Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

  • Peace Educator Finds Ways to Better World

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    I grew up in a farm family where hard work, industriousness and resourcefulness were highly valued. Our seasonally governed lives meant more than just calendar changes. From an early age, I internalized the planting and harvest patterns of corn and soybeans. The Farmer’s Almanac taught me to discern the stages of the crops, as well as humans’ inextricable connection to the land and to nature.

    My entire life, much of my learning took place outside the classroom; I viewed school as a steppingstone to extracurricular activities like Model U.N., tennis, Student Council, musicals and classical ballet. My parents taught me to view my God-given gifts as such, to use them for the benefit of others. They cultivated in me a respect and love for fun education that transcends standardized tests, encourages asking questions and seeks out wise mentors.

    In college, I studied what I loved, taking classes that interested me, like film studies, linguistics, quantum physics and the evolution of social justice movements in the United States. Afterward, however, I had no idea where to get a job because there is really no urgent call for neurolinguist majors in the Help Wanted ads. And there was no newspaper section called Careers with a Conscience. So, I started thinking about who I admire.

    My list of heroes include Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor; Indiana Jones, the fictitious archaeologist/professor/adventurer; Laura Ingalls Wilder; and my best friend Jill, an occupational therapist who has begun talking to shop and metalworking classes in high schools about how students’ skills can create useful household items for her differently-abled patients. Grace Llewellyn, one of the pioneers of the Unschooling Movement and author of “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education,” also ranks high on my list.

    All these people have in common the goal of freeing education. Unconstrained by the boundaries of desks and classrooms, they bring learning into the open. They represent creativity, individuality, deconstructing barriers, having fun, serving others and making the most of natural talents.

    So it makes sense that I was drawn to peace education, a holistic approach to learning. Peace education means many things: conflict resolution, anger management, power with vs. power over, respect for nature, love of diversity and community service. But it is more than that; it’s teaching students about the connections between poverty, racism, technology, the environment, politics, economics, religion and education. I have learned from my students they most value authenticity. Tired of being fed prepackaged ideas through mass marketing and mindless trips to the malls and movie theaters, my students keep telling me they believe there’s more to life than Nike and Coca-Cola.

    I believe it too.

    Yet, these messages are not the standard priority of pop culture that tells us to get good grades, to get into a top school, to get the right degree so that you can get the high-paying job, the big house, the fast car and the latest look. What we neglect to tell students in their college counseling sessions is that none of these things guarantees happiness.

    We teach students to compartmentalize, that in school, English is separate from science is separate from history is separate from math. Peace education decompartmentalizes more than that, it fosters a sense of interconnectedness where each subject, each person, each decision is inextricably linked to another. It demonstrates that, in life, there is much more gray area than black and white.

    So why am I a peace educator? Because it fulfills my love of teaching, writing, learning and travel. Because it is authentic. Because I continually meet interesting people who challenge my beliefs and boundaries. Because it promotes consensus and process-oriented skills that make life more functional. Because I can work locally on issues such as peace education and PictSweet; nationally on issues such as juvenile and restorative justice; and internationally on issues such as Iraq and Aceh.

    It feels good to do good when no one’s watching. It feels good to be a part of a larger cause. It feels good to make even a small difference. It feels good to be in solidarity with people struggling for their right to learn, to work, to live. It feels good to teach peace.
    *Leah C. Wells of Santa Paula is Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Peace Declarations From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Peace Declarations From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the two most important places in the world where memory is preserved about what nuclear weapons do to people and to cities. Each year on August 6th and 9th respectively, the anniversaries of the bombings, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deliver the Peace Declarations for their cities. These statements provide a pulse of the status of efforts to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    On the 57th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba lamented that the painful experience of those who survived the bombings “appears to be fading from the collective memory of humankind,” and that consequently “the probability that nuclear weapons will be used and the danger of nuclear war are increasing.”

    Mayor Akiba noted that the “path of reconciliation…has been abandoned.” He called for “conscientious exploration and understanding of the past.” To achieve this end, he called for establishing a “Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Study Course in colleges and universities around the world,” and indicated that plans for this are already in progress. He also urged President Bush to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to “confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons hold in store for us all.” Thus far, no American president has visited either city.

    Mayor Akiba called upon the government of Japan “to reject nuclear weapons absolutely and to renounce war.” The Japanese government, he said, “has a responsibility to convey the memories, voices, and prayers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki throughout the world, especially to the United States, and for the sake of tomorrow’s children, to prevent war.”

    Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki condemned the United States for its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; its rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and its plans to move forward with missile defenses, to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, and to use preemptive nuclear strikes. “We are appalled,” he said, “by this series of unilateral actions taken by the government of the United States, actions which are also being condemned by people of sound judgment throughout the world.”

    Mayor Itoh called for the government of Japan to confirm in law the three non-nuclear principles that have guided Japan (that it will not possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons into the country). He also called for the Japanese government to help create a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, to cease its reliance on the US “nuclear umbrella,” and “to enhance the welfare of aging atomic bomb survivors residing both within and outside Japan.”

    Mayor Itoh announced that the City of Nagasaki would be hosting in 2003 a second worldwide gathering of civil society organizations to add impetus to efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. The City of Nagasaki, he said, will also be reaching out to youth by promoting the Nagasaki Peace Education Program.

    “The abolition of nuclear arms through mutual understanding and dialogue,” said Mayor Itoh, “is an absolute precondition for the realization of a peaceful world. It is up to us, ordinary citizens, to rise up and lead the world to peace.”

    Ordinary citizens of the United States must soon come to understand the critical message of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being conveyed by the mayors of these cities on behalf of those who perished and those who survived the atomic bombings. Without such understanding, and with such enormous power left in the hands of men like George W. Bush and many of his advisors shaping nuclear policy, the world moves closer to the day when more cities will share the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Peace And Sustainable Development Will Rise or Fall Together

    Peace And Sustainable Development Will Rise or Fall Together

    It is not likely that peace can be maintained in the longer term without sustainable development. Similarly, it is unlikely that sustainable development can take place in a climate dominated by war and the preparations for war.

    In order to assess the prospects for both peace and sustainable development, we must take into account the broad global trends of our time: political, economic, military and cultural. I will attempt to provide some perspective on these trends.

    Political

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, there was a breakdown of the post World War II bipolar balance of power. The United States emerged as the dominant global power, while the Russians have struggled to maintain their economy and their influence. Instead of extending a gracious hand of support to the Russians, as the United States did for Western Europe, including the vanquished nations, and Japan after WWII, the US has sought to extend its global reach and, in general, forced the Russians to accept compromising positions, such as the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe.

    At the same time, the United States has generally opposed the expansion of international law, including human rights law, and has withdrawn its support from many key treaty commitments, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Accords on Climate Change, and the Protocol to verify the Biological Weapons Convention. Almost daily there are reports of new US assaults on international law.

    As the United States has sought to extend its power unilaterally, it has undermined the international political process established after World War II that operates through the United Nations. The US has withheld economic support from the United Nations and only sought to use it when the US perceived that its own interests could be directly advanced, as in the cases of the Persian Gulf War and the more recent US-led war on terrorism.

    In the past, new coalitions have formed to provide a check on one country asserting global dominance. It is perhaps too early to see clearly the shape of a new coalition that might arise in response to US dominance, but if history is a guide there will be one. Even without any major coalition of forces arising, however, the US will remain challenged by terrorists seeking to avenge themselves against the US for policies that have adversely affected their lives, cultures and countries.

    Economic

    The US has promoted the forces of globalization that have opened the doors for capital to move freely to countries where the costs of labor are cheapest and the environmental regulations are most lax. Despite claims by Western leaders that benefits would accrue to the neediest, this “globalization from above” has continued to shift economic benefit from the poor to the wealthy, and has not provided substantial increased benefit to the poor of the world. Nearly half the world’s population continues to live in conditions of poverty, characterized by inadequate food, water, shelter and health care. These conditions create a fertile breeding ground for terrorists committed to the destruction of US dominance and its imperial outreach.

    Further, global military expenditures are approximately $800 billion per year. These funds are largely used to repress and control the poor, when in actuality, for a small fraction of these global expenditures, the conditions of poverty could be largely eliminated. Of the $800 billion spent worldwide on military forces, the US spends approximately one-half of the total. This trend has been on a steady rise since the Bush administration came into power.

    The rich countries of the world have done little to alleviate the crushing burdens of poverty or to aid in redressing the indignities and inequities still existing after long periods of colonial rule. There is much cause for unease throughout the developing world, which is giving rise to continued low intensity warfare as exemplified by the Palestinian struggle against the Israelis and events such as the September 11th attacks against the United States.

    Military

    In the post-Cold War period, the US has pulled far ahead of the other nations of the world in terms of military dominance. The US is able to control NATO policy and has used NATO as a vehicle for its pursuit of military domination. In addition to dramatically increasing its military budget in recent years, the US has announced plans for high-tech developments that include missile defense systems, more usable nuclear weapons and the weaponization of space.

    Despite its push for global military dominance, however, the nature of today’s weapons limit the possibility of any country having unilateral dominance. Nuclear weapons, for example, are capable of destroying cities, and there is an increased likelihood in the aftermath of the Cold War that these weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists capable of attacking largely, if not completely, with impunity. Thus, the most powerful weapons that have been created have greater utility for the weak (if they can get their hands on them) than they do for the strong (who may be reluctant to exercise such power and also unable to if they cannot identify and locate the source of the attack).

    Cultural

    The world is definitely experiencing a clash of cultures, but not along the fault lines of civilizations as Samuel Huntington has suggested. The opposing cultural trends that are most dominant are between those who define the world in terms of the value of massive accumulation and immediate use of resources (powerful individuals, corporations and the national governments that provide a haven for them) and those who define the world in terms of shared rights and responsibilities for life and future generations (most of the world’s people). The former values, reflected predominantly by the economic elites in the United States and many other countries and constantly on display through various forms of media, do not promote sustainable development, wreak havoc on the poor of the world and invite retaliation. The latter values are reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the growing body of international human rights law that has developed since World War II.

    Dominant Trends

    The dominant world trends today are:

    • Unilateralism by the United States and a downplaying of collective political responsibility;
    • Growing and increasingly desperate economic disparity between the world’s rich and poor;
    • A push for military dominance by the United States in particular and the Western states through NATO more generally, offset by the flexibility of terrorists who may obtain nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; and
    • The cultural dominance of greed and selfishness portrayed by global media on a broad screen for all, including the poor, to see from throughout the world.

    These trends are destabilizing and unsustainable. They can change by democratic means from within democratic states or they can continue until the world is embroiled in conflagration. That is a choice that is available to us for a relatively short period of time as the trends are already quite advanced. The changes needed are:

    • A shift to multilateralism, involving all states, through a reformed and strengthened United Nations;
    • Implementation of a plan to alleviate poverty and economic injustice throughout the world;
    • A shift from US and NATO military dominance to the implementation of the post World War II vision of collective security; and
    • A shift toward implementation of international law in which all states and their leaders are held to high standards of protecting human rights and the dignity of the individual.

    The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, set to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2002, will fail dramatically unless it takes into account these dominant trends and the need to shift them in more sustainable and peaceful directions.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Deputy Chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility.

  • Summer in Iraq Yields Lessons About War

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    Before we talk about a new war with Iraq, we must recognize that the “old war” never ended. Last month, an airstrike by the United States killed one Iraqi and injured 17 others — and we should not miss the significance of this fact. More than a thousand Iraqis have been killed and many more wounded since the illegal no-fly zones were imposed in 1991 — areas that we purportedly patrol to keep Iraqis safe.

    In spite of the slanted testimony of the recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the potential for a renewed war with Iraq, where no dissenters were allowed to speak, the entire world seems to be sending a message to the United States that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein is an unequivocally bad idea.

    Nations such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Germany have demonstrated outright disapproval and nonsupport for a U.S.-led war against Iraq.

    Not invited to testify were Scott Ritter, the ex-U.S. Marine who led the UNSCOM weapons inspection team until December 1998 when the United Nations withdrew the group prior to a heavy bombing raid on Baghdad, and Dennis Halliday and Hans Graf von Sponeck, two career United Nations officials who resigned their posts as chief humanitarian coordinators in Iraq in protest of the devastating effects of the sanctions. These three would have provided vital information regarding the status of the Iraqi population, the deaths of more than half a million children due to preventable illnesses and malnutrition, and more than a million total people in Iraq since the Gulf War of 1991.

    “I bear personal witness through seven years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq for the United Nations to both the scope of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs and the effectiveness of the U.N. weapons inspectors in ultimately eliminating them. While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq’s proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90 to 95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq,” wrote Ritter July 20 for the Boston Globe.

    Noticeably absent from the dialogue about Iraq is the impact a “new” war would have on the civilian population. A Los Angeles Times report states that much of the fighting this time around would be centered in cities and urban areas, increasing the likelihood of high numbers of civilian casualties.

    Also unmentioned is the impact the war preparation is having on the children of Iraq whose lives are suspended in wait of more bombings. In a letter to American students in reference to the December 1998 bombing, “Please send us gifts and not bombs from Father Christmas.” We must consider the psychological toll that even the preparation for war takes on the children.

    The following stories attempt to humanize the lives of average Iraqis as I encountered them last summer. Not much has changed since then.

    Scenes of war

    Iraq is the cradle of civilization, home to the famed Garden of Eden, to Babylon, to the Tigris and Euphrates, to the Fertile Crescent. It houses the birthplace of Abraham, the mosque of Imam Ali and the most widely accepted evidence of the Great Flood — seashells atop a 4,000-year-old ziggurat in the middle of the desert. Yet, since the Gulf War, the sanctity of this historically significant land has been desecrated and its people demoralized, as I learned while visiting Iraq July and August 2001.

    Daily calls to prayer broadcast throughout the city awakened me to the impact of the sanctions and the residual effects of the Gulf War. The call begins with “God is greater than all.” I quickly learned that since Aug. 6, 1990, the effects of war are even more far-reaching than God.

    Omran

    Omran was a 12-year-old shepherd boy walking through his family’s field in May 2000 when a stray bomb fell from a U.S. plane patrolling the illegal no-fly zones over the southern portion of Iraq. This bomb instantly killed him — and ripped apart the social fabric of his tiny village near Najaf.

    I visited Omran’s family last summer. I tried my best to explain to Omran’s mother, father, brothers and entire village that the memory of their son is not forgotten. Omran’s story has been told hundreds of times to high school students, to colleges, to peace and justice and religious groups across the United States as part of a nationwide project to remember Omran.

    I listened as Omran’s father told of his inexplicable loss, of the pain of losing a child, of no apology from anyone, save the five American pacifists sitting before him hot and dusty in the dry Iraq desert. Omran’s mother, who has scarcely spoken since he was killed and who is suffering from a serious heart condition, embraced me and we shed tears together over the helplessness of the situation.

    Cancer ward

    It is 140 degrees inside the hospital at Amara. The air conditioning does not work because the electrical facilities were bombed during the Gulf War and spare parts are routinely denied as dual-use items by the Sanctions Committee at the United Nations.

    A mother sits cross-legged on her son’s bare hospital bed, a piece of torn cardboard in one hand, fanning her child. She is sobbing uncontrollably, rocking back and forth. Her son is unconscious, dying of cancer; he has no IV bag, no medicine, no painkillers. She has no tissue, so I ask for a handful and give them to her; she glances at me with tired appreciation.

    She places the cardboard fan on the bed and begins to knead at her son’s body — his torso, his legs — in a desperate attempt to rouse him. He does not move. I sit helpless on the sheetless bed next to her, watching, invading this private moment, glued to this scene, futile tears rolling down my cheeks. I think, “This is my fault.” The guilt endures.

    Across the room, the doctor escorting our group through the hospital pokes and prods at sleeping, sick babies causing them to wake up screaming in pain to demonstrate the malignancies, tumors and gross deformities that have mysteriously appeared since the Gulf War. All the children are crying now; all their mothers try to comfort them and not look annoyed that the gawking Americans have disturbed their lives.

    The car accident

    We fasted for a day across from the United Nations on Aug. 6, 2001, in the oppressive heat. At the end of the day, a blowout on the road a few feet from us caused a car to spin out of control and crash into our Iraqi friend’s car — our 70-year-old friend who is a taxi driver and who relies on his car for income. Both cars are totally wrecked, blood everywhere. Spare car parts and new tires are expensive. The transfer rate for the Iraqi dinar to U.S. dollars has been devalued from 3:1 to 2000:1, meaning average Iraqis have virtually no purchasing power.

    I call out for our friend who miraculously emerges from the back seat of his smashed vehicle, banged, bruised and filled with glass in his eyes. He is dazed, then suddenly realizes that his livelihood has been instantaneously taken from him. He starts to cry. I try to negotiate with Kalashnikov-toting soldiers to let our friend get examined by a United Nations doctor for internal injuries before they take him to the police station. We ask another Iraqi how much to junk the car and buy a new one. He looks surprised. “Junk the car? In Iraq, we fix everything.”

    While we in the United States live out foreign wars vicariously through our movies, through the news and through the threats of nuclear force made by those in power, I recall the people I met in Iraq whose lives are considerably less glamorous than the remote Hollywood versions we see and hear about. I often wonder if the case of Iraq is an example of the best our foreign policy can be.

