Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • When Good Comes From Bad

    Most of us go through difficult stages in our lives. Some of these difficult periods transform and enlighten our views of life. The devastating effects of family problems and civil war in my country helped me appreciate my existence and that of others in a positive way. I was born in Sierra Leone West Africa in 1980. During my early childhood years, my country was peaceful and I lived a satisfying life that was full of love, friendliness and happiness. Between the ages of nine and eleven, everything changed. My father and mother separated and a civil war began. When I was thirteen, the civil war that had already been going on for several years, came to my town and changed my life. During that period of chaos, I lost my family and wandered about alone. I had no inclination where I was heading, but the determination to find safety. After months of traveling, sleeping in the bush, and having to eat and drink what the forest provided, I arrived at a village that was occupied by the Sierra Leone Military Forces.

    Since I was in pursuit of food and protection, I felt that it was safe to be with the military who provided me with nourishment and a place to sleep. As a result of what I thought was generosity, my interaction with the soldiers grew daily. The misery that almost cost me my life awaited just around the corner. After months of staying with soldiers, rebels started attacking the village. The soldiers fought back day after day. They lost most of their men in battle. As a result of fewer soldiers, the rebels came closer and surrounded the village. The military was in need of people to increase their number. All the boys in the village were asked to join the army. There was no way out. If I left the village, I would get killed by the rebels who would think I was a spy. On the other hand, if I stayed in the village and refused to join the army, I wouldn’t be given food and would eventually be thrown out, which was as good as being dead.

    I was briefly trained in warfare and unwillingly became a child soldier. I will never forget being in the battlefield for the first time. At first I couldn’t pull the trigger. I was lying almost numb in ambush watching kids my age being shot at and killed. The sight of blood and the crying of people in pain, triggered something inside me that I didn’t understand, and made me lose compassion for others. I lost my real being. I lost my sense of self. After crossing that line, I was not a normal kid. I was a traumatized kid. I became completely unaware of the dangerous and crooked road that my life was taking.

    In fact, most of the horrible events that I went through didn’t affect me until after I was taken out of the army and put into a psycho-social therapy home years later. I had been demilitarized as part as an effort by UNICEF and entered into a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers. At the psycho-social home, I began to experience trauma of another kind. I had sleepless nights. Every night I recalled the last day that my childhood was stripped away from me. I felt I had no reason for staying alive since I was the only one left in my family. I had no peace. My soul felt corrupted and I was lost in my own thoughts blaming myself for what had happened to me.

    The only times that I found peace with myself was when I began writing song lyrics about the good times before the war. Through these writings, as well as the help of the staff in my psycho-social therapy home, I was able to successfully overcome my trauma. I once again rediscovered my childhood that was almost lost. I realize that I had a great determination to survive. Also my songs gave me hope. Fifty percent of the kids did not overcome their trauma.

    Fortunately, I was reunited with my uncle and started school again in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. At this point in my life, I developed a sense of appreciation for everything around me and became only interested in the positive outcome of every situation. I came to the conclusion that I survived the war for a reason. That reason was to fight for peace so that the tragedy that befell me would not continue to affect the lives of other children in my country and around the world.

    In 1996, I was chosen to represent the youth of my country at a “Young Voices” conference at the United Nations. I went back home after the conference and started working with the youth of my country. First I tried to enlighten them about their rights, then, urged the government to make sure that the youth would have a voice in the decisions made for them. But the campaign didn’t last long because the civil war escalated to the city. All educational, governmental and productive institutions were brought to a halt. It became very dangerous for anti-war people to live in the city. With the help of Laura Simms, a facilitator who I met at the conference, I was able to leave my country. She brought me to the United States so that I would have a better education. I am currently living with her as my new mother in New York.

    One of the lessons that I learned from the tragic events of my life, summed up in a parable of my country, is that “once there is life, there is hope for a better future.” I think that every human being should be aware of the possibility of change. I strongly believe all humans are positive beings and are capable of thinking positively. It is just that life brings us different roads to travel, in order to find sanity in ourselves. It is possible for everyone to arrive at this hopeful conclusion.

    If we think of the future positively, our actions towards that future will be positive. Everyone can make a difference. You don’t have to be rich or famous to do so. If one person can change the way they interact with other people, no matter who they are or where they are from, that makes a big difference. It seems to me, one of the main problems of our last century was the inability of individuals to get along with each other.

    Back home my elders said, “Sometimes good comes from bad.” It is true. It is also true that good come from good.

    The Lord Is My Shepard
    by Ishmael Beah

    I give thanks to God for always helping me to see the brighter side of everything. Even in the darkest time of my life when I almost gave up and thought life was over. God made me realize and see that I have a reason to live a life guided by him. The following are a number of verses which I have written from a longer song:

    The lord is my Shepard
    I can never be lost
    Even when this daily life
    comes to the worst
    I keep his trust in my heart
    Through all the darkest hours
    I am protected by his powers
    God bless me everyday
    even when I fail
    in this day to day struggle
    he helps me pave my way
    out of the troubles I face
    making my fears less
    so when I am stressed
    I take it as another temptation
    to test my motivation
    But I fight this competition
    between evil and good
    every day and every night
    I sometimes am deceived
    intense struggles I perceived
    raising my praises
    cause my beliefs get stronger
    so I no longer
    live like the Pharisees, you heard
    The God’s marvelous display
    keeps me safe
    even when I am lost in this place
    do not feel disgrace
    Because his grace is always with me
    once blind, now I see.

  • Leadership for Social Change

    One day this past April, my history teacher pointed at me and said, “Lorissa, you can consider yourself busy this Friday!”. Those simple words forever changed my life. My name is Lorissa Rinehard. I am 16 years old and from Santa Barbara, California. Like many teens, I have always wanted to make the world a better place and participate in positive social change; however, I was not certain what I could do. The Friday event to which my history teacher alluded was a peace leadership training hosted by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in collaboration with Free the Children.

    As I learned more about the event and my participation in it, I became more and more excited. The trainings were administered at Westmont College and brought together high school and college youth for a two-day intensive seminar on how we, as young people, could change the world.

    At the sessions, we learned skills which will stay with us for life. We were taught, for example, how to give an effective speech, run a successful meeting, inspire others, work with the media, fundraise and participate in the work of the Foundation. Right from the start of the training session, we were presented with a vast amount of great information and a feeling of empowerment. Not only was the material inspiring, but so was the presentation. It was clear that the organizers were committed to youth and believed that we could make a difference.

    The presenters genuinely listened to what we had to say and valued our opinions. Furthermore, Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children, who had traveled to Southeast Asia to meet children involved in child labor at the age of 12, provided us with a real life example of how youth make a change in the world for the better. It was impossible for all the youth not to be motivated! The main speaker at the event was Craig’s 23 year old brother, Marc Kielburger. Marc is committed to educating youth on issues of leadership and making sure they are aware of just how powerful they really can be. As the day progressed he drove home exactly what we needed to do to effect change regarding the causes we felt strongly about.

    We were then informed about the situation of nuclear weapons and what we, as youth, could do to help. Chris Pizzinat and Carah Ong from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation spoke about the estimated 30,000 nuclear weapons which remain in this world, long after the end of the Cold War. The day ended with an impassioned speech by David Krieger, the President of the Foundation, who left us inspired and wanting to take the next steps to the attainment of a nuclear free world. The highlight of the day was a youth peace rally in which we took an hour break from the training and joined 500 other individuals in the large gymnasium at Westmount.

    The guest speaker was none other than Queen Noor of Jordan, who was in Santa Barbara to accept an award from the Foundation. I was selected as one of the speakers to report on the activities of our youth leadership training and to let other young people know how they too can become involved in our activities. I had my speech memorized, but I was still nervous. Fortunately, I had little time to dwell on my stage fright. With new people to meet and conversations to be had, I half forgot my jitters. With an entourage of body guards and public relation managers, Queen Noor, herself, arrived. Upon being introduced to her, I could tell that she was a compassionate person. We spoke about the training sessions and the youth of today. It was apparent that she was genuinely interested in what I had to say. I sat on stage practicing the relaxation techniques I had learned at the leadership seminar. Unfortunately, the techniques did not seem to have the desired effect! But as time passed and I listened to one speaker after another, I realized that there was no need to be nervous. Everyone at the rally shared the goal of creating a more peaceful society.

    When it was my turn to speak, I took a deep breath, smiled and plunged in. It ended up being a lot of fun and we were able to communicate our messages to hundreds of people and the members of the media. After the gathering, I felt like I was on cloud nine. That day, I realized that young people really can change the world! Organizations like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation include youth in their actions, and this is the first step to creating a more just and humane world. Young people must be involved in all facets of social change. Young people bring new energy, enthusiasm, and perspectives and would only be an asset to any cause.

  • Nonviolence: Teacher Explores Finding Peaceful Paths In Life

    Invoking the words of Gandhi and Thoreau, a young Ventura teacher is spreading the message of nonviolence to all who will listen.

    Wearing a pin proclaiming “Victory over Violence,” 23-year-old Leah Wells leads a class in nonviolence at a downtown Ventura church. Her students are young, middle-aged and old, but they share a common goal: making peace.

    Dressed smartly in pearls and a black skirt and sweater, Wells teaches the course after a full day as an English and French teacher at St. Bonaventure High School. She begins one evening with a video decrying violence. Her students, gathered in the basement of the Church of Religious Science, quietly watch it.
    Its message is clear: violence is all around.

    “Everywhere you look, you see it,” the video says. “It’s in the school. It’s in the park. It’s everywhere.”

    Students read a passage written by pacifist and folk singer Joan Baez. They discuss ways to calm angry people. Wells leads them in discussions touching on the death penalty and the economics of war. The evening culminates with a speech by Carol Rosin, a former defense company official who urges their help in keeping weapons out of space.

    The course is structured around “Solutions to Violence,” a book developed by the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C.

    Two years ago, Wells started working as an intern for the center’s founder, noted writer and teacher Colman McCarthy.

    McCarthy wrote for the Washington Post for several years, but also is known for the nonviolence courses he developed to teach students how to resolve conflicts peacefully. His reach has extended from poor urban schools in East St. Louis to wealthy suburban schools in California, says an article in the nationally published Education Week.

    “We are peace illiterates,” he told Education Week.

