Shoes

Why is it that shoes have become such powerful symbols of tragedy? A collection of the shoes of victims resides in the Holocaust Museum. A horribly huge pile of shoes runs down the middle of the bridge in Baghdad where hundreds lost their lives yesterday. Looters in New Orleans steal shoes, and now are armed and dangerous. A recent "Hoarded Ordinaries" blog used a "shoe" memorial to local soldiers lost in Iraq. Now officials are trying to get boots on the ground to restore public safety in New Orleans.
Symbolically, barefoot people feel unprotected and vulnerable. It is clear that very large numbers of people needed protection, and they died when they weren't protected - from natural disaster, and from the outcomes of terrorists and war. And now victims need protection from other victims.
For survivors resilience is the essential trait needed during stressful times. When people get double, triple, or quadruple doses of tragedy it is easy to become overwhelmed. That is what we see on the faces of stunned pilgrims in Iraq and the desperate refugees along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
I am realizing that the ties that bind people into a social group can come loose when its unprotected members get too many doses of things going terribly wrong. We know that each town or city in the three Gulf Coast states has elected people who are in charge. And these elected officials themselves have become victims in this natural disaster, as civil order is now breaking down. They are overwhelmed. The federal government must immediately help them because they represent the "larger village." We as citizens of that same village must help by giving whatever we can. And one of the things we can give is just a bit of understanding when systems get overwhelmed and break down. See my updated post of yesterday for places to give some help.
The terrible loss of life amongst the Shiite pilgrims from the bridge in Baghdad is so senseless that it is very hard for me to take in. It was a terrible event that had its roots in the most basic of human emotions, fear of dying and the subsequent (textbook) panic of a congested crowd. The long pile of shoes says it all.
Medicine Soldier is stationed in Iraq. His unit's soldiers came from the Gulf Coast. Read his post of yesterday for his simple thoughts about how to cope, how to manage in terrible times.
Iraqi in America is "stationed" in Texas, but connected in powerful ways to Iraq. Her blog "feels like being there" in Iraq and in America. She continues to call upon her own resilience.