    Iraq is more than its one leader. It is a country of 23 million people who all have stories, hopes and fears.

    Basketball and books

    When 58-year-old Zuhair Matti moved to Los Angeles from Baghdad, Iraq, in March 1977, he hardly figured that returning to his homeland would be an intangible goal.

    A member of the 1973 Iraqi Olympic basketball team, Matti played against athletes from all over the world in the games that symbolize internationalism, peace and sportsmanship. Held in Tehran, Iran, just a few years prior to the Iran-Iraq war, the 1973 Olympics were a chance for Matti to shine as a national celebrity for Iraq. His athletic ability and love of his country and people made him a national superhero with fame and status.

    In 1977, Matti moved to Los Angeles at the behest of his wife, whose family lived here. Now an American citizen with two American-born sons, ages 23 and 14, Matti makes ends meet by working at Home Depot, still pining for a family half a globe away whom he has not seen for 24 years.

    When Matti fled Iraq, he was an officer in the army; he took a vacation and never returned. That, compiled with travel made more difficult by the U.N.-imposed and U.S./U.K.-upheld economic sanctions, which disallow travel to and from Iraq, dims hopes that Zuhair will return to his native country soon. He explains: “Travel is so expensive and I don’t want to return with only a few dollars in my pocket. I want to be able to treat everyone very well when I go back. Iraqis are the most generous people on Earth. They are magnanimous people.”

    Al-Mutannabi Street in Baghdad is a well-known book market there, which offers evidence to the academic and intellectual impact of embargo. Half a mile long, lined on both sides of the street with books ranging from 1980s computer manuals to linguistics textbooks to copies of the Qu’ran, the book market demonstrates the impact on the educated class through a persistent starvation of minds and deprivation of information.

    The street is lined with children peddling comic books and middle-aged men selling novels, manuals and movie posters. The children ought to be in school and the men ought to be working in their professional capacities. Fifty-year-old shoe shiners were at one time physics professors. Taxi drivers were electrical engineers.

    Since it is illegal to send anything weighing more than 12 ounces to Iraq through the U.S. Postal Service, medical textbooks and other professional journals cannot be sent. None of the books I saw was published later than 1989.

    That hot day on Aug. 3, 2001, I met Matti’s brother Gassan selling books on Al-Mutannabi Street. Through a translator, he asked where I live. When I replied that I live near Los Angeles, his face lit up. “Please call my brother when you get back home,” he implored. “Tell him I am well! Tell him our mother is well! Tell him how I look; you see I look well, right? I have not seen him in more than 20 years!”

    One of the few promises I can make to the Iraqis I met last summer is that upon my return, I will tell their stories to as many people as will listen. Upon returning to the United States, I called and subsequently met Zuhair Matti, fulfilling Gassan’s wish.

    “You are a nice young woman, Leah,” Matti tells me. “Thank you for what you are doing for my people.” His gratitude surprises me, yet marks a quintessentially Arab sentiment that for however good you are to someone, the goodness will be returned tenfold to you.

    Perhaps Zuhair Matti will be able to travel to Iraq, whether or not he violates the inhumane sanctions that divide families and isolate the Fertile Crescent from the rest of civilization. Perhaps he will see his aging mother before she passes away. He says that the most important thing is “to judge a person based on how nice he is,” and how important it is to have diverse friends. He believes that people are good, regardless of race and ethnicity.

    Perhaps if more Americans knew Iraqis like Zuhair Matti, we would not be so quick to condemn all Iraqis to a slow death via sanctions or an even more expedient death in a new war.

    Precarious situation

    Prior to 1990, Iraq was deemed an emerging first-world country by the United Nations. The oil empire had brought Iraqi citizens great wealth and a prosperous society that boasted free medical care for every citizen as well as free education up through university. In many ways, the standard of living in Iraq once was comparable to middle-class American life.

    Because of the sanctions, no currency flows in or out of Iraq. Any financial transactions must be approved by the Sanctions Committee 661 at the United Nations in New York. It is illegal to wire money from the United States — or anywhere else — to family inside Iraq’s borders. All goods and funds entering or leaving Iraq must have the approval of the five permanent members of the Security Council whose representatives sit on the 661 Committee. The economy has been at a standstill for 11 years, targeting the civilian population while a powerful few score illegal contracts to smuggle oil out of the country.

    Yet for most Iraqis in 2002, many of the basic health and household amenities are far out of reach. Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, the transfer rate of dinar:dollars was 3:1. Now the transfer rate soars at nearly 2,000 dinar to $1, effectively stripping the average, middle-class Iraqis of any meaningful purchasing power.

    During a visit to a pharmacy in Baghdad, I learned that only the wealthiest private sector can afford higher-quality toothpaste, costing 1,250 dinar (71 cents). The rest of the population buys lower-quality toothpaste at 250 dinar (14 cents). Prior to 1990, diapers cost 18 dinar and were widely used throughout Iraq. A box of 10 diapers in August 2001 cost between 2,000 to 4,000 dinar ($1.14 to $2.29). One bottle of shampoo costs 1,500 dinar, or $1.86.

    An average salary in Iraq is roughly 5,000 dinar per month. The Iraqi government, dominated by the Ba’ath party, employs many people — doctors, teachers, engineers and other civil servants. Prior to the Gulf War, teachers in Iraq earned the equivalent of $300 to $400 per month. They now earn the equivalent of $3 to $4 per month.

    Health care has gained a price tag as well in Iraq. Once-affordable medicines like aspirin are too expensive for people to buy now. Ibuprofen and vitamins cost 200 dinar each (11 cents) for 10 tablets. Twelve capsules of Erythromyacin, an antibiotic, cost 500 dinar (29 cents). Some health-care and household items are available in Iraq and to a certain extent are available to the general public. But, families must spend their money only on necessities such as rent and food rather than on aspirin and cough syrup or trips to the hospital.