    Leah Wells would like to change that in this corner of the world.
    She wants to see courses on nonviolence offered in schools as well as juvenile detention centers in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties.
    “So many of the peace people are working with good kids, but we’ve got to focus on kids that are struggling,” she said.

    The Georgetown University graduate said she was inspired by her own parents. They taught her to do the right thing, that one’s word is one’s bond and that people should fight for justice, she said.
    “Violence comes from fear, fear from misunderstanding, misunderstanding from ignorance,” Wells said. “Ignorance is addressed through education.”

    She has taught nonviolence classes at a high school near the White House and at a juvenile prison in Maryland, she said. Next fall she will be teaching an elective course in nonviolence at St. Bonaventure, assuming that 20 to 25 students at the Catholic school sign up for the semesterlong offering. That will mark the first time St. Bonaventure has offered such a course, said the principal, Brother Paul Horkan.
    Wells said Los Angeles High School is already offering the course, and officials at various juvenile facilities are considering it.

    Such classes, though, are hardly ordinary. California schools offer training in conflict resolution to staff and students, but not usually as the separate courses that Wells envisions.

    Bill White, administrator of the state Safe Schools and Violence Prevention Office, said schools usually offer conflict resolution as an extracurricular activity. Some of these peacemaking skills also are incorporated into other classes, he said.

    “It’s not a stand-alone course,” White said. “I really don’t know how many of those there might be.”

    Dealing with the approvals required by education and government does not seem to sway Wells’ fervor.

    “She keeps pushing for what she wants,” Horkan said.

    Recalling the words of Thoreau, she puts it another way.
    “You are your own majority of one,” she said.

  • Non Violent Curriculum for Kids

    Orginally published in the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition

    The degree of violence in our world today, represented in our media via the television, newspapers, and internet, is deplorable. We are continuously handed pre-formulated thoughts that bombing, divorcing, and fighting are the only ways to solve disputes. With overflowing prison populations, guns in school, and escalating domestic abuse, it is no wonder that profound powerlessness and despair fester within our culture. What do we do about these problems? How do we go about reversing the cycles of inegalitarian practices which oppress so many? Whom can we solicit to address the questions of bringing peace to our disquieted world? I think I have the answer.

    Nonviolence education is a systematic curriculum designed to awaken students’ minds to the possibilities of thinking outside the ‘might makes right’ paradigm, allowing them to view global human rights as a part of their own cause, not something distinct from their own personal life experience. Peace studies education teaches the view of history from those who have worked for radical social change and fighting injustices; it promotes the values of constructive conflict prevention and resolution as well as nonviolent resistance and direct social action. Students acquire a comprehensive view of the current global situation by learning the links between poverty, religion, economics, governmental policies, technology, environment and education. In exploring alternatives to violence, students gain knowledge about their life choices, for example selective service registration. They also gain a context for their daily lives, like investigating the origins of the products they purchase and consume, i.e. whether they were tested on animals sprayed with pesticides, or what the lives, wages, and treatment of the producers are like. Peace studies education gives students the tools to constructively deal with the problems they encounter on both a personal and worldly level, as well as helping them to understand their responsibility for elevating the collective human experience.

    After teaching a revolutionary and widely successful class through the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C. last year in an urban high school and a juvenile prison, I can see a change in students’ attitudes: a motivation to mobilize toward the common cause of improving the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. Colman McCarthy, who directs the aforementioned Center, suggests that peace rooms be designated in all schools for the resolution of disputes, and that programs be implemented so that students can become ‘peer mediators’ who serve as impartial negotiators for conflicts between fellow students. Why is peace studies not a mandatory class in school, especially when it reaches the core of how to interact and get along? What is so subversive about teaching the origins of the Hague Court, rooted in the early peace churches of Colonial America? Why is there suspicion with regards to questioning where our tax dollars go? Why is conflict management not an integral part of our school curriculum, like math or science?

    There is more money in a wartime economy than peacetime.
    We can fund an eighty-billion-dollar war, but not nonviolence classes. We can supply over three-fourths of the weapons used in the nearly forty ongoing conflicts worldwide, overtly profiting from the massacre of others, but no money can be found for teaching conflict management. At high school commencement speeches, we tell our graduating seniors to go out and be the peacemakers of the world, and yet we withhold the tools necessary to do so. Learning to co-exist with others is a fundamental component to surviving in life, and it does not necessarily come naturally or easily, especially in a world where images of violence are the norm to the point of desensitization. Our government, our leaders, our schools continuously tell us that there is just not enough money to expand the curriculum to incorporate peace studies.

    We owe it to our children to teach them that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. By implementing nonviolence classes, we can subvert the far-reaching problems associated with intolerance and mishandled anger. When we explore nonviolence curriculum we can address the problems of injustice and teach young people how to make the world more egalitarian. To effect real change and truly make a difference, each parent, each teacher-parent association, each school board, and most importantly, each student should lobby for peace studies education in each school.

    Leah Wells is a high school teacher in Ventura County, a member of Amnesty International, and personally committed to spreading nonviolence curriculum throughout our schools. She volunteers with Interface in the Youth Crisis Intervention department, as well as with the Juvenile Detention division of Ventura County.

