Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: activism

  • One-on-One with Kristen Morrison

    Recently, Kristen Morrison, a senior at UCSB and Renewable Energy Coordinator with us here at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, addressed the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors asking them to block any and all shipments of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste traveling through Santa Barbara County on its way to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Compressed within Kristen’s 20 minutes of comments to the county Board of Supervisors were 1 year of volunteering with the Foundation, a number of leadership trainings, coursework on environmental issues as well as the echoing encouragement and support from family and friends. Ultimately, the county Board of Supervisors agreed with Kristen and the other concerned citizens working on this important issue, voting unanimously to oppose the Department of Energy’s plans to ship toxic waste through the county. I spoke with Kristen about her project:

    Why do you feel this issue is important?

    Currently nuclear energy produces 20% of our nation’s power. When it was first established back in the 50’s it was thought to be clean, safe, and cheap. Today nuclear energy has proven to be the opposite. After billions of dollars in research, and an endless supply of lethal radioactive waste it is safe to say the nuclear energy has only proven to be expensive, dirty and dangerous. Therefore we feel it is important to educate the public about the reality of nuclear energy and instead work toward a future of renewable energy. Yucca Mountain is proposed to be the US’s first nuclear waste repository, which will inevitably perpetuate the nuclear power industry. 77,000 tons of radioactive waste is scheduled to be shipped from over one hundred reactors across the country. Therefore if we are able to block waste transportation the Yucca Mountain project will be shut down and ultimately lead to the halt of nuclear energy production.

    Why did you feel it was necessary to speak with the County Board of Supervisors about toxic waste transportation?

    There are many channels of communication that will get our message across. Legislation is an important part of progressive social change. The Board of Supervisors is the governing body in the county with the legal voice to speak to higher legislative bodies of our government. Addressing the Board of Supervisors represented a key stage in our escalation plan and general campaign efforts.

    How did you start your campaign called “Don’t Waste Santa Barbara”?

    I started this campaign last summer with another UCSB student named Marissa Zubia. At the time, she was the Renewable Energy Coordinator and I was a volunteer here at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Frequently, the Foundation hosts speakers on peace and security issues and other pressing concerns of our time. Through this speaker series, Marissa and I met a local activist named Dave Fortson with the Santa Barbara County Action Network. Dave shared his thoughts on the importance of young people getting involved in the community for the betterment of society. Combined with all the positive energy that’s already here at the Foundation, Dave’s charisma and devotion sparked our interest and the next thing I knew Marissa and I were dreaming up all the ways we could make a difference. We both were interested in the same issues of environmental justice and ecological consciousness so we came up with the campaign idea “Don’t Waste Santa Barbara”, which serves to educate the people of Santa Barbara on dangers of high level radio active waste transportation through our city. We drafted a county resolution to oppose the transportation of high level radioactive waste through Santa Barbara County. It took us about 3 months to get on the Board of Supervisor’s agenda, but after many phone calls, research, and writing we were finally in.

    Were there any unexpected setbacks or obstacles along the way?

    Absolutely! There were many challenges and hurdles that made us both second guess what we were doing, and more than once we had to remind one another how important even the smallest contribution is to making a difference. Even though our work is merely a drop in the bucket, it is that drop that will become part of a very large flow moving toward a better world. Another wonderful aspect which encouraged us the whole way through was having a good time. We laughed a lot and became good friends.

    How did you prepare?

    We hosted an educational forum with four expert speakers, discussing the dangers of nuclear waste storage and transportation. We met regularly with our mentors and project board members, strategizing ways to get our message across. We contacted Santa Barbara city council members who encouraged us to write a county resolution opposing nuclear waste. District Supervisor, Gail Marshall, endorsed our resolution and the next thing we knew we were on the agenda to present it to the entire county.

    Can others take what you did in Santa Barbara and do it where they live?

    Being proactive in the community is essential everywhere, whether rich or poor, small or large. I was surprised by the positive response that I received as a student standing up for what I believe in and speaking out. A lot of times, we as young people get the message that society doesn’t want to hear from us and won’t respect what we have to say, but it is hard for them not to respect you when you research your issue and develop a convincing, passionate argument.

    Can they really stop the shipments or is this more of a symbolic victory?

