The tragedy at Bhopal

Another anniversary today: this one shameful. It was 25 years ago today that a Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, released a cloud of toxic gas that killed immediately about 4,000 people and another 10,000 to 20,000 people over time.

There's an op-ed piece in today's New York Times about the tragedy: how Dow Chemical -- which bought Union Carbide in 2001 -- disclaims any responsibility from the event; and how the CEO of UC at the time has never been extradited from the US despite the international arrest warrant in his name.

Of course, the poor and powerless of the world don't stand a chance when it comes to multi-national corporations and their relentless pillaging of the world's resources. The water, the air, the soil, the food, the social fabric of society -- whatever sits in the way of profit doesn't stand a chance.

Casting history

Today's Globe has a nice little story on the Donald McKay bust that is a centerpiece of Bremen Street Park, with some discussion of McKay's significance in the development of East Boston and the art of shipbuilding. (I mentioned the bronze statue on this blog back in June, and the photo here is one I took that day.)

As we admire the bust of McKay, let us not forget whose hands and sweat actually built his ships: workers -- many of them immigrants -- whose names we will never know and whose likenesses we will never look upon. I am reminded of the poem "A Worker Reads History" by the German writer Bertolt Brecht:

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?

Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions.