Pages tagged "War"

 

My paternal grandfather was a stern, strait-laced Ohio Quaker. My father, his eldest son, lived out most of those values in his own life, including the traditional Quaker repudiation of armed conflict. Yet at the outset of WWII, the youngest son of the family – my Uncle Clinton – chose to join the Army. My father evidently tried to dissuade his younger brother from joining the Army. In the summer of 1942 as Clinton was undergoing basic training in California, he responded to my father’s concerns with these words:

Dear Friends: 9/11 does not go away. It is with us on a daily basis, and it has changed our character as a nation. It has been the rationale for unending war, the sacrifice of civil liberties, the creation of a surveillance state, and a litany of radical changes in US behavior at home and abroad.

Part One: Chios, Greece, May 2017 – Each morning we wake to the contrasts of this place. A sea of luminous blue, rugged mountains, and clear skies – these surround a lively tourist strip along the water, with its overpriced but friendly cafes and restaurants. From the vantage point of a cafe chair, it is hard to imagine the underside of this place. If one ventures just a bit further down the coast, though, one finds a long strip of UN tents and “containers” – large plastic boxes that serve as tiny temporary houses – awkwardly set beside the remains of an old castle wall.

The Friends Peace Testimony challenges us to find alternatives to war and violence and create peaceful approaches to resolving conflict creatively and without harm.  For the past ten years, Friends from around the world have put these words into action by creating the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), an international organization that places teams of civilians from all over the world into conflict zones, where they work with local groups to protect civilians and support local initiatives for peace.  NP teams are strictly non-partisan, and they form connections with all recognized stakeholders in conflict situations.  By forming these broad alliances, NP teams can broker dialogues, protect civilians, and create space for all sides to develop constructive and amicable solutions to conflicts, without resorting to violence. 

Dear Editor,

Bill Lovelady is a member of Helena Monthly Meeting, MT (NPYM).

Vietnam is a mixture of old and new, the simple ways of villages and the cutthroat competition of modern global capitalism, ugly nightmares from an ancient history filled with devastating wars and current struggles to recover.

If war is not the answer, what is? David Hartsough’s Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist can help an uncertain reader progress to a firm conviction that effective nonviolent means of overcoming aggression and injustice really can be discovered and applied even in extreme situations – and that we “ordinary people” can do this. What makes the book so compelling is that it is an account of the author’s direct experience as an organizer and trainer in nonviolent campaigns, and as a participant in grassroots movements around the world.