    The resolution serves as the county’s declaration to stop the waste. It is not law; however, if enough communities across the nation create the same resolution the government would be forced to recognize the people’s will and thus it could be turned into a law.

    What is next for you?

    We would like to expand our campaign to the state level. For example, we’re researching whether other counties in California, if any, are pushing on the same issues. We may then work with them to form a statewide alliance

    Congratulations and good luck, Kristen!

    Are you a young person organizing for change in your community? Do you have a success story that you would like to share? We want to hear from you! Send us your success story. Write me at youth@napf.org.

  • Help Shed Public Light on Pictsweet Farm

    I could tell you about the canned food drive that my students in the Solution to Violence class organized at St. Bonaventure High School in support of the Pictsweet farm workers.

    A union organizer and mushroom picker visited my classroom a few weeks ago and told their stories of meetings with bosses, supervisors and high-level officials, of working through the manure fire despite health hazards and of the hardships in working for an oppressive and inconsiderate corporation.

    My Compassionate students-in their final week before graduation, when most other seniors had finals, graduation parties and college on their minds-were making posters, announcements and changes in their psyches and in our community on behalf of people whose cause needs to be heard.

    I could tell you about the companies who continue to buy Pictsweet mushrooms in spite of the boycott against the company.

    Pizza Hut, Sam’s Club, Red Lobster and Papa John’s are just a few of the businesses whose patronage allows Pictsweet management to continue to take advantage of its workers. Yet Vons has taken heed of the injustices and has agreed to stop buying Pictsweet mushrooms.

    The March fire was the result of a pileup of unused compost. The compost piled up because of the boycott’s success-and yet, Pictsweet management refuses to negotiate with its workers even in the face of an environmental catastrophe that affects the soil, water and air of our community. Although various companies have canceled orders of mushrooms, Pictsweet continues its operations with business as usual, and the mushrooms are picked, packaged and then discarded. Pictsweet management has repeatedly denied requests to negotiate with the workers.

    I could tell you how corporate globalization has gone local.

    Powerful corporations capitalize on keeping their consumers ignorant about where their food and services originate. We are not accustomed to questioning the working conditions or lives nor the attitudes or practices of the institutions that regulate the industry. Unfortunately, we are absent when the supervisor condescends to tell the workers that they smell when they come to negotiate or when the organizers and workers are made to wait indefinitely for an appointment to discuss the lack of a contract.

    We are not present when supervisors deny compensation for on-the-job accidents, and we are not around when the vision of Pictsweet workers deteriorates due to inadequate lighting on the hats they wear. Profits are more important than people when workers must continue working, ignorant of the fire’s hazards even as the rest of the community had been informed of its dangers six days prior.

    As a community, we can fight the systemic injustices that transpire at the local level, with Pictsweet, and at the international level, as seen in the unjust policies of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund. “Human need, not corporate greed” is the rallying cry of those working to bring accountability to big business.

    I could tell you about the integrity of the media and about the importance of objectively and comprehensively covering the scope of the injustices transpiring at Pictsweet.

    But instead, I will tell you how you can help. You can respect the livelihood and integrity of the Pictsweet workers by boycotting the aforementioned companies. You can support the United Farm Workers by insisting that a contract between the workers and management be reached. You can demand that the workers be given a raise greater than the last-a three-cent-per-hour increase in the late 1980s. You can support the fund-raisers at Café on A in Oxnard, the proceeds of which go toward helping the cause of the workers. You can help raise awareness in your own community and let other people know the transgressions of Pictsweet.

    Like my students did, you too can make a difference.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Service and Resistance

    In the 16 years the Center for Teaching Peace has worked with schools to begin or expand courses on peace education, one goal has been stressed: ideas first, then action. It isn’t enough to master the theories of nonviolence but do nothing to create the peaceable society. Unbalanced students result. They leave school idea-rich but experience-poor.

    The remedy? Service learning. Much praise is owed teachers who realize that as much can be learned outside the classroom as inside. Such groups as the National Society for Experimental Education are successfully making the case that classroom lectures, discussions and assigned readings should coexist with learning that results from involving students in well-organized community service.

    Often enough, service is the easy part. What’s difficult is making connections. Ladling soup in a homeless shelter is fine but it remains do-gooder slumming unless twinned with learning about governmental policies that allow poverty to persist for the many while wealth increases for the few. Building homes with Habitat for Humanity remains idle charity unless accompanied by knowledge about governmental and corporate deals that keep money flowing to build weapons but not affordable housing.

