Joan Baez |
November 6, 1981
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Joan Baez
American folksinger, guitarist and songwriter; Founder, Institute for the Study of Nonviolence; Founder and President, Humanitas International Human Rights Committee
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q: Now that you're over 40 and shed the folk singer image, do you think people are taking you seriously?
A: I hope so.
Q: Please comment on the Reagan administration's attitudes on the human rights issues.
A: Where are they? No, but more seriously, very, very deeply concerned over something like Jeane Kirkpatrick's trip to Latin America, really praising terribly oppressive dictatorships which torture people still. I think we have to look carefully at who our friends are and take a part in choosing them.
Q: What is the stance of your organization regarding the human rights of the millions of illegal aliens in our country?
A: I think that it would be helpful for all of us to refer to illegal aliens as human beings and then we get some kind of perspective on what their lives are like, why they're here, and how we might be able to cope with the problem thinking of them as people rather than illegal aliens. And again, to remind all of us that we have so much, we really have so much here. We do not, most of us, understand poverty. Or even poorness or even lack of just about anything. That doesn't go, of course, for people in the ghetto. But even people in the ghetto in this country have not had Cambodian starvation, Ugandan starvation. We really have to see what it is we have to share and go about sharing it.
Q: On the difficult issue of refugees, should there be limits to the number of refugees from repressive regimes that should be admitted into the U.S.?
A: I think probably the real answer to that is, of course, the most difficult one. How do you get people to not want to be leaving their homes? And I think, again, if we look very carefully, we must see in some of the situations what part we have taken in driving some people out of their countries.
In Vietnam, obviously, it is nothing to do with our fault, at this point. That could be argued, I'm sure, because what of we, in fact, did to Vietnam. But see what it is, how can we share with countries, how can we help them build to a point, maybe it's not even possible, where they won't want to be leaving in droves - and if that's not possible, I always think of a beautiful book called, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed. It was a town in France where the community was nonviolent; I don't know why. Some weird quirk of nature, they simply were, and they accepted every single Jew who came through that town. They fed, clothed and hid and helped escape at risk to their own lives. And they were arrested and they were oftentimes tortured and some were killed. But when somebody said to them, why did you do all these magnificent acts, they didn't even understand the question. It was simply what you do. If somebody's hungry, you feed them. If somebody's feet are bare, you find some shoes for them.
Q: A personal question. You work so hard for good causes, do you ever get tired and think about giving up?
A: I get tired.
Q: There's an array of questions on the human rights issue in every country on the globe, I think here, so we'll just see what we can hit. The first: Now that you see what has happened in Vietnam, how do you feel about America's role in the war?
A: Same as I ever did. I don't think that we improved the situation in Vietnam. I think, in a sense what we did was help create the fifth or sixth largest army in the world. Without the outside invasions that country had for years and years, either you start with China and go back a thousand years or you start with the French and the Japanese and go back 35 years and then the Americans. But I think to constantly be bombarding them, they developed such a mentality of militarism that it was really impossible to think any other way.
Somebody told me a very curious thing about the Vietnamese. About a year after the withdrawal of American troops and the actual bombardment having stopped, they were developing neuroses. They'd never had them before; they didn't have time for it. They had been so busy simply trying to protect themselves and I think that built such a mentality of militarism, it was really impossible to start with any kind of general peace plan.
Q: On South Africa, should apartheid in South Africa be terminated even if it means that this vital source of minerals critical to our nation's survival could become Marxist dominated?
A: You just watch us buy from those old Marxists when we have to.
Q: Do human rights groups tend to avoid criticism or violations in the Soviet Union?
A: It depends on the human rights group, it really does, and that's why we have built ourselves the way we have. We don't want to avoid criticizing human rights violations anywhere, but certainly there are leftist human rights groups and rightist human rights groups and I'm sure they have done some good. I think it makes a lot more sense to see through both eyes because you have some credibility for yourself.
Q: Overall, is the human rights situation of black African countries better or worse since their independence?
A: I think that in some cases it has been ghastly since. And, I don't feel qualified enough to really answer that question fully.
Q: How about this one: Can you briefly describe the difference in viewpoints between you and Jane Fonda?
A: Yes, Jane Fonda is a leftist, basically, and certainly in the things I've seen her do. I admire her very much for the fact that she got out and did, which is very rare in the entertainment field. She did not share with me the willingness to criticize the Hanoi government and I felt that was a serious case of myopia of one eye.
Q: Here's a chance for an advertisement. What unique niche in the human rights battle does Humanitas International fill?
