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CounterPunch
January
14, 2003
Two Weeks and Counting to Avert
War
The Roads to
Peace
by DEENA METZGER
We have fifteen days to reverse the movement toward
war.
We can establish roads to peace if all
of us do it together in our own unique ways. All of us, everywhere,
on the entire planet. We can do it. This is a call for radical
individualism within radical cooperation.
We can find the roads to peace in fifteen
days if we do it together.
A small junta cannot hold the entire
globe captive to its wishes.
Everyone on the planet knows that no
one can escape the individual and environmental consequences
of the weapons, such as depleted uranium, that the United States
has already used in Afghanistan and the last Gulf war.
There is a great blessing inherent in
our common jeopardy that leads directly to a common benefit.
There is a great blessing inherent in knowing that we share a
common jeopardy with each other, the animals and the creatures
of the natural world that can lead directly to our common flourishing
and survival.
It is possible, directly and indirectly,
to involve every citizen in the world on behalf of peace. Each
individual finding his or her way to say No to these wars motivated
by apocalyptic delusions and lust for oil and power. Each individual
finding his or her way to say Yes to concerted efforts to bring
a foundation of peacemaking to the world. Each individual finding
exactly the right activity. A profound alliance between strategic
activities and religious and spiritual invocations and the range
of possibilities in-between.
This letter does not suggest any particular
plan or form of action. But I am hoping that we can circulate
this call so widely that everyone is brought into the activity
on behalf of peace. We can, if we extend ourselves, reach almost
everyone on the planet and partake of his or her knowledge, wisdom
and unique vision.
Across the globe, in human history there
have been so many effective activities undertaken by people in
times of crises on behalf of peace, we cannot articulate them
all. But all of them are appropriate to this moment. We need
to use all of them and new ones as they come mind as we create
this global council with each other. Each one of us, acting alone
or in concert with each other in ways that accord with our minds,
imaginations, hearts, spirits and souls.
Actually this is already occurring; we
are being asked to make it universal. Unexpected agreements are
surfacing in the United States between Republicans and Democrats,
Christians, Muslims, Jews, members of every spiritual tradition,
progressives and conservatives, religious and political leaders,
all equally alarmed by the threats to democracy from Homeland
Security and the Patriot Act, and by the Administration's recalcitrant
insistence on pursuing a pre-emptive war without the support
of the United Nations, a war that many in the Pentagon, CIA and
military oppose. A war that will undoubtedly inflame terrorist
retaliation and so involve even more American and civilian causalities
throughout the world.
Mobilizations for peace are occurring
everywhere on the globe, marches and boycotts, conscientious
objection, peace rallies and global prayer circles, rituals and
ceremonies, pressures and influences, even as several British
workers have already refused to transport munitions headed to
the Gulf. We can join with the kin of American troops to protect
the young people being sent to fight in Iraq so that they will
not die there or return afflicted with the mysterious disabilities
that have affected such great numbers of American veterans recently.
Mothers for Peace and the Mothers of the Disappeared, Women in
Black alongside other activities of liberation have set peaceful
precedents for us. We can partake of their wisdom and strategies.
In the history of the planet, every people have stories and traditions
that speak of the success of making peace and the possibility
of overcoming oppression. We must call on these histories now.
We have fifteen days. It is not too short
a time if we extend ourselves to each other and do it together.
If we do whatever we would do if our lives depended upon it,
which they do.
In the fifteen days given to us, we can
bring peace and then set out from there.
Deena Metzer
is the author of Entering
the Ghost River. She can be reached at: deenametzger@earthlink.net
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January
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