    Evidence exists that students are twinning public service with private resistance. One example is the Graduation Pledge Alliance by which college seniors about to enter the work world put ideals before dollars by taking a voluntary pledge: “I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve those aspects of any organization for which I work.”

    Coordinated by Prof. Neil Wollman of Manchester College, a Church of the Brethren school in Indiana, the pledge was taken by thousands of graduates at more than 100 colleges last spring. It is a natural transition for service-minded students to ask about the ethics of future employers. How are their products or services benefiting society, if at all? What is the employer’s record on such issues as antitrust, race sex and age discrimination, pollution and animal abuse. In the company’s theology of capitalism, is worshipping the dollar-god the sole article of faith, with no heed paid to the victims of structural violence?

    This is genuine resistance. As a result of service, students have thought about the kind of humane world they want to live and work in, and are making the kind of demands to create that world.

  • Notes from the Road

    Earlier this month, I participated in Make Our World 2000, a joining of minds between international youth peace activists. The event was held at a scenic retreat center just outside of Malibu, California. A group of remarkable, concerned southern California residents — and activists in their own right — convened the event and enlisted the assistance of the Global Youth Action Network to encourage young activists to attend, facilitate discussion, and develop a plan of action.

    Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

                                                                       -Margaret Mead

    Much was accomplished in the few days we spent together, and a number of larger themes surfaced. We spent valuable time getting to know one another, summarizing our purpose for heeding the call to attend, sharing meals, and hiking together in the Malibu hills. We brainstormed on how we could combine forces, better support one another, and create an international youth platform addressing and linking multiple social justice issues. We recognized the accomplishments of previous meetings with similar goals, yet seized the moment at hand to synthesize, organize, and contribute our individual and collective energies to the youth movement.

    Diversity is a cornerstone in building this movement! Unfortunately, a number of our allies experienced difficulties in securing the proper approval and means to attend the event. Their presence was sorely missed! In their absence, the group acknowledged a relationship between structural, global, macro-level injustice and individual, micro-level suffering.[1] As a means to find solutions to identify and act on solutions to end such suffering, the group recommitted itself to having a greater representation of indigenous peoples, people of African descent, and people of Asian descent at our next gathering, tentatively scheduled for June 2001.

    The facilitators and the group as a whole created and maintained a comfortable and flexible environment that allowed for changes to the agenda. One such change and subsequent discussion validated the point that often times activists work in isolation and/or lack adequate mentorship and support. Knowing this, all individuals working for a sane and safe world must better support one another, expand our network, and use new technologies to reinforce the sense of community.

    [Together we can be] 1,000 candles burning as bright as the sun.

    -Jimmy Hurrell

    I will spare you the specifics on the proposed projects out of respect for group members as we continue to discuss appropriate action steps and with the realization that Make Our World 2000 was just one very important step out of many more to come. Please check back with us soon at https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com for an update on Foundation efforts to develop a network of other youth organizations around the world working on issues complimentary to our own. Don’t worry. You won’t have to wait long!

     

    [1] Jonathan White, a sociology professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, visited the Foundation in November 2000 and discussed one example of such injustice – hunger – with area high school and college students.

     

  • Peace and Security Begins with Youth

    At the age of 21, I was invited to travel to Japan from 13-21 November 2000 and speak in the Youth Forum of the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. It was an extreme honor to be a speaker at the Assembly. For me, the trip was more of a pilgrimage to the crime scene of the last atomic bomb dropping and it reminded me why I chose to work on nuclear abolition. Being in Nagasaki was a time to commemorate and honor those who have suffered so long from the production and development of nuclear weapons and energy.

    More than 200 young people and adults attended the Youth Forum held at Shiroyama Elementary School, a symbolic place for the workshop because the original was devastated on 9 August 1945, when the atomic bomb, code named “fatman” was dropped on the city. I was asked to speak at the Youth Forum because I believe that young people have a tremendous responsibility to effectuate the change needed to abolish war and all weapons of mass destruction. Peace and security are age-old issues that have been around since the advent of war. The existence of war and nuclear weapons evidences our insecurity and our inability to understand how our actions affect others. As human beings, we desire to be secure, yet we have some-how deemed it in our nature to live in fear of each other and therefore we try to justify our urge to resolve conflicts through violent means. Today, we have the greatest opportunity to make peace and security a reality in this globalized world and we as young people have the obligation to achieve it.

