STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS

Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment

December, 2001

A Modesto Peace/Life Center Publication

Peacemaking

Fasting 
By DAN ONORATO

In early November the suggestion circulated around the country that people opposed to the bombing in Afghanistan take up fasting, especially during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (which started November 17). The idea appealed to my imagination but my body said, no, you can't stop eating! And besides, what good will it do?

Fasting doesn't necessarily mean no eating at all. People can decide how much they'll fast. Recently Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness who talked in Modesto in late October, finished a 40 day fast that involved no solid food at all. During Ramadan devout Muslims abstain from all food and liquids between sunrise and sunset but may eat at other times of the day. During Advent, which begins on December 2 and goes for four weeks preceding Christmas, Christians also fast, though usually not as rigorously. Some choose not to eat one meal a day; others might skip all snacking; some decide to forego eating one day a week.

For both Muslims and Christians fasting is a discipline aimed at regaining perspective. One step is atonement. Atonement connotes penance, doing something difficult to make up for something we should not have done or failed to do. In this regard fasting fits the requirement: not eating is hard. But the physical discipline is only part of a more challenging process of interior reflection and spiritual transformation. Those who fast try to focus on what really matters in life. They look closely at their distractions, fears, lust, greed, anger, harsh language, impatience, selfishness, and need to control. They take on acts of charity or almsgiving as a way of learning to think beyond their own needs to the needs of others. In this widening circle of compassion, understanding deepens and the bonds of human community are strengthened.

In today's political context, fasting can link us to the suffering of others here in America and around the world, and specifically in the Middle East to the displaced and starving in Afghanistan, to the malnourished in Iraq, to the victims of violence in Israel-Palestine.

What good will fasting do? I don't know for sure. What or whom will it change? Maybe only me, or you. Maybe compassion will help move us to a deeper analysis of governmental policies that may contribute to the suffering. Maybe we'll take time to read more. If we care enough, maybe we'll act on our new understanding.

Pacifists and peaceniks are taking a drubbing in the press these days. Yet we are not without resources in these dark and confusing times. Fasting and the clarity of vision it fosters can help us channel our energy constructively.

ACTION: For useful information and helpful websites, visit

http://www.goshen.edu/~peteo/links/Ramadan.php

How pacifists see world
By ANN MEYER BYLER

 I am a pacifist and am outraged at the actions of whoever was responsible for killing so many innocent people through the forced airplane crashes of September 11. The question we all face is: How do we respond? Some articles and letters have explicitly criticized pacifism but misrepresented it. I hope to contribute to an informed and respectful dialog.

 Christian pacifists believe that Jesus’ nonviolent lifestyle is central in the New Testament to his good news for the world around him, then and now. This includes love of enemies. Jesus was put to death, having defended himself with the God’s words but not with violence. Jesus’ resurrection showed that this nonviolent love is strongest in the end. What was “good enough” for Jesus is surely “good enough” for us, as those who call ourselves by his name. This is the faith of the Christian pacifist. (See Matt. 5, 26:52; Rom 5:10, 12:17-21.)

 The popularity of “What Would Jesus Do?” indicates some agreement that Jesus’ actions should be those of Christians today. Still, throughout history Christians have thought of reasons why they shouldn’t do what Jesus did and asked his followers to do. Yet the scriptures stand.

 Besides the scriptural basis for nonviolence, pacifists say that violence often doesn’t work to bring about peace or justice, and it may even have the opposite effect, leading to a cycle of violence in which everyone loses.

 Violence can kill; it can beat down the opposition; and it can terrorize, but then you are left with grieving, beaten down, terrorized opponents — who can’t wait for revenge. Historians say that after World War I, the losing regime was ravaged and left in such a humiliated state that the stage was set for the rise of the Nazi party.

 Violent acts lead to more violent acts until there is no way to “pay back” the other for all the damage inflicted. Ireland, the Middle East and Rwanda are all examples of this. Nonviolence may be costly, but the violence of war has a horrible track record, not to be underestimated.

 The violence of our economic sanctions against Iraq these last 11 years and the bombings that continue to this day have killed 500,000 civilians there, according to U.N. figures. The anger and desperation of people in that region related to these innocent victims — mostly Arabs — fuel the kind of desperate act we witnessed Sept. 11.

 Another example of armed violence begetting more violence is our current war with people we armed a few years ago. We armed Osama bin Laden and his network and trained them in camps to fight against the Russians in the 1980s. With the Saudis, we gave them $4 billion. And now we are fighting the very fighters we armed earlier and also punishing the innocent Afghan people who have lived under war for years and years. Will this lead to peace?

 Pacifists and nonpacifists alike need to ask creatively about other ways through conflicts. Violence is certainly not the only way to fight violence and injustice.

 Gandhi led a major country-wide revolution among the Indian people that brought England to its knees, giving India its independence. What were his weapons? Only his loincloth of homespun Indian muslin, his insistence on nonviolence, his belief that God is in every person, and his willingness to fast from food.