  • Advice To Graduates

    Always remember this:
    You are a miracle
    Made up of dancing atoms
    That can talk and sing,
    Listen and remember, and laugh,
    At times even at yourself.
    You are a miracle
    Whose atoms existed before time.
    Born of the Big Bang, you are connected
    To everything – to mountains and oceans,
    To the winds and wilderness, to the creatures
    Of the sea and air and land.
    You are a member of the human family.
    You are a miracle, entirely unique.
    There has never been another
    With your combination of talents, dreams,
    Desires and hopes. You can create.
    You are capable of love and compassion.
    You are a miracle.
    You are a gift of creation to itself.
    You are here for a purpose which you must find.
    Your presence here is sacred – and you will
    Change the world.

    *Dr. Krieger’s poem, composed in March 2000, was read at the Soka Junior and Senior High School graduation ceremony in Tokyo, during which the foundation’s World Citizenship Award was presented to Daisaku Ikeda, the president of Soka Gakkai International.

  • Teacher Advocates Nonviolence

    Published in the Los Angeles Times

    Leah Wells has spent two years learning about nonviolence at the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, DC, and now is sharing that knowledge with her Ventura students.

    Wells, a teacher at St. Bonaventure High School, also will teach a nonviolence class for the wider community beginning next week at the Ventura County Church of Religious Science in Ventura.

    This interactive class will teach conflict management, and the history and scope of the nonviolence movement, Wells said.

    Before joining the St. Bonaventure faculty this year, Wells explored the roots of the nonviolence movement. At the time, she served as a student teacher in the high school that is closest to the White House and was volunteering at a juvenile facility in Maryland. “I’m very passionate about this subject because I feel the ideas put forward by peace advocates like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Albert Schweitzer are important to bring about social change and nonviolence,” Wells said.

    School violence is down, but reactivity is up, Wells said. Words and action have power. Nonviolent action is not passive.

    Wells’ lectures about the differences between violence and nonviolence go well beyond the obvious.

    “I teach my students how to make nonviolence real in their own lives,” Wells said. “We look at the effects of what violence does in families, schools and the community.”

    Her students learn nonviolent skills they can use in their own lives. They learn that violence in their community requires community members, young and old, to act, Wells said.

    “Through an issues-awareness curriculum, they learn that other people are more alike than different,” she said. “They learn how to confront their own prejudices and redefine the problems they have with other people. It is never just one person’s problem.”

    Wells teaches her students that the TV programs and news reports they choose to watch, the video games and magazines they guy, and the public policies and military actions they support all reflect a choice between violence and nonviolence.

    She talks to her students about nuclear weapons and the death penalty. They have discussed the decision by Illinois Gov. George Ryan to impose a moratorium on capital punishment after alleged misconduct by judges and attorneys and questions about evidence. Maryland’s governor and others are considering similar moratoriums.

    “Ninety-five percent of people on death row cannot afford their own attorney,” Wells said. “Poor individuals disproportionately receive death penalty sentences.”

    Sister Helen Prejean, who gave a lecture last week that Wells’ students attended, said capital punishment is aptly named because the people without capital are punished, Wells said.

    Prejean, whose story is chronicled in the movie “Dead Man Walking,” advocates a national moratorium on the death penalty, Wells said.

    Wells leads discussions with her students about Proposition 21, which strengthens penalties against youth offenders.

    “I absolutely believe that Prop. 21 is bad for the community,” Wells said. “It’s tough on crime and inflicts greater punishment, but it does nothing toward restoration of a relationship. It does nothing to benefit the victim and it objectifies the offender. It doesn’t foster trust, and it doesn’t bring that young person back into the circle.”

    Many youth offenders have never had someone on whom they could depend, someone who could show them the best way to deal with conflicts, Wells said.

    “I ask my students how they would feel if they didn’t have two people in the world who could show them the right way to be or to live. Those are the ones we are sending away,” she said.

  • Bubbles – Not Bombs

    This past month, I was in Washington D.C. at an international conference on human rights. Tired from a long morning of meetings and uninspiring speeches, I decided to slip away from the gathering early and play the role of tourist. Even though I have been to Washington on many occasions, I had never really had the opportunity to see some of the remarkable sights which the nation’s capital has to offer. My first stop was a tour of the White House, an international symbol of democratic government (and place of wrongdoings of more than one President). I approached the White House from Lafayette Park, the adjacent green area, which had been set aside by Thomas Jefferson, when the home of the President was built in the late 1700’s. Since 1984, Lafayette Park has been popularly known as “Peace Park” by many demonstrators, guides and media types from all over the world.

    That day, however, I never made it to my White House tour. On the edge of Lafayette Park and Pennsylvania Avenue stood a man with long hair, a scruffy beard and tie die clothes. He looked like the typical hippie who never quite made it out of the sixties. Strapped over his chest, was a cardboard sign with a message scribbled by a black magic marker. He was engaged in blowing bubbles from a large tub of soapy water next to him. Curious, I altered my path in order to walk towards him to find out just what he was doing, as he continued to blow bubbles and hand out leaflets. He saw me gaze inquisitively at him and looking in my direction, he said in a loud voice “Bubbles – not bombs!”. Confused, I sheepishly said “Excuse me?”. Once again he said, “Bubbles – not bombs!”. At this point, I realized that I was committed to a conversation and I walked over to speak to him.

