The Tree of Grief
Alan Kornaev and Zaurbek Dzanagov
2005
******
Mother in Beslan mourning for her daughter killed in the siege…
______________________________
At 17.00 MSK (14.00 UTC 09.00 EDT 06.00 PDT), on 3 September 2004, in Beslan (Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. Northern Caucasian Federal District), Russian OMON “Black Beret” MVD troops stormed School Number One where 34 to 50 terrorists were holding about 1,100 people (777 children) hostage. The soldiers killed 31 of the bandits, captured 1, and up to 17 may have escaped the cordon around the school building. Ten of the soldiers (including all three commanding officers of the units involved) died in the fighting; the terrorists killed 335 hostages (including 186 children). The terrorists were from Shamil Basayev’s bandit band (which was CIA-financed, at the least)… in an ill-fated attempt to shatter the Russian Federation, America tried to cause trouble in the Caucasus (by backing local terrorists as they had backed the Afghan mujaheddin and Bosnian/Kosovar rebels) in the ‘90s (Madeleine Albright admitted as much)… the Beslan Hostage Crisis was its direct and bitter fruit.
We’re Orthodox Christians… we’re COMMANDED to remember. We’re NOT juvenile and addled “Evangelical” spouters of therapeutese (such as Benjamin Peterson and George Washburn)… we don’t “move on”. We ask God for the strength to endure our trials and for the wisdom to learn from them. We’re like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who survived the GULag (and wrote some of the most moving books of the 20th century… we’re like the communists, who learned, yes, there IS a God (and they defended the churches in the Ukraine with all their might against American-financed mobs)… we’re like the millions of VOV vets who carried on with ordinary life after the Great Victory was won. Like them, we’ll endure, we’ll learn, and we’ll make the future better. We won’t follow demented Pied Pipers like Doctor Phil, “Doctor” James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Chuck Noll. Sectarians (AKA “Evangelicals”) with their “moving on” have nothing to teach Real Christians.
Pray for the dead of Beslan tomorrow. Ask your priest to pray for them at Liturgy on Sunday. REMEMBER THEM. It’s your duty as an Orthodox Christian… NEVER forget that!
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Friday 2 September 2011
Albany NY
