Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1982. január-június (36. évfolyam, 1-25. szám)
1982-01-21 / 3. szám
2 Thursday, Jan. 21. 1982. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ SPEAK UP ISAIAH! “Poland, Christ statue struck by lightning, around your blackening wounds circles the July sunlight your bones constantly kissed by flies. I suffer you...’' From the poem: To Poland, by Sándor Csoori In its January 9th issue the New York Times published the powerful poem of Sándor Csoori about the agony of the Polish people. Csoóri, one of the outstanding contemporary writers of Hungary has, thus, overnight become the best-known Hungarian poet in the United States. Such popularity, as the saying goes, must be deserved. ‘ Csoori ’s dramatic statement is a moving reflection of the anxieties permeating millions of Hungarians and millions in other lands concerning the situation in Poland. It is obvious however that the anxietv of mankind in our time is not centered exclusively around Poland, grave as the situation there may be. People all over the world are concerned over the ominously deteriorating international situation highlighted by Washingtons’ unilateral decision to manufacture the neutron bomb, the contemplation of the use of atomic weapons, the discussion of the possibility of waging “limited” nuclear war. The millions that have demonstrated in practically all capitals of Europe are eloquent proof of the widespread concern of the people about the danger of thermonuclear holocaust. The poets of Hungarv have always concerned themselves with the burning issues of their times. Sándor Petőfi, the greatest of them, as we know, wished that when he dies, he should die on the battlefield, for the liberation of mankind from oppression, from autocracy. Miklós Radnóti, a victim of nazi genocide, also looked beyond the confines of his native land when he cried “I lived on this earth in an age when man fell so low he killed willingly, for pleasure, without orders, mad obsessions penetrated their lives.” Another martyred Hungarian poet, Attila József, draws a strong portrait of global misery: “Oppressors crow on the living carcass of the heart, and poverty dribbles around the world like saliva on the face of an idiot...” Today we live on an earth were poverty still “dribbles around”, where 300 million people are unemployed, 550 million people are illiterate, 700 million people are undernourished, 900 million people have incomes of less than 30 cents a day and where 30 million people die every year of starvation. (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Jan. 1982.) Where is the poet to bevail the universal inferno? Miklós Radnóti felt that to condemn a world in which such and similar horrrors still exist, one should call upon Isaiah, the “scholar of terrifying words,” to speak again as only he could deliver the right curse. We hope that after Radnóti, József and Csoóri, a poet would emerge somewhere in the world who would utter, in the spirit of Isaiah, the curse for those responsible for the crisis in Poland, for the world wide poverty, for the decades of massacres in Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Turkey, Vietnam, San Salvador, Nicaragua and Haiti, for the unrelieved slavery of tens of millions of Blacks in South Africa. Or, who knows, maybe the curse has already been uttered but somehow it did not make the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. Zoltán Deák A MINISTER SPEAKS UP From the Akron Beacon Journal. The words poured out and the priest’s strong voice rose. He was frustrated, he said, because words could only touch the surface of what he had seen. “When I talk about this subject, I get emotional. It bums my innards out. I see people dying all over the place.” ■ After 30 years in Central America, the Rev. Albert Reymann does nót mince wards. The region is beiqg torn apart, he said — and the United States is playing a key rojje in the destruction, a role that is reminiscent of its Vietnam policy of the 1960s. The Akron native contends the U. S. government has concocted a dangerous foreign policy based on a false premise: Soviet influence will spread through Latin America like a contagious disease. “In truth,” he said, “if you want communism in Central America and all of Latin America, keep up with what you’re doing now, and you’ll get it.” Reymann, 61, a Maryknoll priest, is in Akron for the holidays. He has spent five years in El Salvador and 25 in Guatemala, working with poverty-stricken peasants and Indians in remote villages. THIS YEAR, because of illness, he was