A: We work fast and we're imaginative and we would like you all to join up. And, if you want to write to us, we're Humanitas, Box 818, Menlo Park, California.
Q: Your past is symbolized by "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?". Is your future embodied in "Diamonds and Rust?"
A: Hold the rust.
Q: In your view, is ERA necessary to assure that U.S. women have rights equal to or even greater than men?
A: Yes.
Q: I told her to make her answers short, but I'm running out of questions. Is the U.N. part of the problem or part of the solution?
A: I certainly wish the U.N. could be genuinely part of the solution, but the size of it and the red tape each time we have become involved is frightening. And yet, I'm glad they're there and we will still continue to work with them and use them to whichever degree that we can whenever possible.
Q: What is the impact of the world's major religions on improvements of human rights?
A: Boy, that's scary because that can go either way, such as Iran. Or, such as, in my opinion, the church in this country being probably the most active and meaningful force in having anything to do with change for the better in Latin America. That probably in coordination with the Latin American catholic churches and other churches the issues of human rights violations, torture and repression in Latin America have come to life in a way they could not have come to life in this country without the church. That's my feeling. So I'm sure it goes both ways. Holy wars scare me to death.
Q: On the issue of the draft, do you favor registration of military draft when the forces necessary to defend this country would not be available through the voluntary enlistment system?
A: That's a rough one because it takes about 17 hours to answer and a long discussion. If I felt that the armies were really making us safer, I would have a big struggle with that question. I don't think, my feeling is that the ethical is also the practical and that becomes less mumbo jumbo in the 1980s than it's ever been before, probably for practical reasons. But an army is really in existence for one reason and that's to fight and it's getting more and more dangerous to have fights in this decade and in this century.
On top of that, I think young people lose total sense of control of their own lives when they're subjected to the draft. And yet eliminating the draft, as we've seen once before, and a project in which I was very heavily involved in the '60s, does not end the military. Ideally, for me, I would like to see a world with no nations and I'd like to see a world with no military. Now, I'm bright enough to know that that's dreaming, thank God. But, I think that the exclusivity of nations works against us and works against the possibility of living with each other, of caring about each other, of seeing the world as one backyard. People are constantly saying take care of your own backyard, clean up your own backyard first. There's only one backyard left. Either it's because the world has shrunk the way it has shrunk or because all of these countries are available to us either through communications or through bombs. But there is really only one backyard and somehow, again, a fresh mentality about how to think of preserving that backyard needs to be faced up to by all of us.
Q: On the youth of the '60s, this member asks, have most of the brilliant and active youth of the 1960s reentered the mainstream of our society or have they remained as a lost generation?
A: That doesn't give much hope, does it? The person, if you'd like to raise your hand, whoever wrote that question. I think all of us go in and out of the mainstream. I know I do. I'm not willing to condemn anybody for that nor am I willing to condemn anybody for being part of a lost generation.
I think any young person could look at any one page of any newspaper in this country and give up completely after having read one page and become a member of a lost generation. And my heart goes out to them, but I'd like to recruit them. I'd like to recruit them for something better because I think their energy is there and they're just scared. You cannot blame anybody for being scared. You really cannot blame anybody for giving up. We just have to be creative and imaginative enough to be able to recruit people to do something better than give up. To do something better than be part of a drug culture and be a part of a dropout generation.
Q: Considering the breadth of your experience, in what country is human rights more adequately protected than here in the United States?
A: Probably Scandinavia. I'd like to just say one thing. I forgot to mention in the speech, which was, it was kind of an honor to me to have been officially banned in three countries. And officially, because we couldn't count Chile; Chile kept it unofficial. But it would be Argentina, Brazil, and USSR. They're really lousy on it. But I think, what I'd like to say, in general, about who's better, who's best: If all of us could look at the fact that we happen to be Americans or Swedes or Africans or whatever we are, as an accident of our birth, rather than something over which to unfurl banners and play marches and build armies, really it was an accident that I was born an American. I consider myself very lucky for that.
When I was on "The Phil Donahue Show," some woman, in the middle of I don't know what, and unfortunately was not on camera, said in a kind of knee-jerk reaction to me, "Is there anything about this country that you do like, Ms. Baez?" I said, "Yes, absolutely. Certainly when Jeannie Murphy and I returned from Latin America, we felt an acute awareness of and appreciation for our personal and political freedoms." We run a human rights organization here and after we saw Adolfo Perez Esquivel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, trying to run his office amidst bomb threats and these cars full of phony security people, we realized we had it easy. I mean, it really is a glorious place to work and a place to take advantage of. And at the same time, I said to this woman, it also made us acutely aware of our "friends" in Latin America. Why do we choose them when they are really the opposite of what everything we stand for, everything that we say that we stand for. And with Nicaragua, why could we not have used brains with Nicaragua? Why could we have not made a Tito situation, even in Central America, where it was neutralized to the point that we didn't have to force them into a camp where they really didn't want to go. They don't want to go. And now I really think that it is too late.