    Iraqi families finding themselves in financially precarious situations often take their children out of school and send them to beg, steal, peddle candy or cigarettes or shine shoes. I spent a great deal of time with Achmed and Saif, 13 and 12, respectively, who shined our shoes every day for 750 dinar, less than 50 cents. They arrived at our hotel long before we awoke and stayed until late at night.

    Because of the devaluation of the dinar, often only one child per family will be able to attend school due to the cost of supplies such as books, shoes and clothes. A remarkable increase in both depression and juvenile delinquency has occurred in Iraq in the past 11 years. One 10-year-old boy had been sent by his father to sell cigarettes on the street to increase the family’s income rather than attend school. Many customers took advantage of his naivete, taking cigarettes and promising to return with payment later. At the end of the day, when the boy had no cigarettes and no money to show, his father scolded him and sent him to bed with no dinner. This young boy went to his room, wrapped himself in towels and set himself on fire.

    Once-rare crimes like theft and vandalism are now more commonplace among the young, and because the onset of social problems only began within the last 11 years, state-supported social services have only a feeble infrastructure to deal with the ever-expanding magnitude of these issues.

    Desperation and poverty have contributed to a breakdown in family structure and support. The hopelessness for a better future pervades the culture of Iraq, especially among the youth. Their scholastic apathy shows a scary trend signifying their awareness of their dim future. Regardless of how hard they study in school, they know they do not have promising prospects.

    We must not allow Iraqis to take steps backward toward enforced child labor, divestment from quality education and further poverty. Justice and peace for Iraqis mean that they must have a sense of economic mobility and stability in their society.
    *Leah C. Wells of Santa Paula serves as peace education coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She also teaches at local high schools.

  • Sadako Peace Day 2002

    Sadako Peace Day 2002

    We are gathered in community at this beautiful garden, as others are gathered in Hiroshima and throughout the world, to remember the horror and consequences of the use of nuclear weapons so that we may help assure that there are not future Hiroshimas and Nagasakis.

    Sadako Peace Garden, named for Sadako Sasaki, a young victim of the Hiroshima bombing, is dedicated to all who work for peace and a nuclear weapons free world.

    On this occasion, I would like to offer three suggestions.

    First, believe in your dreams. No dream is impossible, even a world at peace, even a world free of nuclear weapons. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” The world and future generations badly need for us to believe in these dreams and to keep hope alive.

    Second, dedicate yourself to making your dreams become reality. Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” I urge you to act upon your dreams, act for a better, more peaceful world, free of the threat of nuclear holocaust.

    Third, never give up. Here is what the Dalai Lama says about never giving up.

    NEVER GIVE UP

    No matter what is going on
    Never give up
    Develop the heart
    Too much energy in your country
    Is spent developing the mind
    Instead of the heart
    Be compassionate
    Not just to your friends
    But to everyone
    Be compassionate
    Work for peace
    In your heart and in the world
    Work for peace
    And I say again
    Never give up
    No matter what is going on around you
    Never give up

    In concluding, I’d like to share a recent poem about Einstein, one of my heroes, a great scientist and even greater humanitarian, a man who never gave up.
    EINSTEIN’S REGRET

    Einstein’s regret ran deep
    Like the deep pools of sorrow
    That were his eyes.

    His mind could see things
    That others could not,
    The bending of light,

    The slowing of time,
    Relationships of trains passing
    In the night, and power,

    Dormant and asleep,
    That could be awakened,
    But who would dare?

    He saw patterns
    In snowflakes and stars,
    Unimaginable simplicity

    To make one weep with joy.

    When the shadow of Hitler
    Spread across Europe.
    What was Einstein to do

    But what he did?
    His regret ran deep, deeper
    Than the deep pools of sorrow

    That were his eyes.
    Thank you for remembering, for being part of a community of hope, and for dreaming and working for a more peaceful and decent world without giving up — ever.

    David Krieger
    August 6, 2002

  • Secretary of State Powell’s Visit to Indonesia Can Help

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    I participated in facilitating student workshops sponsored by Nonviolence International on peace education in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, last month.

    In discussing the chapter entitled “We Love Peace,” the students made important distinctions between active and passive peace. They said, “It’s easy to stand outside the conflict and claim that you’re being nonviolent — that’s passive peace. What we want is active peace. Standing up for ourselves and our communities. But in Aceh,” they warned, “that’s dangerous.”

    Aceh, a lush jungle and mountainous region on the northernmost tip of Sumatra, is home to a vicious civil conflict between armed Indonesian forces and guerrillas seeking Acehnese independence. A team of peace activists looking for a proactive lasting solution to the violence that has plagued their province for the last three decades developed a peace curriculum for high schools — the Program Pendidikan Damai — a peace education curriculum rooted in Qu’ranic peace teachings and Acehnese culture.

    The students are right — it is dangerous for civilians in Aceh, much less a tenacious peace team trying to promote active peacemaking and nonviolence in high schools.

    Case in point: One day leaving the peace education training, I saw firsthand a 23-year-old student, Muhammad Iqbal, shot in the head by a police officer at lunchtime in broad daylight on one of the busiest thoroughfares. His crime? He’d accidentally bumped the officer’s vehicle as he was riding by on a motor scooter.

    The Indonesian military issued a flaccid apology the next day.

    This year alone, more than 600 civilians have been killed in Aceh. Everyone has a story and no one is untouched by the violence. My friend and guide in Aceh reported that Muhammad Iqbal was once his student and frequented the coffee shop next to the school where he teaches.

    One woman activist pleaded: “You must tell the United States that the Indonesian military must be stopped. You must help us.” Acehnese and Indonesian human rights groups both claim that the Indonesian military (TNI) acts with impunity.

    Many people in the community expressed doubt that the officer allegedly responsible for the slain student’s death would be brought to justice.

