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WRI Activists Meet in Dublin
Stories and Strategies

By Judith Mahoney Pasternak

always wanted the T-shirt that says, “not a morning person doesn’t begin to describe me.” Nevertheless, last August in Ireland I woke up at 7:30 a.m. without an alarm six mornings in a row for the sake of a big mug of Guinness-dark Irish tea and the chance to talk with 160-plus peace activists from across the globe. The walk to the dining hall was chilly and the breakfasts were so-so, but the tea and the company couldn’t be beat.

Plenary session at WRI Trennial. Photo: WRI

It was worth the early wake-up just to hear Siva Ramamoorthy’s account of his transformation from violent guerrilla to nonviolent activist. In the early 1980s, the Sri Lankan government massacred some 180,000 of the country’s Tamil minority. At 15, Siva joined the Tamils’ Liberation Tigers. “The first day I held the AK47,” he said, “I thought I had achieved my lifetime’s ambition.” But over time, he came to see the rifle as inseparable from the violence that was killing his people. He put the gun away and joined a dangerous and illegal march for peace.

Today Siva is on the staff of War Resisters’ International, and in August, he and I were at Dublin City University from August 3 to 9 for “Stories and Strategies,” WRI’s 23rd triennial conference (see NVA, November-December 1998, for a report on the previous Triennial in Croatia). Siva’s was only one of the first-person accounts shared there by people who have “personally refused” violence.

There were many other stories. Indian feminist Hasina Khan described the efforts to end the ongoing massacres in Gujarat. Koussetogue Koude of Chad talked about overcoming the legacy of violence in his country. Kosovo Serb Sonja Nicolic shared the story of her marriage to a Muslim and the rejection their children faced from Serbs and Muslims alike. The young refusenik Ariel Levin of Israel told us what life is like for a conscientious objector in Israel.

The strategies were articulated at workshops, most explicitly at “theme group” sessions at which the same people met for four days to examine one subject in depth. At the “Economics, Militarization and Globalization” group, resource people from Ireland educated us about Ireland’s increasing militarism and the latest threats to its long-held neutrality; then we took broader looks at the connections between guns, money and global capital. Other theme groups examined nonviolent social empowerment, ethnic and community violence, conscientious objection and dealing with the past; still another served as an introduction to nonviolence for people new to WRI.

After lunch, there was a second round of workshops. On the first day, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire talked about the efforts of the organization she helped found, the Peace People, to build a “culture of nonviolence” in battle-scarred Northern Ireland. Additional afternoon topics included war and gender, “citizen diplomacy,” the Irish antiwar movement, the war on terrorism, nonviolent options in Israel-Palestine and the case for the abolition of war.

One afternoon was left open for conferees to spend time in Ireland without playing hookey. Some of us explored Dublin; others connected with Irish activists away from the conference venue. One group of WRL delegates went north to Belfast and talked with ex-prisoners from the Irish Republican Army. Vietnam veteran and peace activist Greg Payton called the dialogue that ensued between pacifists and former soldiers an extraordinary opportunity to “preach beyond the choir.”

After-dinner plenaries drew the stories and strategies together. One evening, staffers from Ireland’s Glencree Center for Reconciliation talked about the Irish peace process. “When politicians declare war,” said Glencree’s Chief Executive Ian White, “a lot has to happen to make the war. But when peace is declared, people think it’s all over.” It’s not, of course; we witnessed one of the steps in that process when we watched a video of a historic press conference at which Britain’s Prince Charles “acknowledge[d] the long history of suffering the Irish people have endured.” Another night, Elke Steven of Germany, Oscar Huenchunao of Chile and I spoke about the connections between increasing militarism and diminishing civil liberties in much of Europe and the United States since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The late evenings gave us a chance to connect with other aspects of Irish culture. A temporary pub was set up in the student center, complete with Guinness, a pool table and live and recorded traditional music. One night a local group presented a play about the troubles in Northern Ireland; another evening, Irish singer-songwriter Bobby Sands sang in concert.

Decisions, Decisions
“Stories and Strategies” was an obvious choice for the theme of a conference held in Ireland, where a millennia-old storytelling tradition still holds sway over the culture. The idea was that we, the assembled activists, would share our stories and see what peacemaking strategies they led to.

