JUN YASUDA: MARCHER TO A DIFFERENT DRUM Fri, 4 Feb 2000 01:13:14 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source: People's Tribune/Tribuno del Pueblo (Online Edition) Vol. 27 No. 2/ February, 2000 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.lrna.org SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION JUN YASUDA: MARCHER TO A DIFFERENT DRUM Spirit of the Revolution is printed monthly, and depends on articles, comments, and criticisms from readers. If you have something to contribute, feel free. Contact us: c/o Boxholder, P.O. Box 2166, San Jose, California 95109 or by e-mail at spirit@noc.org by Chris Zimmerman Like most social critics in the 1990s, opponents of the death penalty tend to describe their activism in political terms. Not 52-year-old Jun Yasuda, a Japanese-born Buddhist who moved to the United States in 1978. Campaigns and rallies are important ways of raising consciousness, she says, but the best tool for countering society's ills is prayer. It's December, and a light rain is falling on the dreary landscape at SCI-Greene, the Pennsylvania prison where death-row author Mumia Abu-Jamal has been held since 1995. Jun and two companions are sitting cross-legged in a nylon pup tent at the prison gates, fasting, and chanting to the beat of their broad, flat temple drums. Oblivious to the weather and the nervous patrol keeping watch nearby, they are lost in the soothing cadences of an ancient Buddhist prayer. But when I drive up and ask for an interview, they are happy to pause and talk. After all, they've been here for five days and have two more to go. Sitting down on a heap of damp blankets, I pull out a pad and ask Jun what she and her companions -- Louise-Lara Somlyo of Washington, D.C., and Kasu Haga of Amherst, Massachusetts -- are doing at the prison. She folds her hands, dips them toward me in welcome, and explains: "It's a vigil. We are praying to free Mumia. We are fasting one week. No food, no water. It is a dry fast." And a long one, I think. But as we talk it becomes clear that fasting is nothing new to Jun, and that the stamina needed to undertake such a discipline is something she has built up over many years. In the last two decades Jun has crossed the country five times on foot, beating her drum and praying as she marches. She has fasted in Albany in support of Native American rights; in Portland against the continued buildup of the nation's nuclear arsenal; at Riker's Island in support of humane treatment for prison inmates. She has held vigils in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Washington and Boston, Ithaca and New York. But none of these activities constitutes a protest or campaign, Jun says. To her they are all part of an ongoing vigil to overcome violence and injustice by "reaching the heart." "Everything I do goes from my heart, to other people's hearts. It is a prayer, not a protest." As for this particular vigil, her reasons are simple: "Why is there a prison here? Five hundred years ago there was none. There were only Native Americans living in peace. They had reverence for each other. Now we fear each other. I am here to help people stop fearing each other, and to trust. We need to change the way we think. Putting people in cages is not a solution." What is the solution? I ask her. What's one vote? What can one person do? I think of people I know who moan about events that fall flat because nobody comes -- or ones where hundreds come, but the press never shows up. I'm sure you're not getting a lot of publicity this week, I tell her. Pittsburgh's an hour away. Jun looks up. "You shouldn't care about numbers," she admonishes me. "Numbers don't matter. What matters is your commitment to peace. Gandhi was just one person, and he did very simple things. He walked to the ocean [in protest of a British monopoly on salt]. He fasted. He was one person. But he was very conscientious. We should be too. Think of one person fasting outside the White House. That act has spiritual power. More, maybe, than big numbers." Power. Numbers. My mind goes to the recent World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, where massive nonviolent protests were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. I ask her, is violence ever a legitimate response to violence? Until everyone in the world believes in peace, Jun concedes, violence is unavoidable. But it is never justifiable or right. Nor is self-defense: "You know, several times I have had somebody hitting me during a prayer. I do not hit back. That would just make him more angry, more hateful. My way, if somebody is trying to hurt me, is to bow to him and to pray. I try to ask why he is angry, and to listen to him. I want to know why is he wounded inside." It's freezing in the tent, and I'm ready to get back to my car. It's great to be so high-minded, but I need a cup of coffee. I wonder about Jun. She must be exhausted. Five days in a damp tent with no food? And she's so thin. I ask her if she's worried about getting sick. "I am not sick," she says. She is almost indignant, I think. "It's the world that is really sick, you know. There is so much violence, so much fighting, so many people killing each other." And then, with a wave toward the prison: "Over there, inside, people are suffering, much more than I have suffered. Nothing to eat for a few days? That is not such a big thing. But if you worry about yourself, you cannot do anything." A patrol car -- the third one in five minutes -- has stopped outside the tent. Apparently someone's radioed the front desk about my car and complained that I parked it on the official "access corridor" to the prison. Actually, it's on the grass next to the drive, but I decide it's time to go. Thanking Jun for her time, I say goodbye. I also tell her that tomorrow's supposed to be warmer. "Whatever," she murmurs. "The weather has been wonderful. I thought there would be more snow and cold. And this rain -- it is a gift from heaven. We also have visitors, like you. Many different people stop to say hello -- concerned people. Some say thank you. Some even offer money." I ask her about the prison staff. How are they treating her? "Some of them wave," she says, "and I wave back. Prison guards are also human. They also need peace. They also need healing." Chris Zimmerman is a member of the Bruderhof community. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytjus-02.04.00-01:13:05-29690