I mean, the foolishness of us saying we're not going to sell grain to Nicaragua and so we sell it to the USSR. Nicaragua buys it from the USSR and then we say, you see, they're in the Soviet camp. You know, I mean, we've just got to use our noodles a little more, I think.
Q: Joan told me over lunch, the tougher the question, the better. So here we go. Do you still believe that individuals have the right to withhold federal income taxes as a reaction to national policies and programs?
A: Sure. Now, I'd rather see somebody stand up for whatever harebrain reason they even had, even if I didn't agree with them at all. Stand up and do something. Take your position, make it clear, and follow it through. I could think I've always felt that way. Listen, federal income tax is an imposition. What I like to do is tax myself and that's what I've done all of my working life. As I've taxed myself, probably somewhere between a quarter and three-quarters of what I make has gone into the work that I do, has gone into people who need that money more than I need it. I don't need it. I live well, don't let me try and kid anybody. I live very well as a California mom, but I'm happy and willing to tax myself. And I think we can do that, again, if we're willing to see things as they are and willing to make small sacrifices.
Q: Now that the Vietnam War is over this member asks: Have your groups or others forgot the Vietnam vets? We'd like some attention, too.
A: No, we haven't forgotten the Vietnam vets. Humanitas has not made working with vets part of our program, but I generally do, personally, trying to do whatever I can for whatever the program is. Certainly an issue is Agent Orange. We've worked to try to bring that out as a real issue, which it is. And, earlier this afternoon I was very moved because I was approached by a young man who said that he was a pilot over Hanoi when I was trapped in Hanoi in Christmas of 1972.
I was delivering mail to prisoners of war, American prisoners of war in Hanoi. And, the young man said that he felt badly about the position he had then. And when I was in the shelter there I remember arguing about sanctity of life. And I was arguing with Marxist Press people from the French Press Corps and I was arguing with Vietnamese. And, I refused to toast the fallen B-52s. There was a young, enthusiastic Vietnamese and every time he heard a B-52 had been shot out of the sky, he would run off and try to get some vodka to toast the situation and I would leave the room. And, the more adult of the Vietnamese in the group would shush him; in effect, say, listen, there's this woman in the room who doesn't approve of this kind of stuff. And when the French Press finally said to me, in an absolute outrage, we'd been heavily bombed and each time, you really do think that's it. That that's the end of your life and it's a very frightening thing.
I consider it a gift to myself that I was there and that I lived through it because it was something that gives me a little bit of extra vision, I think. But anyway, this French press corpsman said, "Aren't you happy? Don't you want to celebrate when you see that B-52 shot out of the sky?" And I said, "Only if I know that the pilots are safe." And he was furious with me; he wanted to see them all go up in flames. But it really had been, my entire meaning in life is the sanctity of everybody's life. And that I think all the people, even if I disagree entirely with them, are salvageable, in my opinion, to doing what I think may eventually be the morally correct thing to do. And maybe I'm wrong. I don't think in that situation I was.
Q: We have time but for one more question. Before I ask it, let me thank you, Joan Baez, President, Humanitas International, for your address on the topic, "Human Rights in the 80s: Seeing Through Both Eyes." On behalf of the members of The Commonwealth Club of California, many of whom who are gathered here in the Gold Ballroom of the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco, as well as those who hear your remarks rebroadcast over the club's radio network of more than 130 stations and the more than 14,000 members of this organization who will read a summary of your remarks in the weekly Commonwealth.
After your response to the question, the meeting will stand adjourned. That question: Shall we overcome?
A: Yes, with your help. With all of you, I think we shall overcome. I'm not an optimist, but I have hope and I have hope because I believe in people. We may be crushed, I'm writing a song right now for an album, which is called "The Children of the '80s", and the children of the '80s are the young people who may be called a lost generation, at this point, but there are young people who also call themselves "the Warriors of the Sun." And there are young people who want to make social change, there are young people who care, and I'll just finish by giving you the first verse of that song. It says:
We are the Warriors of the Sun, fighting postwar battles that somehow never got won. We may be crazy and this may be our final run, but we are the Warriors of the Sun.
Thank you.
Generously funded by:
Tom Campbell
Dee Dee Myers