    He introduced himself simply as John and I soon discovered that he had spent the last 20 years with his friends in front of the White House maintaining a vigil to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. He explained that he has been helping to maintain the 365 days-a-year, 24 hours-a-day vigil for peace, which has been in effect since June 3rd, 1981. Perhaps you, yourself, have seen him or even spoken to him during a visit to the nations’ capital. Every night, John sleeps outside, braving frequently difficult climate conditions and occasional verbal abuse from the police. The only time that he leaves the area where he is encamped is when he showers at a near-by YMCA and when he buys food at a local grocery store. Even when he leaves, his friends stand guard of the site because of the real possibility that the police will confiscate their placards and materials.

    John began to tell me his story. Twenty years ago, he was a successful business man with a large house in a typical American middle class suburb. He had two cars, a mortgage and a well paying job. One day, he woke up and began to question himself and his life. He asked himself if he wanted to continue to be a slave to his material possessions. He had become angry that many of the decisions our governments made were threatening our futures and the well being of our children. He had grown more and more concerned that we were living in a society very much threatened by weapons of mass destruction. His thoughts along these lines resulted in a decision to sell his house and possessions to simply begin walking. John wanted to walk across the United States to become more in tune with “real people” and to protest the fact that the American government was building a formidable arsenal of weaponry that could destroy all of humanity.

    John’s meandering eventually brought him to Washington. He arrived at the White House and he has been there ever since. He told me that nearly 3 million people come to this landmark every year and that he thought that his actions were an effective way to educate America about the absolute necessity of abolition of nuclear weapons. In 1988, he was arrested for “camping” and recently charged with having a sign which was ¼ inch larger than the permitted dimensions for protest materials. His efforts, however, have helped in the recent introductions of Proposition One into Congress, which calls upon the American government to “disable and dismantle all nuclear weapons and refrain from replacing them at any time with any weapons of mass destruction”.

    I was amazed at his dedication and commitment. I was inspired by his story and taken aback that he would give up all that he had worked so hard for in order to live a life of protest. I shared with him a famous quote from Gandhi, one of my heroes. Gandhi, once asked by a reporter if he had a message for people in the industrialized countries, simply replied, “my life is my message”.

    Struck by the fact that I was speaking to a man who has been camped outside of the White House for nearly two decades, I did a quick mental calculation in my head and realized that he has been in front of the same building in a five square foot area since I was three years old. I asked him how long he planned on being out there. He replied, “I will be here until there are no more nuclear weapons”.

    Fate is a strange thing. If I had not left the conference early that day, to take a tour of the White House, I would never had met this truly remarkable individual and be moved by his overwhelming desire to have peace in the world. A world free from nuclear weapons was never something that I was concerned about while growing up. When I first became involved in social issues at the age of 13, my interest was in helping the environment, protecting human rights and providing meals to the homeless. I soon came to realize, however, that all of these social issues are interconnected. Nuclear weapons threaten our world, our species, our natural surroundings and are an abuse of our most basic human rights. It is for these reasons that I believe that we must all raise our voices to let decision makers know that we demand to live in a world free of nuclear weapons. We also need to support the actions of those individuals who are courageous enough to stand up and speak out against maintaining weapons of mass destruction. Young people, especially, have an important role to play in creating a world devoid of the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Youth must to ensure that adults follow John’s suggestion and make bubbles, not of bombs.

    In April, I hosted a peace leadership training in Santa Barbara under the auspices of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and made possible by the generosity of Mr. Pierre (Clysons). Over the two-day session, forty young people, from all walks of life, came together to be taught valuable communication, interpersonal and fundraising skills in order to help further their social involvement. The participants learned, for example, how to write and deliver a speech, work with the media, fundraise and inspire others. If we are to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons, we need the involvement of young people. Youth have energy, enthusiasm and many good ideas to share. Most importantly, however, it is young people who will be inheriting the problems which have been left to them by the generations past.

    This issue of Waging Peace is one which I believe is very exciting. We have asked a number of outstanding young people to write articles, share their stories, outline their social involvement and provide their views from the future. Three young people have contributed to the journal, including Dianna English, a young woman from Connecticut, who became involved in helping her peers in Kosovo without leaving her home town; Lorissa Rienhart, a Santa Barbara resident who recently addressed hundreds of people, including royalty, in a rally for peace and Ishmael Beah, a former child solider from Sierra Leone who now speaks out on behalf of children in armed conflict. I hope that the words and actions of these youth will inspire you as much as they motivate me. It is through examples of individuals like Dianna, Lorissa and Ishmael that more and more adults are coming to realize that young people are not simply potential leaders of tomorrow. Many, indeed, are in fact the leaders of today. Give young people a chance, our generation may just surprise you!

     

  • State of the Nuclear Age

    Can you remember where you were when the Berlin Wall crumbled? Watching CNN in our global living room, we shared a hope that the end of the Cold War signaled an end to the madness of the nuclear arms race and we were on our way to a more peaceful world. I, like many here tonight, dreamed of building a nuclear weapons free world from the debris on the streets of Berlin.

