it takes a system breaking down in order for something totally new to come through." "[melancholy song continues]" "[Zeller]:" "Feeling that darkness and sadness and pain, facing, in that sense, the six million... [singing]" "...and lifting it up into that joy." "[song changes to lively tempo]" "Dancing backwards, and leading these souls who went through this very difficult thing..." "To Israel." "[Ripper]:" "The Israeli customs officer hands me back my passport and sighs, "all right, you can go through," ""but I'm afraid you probably won't find those stories of hope in this country."" "[singing]" "[Ripper]:" "I was raised with the understanding that all religions, like all of humanity, come from the same source." "As a nine-year-old Baha'i on a pilgrimage," "Israel felt like a land steeped in devotion." "It was exciting to be in the epicentre of so much faith." "Today, I find myself in a Holy Land that seems more scared than sacred." "[Zeller]:" "Why is it that sacred turns into scared?" "And why do so many people, in the name of what they're calling sacred, go and scare everybody else?" "Or how come so many people who are scared run to what they're calling the sacred as some protection from the scary, but they haven't yet touched on what's really sacred." "They haven't really found that attitude of yira, of awe that, if we really had it, we couldn't possibly treat another person that way." "Hello." "Hello." "[Ripper]:" "By order of the Israeli army," "Israeli citizens are forbidden to pass through the one entrance to Qalkilya, a tiny Palestinian market village that has suddenly found itself completely encircled by the wall." "[Qalkilya man]:" "We are separated from nearby villages, we are separated from our water, we are separated from our land, we are separated from hospitals." "So we feel, here," "like a noose is around our neck." "People feel hopeless." "They feel despair, and some people start shifting to the extremist parties, to the religious parties and their support of bombing, suicidal and violent activities." "[Ripper]:" "As I stand in the shadow of the wall which, if Israel has its way, may one day snake through 700 miles of Palestinian land," "I have a sinking sensation." "Perhaps that customs official was right." "[gunshot]" "I hope they are not shooting toward us." "Someone is shooting." "Are they shooting towards us?" "Seems to be..." "The towers." "[gunshots ricochet]" "[Ripper]:" "Well, we'd better get out of here." "Next shot could be at us." "Could be directed towards us." "They are here at the gate now." "[bomb blasts]" "[Ripper]:" "Fuck!" "Towards us." "What happened is, there is a soldier in the tower." "He just went in down, and he just threw the..." "And then dropped the bomb." "Just to make sure, like, that's it, we are out of here." "It worked." "It worked!" "Come on, we are far away from the wall." "It's the first time for me in my life, standing that distance between me and the wall." "Yeah, very dangerous, and look at Velcrow, he's really scared." "You know, he's hiding, there, you know?" "You saw the way that he ran over there?" "Yeah, he ran all the way." "[Ripper]:" "As I fled from the wall," "I experienced the phantom sensation of a bullet entering my back." "I wouldn't have been the first documentary filmmaker to be killed in the Holy Land." "What if one of my friends had been shot?" "What if it was my child?" "Would I want to strap a bomb to my body and take revenge?" "Thursday, 3:00 in the afternoon, my wife called me." "She told me that there was a bombing in the centre of Jerusalem, and I said to her, "it's nothing." "Don't pay any attention,"" "and then you find yourself running in the streets." "You keep hoping that this dreadful finger will not turn towards you this time." "Your blood runs cold, and little by little, you understand that this finger, this very finger, is stuck right between your eyes." "Much later that evening, you find yourself in the morgue, and you see a sight that you will never, ever be able to forget for the rest of your life, and there..." "From that moment on, you're a whole different person." "You change completely." "Set of values, perspectives, everything." "Your genes change." "You come back home, and you're alone, and you have to look at yourself in the mirror." "Where are you going to take this new and unbearable pain?" "What are you going to do with the rest of your life now that you are a different person?" "And there are only two alternatives." "The one is the obvious, and the natural, and the way that most people choose, which is the way of retaliation and revenge, because when someone kills your 14-year-old little girl, you are very, very angry, and you want to get even." "This is natural." "This is only natural." "[Ripper]:" "Posters of the dead are plastered over the walls of the Palestinian village of Bethlehem." "One image keeps reappearing throughout the town." "I learn that she's a little girl named Christine." "Her parents are George and Najwa," "Christian Palestinians who live here in Bethlehem." "[George]:" "We were driving at 6:30, going shopping..." "And suddenly, we saw three jeeps, army jeeps, parking outside, with no soldiers around." "They were ambushing two wanted people from Hamas." "They had the same type of car that we were driving in, so we came at the same time..." "And suddenly, they start raining us with bullets, and they killed my daughter, Christine." "She was sitting there on the floor in our..." "Old car." "She was