 Nelson Mandela in South Africa also led an amazingly peaceful transition from power in what could have been a bloody conflagration. After 27 years in jail, Mandela’s message was forgiveness, not retribution, for the white class who had subjected the Africans and Coloreds to unrelenting degradation.

 Are pacifists cowards, afraid to give their lives for their beliefs? “Pacifism” and “passive” are two entirely different words, with different roots. Pacifism is an active form of peacemaking. There are pacifists as well as soldiers who are willing to die for their cause.

 Consider the lives — and deaths — of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. These people, all pacifists, were not cowards. They had the moral strength not to fight back.

 Martin Luther King Jr. suffered physically and mentally during his many arrests, protest marches and jail sentences, yet his message was always that violence was not the answer. Was he successful? Would his message have been nearly as powerful if he had resorted to violence to make his point and armed all his followers with rifles, grenades and bombs? He was killed, but his movement, like Jesus’, was not defeated.

 Some say that pacifists live to enjoy their privileges because others fought for them. On the contrary: The right to conscientious objection in this country was not fought for by anyone except those who suffered and died in military camps during World War I for their religious beliefs and those who campaigned for these rights until they were granted in 1935. Conscientious objectors serve their countries both by doing alternative service when it is allowed and by holding fast to their convictions when it is not.

 As we discuss national and international issues and what makes for peace and justice in the world, let us model healthy conversation and respectful dialog, for this is democracy at its best.

 For more information: Mennonite Peace and Justice Committee, www.MennoLink.org/peace

 Ann Meyer Byler is a Goshen writer and copy editor.

Armistice Day 
By ANDREW PAGE

"We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the alter of retaliation...History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate." - Martin Luther King Jr.

What will be remembered as Veterans Day this Sunday was originally created as a holiday in celebration of Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Although few alive today can remember that terrible, bloody war, we would do well to take stock of the armistice that closed it. There were flaws in the treaty of Versailles that led directly to the rise of fascism in post-war Germany, and we can find reflections of those flaws in US foreign policy today.

One of the very effective wartime strategies developed by Great Britain during WWI was the naval blockade in the North Sea. The British Navy cut off the supplies to Germany with this blockade, literally starving the Germans into submission. After the Armistice was signed Great Britain continued the blockade. Mainly due to callousness and inertia, the blockade was continued through the particularly harsh winter of 1918, for a full half year after the end of the war. As many as 800 thousand German civilians, mostly women and children, starved to death or died of related illness as a result of the continued blockade. Of the horrendous toll paid by the German people, Winston Churchill later wrote, "These bitter experiences stripped their conquerors in their eyes of all credentials except those of force."

This punishment of the German people was connected to the "war guilt" clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, under which Germany had to pay reparations and accept responsibility for the war. That impossible economic burden, in addition to the war torn infrastructure and the punishing naval blockade quickly led Germany to an economic collapse, run away inflation, and an implosion of civil society. Into this mayhem strode Hitler, who exploited the German resentment of being victimized by the rest of Europe, evoked images of German glory, and above all, promised (and delivered) order.

At the end of World War II the allies pointedly avoided repeating the mistakes of Versailles. Military personnel were brought to justice for war crimes, but civilians were not punished. Instead of leaving the defeated nations to stew in their destroyed cities, the Allied countries, and the US in particular, poured millions of dollars into rebuilding Europe, (Western) Germany, and Japan under the auspices of the Marshall Plan. It worked like a charm, the Marshall Plan not only succeeded in building the foundation of thriving democracies, it also established the dollar as the world's currency.

Unfortunately, the lessons learned at the end of World War II seem to have been forgotten. For a decade the US has maintained an embargo on Iraq that has been totally ineffectual in influencing Saddam Hussein, but has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people - most of whom could not possibly be guilty for the Iraq war because they had not been born at the time. Certainly, to a large number of Iraqis the US has lost all credentials except those of force. Hussein continually exploits the resentment and bruised pride of the Iraqi people. Some argue that the embargo actually helps him stay in power.

In Afghanistan we find a similar reflection of the mistakes of Versailles. After waging a proxy war against the former Soviet Union, the US simply abandoned Afghanistan at the end of the war. With weapons in overabundance and the countryside teeming with land mines, Afghanistan inexorably descended into complete anarchy. Civilians were at the mercy of whomever might stroll into town with a grenade launcher on any given day. A major reason why the Taliban's harsh rule has been accepted by the people of Afghanistan is that the Taliban did establish order. While it might be a murderously brutal order, it was better than murderously brutal anarchy.

As we honor veterans today, let us also honor the hard won lessons learned from previous wars. US policies today and into the future must take into account the impact they have on civilian populations. Anything less betrays the principles upon which democracy is founded.

The author is Northern California Political Director for California Peace Action email: andrew@californiapeaceaction.org 510.849.2272