    More than ten years later we stand instead on the verge of a new nuclear nightmare. India and Pakistan have the Bomb. The Russian economy, a new form of Russian roulette, makes safeguarding nuclear materials nearly impossible. Iraq ignores UN weapons inspectors and North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship challenges international agreements. And to the shock of most everyone in this room, the United States Senate defeated ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall we are on a dangerous backslide. The awful possibility of a nuclear accident and the threat of nuclear weapons continue to form a backdrop for our everyday lives.

    With your help, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation stays in the fight. It exerts bold leadership to educate the public about the dangers of the Nuclear Age. We are providing leadership in Abolition 2000, a network of some 1,800 civic groups and municipalities in 93 countries; we are one of eight leading organizations in The Middle Powers Initiative; and we are launching a Campaign to Alert America.

    The Foundation is home for the Coalition Against Gun Violence, The Renewable Energy Project, the Nuclear Files, The Peace Education Project, and Artists for Peace. We publish a highly respected journal, Waging Peace Worldwide, and we now receive over two million hits a year on our web sites, www.wagingpeace.org and www.NuclearFiles.org.

    Dreams have crumbled but are not crushed. Our first ever two-day Peace Leadership Training for Youth, this year was led by the brightest young people I know: Marc and Craig Kielburger and Roxanne Joyal, Carah Ong of Abolition 2000, and Zack Allen of the newly created Institute for Global Security. Santa Barbara’s young people will be offered tools to build the dream of a nuclear weapons free and peaceful future. I believe that the training of a new generation of peace leaders would be an accomplishment that this year’s recipient of the foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leader award, King Hussein, would applaud.

    While we work at training this new generation, we will also be doing everything in our power to assure that we fulfill the greatest responsibility of any generation – to preserve our world intact for the next generation.

  • The Earth Charter

    PREAMBLE

    We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.

    Earth, Our Home

    Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life’s evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all peoples. The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust.

    The Global Situation

    The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous-but not inevitable.

    The Challenges Ahead

    The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living. We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more. We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all and to reduce our impacts on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive solutions.

    Universal Responsibility

    To realize these aspirations, we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.

    We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. Therefore, together in hope we affirm the following interdependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed.

    PRINCIPLES

    I. RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF LIFE

    1. Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.

    a. Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every form of life has value regardless of its worth to human beings.
    b. Affirm faith in the inherent dignity of all human beings and in the intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual potential of humanity.

    2. Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.

    a. Accept that with the right to own, manage, and use natural resources comes the duty to prevent environmental harm and to protect the rights of people.
    b. Affirm that with increased freedom, knowledge, and power comes increased responsibility to promote the common good.

    3. Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.

    a. Ensure that communities at all levels guarantee human rights and fundamental freedoms and provide everyone an opportunity to realize his or her full potential.
    b. Promote social and economic justice, enabling all to achieve a secure and meaningful livelihood that is ecologically responsible.

    4. Secure Earth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations.

    a. Recognize that the freedom of action of each generation is qualified by the needs of future generations.
    b. Transmit to future generations values, traditions, and institutions that support the long-term flourishing of Earth’s human and ecological communities.

    In order to fulfill these four broad commitments, it is necessary to:

    II. ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY

    5. Protect and restore the integrity of Earth’s ecological systems, with special concern for biological diversity and the natural processes that sustain life.

    a. Adopt at all levels sustainable development plans and regulations that make environmental conservation and rehabilitation integral to all development initiatives.
    b. Establish and safeguard viable nature and biosphere reserves, including wild lands and marine areas, to protect Earth’s life support systems, maintain biodiversity, and preserve our natural heritage.
    c. Promote the recovery of endangered species and ecosystems.
    d. Control and eradicate non-native or genetically modified organisms harmful to native species and the environment, and prevent introduction of such harmful organisms.
    e. Manage the use of renewable resources such as water, soil, forest products, and marine life in ways that do not exceed rates of regeneration and that protect the health of ecosystems.
    f. Manage the extraction and use of non-renewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels in ways that minimize depletion and cause no serious environmental damage.

    6. Prevent harm as the best method of environmental protection and, when knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary approach.

    a. Take action to avoid the possibility of serious or irreversible environmental harm even when scientific knowledge is incomplete or inconclusive.
    b. Place the burden of proof on those who argue that a proposed activity will not cause significant harm, and make the responsible parties liable for environmental harm.
    c. Ensure that decision making addresses the cumulative, long-term, indirect, long distance, and global consequences of human activities.
    d. Prevent pollution of any part of the environment and allow no build-up of radioactive, toxic, or other hazardous substances.
    e. Avoid military activities damaging to the environment.

    7. Adopt patterns of production, consumption, and reproduction that safeguard Earth’s regenerative capacities, human rights, and community well-being.

    a. Reduce, reuse, and recycle the materials used in production and consumption systems, and ensure that residual waste can be assimilated by ecological systems.
    b. Act with restraint and efficiency when using energy, and rely increasingly on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
    c. Promote the development, adoption, and equitable transfer of environmentally sound technologies.
    d. Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price, and enable consumers to identify products that meet the highest social and environmental standards.
    e. Ensure universal access to health care that fosters reproductive health and responsible reproduction.
    f. Adopt lifestyles that emphasize the quality of life and material sufficiency in a finite world.