laughing, and she was very happy going to the store." "The floor, it was like a pool of blood." "My hand, to here, it's with blood, when I went to hold her." "I can't believe it, and now, I can't believe that I was there." "That I, Najwa-- she wants to help her daughter." "I can't believe that I hold her." "I can't believe it." "[Elhanan]:" "You start to think, will killing someone else will bring back my baby?" "Will causing pain to someone else ease my pain in any way?" "Of course not." "And it takes time, a long time, to choose the other way." "The other way is the way of understanding why did it happen, how could such a thing happen, and the most important thing, what can you do now that you have the burden on your shoulders to prevent it from happening to others?" "[George]:" "That was beautiful, what you said, that you have this forgiveness for them." "[Najwa]:" "I never think in hate or in anger." "I'm always forgiving anybody." "Like Jesus said on the cross," ""forgive them, father, because they don't know what they're doing."" "Yes." "These people, they don't know what they're doing." "Just, I want to see his face, who killed Christine, now, but I'm going to tell him that, "Just look at my face and remember Christine's face when she was dying."" "[Ripper]:" "David Damelin was not a soldier at heart." "He was just a young man doing his enforced military duty." "He'd been a leader of the student peace movement and was on his way to joining a group called the Refuseniks, soldiers that refused to serve in the occupied territories." "One day, at a remote checkpoint, he was shot and killed by a Palestinian sniper." "After David..." "After David was killed, I went to try and run away, and I discovered that you really can't run away." "You know, it just goes with you wherever you go." "I went to speak to a psychologist, and she said, "you are now free,"" "and I was horrified." "I said, "What do you mean?"" "She said, "look, you know, you can do wonderful things" ""because you've got no fear." "What else could happen to you?"" "I really wanted to put energy into making a difference, and the making a difference, for me, is this..." "Looking for a way to have a dialogue with the Palestinians." "I think that Israelis and Palestinians have got so much more in common than they know." "[Ripper]:" "In the wake of their loss," "Robi, George, Najwa, and Rami all made the decision to join a remarkable group of Palestinians and Israelis called the Bereaved Families Circle." "[Elhanan]:" "All the activities of this organization, which are many activities, are designed to put cracks on this very high wall of hatred and fear that divide our two nations, and we will knock it down, eventually." "[Damelin]:" "We had this telephone line between Palestinians and Israelis, and since 2003, we've had something like..." "600,000 people have spoken." "It's a way of having dialogue, because everything that we do is geared towards dialogue." "It's getting to know the person behind the stigma." "[Elhanan]:" "About a year and a half ago, when the number of dead reached 1,200, we put, in front of the u.n. Building in New York," "1,200 coffins, covered with Israeli and Palestinian flags." "It's an unbelievable sight." "When you show a picture of your child who was killed, he suddenly becomes a human being." "You know, I've showed David's picture to many Palestinian mothers, and when I look at their children, if look at Christine, Najwa's daughter, and that's looking at a human being, seeing who they are." "[Najwa]:" "I don't have any hate for Israeli people." "Only one of them killed my Christine, not all of them." "They are suffering the same, like us." "I don't want anybody to be like me, or in my place at all, any mother." "[Elhanan]:" "We are people, we are human beings." "Our blood is the same colour, our pain is the same pain." "The taste of our tears are as bitter, and if we can reach out for one another, and we can call each other brothers of pain, we can say to the world that if we who paid the highest price possible," "if we can talk to one another, then anyone can, and this really gives you a reason for existence." "[Ripper]:" "It's been half a decade since I first set out on the journey." "Things still don't look very good." "In fact, they look a lot worse." "During my stopover in the U.S.," "I have to remind myself to breathe." "It's okay to be unsettled." "That's what's inspired me to leave in the first place." "I'm beginning to feel that each of the sacred places has stripped away another layer from the thick hide I used to think I needed to be safe." "I've seen, with stark clarity, the pain that is everywhere, but this no longer fills me with dread." "Instead, it allows me to see each face as my own." "The people I've met have shown me that there's one thing that no one can lose" "It's the freedom to choose the way we respond to whatever comes our way." "["Amazing Grace" by Ani Difranco plays]" "# 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear # # and grace that fear released # # how precious, how precious # # did that grace appear # # the hour I first believed #" "# Through many dangers # # toils and snares #" "# I have already come # # and it is grace # # that brought me safely # # thus far # # and it is grace # # that will lead me home # # when this heart # # and flesh shall fail #" "# and mortal life # # shall cease #" "# I shall possess # # within the veil # # a life of joy and peace #" "# Amazing Grace # # how sweet the sound ##"