    Like many young people in countries that are termed “developed,” I did not grow up truly understanding the threat that nuclear weapons pose to the existence of Earth and its inhabitants. In fact, to the contrary, I grew up falsely believing that we need nuclear weapons to protect us and that war was necessary to resolve conflict. However, when I was 12 years old, I had the opportunity to visit Guatemala for the first time. In Guatemala, I experienced first-hand the devastation that war and weapons cause. It was there that I first began to understand how fortunate I was to grow up in a prosperous country where most people live free from the threat of war. However, it was not until I was studying Spanish and Global Peace and Security at the University of California at Santa Barbara that I realized how the belligerent, arrogant and willfully ignorant behavior of “developed” countries prevented “developing” countries from ever realizing lasting peace and security.

    After graduating from UCSB in 1999, I became the Coordinator for Abolition 2000, a global network of more than 2000 organizations and municipalities working together to achieve a nuclear weapons convention and redress the environmental devastation and human suffering caused by the nuclear cycle. There are many people around the world who believe this is possible and many of the international leaders of the nuclear weapons abolition movement participated in the Nagasaki Assembly. Despite growing international consensus for nuclear weapons abolition, there are very few young people who know about the nuclear issue and even fewer who are actively working to abolish nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, many young people do not understand that the nuclear cycle affects them and will continue to affect them for many years to come.

    The Youth Forum of the Nagasaki Assembly demonstrated that young people do care about making a difference, especially after they gain consciousness of an issue. Knowledge may give individuals power, but it also obligates responsibility. As young people we are responsible to share what we know about peace and security issues with our friends, our families, our communities and all those with whom we come in contact. We must realize that as individuals, the knowledge we have gives us the power to make a difference and we must not be afraid to stand up and be a voice for positive change. As Mahatmas Ghandi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Learning about an issue is the first step to realizing the responsibility we have as young people, but knowing is simply not enough. We must also actively work to achieve the secure and peaceful world we envision.

    At the close of the Youth Forum, I asked the participants as young people and as citizens of Nagasaki to be a strong voice for the abolition of nuclear weapons and to remind the world of the horrors that these indiscriminate weapons cause. The citizens of Nagasaki can speak from experience of the unjustness and devastation of the use of nuclear weapons.

    As a token of my appreciation, I gave each participant of the Youth Forum a packet of sunflower seeds to plant as a symbol of hope and a vision of a world free of nuclear contamination. Sunflowers became the symbol of the nuclear abolition movement on 4 June 1996, the day the US, Russia and the Ukraine celebrated the last missile being removed Ukrainian soil, making it a nuclear weapons free country. William J. Perry, former US Secretary of Defense stated on this day, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil will ensure peace for future generations.” On the inside of the sunflower seed packet, was a petition calling upon the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to immediately begin negotiations to abolish nuclear weapons and redress the environmental degradation and human suffering caused by more than 55 years of nuclear weapons testing and production. The participants were asked to sign the petition and to return the petition to Abolition 2000 in care of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which has collected signatures on this petition from more than 13.4 million individuals world-wide.

    During my speech, I also encouraged the young people to be involved politically. Many young people, especially in the US, tend to be apathetic to how their government acts. But governments only have the authority to rule based on the will of the people it governs. We must constantly remind our governments of their responsibility to us their citizens as well as their obligation to citizens around the world. Many participants made a commitment to write letters on a regular basis to their Prime Minister, urging him to support a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.

    It is very easy to be apathetic to peace and security issues as, unfortunately, many young people are, but even taking the smallest action will make a world of difference. As youth, we have the greatest challenge, but also the greatest potential to create a world that is just and secure for all.

  • Learning About Peacemaking Is a Step Toward Ending Violence

    Orginally published in the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Edition

    Martin Luther King, Jr. said that our choice is not between nonviolence and violence, but a choice between nonviolence and nonexistence. Statistically we are told that crime has steadily decreased for the past eight years, however we also feel an increasingly random, yet eerily personalized, degree of susceptibility to being victimized. Our neighborhoods and schools, once thought inviolable, are now the target of more bold perpetrators. And yet we have a choice: be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.