    Unfortunately, her plea may fall on deaf ears. Aug. 5 looms, the date set for deciding whether to impose martial law or a state of civil emergency in Aceh. The Indonesian military leader in Aceh says that he needs 3,000 additional troops to control the violence in this province.

    This would mean disaster for the traumatized Acehnese population who are already living in constant fear, even to go out after dark.

    Another friend I met at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh told me of his brush with death walking home from making a phone call just after dusk a few months ago. He saw a shadowy figure slink behind a building, so quick he thought he had seen a ghost. Moments later, an explosion nearly knocked him down as gunfire began to pepper the air. Dodging a falling power line, he barely escaped unharmed.

    With the possibility of increased support from the United States, the Indonesian government is becoming more resolute in seeking a military solution to the ongoing conflict. The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee voted to lift a decade-old ban on military training initially imposed based on human rights abuses that occurred there in the early 1990s and appropriated $400,000 in funding.

    As U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Indonesia, he should not presage U.S. support for the Indonesian military, nor Indonesia’s participation in a proposed “School of the Americas-style” Southeast Asian military training institution to open in Hawaii. Powell should strongly encourage the Indonesians to demilitarize the conflict, withdraw its troops and support humanitarian aid, education and development assistance.

    Further militarizing Aceh would make the existing peace initiatives almost impossible to continue. The Acehnese have resourceful, good ideas, differing from the rebels’, about ameliorating their situation, but they need support. One group is currently traveling to neighborhoods and villages at great personal risk to capture cultural stories and local lore about conflict resolution and peacemaking to incorporate into a curriculum for grade-school students. Their ability to travel would be further circumscribed and thus their peace work thwarted if the area came under more stringent military control.

    U.S. agencies and citizens should increase support for forces of peace in Aceh, through groups like the Human Rights Coalition of Aceh and Women Volunteers for Humanity, and through international groups like the Henri Dunant Center, which has been brokering peace talks between the Indonesian military and GAM rebels in Geneva, such as Peace Brigades International, which does vital third-party accompaniment for human rights workers whose safety is threatened, and agencies like UNICEF and Oxfam whose humanitarian contributions attempt to stabilize the weakening educational and health conditions in Aceh.
    *Leah C. Wells of Santa Barbara serves as Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • From Hiroshima to Hope

    From Hiroshima to Hope

    “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.”
    — Sadako Sasaki

    August 6th. Hiroshima Day. A time for reflection, for listening to the sounds of birds and water, the rustling leaves, for remembering who we are.

    We remember Hiroshima not for the past, but for the future. We remember Hiroshima so that its past will not become our future. Hiroshima is best remembered with the plaintive sounds of the bamboo flute, the Shakuhachi. It conjures up the devastation, the destruction, the encompassing emptiness of that day. The Shakuhachi reveals the tear in the fabric of humanity that was ripped opened by the bomb. Through that tear we could all be sucked as into a black hole in the universe of decency.

    Nuclear weapons are not weapons at all. They are a symbol of an imploding human spirit. They are a fire that consumes the crisp air of decency. They are a crossroads where science joined hands with evil and apathy. They are a triumph of academic certainty wrapped in the arrogance and convoluted lies of deterrence. They are Einstein’s regret. They are many things, but not weapons — not instruments of war, but of genocide and perhaps of omnicide.

    Those who gather to retell and listen to the story of Hiroshima and of Sadako are a community, a community committed to a human future. We may not know one another, but we are a community. And we are part of a greater community gathered throughout the world to commemorate this day, seeking to turn Hiroshima to Hope.

    If we succeed, the child Sadako of a thousand cranes, who would have been an older woman now, will be remembered by new generations. She will be remembered long after the names and spirits of those who made and used and celebrated the bomb will have faded into the haunting sounds of the Shakuhachi.
    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Islamic Peace Education in Aceh

    In response to more than 25 years of violence and armed struggle in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, a group of academics and activists have undertaken the task of creating a peace education curriculum grounded in the core Islamic peace beliefs and rooted in the Acehnese social and cultural values.

    Islam, derived from the word salam, peace, is at the core of its very name, a religion of peace.

    Many times miscalculated as a religion of vengeance and retribution, Islam on a global scale has received defamatory attention in recent times. Yet its truest practitioners continue to quote the Qu’ran as a book of peacemaking directives.

    Inequity, violence and a highly traumatized population serve as the backdrop for this curriculum and the accompanying teacher and student trainings. Many rural Acehnese are under-educated, while the city of Banda Aceh is experiencing a rapid rate of urbanization. These factors contribute to a level of dissatisfaction with the centralized Indonesian government, and cause the Acehnese to become further entrenched in the separatist movement.

    In the past year alone more than 600 people have been killed in Aceh. Nearly every Acehnese has a story of witness to violence. Few are untouched by the bloody struggle.

    For the past three decades, violence has been the modus operandi for resolving conflicts in Aceh. The GAM (Free Aceh Movement) and Indonesian military routinely and aggressively perpetrate acts of violence which often catch civilians in the crossfire. Like many international conflicts, the blame and frustration is so deep and the feelings so hot that this power struggle has assumed a life of its own.

    Young people angry at the disparity of wealth and inaccess to better education and thus a better life have taken up arms to ameliorate their situation. Admittedly they recognize that weapons are a quick fix and permit no long-term solution, but are good tools for getting revenge and perpetuating the conflict.

    Recognizing that violence only perpetuates more violence, the curriculum team began developing a peace education program for high school-aged students as well as teachers, and over the past year has conducted trainings and workshops which have reached both private and public schools throughout Aceh.

    Thus far, the Acehnese academic community, including students, teachers, administrators and government officials, have embraced this peace initiative with open arms. Led by Director, Dr. Asna Husin, supported by UNICEF, AusAID, and the Washington, DC-based non-profit Nonviolence International, this curriculum seeks to bring an active, dynamic peace perspective to Aceh so that future generations of Acehnese need not live under the same threatening conditions that currently exist.

