I was living in Christchurch, New Zealand when New York's Twin Towers were hit by airplanes, provoking the Bush Administration to begin a "War on Terror." The immediately violent reaction by the U.S. government confused me. Where was the time for mourning and for inquiry into what had taken place? If indeed there were groups of people so angry they would commit such an attack, what were their reasons? I wondered what U.S. international affairs had ignited such hatred or desperation. I was pretty sure the majority of people in Afghanistan had nothing to do with what had happened on September 11th, and yet the United States, backed by many countries including New Zealand, was about to punish the entire region by conducting an unprovoked invasion.

I got together with a group of my neighbors and kiwi friends to discuss ways we could focus some attention on the irrational violence being waged in the name of "fighting terror." I described a political cartoon I'd conceived where a blindfolded Uncle Sam swung a stick at a piñata shaped like the Earth. My friends' enthusiasm and contributions to that idea gave birth to an entire interactive performance that was given in the heart of Christchurch's shopping strip on December 24th, 2001.

We made a large piñata of the Earth that was suspended accross a pedestrian area of Chch. Our Uncle Sam, (played by Jamon), spoke to the holiday shoppers, asking them to step up and join the "War on Terror." Any volunteers were blindfolded with an American flag, handed a whacking stick, and directed towards the planet piñata. If the balloons on the outside of the globe popped, one of us dressed as an Afghanistan civilian would step forward and act out a dramatization of one of the many civilian deaths that we'd found in the news. When the "War on Terror" was finally won and the piñata Earth was cracked open, each piece of candy inside was attached to a sited fact about the effect of bombing on civilian populations and the environment.

After the breaking of the piñata, the masses who saw the performance rushed the actors with praise or with insults. My fellow performers and I fielded questions for at least an hour. Almost none who viewed the show left angry. It was a wonderful experience.

-sophie canadé