    But what’s the solution?

    How do we fix our ‘gated community’ mentality, mend our broken relationships, care for the castaways in society, and work toward achieving solidarity, tolerance, and peace? By making a commitment to educating the next generation of leaders, our young people, in the ways of nonviolence. If our human species is to survive, we must change the way we are doing things. Many of us feel helpless to fix our own personal troubles, much less rid the world of nuclear weapons, abolish the death penalty, make a more egalitarian economy, and protect global human rights. Violence originates in fear, which is rooted in misunderstanding, which comes from ignorance. And you fix ignorance through education.

    Violence is like a dandelion-filled yard. We tug at the stems and step on the flowers – and rather than ridding the yard of this nuisance weed, we beget more of them. Yet when we pull up the flower by the roots, we have isolated the problem and fixed it. Nonviolence education is like this. Educating young people about how to deal with the problems they face on a daily basis, as well as how to organize to fix world issues, is the most effective means to solving the endemic violence which has infiltrated nearly every corner of society.

    Through a structured, semester-long curriculum, students from junior high through college can read about the foundations, successes, and actors in the nonviolence movement. Exposing a young student to Gandhi and Thoreau can cause a permanent commitment to living a life of nonviolence. At the very least, it allows students to examine the institutional paradigms which govern their lives, like selective service registration, disparity of allocated funds for violent causes versus nonviolent ones, or perhaps conscientious purchasing power and food consumption. Nonviolence education stresses the availability of alternative options in conflict, like mediation and creative dispute resolution. Making an educational commitment to studying peace in our violence-inundated world is the very least we owe our future generations to whom we have left a legacy of destruction and might-makes-right domination.

    Societal trends seem to be working against the nonviolence cause. For example,our government allocates $289 billion for the Pentagon, and only $25 billion to Aid for Families with Dependent Children. Our justice system continues to be punitive rather than restorative, with little or no rehabilitation occurring in detention facilities despite the obvious need. New laws penalize communities and provide nothing for the welfare of victims nor restore the dignity of offenders, like the juvenile justice legislation Proposition 21 which was passed on March 7. We teach our children capitalistic consumerism yet tell them nothing about the lives of the workers who slave to assemble designer clothing, nor do we tell them about the animals which suffered to create fashion or food, nor do we inform them of the environmental impact of the trash which they create. And by no means do we tell them that these situations are inextricably linked, either.

    Yet there is hope! Learning about peacemaking is the first step to righting these inegalitarian situations. Students become aware that injustices exist; they then accept these injustices as tangible and real. Next, students must absorb this information in a utilitarian way; finally, they are ready to take action. The beauty of nonviolence curriculum is that it is available to everyone: it works at Georgetown University, as well as at maximum-security juvenile detention facilities. Deep-thinking is highly encouraged, and reflective and action-oriented writing is often assigned to students in nonviolence classes. Because this material speaks to students as co-proprietors of authority, rather than as subordinates, they tend to internalize the pacifist messages quickly and discreetly. It subtly permeates their thoughts and actions.

    We cannot continue to cheat our students by doling out tidbits of revisionist history. They deserve to know about Jeanette Rankin, Dorothy Day, and Oscar Romero. Institutionalizing nonviolence remains the goal, and to clearly send that message we must bring this peace studies class to our school boards and curriculum committees, and maintain persistence and fidelity to the cause of peacemaker education.

  • Sowing Seeds of Peace

    We are in the season of Hiroshima, having just passed the 52nd anniversary of the bombing of that city by a single nuclear weapon. On the day the bomb was dropped, August 6, 1945, there was a tear in the fabric of the world. It became clear that a chasm had opened between our technological capabilities for destruction and our spiritual/moral precepts of respect for the dignity and sacredness of human life. Of course, war itself has been a breeding ground for undermining respect for the value of human life. But nuclear weapons brought our destructive capabilities to new heights. Albert Einstein, the great scientist who conceived of the theory of relativity, gave voice to the problem confronting humanity when he said, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    The “unparalleled catastrophe” Einstein spoke of included the end of human civilization and the destruction of most life on Earth. During the Cold War each side pursued a strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction and built up arsenals capable of destroying the other side many times over, despite the knowledge that use of these terrible weapons would entail their own destruction as well as the destruction of most life on Earth. This strategy, which has the acronym MAD, is based upon calculations of human rationality. Yet, as we all know, humans act irrationally for many reasons, not least of which are fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, and mistrust. Humans also make mistakes because they lack pertinent information, misinterpret the information they do have, misconstrue the intentions of other humans, or miscalculate their own capabilities or those of others. The strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction was and remains truly MAD.

