Brad Will, Compañero

Riding home from the train station today, feeling the cold wind of the sudden winter that has gripped Amsterdam, in my ears I’m listening to the cries of a friend who I never knew… he has been shot…he is dying. And I’m on my bike in Amsterdam, but I can see the barricade in my mind, I can feel Brad Will dying again…

Those cries were recorded one year ago in a place called Oaxaca. Brad Will was a journalist. There are many kinds of journalists in this world, some write blogs, some attend demonstrations and report about what is happening from remote parts of the world. Some do all of this and more. Brad Will dedicated his life to the cause of the forgotten, the voices that have been forced out of the mainstream, paved over, and declared marginal or unimportant. He did things with indymedia that directly or indirectly inspired many of us in this movement of global citizens committed to speaking out about events unfolding in our name.. injustice wherever it may be, no matter how many people would rather not pay attention.

I rode my bike and listening to those final moments of Brad’s life, as the shots rang out… I wondered which hit him. I wonder if the officer that shot him looked him in the eyes and realized what a ray of light he had just dimmed. And what was Brad thinking; could he have known that throughout the world, people like myself would be listening.. a year or even years later… carrying on his work and remembering his death..

Well today as I listened.. I remembered Brad Will’s life and death… and his spirit lives on.. throughout this world of ours.