    Six basic principles form the foundation for the curriculum: Introspection and Sincerity, Rights and Responsibilities, Conflict and Violence, Democracy and Justice, Plurality of Creation, and Paths to Peace. Embedded in the lessons in these chapters are crucial Acehnese proverbs that have superficial as well as deeper meanings for bringing about peace and justice.

    Central to the curriculum is the teaching that Allah desires peace. It is not enough to have peace just between the individual and Allah, however. If there is injustice or inequality among humans, then Allah is not satisfied. Moreover, Islam teaches that peace is not a receptive, passive condition where only self-interests are served. Rather peace is a dynamic which must be continually refined, redefined and struggled to achieve.

    In achieving peace, humans must examine our wants and needs. We all experience social, spiritual, physical and psychological needs, all of which must be kept in a rough balance to maintain peace. Our excessive wants, however, are often the cause of conflict and violence because this means that others needs are not being met.

    The peace paradigm this curriculum espouses is one where Allah encompasses the realms of peace within, peace in the community, and peace with nature. The Aceh peace education curriculum teaches that in Islam, nature is meant to serve our needs  not our wants.

    Therefore, to have peace with Allah and peace between human beings, we must also respect the peace that exists in nature and not take advantage of natural resources which bring great wealth to a few and great poverty to many. It is the economic injustices that are perpetrated at a structural level which cause tremendous personal violence on an individual level.

    In Aceh, peacemaking is not a theory or hypothetical question to be answered with leisure. It is an inventive means for proactively addressing the systemic, militaristic and interpersonal violence which disrupt every corner of society.
    *Leah C. Wells serves as Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She is currently in Aceh contributing to the student nonviolence trainings.

  • Teacher Training Follow-Up Workshop

    On April 27th, a 5-hour teachers training workshop was held at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for people interested in pursuing a career in Peace Education.

    As an issue of global significance, peace education is a powerful engine of social change that has been widely ignored by the public school systems and politicians. Leah Wells, the facilitator and organizer, introduced the advantages of studying peace as a permanent part of high school and college curriculum, and revealed the necessity of peace education to local educators, community members and activists.

    As the Peace Education Coordinator, Leah has been an influential advocate of Peace Education being implemented in school curriculums nation-wide. She teaches Solutions to Violence, a nonviolence curriculum developed by Colman McCarthy at the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, DC, in two local high schools, including a private Catholic school and one continuations school. Twenty people attended this teacher training workshop, including educators, writers, documentarians, students, activists, and local non-profit leaders.

    One of the goals of the workshop was to discuss methods of teaching students how to be peacemakers on an individual, local, state-wide, national, and global level. The most important element of peace studies is that it is not only a worthwhile academic endeavor but also a way of life. The group discussed methods of confronting some of the problems that implementation of peace education faces, like lack of funding and viewing nonviolence as a credible and plausible response for addressing personal, local, national and global issues.

    Those who attended the workshop learned about the different philosophies of giving grades and how to encourage students to assume responsibility for their education, as well as concrete lesson plans and nonviolent teaching techniques which can be implemented immediately in any classroom!

    A crucial issue concerning students and potential educators is the under-representation of Peace Studies in high school, college and university curricula, as well as the lack of credential programs for future peace educators. Because of this, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has begun to consult with educational institutions on beginning Peace Studies programs across the country.

    Due to the infectious enthusiasm of the attendees and their desire to further explore certain critical issues, a follow-up workshop has been scheduled on June 15th, 2002 at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to discuss other classroom strategies, lesson plans, and, more importantly, ways of taking action to promote Peace Education. In addition to the follow-up workshop, the NAPF Peace Educators Network was formed out of the need to assemble and communicate with others involved in peace education.

    Those who attended received a list of resources including recommended reading lists, internet websites, and a contact list of teachers currently teaching peace nation-wide. If you are interested in attending the follow-up workshop or have questions about how to take action, contact the NAPF Peace Education Coordinator Leah Wells at 805-965-3443, or via email at education@napf.org.

  • The Myth of Peace

    If history is any indication, the United States may be subject to the violence of war within my lifetime, I am 42. Military scholars say that war and its resulting violence on a civilian population is unavoidable. We are told that peace just isn’t obtainable in the Middle East, or in other war torn countries across the globe; that violent conflict will always be a fact of life as we try to control territory and natural resources. We are given example after example how, throughout history and including today, violent conflict is inevitable and in some cases necessary.

    Some people are quick to defend the notion that there is nothing to be done about civilian death and destruction caused by violent conflict, that in times such as these, war is best left to the experts. It is true that only war experts know how to successfully conduct war, that to win a conflict is to win by any means, and that includes civilian casualties. Talking heads for the military tell us that they are working to reduce the number of civilian casualties through more efficient means of killing-smarter bombs, better technology. But, the truth remains that while any military is good at killing, it is inept at not targeting civilians. After all, to target civilians is to terrorize a population and to attack an enemy’s infrastructure. With this illogic, there is no such thing as a non military target.

    Yet, if we leave war to the war experts, who will oversee the peace process? Who are our peace experts? Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld? They have been buddies since their early thirties, and they have amassed power by putting their friends in important positions throughout the government and the military. They are war experts dictating military policy for this country, yet there is not a diplomat for peace between the two of them. There is no peace equivalent to the Department of Defense, we have no such office or branch of government that we can go to in times such as these. Our nonexistent Department of Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution Services didn’t just get an additional $40 billion infusion into an already huge capital, operating, and maintenance budget-that was our Department of War. Blind military spending appears to be a priority for our country, with no visible way to counteract or slow it down. The peace dividend has long since been chucked out the window.

    And, what has become of our domestic programs that deal with our children’s education; our failing health care system, our weakened social security, our declining environmental health, and our loss of morale as citizens of this country?