    The Nuclear Age demands greater efforts to achieve peace and a world free of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The great challenge of our time is to end the threat of nuclear annihilation. The end of the Cold War has made this possible, but entrenched ways of thinking have made it difficult. Even after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, the nuclear weapons states are still relying upon their nuclear arsenals to provide security. But security from whom? Security against what? We need a new kind of security that does not place the human future in jeopardy. We need to learn to think and act in new ways.

    Let me suggest some elements of this new way of thinking.

    1. Think indigenous. Think like a person whose feet touch the land, like one who loves and respects the Earth and all its creatures. Think seven generations. Recognize that all acts have consequences. Protect the Earth that sustains you. Ask yourself what are the consequences for the Earth of each act you take. Corbin Harney, spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone, has reminded us that we have only “One Earth, one air, one water.” Chief Seattle is reported to have said:

    The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites our family. If we kill snakes, the field mice will multiply and destroy our corn. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

    2. Think like an astronaut. Keep a broad perspective. See the world as one. Recognize that all borders are manmade. They may exist on maps, but they do not really exist on Earth. That is what the astronauts discovered when they went into space and looked back at our small fragile planet that floats in an immensely vast universe. Astronaut Salman Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia described his experience travelling in space with other astronauts:

    The first day, we pointed to our countries. The third day, we pointed to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.

    3. The late Carl Sagan, a space scientist and author of Cosmos and Contact, described the Earth as a “pale blue dot”. He wrote:

    After Voyager 2 passed Neptune, I got a chance to do something I had wanted to do for many years: turn the cameras around and photograph the distant Earth…

    I look at that picture and I see a pale blue dot. One pixel, one picture element, just a dot. I think, that’s us. That’s our home world. Everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you’ve ever heard of, everybody who ever lived, every human being in the history of the universe lived on that blue dot. Every hopeful child, every couple in love, every prince and pauper, every revered religious leader, every corrupt politician, every ethnocentrist and xenophobe, all of them there on that little dot.

    It speaks to me of fragility and vulnerability, not for the planet, but for the species that imagines itself the dominant organism living as part of a thin film of life that covers the dot. It seems to me that this perspective carries with it, as does so much else we know, an obligation to care for and cherish that blue dot, the only home our species has ever known.

    4. Think with your heart. Learn to stand in the other person’s shoes. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in that other person’s shoes. Act with compassion. Follow the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don’t be stopped or molded by so-called enemies. Look into the faces, the eyes, the hearts of those who are labeled enemies. Find their humanity. In doing so, you will also find your own.

    5. Think peace. Peace is a process. It requires constant effort to maintain a dynamic balance. I define peace in this way: Peace is a dynamic process of nonviolent social interaction that results in security for all members of a society. Thus, peace is more than the absence of war. Without security, there is no peace.

    6. Think like a seed. Recognize that you have the inherent power of growth. You are not static. A tiny seed may become a majestic tree.

    Potential is realized in many ways, in the seemingly small decisions that one makes each day. When Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat in the front of a public bus to a white man, she was realizing her potential. Her simple act of courage, which caused her to be arrested, led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the modern civil rights movement. When Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense Department analyst, risked imprisonment by turning over the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, thus exposing secret reports on the Vietnam War to the American people, he was realizing his potential as a human being.

    Let me contrast this way of thinking with what I believe are the main characteristics of the old way of thinking. It is short-sighted without due regard for consequences; technology centered, seeking technological rather than human solutions to problems; high-risk, and often propelled by testosterone; rooted in secrecy, which is maintained by official classification of information in the name of national security; and often arrogant, bureaucratic, and hierarchical. In short, it is thinking and behavior which divides rather than unites, dominates rather than shares, and destroys rather than heals. This is the thinking which underlies war, nuclearism, disparity, environmental devastation, and human rights abuses.

