Red Museum Epilogue

February 3, 2009

After I finished my bit on the museum I came across this video clip I took as we were leaving that day. I forgot that I had taken it, and about this kid. But now that I watch it again, (after writing about the museum itself the other day), I think this kid is significant to the museum and the message I wanted to convey. Maybe my point will just fly by some because I won’t quite know how to make it. But if you watch this kid do his thing and have the same feeling I do now, in light of the torture that took place just inside the wall we were standing, then maybe I will give my friends and family more credit for their insight.

During our tour of the museum there were these two boys wandering around unattended. They were just hanging out like kids do, taking pictures, smoking cigarettes, and trying to be nuisances in standard teen fashion. They had no tour guide like we did and probably had been inside the museum walls on more than one occasion. I didn’t see them inside the red light torture houses, most of the time they were just wandering aimlessly. They were, however, climbing on the tanks and armor pieces beyond the thin rope that was marked, “Keep Off” and no one seemed to care. (I wanted to climb on one and take a picture but my sense of obedience to the rules won out on this day over my mischievous desires.) Their loud street attire was no doubt influenced by the American Hip Hop scene that created it. Like easily influenced kids everywhere, so much of who they believe they are is a reflection of what they see and hear in their Pop World. I was the same…I wore bandannas and pink Le Tigre too. But these guys stood out in this place of pain and suffering. The first time I saw them I thought about how disrespectful these “punks” were. Not only was their attire offensive to my forty year old sensibilities, but their mere presence and demeanor in this place that had invoked such emotion in me was almost enough make me act out in what would have certainly been an embarrassing show of self righteous indignation. For whatever reason, I kept my mouth shut and my opinions to myself. That is, until they approached us outside the museum as we were leaving.

It makes sense that the group of American men wearing side arms was just as loud to these boys as they were to us. There’s no real surprise in that since everywhere we go in town we get stares and fingers pointed at us. And it’s not just because I am so good looking…although I could see how that would be someone’s first assumption. But what did surprise me was how brazenly these two boys came up to our group when we were out on the curb getting ready to leave. They actually walked up to Wally, the oldest man in our group, and asked if they could take their picture with him. (Cell phones with cameras are a national craze here.) I think Wally was as surprised as the rest of us were, but he was more than willing to be a part of their day. I offered my services as camera man so both of the kids could get in the picture with Wally. When I went to hand the cell phone back to one of the boys after I snapped their photo I asked him, quite snobbishly, what he was all dressed up for. He spoke enough English to understand and without missing a beat replied, “I’m a rapper, man.” I asked them if I could take their picture and of course they were eager to show off. But as I pulled my own camera out the rapper began to prove his claims for us by sputtering out his jumbled and hilarious mix. I had to stop him mid-beat because I told him I wanted to film his performance. Of course, this made him very happy.

What you see is, in my opinion, the true result of America’s influence on these people. And I’m not just talking about his street attire or creative attempt at “Gangsta Rap.” More than that, it is this kid’s obvious belief that he can be a “Gangsta” if he chooses to be. He can spout anti-government sentiment on the street as freely as an Imam can preach the word of Allah. He can curse and smoke and dress as brazenly as he pleases. He can thumb his nose at authority and breach life’s “Keep Off” barriers all he wants. He’s open to think and speak his mind out loud. He can do the things in Iraq that were once forbidden. The government facility that we’d just left certainly would not have tolerated this boy’s appearance, much less his brazen outspoken rants. And the kid may not understand today what the price has been to give him these liberties, or who is responsible for giving them. But someday he will. And I hope when he does he will realize that it was the same America that inspired him to Hip-Hop that helped give him his liberty. On that day I hope he will appreciate being a free man.

-Jim Franks