    It wasn’t the destruction of the twin towers on September 11, 2001 and the threat of terrorism that is causing this country’s morale to plummet. It is the lack of hope that things will ever get better in the lifetime that is ahead. There is no clear way out, no end in sight.

    That is because we are spending billions of dollars on high tech toys of destruction for a group of people who want to see major conflict, so that they can use their toys against military targets, and civilians if necessary. They want to see this conflict happen just like a six-year-old boy with a firecracker wants to see it explode.

    Civilian Casualties

    Let the facts speak for themselves: World War II resulted in killing 61 million people, 67% of those killed (40 million) were civilian. Violent clashes and wars world wide for the 1950s resulted in 4.6 million people killed, 50 percent being civilian (2.3 million). In the 1960s, 6.5 million people were killed, 56% were civilian (3.64 million). The 1970s saw fewer people killed (3 million), but most of them were civilians (2 million). The 1980s saw 5.5 million people killed through violent conflict around the world, with over 4 million being civilian. Conflict and wars of the 1990s left 5 million people killed worldwide, half were civilian. From WWII to 2000 we have seen 85.6 million killed, with 63 % of those being civilian (54 million).

    The Gulf War

    The Gulf War has seen 200,000 casualties, both civilian and military, by the end of the conflict. But, ten years after the end of this conflict, 10,000 American service men and women had died from the Gulf War Syndrome. Of the 600,000 troops that had served in the Gulf War, 230,000 have applied for medical assistance since the end of that conflict. A combination of things are suspected causes of this widespread illness. It is believed that either untested anthrax vaccinations, the transfer of toxic poly-hydrocarbons from plastic packaging of MRE’s (meals ready to eat), or troop use of depleted uranium munitions (which was never disclosed to the troops who were using them) have caused severe illness. Whatever the cause, this is a better kill and injury rate than any enemy could hope to level on our troops.

    Because of sanctions on Iraq, 500,000 children have died from diarrhea and malnutrition from the lack of clean water, a direct result of targeting civilian infrastructure by the U.S. military.

    Why are these numbers significant?

    As technology improves and as dollars increase, the efficiency of killing also improves. But improving the efficiency of killing doesn’t reduce the number of civilian deaths, it increases the number of civilian deaths. The number increases because there is a greater tendency to use these weapons on lesser known targets. If it can be claimed that a “smart bomb” (remember- bombs are only as smart as the people who use them) can “surgically” remove a military target within tight civilian quarters with minimal civilian casualties, then the tendency to use these weapons in tight civilian quarters will increase, resulting in higher numbers of civilian deaths.

    The myth of Peace

    Civilians do not wage war. Indeed, war and military police actions are argued as necessary to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. So, civilians agree to support the military in promise that the war will not touch them. Civilians are confident that their families will not suffer the losses of their enemies. Most civilians who have experienced war however, come to know that war only means to reduce profits and production, bringing only pain, suffering, and agony down the road. But nonetheless, these civilians have been convinced that their experts have exhausted all other diplomatic avenues and have come up empty handed. The leaders come back to say “Sorry, war is inevitable. Prepare for war,” and the civilians feel they have no other choice.

    How many times have you heard someone say that it is in our “human nature,” to go to war? That the human species is violent and war like and there is nothing that we can do about it? That might makes right, to the winner goes the spoils?

    To say that it is in our human nature to kill others and that war is inevitable perpetuates the myth that war is forever our way. It is not our nature to kill others who don’t agree with us or who think differently from ourselves. But, it is our human nature to be fearful of others who have opposing ideas or who are different from ourselves. This fear may go in two directions: Our fear may sway into curiosity or it may sway into anger and violence.

    Another trait of our “human nature” is to divide ourselves into leaders and followers. Leaders can choose to go to war for entire populations and will not hesitate to call upon the followers to do the dirty work. It is not our human nature to go to war, but it is in our human nature to be led into war.

    Therefore, if we can be led into war, we can be led into peace.

    People are not warlike creatures. It is the random individual who sees value in herding the masses into violence. Every war is lead by someone who has convinced a critical mass of people that war is the only option. This is true with either side of any war or violent conflict. And, it is the same for peace. In any conflict that has not escalated into violence or where violence has ceased, a leader has led a critical mass of people to great change.

    The war in the Middle East is being perpetuated not because Israel and Arab leaders can’t come to an agreement, but because the concept of peace is being used incorrectly. The myth of peace begins within the very roots of the Judeo-Christian religion. Peace in this religious sense is an unattainable time/place. Peace is symbolized by the phrase, “when the lion lays down with the lamb,” which indicates that all life on Earth will be as one, living in harmony for the rest of all eternity.

    This peace does not exist, nor will it ever exist on this Earth inhabited by our wonderfully fallible human species. Peace is not the cessation of conflict, and a resulting agreement in totality. For the Mideast, the lion may never lay down with the lamb. Peace is a continuing evolving process that produces nonviolent results. Peace can revert to war or it can be sustained through constant communication, but it can never be stagnant or absolute.

    Peace begins when violence ends. That doesn’t mean that the conflicting ideas will suddenly disappear. It means that when people stop doing violence to each other-stop killing-negotiations can begin. In the simplest terms, peace is a process where no one is dying from an act of aggression. This is a real living peace that is attainable and quite possible when built upon the hard work of conflict resolution and diplomacy. Peace is not a time/place. Peace is a process that is ongoing and never without tension.
    *Dane Spencer, a Landscape Architect by profession, has been active with peace issues since 1986 when he became involved with the Seattle/Tashkent Peace Park. Constructed in the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union and the capital of Uzbekistan, the Peace Park is an example of citizens working together to promote diplomacy instead of tired war rhetoric and cold war politics. Recent U.S. posturing has rekindled Dane’s interest in the promotion of non-violence and his contemplation of peace.