Northern Friends Peace Bulletin
Northern Friends Peace Bulletin
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Issue 7 September 2003 |
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Northern Friends
Peace Board (NFPB), Victoria Hall, Knowsley Street, Bolton BL1 2AS |
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In our last issue, published in April 2003, we included a piece headed ‘After this war, where next?’. The war in Iraq now seems far from over, however. The US neo-conservative vision describes a ‘New American Century’. Our peace testimony is also a long-term project. This bulletin seeks to bring together excerpts from recent materials that have arrived here in print or on screen - offered here to stimulate reflection, further reading and peace action in the near and the longer term future. We hope you find them helpful.. |
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September 11th Families for Peaceful
Tomorrows http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/voices/voices.php?id=P211 "… As grieving family members, we know that feelings of fear and anger are a natural part of the healing process. But we have learned that it is not healthy or constructive to act on these emotions. The government’s response to 9/11 has kept us stuck in the fear and panic that we all shared from the shocking events of 9/11. Rather than basing our policies on fear and anger, we call upon the government to act in the best interest of the American public by rejoining the community of nations to work together constructively in solving the issues of worldwide terrorism and war. "While September 11 stands as a unique tragedy in the American experience, the sad reality is that people in other countries have been experiencing their own September 11ths with much less fanfare all the time. Peaceful Tomorrows members have met with other victims of violence around the world who are a guiding light in our efforts to put our grief to work as action for peace. From Israeli and Palestinian parents who lost children to violence, to victims of the US Embassy bombing in Kenya to the mothers of the disappeared in Central and South America to the survivors of the ultimate violence-the atomic weapons dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Peaceful Tomorrows members have found ourselves to be part of a worldwide family of those who have known terror and who have responded with peace. September 11 taught us that human beings have the capacity to commit terrible violence against each other. But it also taught us that the human heart is capable of overcoming fear and hatred to build a world in which there are no more September 11ths anywhere in the world. It is this hope is that we must build upon as individuals and as nations." |
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What Price British Influence? Disarmament Diplomacy Issue No. 72, August - September 2003 (www.acronym.org.uk), by Nicola Butler "…It is important that hard, tough questions continue to be asked on the government's stance on missile defence, as on all key aspects of UK defence policy. Information will no doubt continue to "dribble out" of the MoD as the project proceeds; the demand for adequate debate and scrutiny must not be allowed to peter out in response. "In the current heated debate on the decision to go to war with Iraq, parliamentarians should also address the underlying issue. Why is Britain's first principle of foreign policy to be the "closest ally of the US"? Is it really appropriate for a Labour government to give this level of uncritical support to Bush administration policies? What happened to Britain's pro-active policies on non-proliferation and disarmament issues in the 1997-2001 period? What are the limits, and what is the price, of British 'influence' with Washington? And is it a price we are willing to pay?" |
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To Honor the Victims, Let Us
Make Peace, Instead of War "….Sept. 11 is an anniversary of the future, a day enshrining the worst of human impulses -- and the best. A day, therefore, that puts the choice before us. How are we going to live now? We are on the earth for the briefest of interludes. Thinking in particular of all those who died in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, let us honor them by building the earth, instead of destroying it. Let us make peace, instead of war. " |
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"The ‘War on Terrorism’: Winning or Losing?" Paul Rogers' new briefing paper for the Oxford Research Group is entitled "The' War on Terrorism': Winning or Losing". Professor Paul Rogers says wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made them less stable and set back efforts to counter security threats to westerners. What should the UK do? Paul Rogers suggests…
"A more global view has to encompass the possible connections between terrorism, poverty and exclusion. The growing global socio-economic divide is leading directly to the growth of radical social movements, some of which are prepared to use violence." "Iraqis must be enabled to develop a democratic and independent state that may well choose to distance itself from Washington." "It should be possible to involve a wider range of states in peacekeeping, including Arab states… such progress would not be readily achieved without a much clearer and more consistent support for the Israeli/Palestinian peace process." Global solutions In the long run, Paul Rogers argues, it is self-deluding to believe that we can make ourselves more secure through solely military means. Security will unavoidably mean sharing out the world's resources more fairly. Groups linked to al Qaida draw support from local discontent over economic, political or social injustice – symbolised, for many, on a global scale, by the US determination to keep control of key resources - chiefly, oil. Report available from Oxford
Research Group, 51 Plantation Road, Oxford OX2 6JE |
