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Read also: A Tribute to Sarah Meyer, human rights activist (Andy Worthington 13.3.10) |
"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Sarah's website:
http://www.indexresearch.
I never met Sarah Meyer, who died on March 4th, aged seventy three, but like so many across the globe, struggling to make sense of and draw attention to the crimes of enormity, committed in the name of a tragi-farcical "war on terror", discovering her exhaustive, meticulous research, especially on Iraq and Afghanistan was finding Wordsworth's "light to guide; a rod .."
No fact omitted, no stone unturned, in minute detail, her talent was for uncovering truth and reality behind the smoke, mirrors and lies. Thus we corresponded. She would send her latest work of academic impeccability, I my articles, more aptly "letters from a broken heart". Andy Worthington, in tribute writes aptly of : "a wonderfully supportive friend in the struggle for a better world."
In October last year, at a hospital appointment Sarah told the Consultant: "..about the Brussels Tribunal and (their) war crimes case against four Presidents and four Prime Ministers", on which she was still working. He told her she had cancer.
She applied the same skills developed in her years as a researcher, clearly leaning on remarkable inner strengths, developed studying Tibetan Buddism and Jungian psychology. She utilised expertise as a former registered homeopath, seeking cancer halting, healing, natural foods. Her website has shone its beam on the politics, environmental devastation and power of the mega-pharma industry, where the downside has much to do with profit and little with constructive treatment. She settled on natural foods including berries, garlic, onion, leeks, broccoli, organic soya beans and curry: "long thought to have healing powers" with added "turmeric, having the power to kill off cancer cells."
Her website, which with her years of other resources, donated generously to the "strugglers", details her unflinching, searching, last journey and the careful organising of her affairs, late in an illness generating only pain, discomfort, and sapping will. Not hers. She arranged for her friend, Clare: " to have my tiny, blind Yorkshire terrier, when the time comes. A positive aspect of knowing one has cancer is the opportunity to clear up house as well as bank arrangements, bills, etc."
She gave books to fellow travellers, spent three days with friends clearing out, deciding on what should go to: "Oxfam, skip or auction." She admits to one tearful 'phone call, then chastises herself for inflicting distress on her daughter, Heather.
A stark small entry just reads: "Grief. Today I had my Siamese cat put down, she had breast cancer."
Conventional treatment was urged by the medical profession and refused. As William Bowles has written:
"Perhaps her own words sum up her reasons:
‘The language applied to cancer sounds like Obama’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We hear about “battles” – “Fighting the Enemy” and the “War on Cancer.” Constructively discussing the actual process of life and death can often be a no-go zone. Even the word ‘death’ is replaced by the awful term, “passing away.”
‘I am almost 73 now, and I am ready for death. The suffering of peoples on our planet is a burden for me. I have tried for much of my life to be useful, but of course one cannot ‘cure’ this central crux of life itself.’
But her life lives on through her contributions, which is more than many of us can claim."
One example - truth to the lies on Afghanistan is headed "Graveyard of Empires." (October 2008.) She quotes George W. Bush that year at the top:
"After all, you've got girls are back (sic) in school; boys flying kites again; health clinics, the economy has more than doubled in size .."
Just one sub-heading which follows, lists detailed, horrifying reality: "Famine, Refugees, Women, Children and Health." She quotes the UN Secretary General: "Children have been killed, maimed, sexually abused, arbitrarily detained, recruited as foot soldiers, used as suicide attackers and deprived of development and education."
That summer she had sent me an email which was balm to the soul. Subject line: "Sarah's Garden". Opening it up, there was photo after photo, of a haven of sheer wonder, a cacophony of colour, sunlight; glistening, overflowing lushness of every hue, seemingly effortless, effusive. The Almighty's palette of exquisite beauty.The scents were near tangible.
"Come down, escape, relax, I'll meet you at the station", she wrote. I had a problem related to an earlier spinal injury and was virtually unable to walk. Finally put back together again by a surgeon who deserves my daily prayer of thanks, a fall generated a set back and the chance to ask if I could invite finally invite myself, was overtaken by Sarah's illness and loss.
