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Drums of War, Voices for Peace by Melissa Jameson
We extend our sympathy to the friends and family members of all who died and were injured. We grieve for the lives lost that day in this country and every day around the world due to unbridled militarism. We continue our efforts to resist all war. It solves nothing and only creates more suffering, more death, more crises. Technology speeds everything up, including a search for answers and activist response. Hits to our website have increased tenfold, to 6,000-8,000 a day, and we have added hundreds of new members (welcome!). The National Office staff and New England regional staffer Joanne Sheehan have talked to dozens of reporters. We have gotten out of the house and into the street, taking part in antiwar mobilizing in New York City and around the country: With the National Coalition for Peace and Justice, we helped organize actions around the country on October 7; with the New York-Not in Our Name Coalition, we helped organize the 10,000-strong protest that same day in New York City; we were among the key organizers of the October 13 demonstration that was part of the International Day of Protest against Star Wars. And we have talked, talked, talked to people who call with requests for information, interviews and alternative points of view. Most are encouraging; some are profane. Some have asked whether we shouldn’t re-examine our pacifist position at this critical time. But it is just because it is such a critical time that we must continue to speak out. Our politics can’t change just because they’ve met what looks like a new challenge; they should change only when they can’t answer that challenge. Pacifism is not only for those times when it is easy to be pacifist; it is a creative, dynamic force constantly seeking out ways to explore living nonviolently, while the forces of violence and war diminish all humanity, every day, all over the globe. The point is not for all of us to die apart from one another, but to figure out how to live together. The criminal attacks of September 11 have left an indelible impression. This issue of the magazine looks at those events from different angles: GI resistance and counter-recruitment, reflexive patriotism and pacifism, the Middle East roots of the conflict, and brief assessments of the Pentagon’s interests and media coverage of the crisis and ideas for nonviolent policy alternatives. We’ve also included photos of antiwar actions that have sprung up —you are not alone! (In that context, those of you with Internet access should also know that we’ve put a listing of peace actions on our website and are leaving them up; please send announcements of upcoming events to nowar@warresisters.org.) We hope that this issue proves useful and informative for you. It is by no means an exhaustive overview—we only have so many pages and so much time, after all—but we offer it to provide some basic analysis of the various aspects of the crisis, and some evidence that peace advocates are not as alone as much of the mainstream press suggests we are. Now more than ever, we need to work together. Melissa Jameson is the Director of WRL’s National Office |
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weeks seems a lifetime ago. We had planned another focus for this issue,
but after September 11, we changed our plans to offer a look at some of
the ramifications of what happened that day—so much sadness, so much pain
and suffering, so many deaths from yet another attack, this time on U.S.
soil. 