Drums of Life

We all love a parade. As a child, I would watch every parade in our barrio with great awe and enchantment. It evoked in me feelings of triumph and a sense of victory. Perhaps, it is the mass of people moving in one direction heads up and eyes fixed. I enjoyed no end the symphony expressed in synchronized movements of hundreds of swaying hands and moving feet.

However, the magic of parades may be more because of the drums playing. The drums dictate the cadence of the parade, and also the mood. The drums make a big difference, say, between a fiesta and a funeral. People walk or stride the way the drums are played.

Life is like a parade. Drums are played by whomever, or whatever, holds the key to power. Drums, or the cadence of life, are played by the dominant, the articulate, the financier, the righteous, the majority or the party in power. The parade is theirs. There is no place for a different drum.

In the maiden issue of this humble weekly born out of the publishers' desire to say a word or two in a society drowning in the cadence of corruption, hypocrisy, arrogance of power and violence, we preferred a barrowed phrase “A Different Drum” to label this space.

“The Different Drum” is a book written by M. Scott Peck (who also wrote “The Road Less Travelled”) which the amiable Board Member Joe Falcon lent us some time ago. In that book, Peck proposed that the only salvation of the human race is the creation of true communities: groups of human beings committed to peace-building. Corruption, poverty, arms race, war, and many others are stark anti-theses to peace.

For M. Scott Peck, peacemaking must be the first priority of civilization. He says, “Some of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are described as walking blindly down the street after the blasts, dragging bundles of their own skin behind them. I am scared for my own skin. I am even more scared for the skin of my children. And I am scared for your skins… I need you, and you me, for salvation. We must come into community with each other. We need each other.”

War begins in the hearts of people. If the annihilation of the human race begins in a violent heart, then it has already begun. The good news is that, peace also begins in the human heart.

Truly, something is terribly wrong with our times. A great illness has struck the land. People manipulate each other every step of the way, to prevail and dominate. Friendship is viewed as an investment. Loyalty is to help the boss cover up his acts of corruptions. Public service is nothing but a means to get votes in the next elections. A team player is somebody who will not rock the boat. The decent ones are kept out, and the grafter is promoted. The list is never-ending. And nauseating.

Lately, we have seen many great hearts giving up so much for peace: a father, mother or sister working abroad as domestic helper or construction worker for a better life for their families; a doctor resigning from a government position unable to understand why she has to approve purchases of medicines at double the price; a group of students expelled for speaking out against the corruption of their school head; an aspiring teacher languishing in limbo because she refused to deliver the bribe demanded by a school official; a contractor giving up his trade wondering why government contracts are awarded to a select few. And many more. The list is never-ending. And inspiring.

Without pretending to be any better (I have seen so much corruption and violence in my life and, many times, looked the other way), this corner will attempt to play a different drum. It is the drum that plays for a parade celebrating the little triumphs of peace, or sparks of human compassion, or blazing rage against societal evils. With great faith in the ordinary people struggling to barely survive but never losing their sense of right and wrong, we will attempt to articulate our firm hope that sooner, we could all come together and experience how it is to be true community.

For then, our parades will no longer be a show of force, or in solidarity with the violence of war, or a funeral for a fallen son or daughter, but celebrations of peace, compassion and true humanity.