Tomorrow, her life will be celebrated. To her children, Heather, Jonathon and Ernest and to all those close to her, the thoughts of many are with you.
Sarah, may you travel:
"Where there grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth,
The earth scarce heaved." (P.B.Shelly, 1792-1822.)
http://www.andyworthington.co.
A Tribute to Sarah Meyer, human rights activist
Andy Worthington 13.3.10
I
have just been informed that Sarah Meyer, a wonderfully supportive
friend in the struggle for a better world, recently died of cancer.
A retired UK registered homoeopath, Sarah had studied Jungian
psychology for 30 years, while simultaneously studying Tibetan
Buddhism, and, after retiring, worked as a freelance researcher,
investigating human rights abuses worldwide from her home in Sussex.
Born in the US, she was married, for 12 years, to the author and
journalist Karl Meyer, with whom she had three children — Jonathan,
Heather and Ernest.
Sarah and I had never met, but I had come across her prodigious research on global human rights abuses on her website, Index Research, while I was researching my book The Guantánamo Files in 2006, and we had been in email contact ever since. She was, as I mentioned above, wonderfully supportive, as, for example, when she sent me an email last March stating simply, “Thank you, dear person, for all your work. It is so superb. You remind me of another favorite friend of mine, Dahr Jamail.” On a cold morning in London, words like these provided a real spur to carry on with what can sometimes seem like a thankless task.
I had been particularly drawn to Sarah’s work because she covered Afghanistan in extraordinary detail, compiling and commenting on a wide range of reports, but she also covered other aspects of the “War on Terror” — and the crimes of the West that preceded it. Even while very ill in November last year, she was working with the BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee, a group of “intellectuals, artists and activists who denounce the logic of permanent war promoted by the American government and its allies” (of which she was a member) on a legal case filed in Spain against George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown “for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.” Her last post on human rights issues in relation to terrorism, entitled, “Surveillance Societies,” was posted on her site on October 31 last year. Inspired by journalist Henry Porter’s assiduous campaign against ID cards and the surveillance state in the UK, it contained a wealth of information that was typical of her reports, and I urge readers with an interest in any of these issues to investigate her research.
My thoughts are with Jonathan, Heather and Ernest, and, as part of a small tribute to Sarah, I’d like to quote from the introduction to her last post on Index Research, “Birth Is The Disease; Death Is The Cure,” in which she discussed her illness and prepared for her death:
The language applied to cancer sounds like Obama’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We hear about “battles” — “Fighting the Enemy” and the “War on Cancer.” Constructively discussing the actual process of life and death can often be a no-go zone. Even the word “death” is replaced by the awful term, “passing away.”
I am almost 73 now, and I am ready for death. The suffering of peoples on our planet is a burden for me. I have tried for much of my life to be useful, but of course one cannot “cure” this central crux of life itself.
I can think of no finer tribute to Sarah than for her work to be preserved at Index Research, for future researchers to use, to continue her struggle for a better world, and would like to share with readers the last email I received from Sarah, in January, which shows the generosity of spirit that she maintained throughout her life:
Dear Andy,
Sorry to tell you that I have stage 4 terminal cancer. I no longer have the ability to use the computer (Jonathan is typing this for me) and my memory is shot to hell. However, I am still reading everything you write. Thank you for everything you have done for me and for everybody else.
Love Sarah
My response was poor but heartfelt. I told Sarah that her news rather put everything else in perspective, and that my thoughts were with her. I should have mentioned that her work, and her life, will live on in the lives of those who were touched by her great feeling for humanity.
In conclusion, there are, perhaps, no better words to sum up Sarah’s belief in human rights than those of Martin Luther King Jr., which she included in every email:
Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular?” But, conscience asks the question, “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.
Note: An index of Sarah’s work can also be found on the BRussells Tribunal website here, where she was described by her colleagues as “A remarkable and strong woman,” who “contributed a lot to our efforts to expose the criminal US war policies.”
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in January 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and launched in October 2009), and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.
URL: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/03/13/a-tribute-to-sarah-meyer-human-rights-activist/