Ordered to return to the United States. He hopes to be back in Central America in the spring. Until then, he is living in Philadelphia and speaking to East Coast audiences about Central America. Reymann’s talks rend U. S. policy toward the two countries in which he has spent most of his adult life. The United States has made communism a false issue, one that may backfire by pushing those seeking freedom toward the Soviet Union, Reymann said during an interview at a niece’s' home in Ellet. He said he never encountered a communist during his 30 years in El Salvador and Guatemala. “There are more communists in Summit County than thére are in Central America,” he said. “It’s a horrible injustice to pick on El Salvador and make it the meeting place between East and ‘/n truth, if you want communism in Central America and all of South America, keep up what you're doing now and you'll get it.' —The Rev. Albert Reymann West. It’s not guilty of it.” WHILE REYMANN recuperates, he maintains almost daily contact with Latin America. Clashes betweeni government and opposition forces in El Salvador are growing, he said, and the opposition forces — whom he called “freedom fighters” — are gaining ground. In El Salvador, a country the size of Massachusetts, guerrilla forces control about one-third of the territory. Reymann said he does not expect the Salvadoran junta headed by President Jose Napolean Duarte to survive. Elections scheduled for March are viewed as “a farce” by most people because opposition candidates have been barred, the priest said. He predicted that the Salvadoran opposition will win the civil war within six months; their Guatemalan counterparts, in one year — unless the United States intervenes. THE PRIEST is worried about that. Based upon what he has seen of U. S. policy so far, he said he fears the seeds are planted for another Vietnam: • U. S. aid — “It buys military hardware. I’ve never seen aid getting down to the people.” • U. S. military advisers — “They’re the guys behind the guys pulling the triggers.” • Agrarian reform — “It has never happened. The government sells the worst land to peasants at rates they can’t afford.” Reymann, a political scientist, sees the struggle in Central America not as a U. S.-Soviet showdown, but as a challenge to U. S. hemispheric domination. The priest said Latin nations are evolving economically and politically and their resentment of U. S.-backed military governments is growing. The changes may result in socialist countries in Central America because the people associate U. S. democracy with their subjugation, Reymann said. “We have to learn to be comfortable with socialism,” he said. “In no way will these countries go democratic.“ THOSE who survive the political turmoil seldom live beyond 40 because of disease and hunger, the priest said. Nearly half of the children die before the age of 5. Young Guatemalan boys continue to be arrested and forced into the army. Reymann also said there is torture: men hung by their genitals, women by their breasts. “We’ve had a lot of people just blown apart. Others are kidnapped. They disappear, which means they’re dead.” Reymann worked in the hills and small Indian “pueblos,” or villages, serving as parish pastor. Using a horse or pickup truck, he would drive around the vast parish of up to 50,000 people He continually held leadership, or "conscious-raising,” classes, getting people to think about their lack of food, health care, housing and limited future. “The bottom line,” he said, “was always, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ “CHRISTIANITY, if it’s anything, is political, economical, social. It says you’re a free person. You have a destiny that is not to be a slave.” Priests in Guatemala and El Salvador have died for teaching that. Reymann knew Bishop Oscar Romero, the murdered Salvadoran church leader who had urged his countrymen to seek a better life. There are places to which Reymann cannot return because his life would be in danger. But he is ready to go back to Central America. AMERIKAI , MAGYAR SZO USPS 023-980 ISSN 0194-7990 Published weekly, exc. last week in July and 1st 2 weeks in August by Hungarian Word,Inc. 130 E 16 St. New York, N.Y. 10003, Ent. as 2nd Class Matter, Dec. 31. 1952 under the Act of ■«March 21.1879, at the P.O. of New York, N.Y. Szerkeszti a Szerkesztő Bizottság Előfizetési árak az Egyesült Államokban egy évre $ 18.— félévre $ 10.— Kanadaban és minden más külföldi országban egy évre $ 20.— félévre $ 12.— Postmaster {Send address changes to; Hungarian Word,Inc. 130 E 16 St. New York, N.Y. 10003.