    Which kind of thinking do you choose? It is an important question because the world of tomorrow will be rooted in the thinking of today. And your thinking and your acts will help to form the world of tomorrow.

    Forty years ago when Josei Toda called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons his thinking was ahead of its time. But he sowed a seed of peace that has taken root. He referred to nuclear weapons as an “absolute evil.” Nearly four decades later, the International Court of Justice issued its opinion that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal under international law. The Court said that any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be subject to the rules of international humanitarian law. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used if they would fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians or if they would cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. In issuing this opinion, the President of the Court, Mohammed Bedjaoui, wrote, “Atomic warfare and humanitarian law therefore appear to be mutually exclusive; the existence of the one automatically implies the non-existence of the other.” He also referred to nuclear weapons in a manner similar to the way that Josei Toda had referred to them in 1957. He called them the “ultimate evil.”

    In many ways we have been too complacent in tolerating this absolute evil in our world. As citizens of the world, we must confront this evil and demand an end to the nuclear weapons era. I have the following suggestions for you:

    1. Increase your awareness. Inform yourself. One place to start is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s or other similar web sites. The Foundation’s web address is https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com. We also have a free electronic newsletter, The Sunflower, which provides information on the abolition of nuclear weapons and other issues relating to peace in the Nuclear Age. You can sign up for this at the Foundation’s web site. We are publishing a booklet in our Waging Peace Series on Creating a Nuclear Weapons Free World, A Guide for Students and All Concerned Citizens. You can order a copy from our Foundation.

    2. Exercise your citizenship. Speak out. Make your voice heard. If necessary, protest. Demand information, and fight against government secrecy. You have a democratic right to informed consent on government policies. The late ocean explorer, filmmaker and environmentalist, Jacques Cousteau, said, The time has come when speaking is not enough, applauding is not enough. We have to act. I urge you, every time you have an opportunity, make your opinions known by physical presence. Do it!

    3. Sow seeds of peace. You can sow seeds of peace in many ways — by a smile or a kind word, by caring and sharing, by compassion, by demonstrating in your daily acts that life matters, that the Earth matters, that you are committed to creating a safer and saner future.

    4. Support Abolition 2000. This is a worldwide network of over 700 citizen action groups around the world working for a treaty by the year 2000 that calls for the prohibition and elimination of all nuclear weapons in a timebound framework. Sign the Abolition 2000 International Petition, and help circulate it. There is also an Abolition 2000 Resolution for Municipalities and one for College Campuses. You can help in having these enacted in your municipality and on your college campus.

    5. Grow to your full stature as a human being. Think about not only your rights, but your responsibilities as a human being fortunate enough to be alive at this amazing time in history. Recognize that you are a miracle, that all life is a miracle, and treat yourself and all life with the respect due a miracle. One important responsibility of each generation is to assure that the chain of life is not broken. This responsibility is heightened in the Nuclear Age, and thus more is demanded of us all. My greatest hope for each of you is that you will fulfill your promise and potential as human beings, and be a force for peace in a world that is crying out to be healed.

    I would like to end with a story about sunflowers. When the former Soviet Union split apart, Ukraine was left with a large nuclear weapons arsenal. Ukraine agreed, however, to become a nuclear weapons free state, and to send all of the nuclear weapons left on its territory to Russia for dismantlement. When Ukraine completed this transfer in June 1996, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine and Russia along with the Secretary of Defense of the United States commemorated the occasion in an extraordinary way. They scattered sunflower seeds and planted sunflowers on a former Ukrainian missile base which once housed 80 SS-19 nuclear-armed missiles aimed at the United States. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

    Of course, sunflowers alone will not be enough. But sunflowers are a great symbol of hope. They are bright and beautiful. They are hardy and healthy. They make us smile, and they can nourish us. They represent everything that missiles do not. They are life and they affirm life. Nuclear armed missiles, on the other hand, are technological instruments of genocide. They are symbols death and the mass destruction of life.

    Sunflowers have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. They are a powerful symbol, but they are not enough. To achieve a world free of nuclear weapons will require a great effort of citizens united from all parts of the world, and particularly an effort by young people who will inherit tomorrow’s world. I urge you to be part of this effort, and one day we will plant sunflowers to celebrate the end of the nuclear weapons era on our planet.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.