January 2005

Peace & Justice

2005 Peace Essay Contest

Without belittling the courage with which [people] have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which [people]... have lived. The stories of past courage... can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each must look into his [or her] own soul.

— John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Profiles in Courage

Personal courage is the theme of the 2005 Peace Essay Contest. Each of us is faced with taking unpopular or controversial stands. Practicing listening to one's conscience and acting on one's convictions are important skills for character building.

Sponsored by the Modesto Peace/Life Center, the 19th annual Peace Essay Contest is open to 5th - 12th grade students living or attending school in Stanislaus County.

For the 2005 Peace Essay Contest flyer, contact the Modesto Peace/Life Center, 529-5750 or peaceessay@juno.com

2004 Peace Essay Contest Committee: Margaret Barker, Indira Clark, Pam Franklin, Elaine Gorman, Suzanne Meyer, Deborah Roberts, and Sandy Sample.

Peace Camp 2005 

Mark your calendar for Peace Camp: June 24-26. For 21 years the Modesto Peace/Life Center has hosted a weekend in the High Sierra for people of all ages with good fellowship, lively discussions, the best camp food imaginable. Relaxing, refreshing, even invigorating. 

ACTION: To help plan, phone Ken Schroeder at 526-2303.

Major victory on nuclear weapons

Edited from The Union of Concerned Scientists, December 2004

Congress has eliminated funding for two of the most provocative nuclear weapons programs and cut funding for two other nuclear-related initiatives. This is a major victory countering the Bush administration’s dangerous nuclear weapons.

All funding was eliminated for both the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a dangerous—and scientifically questionable—program to design a new nuclear “bunker buster,” and for research into other new types of nuclear weapons. In addition, funding was sharply cut for a new factory to make plutonium “pits,” the core of nuclear weapons, and efforts to shorten the time required to prepare for a full-scale nuclear weapons test were pushed back.

These programs all threatened to undermine the United States’ leadership role in nuclear nonproliferation. We cannot credibly ask other countries to restrain their nuclear weapons programs while we aggressively advance work on new weapons.

This campaign would not have succeeded without leadership from Representative David Hobson (R-OH), whose early cuts in the House set the tone for the eventual elimination of funding.

A clear message has been sent to Congress and the administration that developing new nuclear weapons is not acceptable, and that the United States must lead by example to achieve true security.

Visit www.ucsaction.org

Learning each other’s historical narrative: Palestinians and Israelis

Edited by James Costello

Education and school textbooks are important for peace-building, yet schoolchildren studying history in times of war learn only one side of the story — their own — considered to be the “right” one. Teaching is often doctrinaire, to justify one side while presenting a negative portrait of the other. One side’s hero is the other side’s monster, thus fanning the flames of war.

Research reveals that history textbooks usually focus on the conflict — its human losses and suffering — while neglecting periods of peaceful coexistence between the two sides.

Teachers become the nation’s cultural emissaries — expected to emphasize the goodness of their own side versus the evil of the other.

Learning each other’s historical narrative: Palestinians and Israelis is a new textbook project from the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME) trains teachers to be emissaries for peace-building, teaching both sides’ narratives, allowing their pupils to question what they learn regarding both narratives. One needn’t wait for peace agreements. Yet treaties will make it easier for the teachers, as the nations then change their educational curricula to reflect a culture of peace rather than one of war.

The textbook prepares students, even in the midst of conflict, to begin to understand and humanize the “other” — the beginning of the end of war, and of a new culture of respect and cooperation for the good of all. In December 2002 the teachers who helped develop the curriculum began teaching the narratives to their 9th grade classes. The considerable challenges, as well as successes, are being evaluated as the project moves forward with confidence.

The Israeli and Palestinian educators of PRIME discovered they were not yet ready to merge both narratives into one satisfactory single story. What they created were 3-columned pages. For any moment in history, there is a column for the Palestinian narrative and one for the Israeli experience of that instance. The center column is left open, provided for the student to make personal notes — additions, questions, new insights, conclusions.

The universal appeal of this new, balanced way of studying Palestinian and Israeli history has already spread to Italy and France. There, educators have independently initiated and funded reproducing these texts in French and Italian for use in their schools.

The Project Coordinators and Co-Directors of PRIME are Sami Adwan, Ph.D., Professor of History, Bethlehem University (SAdwan@bethlehem.edu) and Dan Bar-On, Ph.D. Dept of Behavioral Sciences, Ben Gurion University (DanBaron@bgumail.bgu.ac.il).