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From : ‘Quaker Declaration of War’ (The full text of this challenging talk on the Lamb’s War can be found at www.quakerhouse.org) ==== "… What can we do about it? That's the question I want to address here, and I want to do so as one Quaker speaking to other Quakers, and perhaps some other like-minded folks. Why am I being so sectarian about this? Doesn't the threat of religious war and the American drive for empire threaten those outside our little circle of Friends? Of course it does, and I'm not ignoring the larger world. But my focus is on Friends because it is an article of my faith that the Religious Society of Friends has been gathered by God as a people to do a particular piece of work in the larger, mysterious divine plan for mending the world. And it's by discerning our particular work and pursuing it faithfully that we'll make our best and most important contribution to the larger world. Our piece may not be the biggest, or the flashiest. It's not better than any other; but it is important, and above all it is OURS. It is our calling, and we dare not neglect it, or try to trade it in for somebody else's. This piece of work we usually refer to as our Peace testimony. The phrase describes a current that runs like a deep river through our 350-year history. But this river of testimony is a wandering stream, with many twists and turns. It's not a self-defining witness; in worship and study and struggle, it's our task to discern its direction and call for us in each new era in which we find ourselves." |
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From an American Friends Service Committee press
release, dated 26 August 2003 The American Friends Service Committee urges the administration to take a radically different approach to the escalating crisis in the Middle East region. The Service Committee is calling for increased international involvement in efforts to build peace in Iraq, and stresses the need for a strengthened role of Iraq civil society in shaping their country’s destiny. "The cycle of violence in the region represents a profound failure – the failure of governments to address conditions of poverty, injustice and oppression that lead to uprising or war," [AFSC General Secretary Mary Ellen] McNish stressed. "It also shows our failure as human beings to overcome our own fear and greed." The organization also emphasized that as an occupying power, the United States has failed to meet the immediate needs of the Iraqi people. Soldiers are trained to fight war, not police and rebuild countries, the organization states. In March, the Service Committee challenged whether waging war against Iraq would really end terrorism or improve the safety of the United States. Instead, the group cautioned, use of military force would likely fuel more anger and despair across the region, thereby increasing rather than decreasing the threat of terrorism. "We know from our experience helping people to rebuild in the wake of war, that the use of military force only escalates the cycle of violence — creating fresh wounds and breeding more anger and resentment," McNish adds. Policy analysts and Middle Eastern leaders had also warned that wars with Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with the deepening of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ongoing resentment built from 12 years of Iraqi sanctions, could set off an even greater firestorm of violence in the region. "It is essential to look at the root causes of the feelings of anger and despair in the world that may lead to some acts of terror," states Rick McDowell, who spent three months in Iraq as part of an AFSC humanitarian relief team. Under the backdrop of a repressive
regime, the recent invasion of Iraq— launched without the support of the
United Nations — has bred anger and resentment in a nation also reeling
from twelve years of UN-enforced economic sanctions. The UN’s role in sanctions has damaged its historic image of neutrality for many Iraqis. Compromised as it may be by the demands of its member nations, the UN remains a vital player in efforts of the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives. |
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Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki by David Krieger From No 4 in a series of
occasional papers – The Blackaby Papers – published by Abolition
2000 UK, "…The world needs to recall and reflect on the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as symbols of human strength and indomitable spirit. We need to be able to remember truly what happened to these cities if we are going to unite to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life. We need to understand that it is not necessary to be victims of our own technologies, that we are capable of controlling even the most dangerous of them. The future is in our hands. We must not be content to drift along on the path of nuclear terror. Our responsibility as citizens of Earth and of all nations is to grasp the enormity of our challenge in the Nuclear Age and to rise to that challenge on behalf of ourselves, our children and all future generations. Our task must be to reclaim our humanity and assure our common future by ridding the world of these inhumane instruments of indiscriminate death and destruction. The key to humanity’s future runs through Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s past." |
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From Joseph Rotblat, at a Pugwash conference in Nova Scotia, July 2003. http://www.pugwash.org/reports/pac/53/rotblat.htm "… Many of you are professional people, trained to look at problems in a detached, realistic, non-sentimental approach. But we are all, primarily, human beings, anxious to provide security for our nearest and dearest, and peace for fellow citizens of our nation and the world. We want to see a world in which relations between people and between nations are based on compassion, not greed; on generosity, not jealousy; on persuasion, not force; on equity, not oppression. These are simple, some will say romantic, sentiments, but they are also realistic necessities. In a world armed with weapons of mass destruction, the use of which might bring the whole of civilization to an end, we cannot afford a polarized community, with its inherent threat of military confrontations. In this technological age, a global, equitable community, to which we all belong as world citizens, has become a vital necessity." |