    8. Advance the study of ecological sustainability and promote the open exchange and wide application of the knowledge acquired.

    a. Support international scientific and technical cooperation on sustainability, with special attention to the needs of developing nations.
    b. Recognize and preserve the traditional knowledge and spiritual wisdom in all cultures that contribute to environmental protection and human well-being.
    c. Ensure that information of vital importance to human health and environmental protection, including genetic information, remains available in the public domain.

    III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

    9. Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social, and environmental imperative.

    a. Guarantee the right to potable water, clean air, food security, uncontaminated soil, shelter, and safe sanitation, allocating the national and international resources required.
    b. Empower every human being with the education and resources to secure a sustainable livelihood, and provide social security and safety nets for those who are unable to support themselves.
    c. Recognize the ignored, protect the vulnerable, serve those who suffer, and enable them to develop their capacities and to pursue their aspirations.

    10. Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner.

    a. Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations.
    b. Enhance the intellectual, financial, technical, and social resources of developing nations, and relieve them of onerous international debt.
    c. Ensure that all trade supports sustainable resource use, environmental protection, and progressive labor standards.
    d. Require multinational corporations and international financial organizations to act transparently in the public good, and hold them accountable for the consequences of their activities.

    11. Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to sustainable development and ensure universal access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.

    a. Secure the human rights of women and girls and end all violence against them.
    b. Promote the active participation of women in all aspects of economic, political, civil, social, and cultural life as full and equal partners, decision makers, leaders, and beneficiaries.
    c. Strengthen families and ensure the safety and loving nurture of all family members.

    12. Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.

    a. Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, language, and national, ethnic or social origin.
    b. Affirm the right of indigenous peoples to their spirituality, knowledge, lands and resources and to their related practice of sustainable livelihoods.
    c. Honor and support the young people of our communities, enabling them to fulfill their essential role in creating sustainable societies.
    d. Protect and restore outstanding places of cultural and spiritual significance.

    IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE

    13. Strengthen democratic institutions at all levels, and provide transparency and accountability in governance, inclusive participation in decision making, and access to justice.

    a. Uphold the right of everyone to receive clear and timely information on environmental matters and all development plans and activities which are likely to affect them or in which they have an interest.
    b. Support local, regional and global civil society, and promote the meaningful participation of all interested individuals and organizations in decision making.
    c. Protect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly, association, and dissent.
    d. Institute effective and efficient access to administrative and independent judicial procedures, including remedies and redress for environmental harm and the threat of such harm.
    e. Eliminate corruption in all public and private institutions.
    f. Strengthen local communities, enabling them to care for their environments, and assign environmental responsibilities to the levels of government where they can be carried out most effectively.

    14. Integrate into formal education and life-long learning the knowledge, values, and skills needed for a sustainable way of life.

    a. Provide all, especially children and youth, with educational opportunities that empower them to contribute actively to sustainable development.
    b. Promote the contribution of the arts and humanities as well as the sciences in sustainability education.
    c. Enhance the role of the mass media in raising awareness of ecological and social challenges.
    d. Recognize the importance of moral and spiritual education for sustainable living.

    15. Treat all living beings with respect and consideration.

    a. Prevent cruelty to animals kept in human societies and protect them from suffering.
    b. Protect wild animals from methods of hunting, trapping, and fishing that cause extreme, prolonged, or avoidable suffering.
    c. Avoid or eliminate to the full extent possible the taking or destruction of non-targeted species.

    16. Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.

    a. Encourage and support mutual understanding, solidarity, and cooperation among all peoples and within and among nations.
    b. Implement comprehensive strategies to prevent violent conflict and use collaborative problem solving to manage and resolve environmental conflicts and other disputes.
    c. Demilitarize national security systems to the level of a non-provocative defense posture, and convert military resources to peaceful purposes, including ecological restoration.
    d. Eliminate nuclear, biological, and toxic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
    e. Ensure that the use of orbital and outer space supports environmental protection and peace.
    f. Recognize that peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.

    THE WAY FORWARD

    As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning. Such renewal is the promise of these Earth Charter principles. To fulfill this promise, we must commit ourselves to adopt and promote the values and objectives of the Charter.

    This requires a change of mind and heart. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We must imaginatively develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the Earth Charter, for we have much to learn from the ongoing collaborative search for truth and wisdom.

    Life often involves tensions between important values. This can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to harmonize diversity with unity, the exercise of freedom with the common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every individual, family, organization, and community has a vital role to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational institutions, media, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The partnership of government, civil society, and business is essential for effective governance.

    In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations, fulfill their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development.

    Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.

  • The Most Important Moral Issue of our Time

    There are many reasons to oppose nuclear weapons. They are illegal, undemocratic, hugely expensive, and they undermine rather than increase security. But by far the most important reason to oppose these weapons is that they are profoundly immoral.

    Above all, the issue of nuclear weapons in our world is a deeply moral issue, and for the religious community to engage this issue is essential; for the religious community to ignore this issue is shameful.

    I have long believed that our country would become serious about providing leadership for the elimination of nuclear weapons in the world only when the churches, synagogues and mosques became serious about demanding such leadership.

    The abolition of nuclear weapons is the most important issue of our time. I do not say this lightly. I know how many other important life and death issues there are in our world. I say it because nuclear weapons have the capacity to end all human life on our planet and most other forms of life. This puts them in a class by themselves.