It was not an academic exercise. Unlike many such events, WRI triennials are intended to lead to concrete action. Participants include delegates from WRI sections and members of its governing Council plus resource people from around the world and grassroots activists from the host country and elsewhere. The conference workshops and discussions formulate proposals for short- and long-term WRI programs and projects, and the delegates and Council members decide whether to go forward with those proposals at the business and Council meetings that immediately follow the conference.

At this Triennial, participants offered proposals for actions and projects over a wide range of time. At least one was accomplished almost as soon as it was proposed: One workshop drafted the text for a suggested WRI press release protesting the denial by the Irish government of visas to a substantial number of would-be conference attendees. With some on-the-spot editing by the assembled delegates and Council members, the statement was issued August 11, the last day of the Triennial. “We were shocked and distressed,” WRI declared, “when we heard that one third of the invited participants from non-EU countries were confronted with Fortress Europe, the infamous immigration policy of the European Union. More than 100 people who had registered for the conference were denied an entry visa from the Irish authorities. People coming from Russia, the Ukraine, Georgia, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Togo, Gambia, Kenya, Bangladesh and Pakistan haven’t been able to attend the conference.” Similarly, the business meeting adopted the suggested text for a WRI flyer protesting the planned U.S. attack on Iraq and endorsed an international day of protest against the continuing U.S. presence in Vieques, Puerto Rico, planned for September 23.

But most of the proposals were for longer-term projects. Those adopted included one for researching and developing a WRI position on globalization; one to create a “training for trainers” program in conjunction with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Women Peacemakers program; and one to hold WRI’s 2003 Council meeting in Colombia, along with an antiwar forum for Colombian and other Latin American activists.

Usually, the delegates also directly elect new Council members and officers—also for three years or until the next Triennial. But this year all candidates were running unopposed and had already received by mail ballots the minimum number of votes required for their election. Thus, the WRL delegates from the United States had the pleasure of seeing our own Joanne Sheehan begin her second term as WRI Chair without the bother of casting ballots.

North and South
There was, however, one significant difference between the storytellers and the strategists. Although so many of the storytellers were from the global South, most of the people at the conference—including the overwhelming majority of the decision makers at the business meeting—were from the North. More than 100 of the participants were European; another 21 were from the United States.

Of course the Dublin location made it easer for people from Europe to attend. But in fact, WRI itself remains dominated by the North, at least so far. Most WRI sections are in Europe, and the largest single section is the War Resisters League in the United States. WRI Chair Joanne Sheehan commented, “One of our goals is to bring in people to make it more global. We raise funds to bring in resource people from the South. And we are becoming more global as groups from the South join as associates. But they don’t join as sections, which are the groups that have the decision-making powers. Sections—like WRL—are pacifist groups, but the already existing groups from the South that want to associate with WRI aren’t necessarily all pacifists and aren’t eligible to be sections.

“And of course the other problem that any international group has to face is that countries in the North have tightened their borders since September 11, and people from the South can’t get in. The same thing happened to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation at its conference in New York in June: A group from Bangladesh couldn’t get in.”

A number of conferees expressed the thought that the discussions would probably have been more productive had there been more participants from the South. WRL’s Greg Payton said, “It’s difficult for a Eurocentric group to make international strategies because there’s cultural differences that have to be considered.” WRI staffers Andreas Speck and Roberta Bacic agreed, noting that “the South [has] a more holistic view and perspective when dealing with these issues.” Payton urged that the various WRI groups have extensive consultations with people from the relevant areas before putting any plans affecting those areas into practice.

Yet despite the disparity in numbers, most participants appeared to feel that the Triennial offered a rare chance for in-depth, multi-faceted dialog around issues of war and peace. West Papuan activist-priest Father Neles Tebay spoke for many when he said that listening and talking to other participants, he “came to realize that the oppressed West Papuans were not the only people in the world who had been suffering … . There are also … people who have been suffering in other parts of the world.” In a final comment on the event, Fr. Tebay said he was inspired by the “many people who had been dedicating themselves [to] justice and peace. They [are] the hope of the world.”

Judith Mahoney Pasternak is the editor of the Nonviolent Activist, on leave at this writing to work on a book. Her Triennial presentation on militarism and civil liberties is available from WRL (please send a stamped, self-addressed envelope or e-mail judith@warresisters.org.

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For more information about WRI and the Triennial, write WRI at 5 Caledonian Rd., London N19 DX, Britain, go to www.wri-irg.org and/or subscribe to Peace News (see ad p.29).