If you have interest in ordering copies of the booklet or developing a pilot project to use the booklets in American Jewish, Muslim or other schools, please contact Robert Loeb — Glen Ridge, NJ; 973-748-6113; email RLoeb@AOL.com Contact Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME) through Talitha Kumi, P.O.Box 7, Beit Jalah, Palestinian National Authority; email: PRIME@planet.edu; http://vispo.com/PRIME/

Edited from http://traubman.igc.org/textbook.htm

Still Not Our President!

The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition calls on all people who believe in justice to double our commitment to building the struggle against war and empire abroad, and for justice at home.

Thursday, January 20, 2005: Counter-Inaugural Demonstration in Washington, D.C. lining the inaugural route in mass protest
San Francisco – gather at Civic Center, 5 p.m.

Pledge now to support the January 20 demonstration against the war and say Bring the Troops Home Now!

March 19/20, 2005: Global Day of Coordinated Actions on the 2nd Anniversary of the “Shock and Awe” Invasion of Iraq: the whole world will be marking this day with mass actions.

ACTION: Contact A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Act Now to Stop War & End Racism,www.answercoalition.org. Email info@internationalanswer.org. National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389 New York City, San Francisco: 415-821-6545

Still Not Our President!   Protest the Bush Inauguration in Modesto!

When: Friday, Jan 21, 2005, 7p.m.
Where: Brenden Theater
What: Protest, Vigil, and Street Theater calling attention to the Bush administrations war at home and overseas.
Bring: Candles, signs, noise-makers, banners, yourself and friends!

The day after the election send a message to the Bush Administration that four more years is four more years too many! Let our collective voice for peace echo over their cries for war and further violence.

For information, contact Doug at: driller9@msn.com, 209 996 4032. Sponsored by Food Not Bombs and Modesto ANSWER.

ALL OUT for January 20 Counter—Inaugural & March 19/20 Global Day of Protest on 2nd Anniversary of the war

From the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition

What is the perspective of the antiwar movement in the face of the growing escalation of war in Iraq and repression at home?

We do not have the luxury of taking a break for despondency and despair. The antiwar movement must merge the struggle for at home to defend women’s rights. The antiwar movement must be part and parcel of the workers’ movement to defend our unions and to launch a broader struggle against the merciless attacks on health care benefits and pensions. The antiwar movement must unite with the anti-racist movement in defense of affirmative action and civil rights and liberties. We know full well what the Bush administration has in mind regarding civil rights. The threatening opening salvo by the government’s IRS against the NAACP for the crime of criticizing Bush should be understood as a harbinger.

The unrelenting assault on the Muslim and Arab American community doesn’t give that community the luxury to take a break from the struggle for justice. The rights of the entire elderly working class in the United States are also in the cross-hairs of Bush’s Wall Street gunslingers. They want their hands on that social security money for the investment portfolio of the banks and corporations. The antiwar movement must speak plainly: instead of spending $270 million a day to make Iraq safe for Halliburton and Citibank, those tax dollars should be used to protect social security and to build schools and provide health care. We can bet that the Democrats will head for the hills on equal marriage rights as Bush and the ultra-right unleash a wave of bigotry. The antiwar movement must stand openly against all divide-and-conquer bigotry.

This global movement is strengthened not by looking up to the corporations that fund the two primary U.S. parties to rise up a leader to offer mild reforms, but from people standing side-by-side and engaging in collective action around positions of principle. This is the true democracy, and the only source for hope for our collective future.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition calls on all people who believe in justice to double our commitment to building the struggle against war and empire abroad, and for justice at home.

January 20, 2005: Counter-Inaugural Demonstration in Washington, D.C. lining the inaugural route in mass protest and simultaneous protests in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities.

Pledge now to support the January 20 demonstration against the war and say Bring the Troops Home Now!

March 19/20, 2005: Global Day of Coordinated Actions on the 2nd Anniversary of the “Shock and Awe” Invasion of Iraq: the whole world will be marking this day with mass actions.

Contact A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, www.answercoalition.org. Email info@internationalanswer.org National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389 New York City, San Francisco: 415-821-6545

“Nations are caught up with the drum r instinct. ‘I must be first.’ ‘I must be supreme.’ ‘Our nation must rule the world.’ And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit.”

“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”

“And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them.”

“While the anti-poverty program is cautiously initiated, zealously supervised and valuated for immediate results, billions are liberally expended for this ill-considered war.... Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war.... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters.”

“There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘We ain’t goin’ study war no more.”  

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

From “Beyond Vietnam,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. (full text available at httpwww.stanford.edu/group/King)