    Although I refer to nuclear weapons, I don’t believe that these are really weapons. They are instruments of mass annihilation. They incinerate, vaporize and destroy indiscriminately. They are instruments of portable holocaust. They destroy equally soldiers and civilians; men, women and children; the aged and the newly born; the healthy and the infirm.

    Nuclear weapons hold all Creation hostage. In an instant they could destroy this city or any city. In minutes they could leave civilization, with all its great accomplishments, in ruins. These cruel and inhumane devices hold life itself in the balance.

    There is no moral justification for nuclear weapons. None. As General Lee Butler, a former commander in chief of the US Strategic Command, has said: “We cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it.”

    That nuclear weapons are an absolute evil was the conclusion of the President of the International Court of Justice, Mohammed Bedjaoui, after the Court was asked to rule on the illegality of these weapons.

    I think that it is a reasonable conclusion – the only conclusion a sane person could reach. I would add that our reliance on these evil instruments debases our humanity and insults our Creator.

    Albert Einstein was once asked his opinion as to what weapons would be used in a third world war. He replied that he didn’t know, but that if there was a third world war a fourth world war would probably be fought with sticks and stones. His response was perhaps overly optimistic.

    Controlling and eliminating these weapons is a responsibility that falls to those of us now living. It is a responsibility we are currently failing to meet.

    Ten years after the end of the Cold War there are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 5,000 of these weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on warning and subject to accident or miscalculation.

    Today arms control is in crisis. The US Senate recently failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the first treaty voted down by the Senate since the Treaty of Versailles. Congress has also announced its intention to deploy a National Missile Defense “as soon as technologically feasible.” This would abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of arms control. The Russian Duma has not yet ratified START II, which was signed in 1993.

    Efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons are also in crisis. There is above all the issue of Russian “loose nukes.” There is no assuredness that these weapons are under control. There is also the new nuclear arms race in South Asia. There is also the issue of Israel possessing nuclear arms — with the implicit agreement of the Western nuclear weapons states — in their volatile region of the world.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty is also in crisis. This will become more prominent when the five year Review Conference for the treaty is held this spring. Most non-nuclear weapons states believe that the nuclear weapons states have failed to meet their obligations for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. More than 180 states have met their obligations not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. The five nuclear weapons states, however, have failed to meet their obligations for good faith efforts to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    The US government continues to consider nuclear weapons to be “essential” to its security. NATO has referred to nuclear weapons as a “cornerstone” of its security policy.

    Russia recently proposed that the US and Russia go beyond the START II agreement and reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,500 weapons each. The US declined saying that it was only prepared to go down to 2,000 to 2,500 weapons each. Such is the insanity of our time.

    Confronting this insanity are four efforts I will describe briefly.

    • The New Agenda Coalition is a group of middle power states – including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and South Africa — calling for an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states for the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. UN Resolutions of the New Agenda Coalition have passed the General Assembly by large margins in 1998 and 1999, despite lobbying by the US, UK and France to oppose these resolutions.
    • A representative of the New Agenda Coalition recently stated at a meeting at the Carter Center: “A US initiative today can achieve nuclear disarmament. It will require a self-denying ordnance, which accepts that the five nuclear weapons states will have no nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. By 2005 the United States will already have lost the possibility of such an initiative.” I agree with this assessment. The doors of opportunity, created a decade ago by the end of the Cold War, will not stay open much longer.
    • The Middle Powers Initiative is a coalition of eight prominent international non-governmental organizations that are supporting the role of middle power states in seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Middle Powers Initiative recently collaborated with the Carter Center in bringing together representatives of the New Agenda Coalition with high-level US policymakers and representatives of civil society. It was an important dialogue. Jimmy Carter took a strong moral position on the issue of nuclear disarmament, and you should be hearing more from him in the near future.
    • Abolition 2000 is a global network of more than 1,400 diverse civil society organizations from 91 countries on six continents. The primary goal of Abolition 2000 is a negotiated treaty calling for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework. One of the current efforts of Abolition 2000 is to expand its network to over 2000 organizations by the time of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference this spring. You can find out more about Abolition 2000 at www.abolition2000.org
    • A final effort I will discuss is the establishment of a US campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has hosted a series of meetings with key US leaders in the area of nuclear disarmament. These include former military, political, and diplomatic leaders, among them General Lee Butler, Senator Alan Cranston, and Ambassador Jonathan Dean.

    I believe that we have worked out a good plan for a Campaign to Alert America, but we currently lack the resources to push this campaign ahead at the level that it requires. We are doing the best we can, but we are not doing enough. We need your help, and the help of religious groups all over this country.

    I will conclude with five steps that the leaders of the nuclear weapons states could take now to end the nuclear threat to humanity. These are steps that we must demand of our political leaders. These are steps that we must help our political leaders to have the vision to see and the courage to act upon.

    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
    • Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

    The future is in our hands. I urge you to join hands and take a strong moral stand for humanity and for all Creation. We do it for the children, for each other, and for the future. The effort to abolish nuclear weapons is an effort to protect the miracle that we all share, the miracle of life.

    Each of us is a source of hope. Will you turn to the persons next to you, and tell them, “You give me hope,” and express to them your commitment to accept your share of responsibility for saving humanity and our beautiful planet.

    Together we will change the world!