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S O J O M A I L
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in days of violence and fear
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++++++++++++++++++++ 12-October-2001 ++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++ "Conscience in a Time of War" ++++++++++++
Q u o t e o f t h e W e e k
*Thomas Merton: Praying for peace
H e a r t s & M i n d s
*Conscience in a time of war
B y t h e N u m b e r s
*Lost Bread, Lost Bombs
F o r M e r c y ' s S a k e
*Aid for Afghanistan
P o l i t i c a l l y C o n n e c t
*Death Penalty Under the (TV) Lens
S o u l W o r k s
*'Another Look'
B u i l d i n g a M o v e m e n t
*Global Justice after Global Terrorism?
C u l t u r e W a t c h
*12 Ways the Media Misreport Conflict
W e b S c e n e
*Interfaith Resources
*****************************************************************
Q u o t e o f t h e W e e k
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the
enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but
above all that my own country will cease to do the
things that make war inevitable.
-Thomas Merton
*****************************************************************
H e a r t s & M i n d s
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Conscience in a Time of War
By Jim Wallis
As U.S.-led military strikes have begun in Afghanistan, it
is even more crucial that religious communities continue
to raise a voice of conscience in a time of war. The
nation has turned to spiritual roots and religious
congregations for solace, comfort, and support in this
crisis. As central as those pastoral ministries are, the
prophetic vocation of religion and spirituality is now
sorely needed as well.
Since the evil events of Sept. 11, the religious community
has been clear and consistent in saying that a morally
rooted response to this terror must focus on bringing the
perpetrators to justice, rather than military reprisals that
do harm to more innocents. A broad spectrum of
religious leaders -- Christian, Jewish, and Muslim,
pacifist and non-pacifist, conservative and liberal --
have expressed a strong determination to protect
innocent lives as a religious vocation, both the innocent
lives threatened by further terrorist attacks and the
innocent civilians jeopardized by military retaliation.
What do we say and do now that air strikes have begun?
There was wisdom in the restraint shown for almost a
month by the U.S. government, in the building of an
international coalition against terrorism, and in the fact
that the developing strategy to root out terrorism included
not just military but many other fronts -- diplomatic,
economic, political, intelligence, and security. That
multifaceted approach must not be lost now in a
widening war that depends more and more on mostly
military means.
Many of us have deep concerns about the moral,
practical, and political consequences of the bombing
campaign now underway. But despite the concerns
and objections we feel, the question is what to do now.
An important principle must be affirmed: Nonviolence
must answer the questions that violence purports to
answer, but in a better way. People committed to
nonviolence cannot wish away the questions to be
answered and problems to be solved -- such as
stopping further terrorist violence and punishing those
responsible for the mass murder of innocent people.
Since Sept. 11, several important things have happened.
Credible evidence of the complicity of Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network in the Sept. 11
attacks has been presented and broadly accepted
internationally - including by most Arab and Muslim
nations, which this week condemned the terrorist
attacks. The United Nations has spoken unequivocally
to the need to root out terrorism from every nation
where it exists. We are seeing a broad international
consensus against terrorist violence, even in places and
nations where there is strong opposition to U.S. policies,
especially in the Arab world. The United States has
made a point to distinguish between the terrorist networks
(and Taliban regime that supports them) and the people
of Afghanistan. And the international community,
including the U.S., has already begun what needs to be
a massive humanitarian effort to prevent the Afghan
people from starving.
All this must now be built upon. We are now at a critical
moral turning point between pursuing justice or waging
a wider war.
First, the central importance of the defense of innocent
lives must be made clear and compelling in the midst of the
air strikes now underway. It appears the number of
civilian casualties is so-far still small, but reports are
beginning to emerge from refugees fleeing to Pakistan
that the numbers are growing. We know from past
experience that any bombing campaign, no matter how
carefully targeted, cannot avoid harming innocent
civilians.
The human crisis in Afghanistan of enormous refugee
dislocation has been made worse by the bombings,
which have also cut off the aid shipments on the ground
that are far more effective than air drops from 30,000 feet.
Aid agencies are warning of a massive humanitarian disaster
in the making unless ground shipments of aid are restored.
We cannot reverse the bombing that has been done, but now
that the Taliban's "command and communication" centers
and its military capabilities have been greatly diminished
by the air strikes, as the U.S. government reports, it is
time to shift strategies. It's not too late to take a better
path. The most effective and morally defensible strategy now
would be one focused clearly on bringing the terrorists to
justice, fully utilizing the rule of law and international
forces, and employing multiple tactics. It should be pursued
as a police operation, backed by the international community,
instead of the widening war that continued bombing will bring.
A genuinely multinational effort, perhaps employing special
forces from several countries, would have the capacity to stop
and vanquish the terrorist networks. The U.S. should also work
with the U.N. Security Council to establish a special
international tribunal to try those responsible for the attacks.
The arrest, incarceration, and trial of Slobodan Milosevic is
a precedent to build upon.
Such a focused international campaign would not only
be morally superior to an escalating U.S.-led war against
the states that sponsor terrorism (with such a heavy cost
to their people), it would also be far less dangerous and
ultimately more effective in actually defeating the terrorist
threat. It is imperative to prevent the scenario of an
expanding American war in the Arab world, increasing
the danger of more terrorist attacks in America and
Europe, prompting more escalation, and thereby risking a
cycle of violence that becomes more difficult to stop. We
must seek the active participation of all nations, especially
Islamic and Arab countries, in such an international
campaign against terrorism, rather than simply their
acquiescence to a military attack.
This strategy may take more time. But the discipline,
patience, and perseverance to cripple the networks,
assets, and capabilities of violent terrorists is more
likely to produce lasting results than massive military
actions whose targets and consequences are
increasingly unclear. President Bush's best action now
would be to follow his own words of "patient justice."
*************************************************************
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B y t h e N u m b e r s
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lost Bread, Lost Bombs
Up to one-fifth of America's food goes to waste each year,
an estimated 130 pounds of food per person. The annual
value of this lost food is estimated at around $31 billion.
Roughly 49 million people could be fed by those lost
resources, more than twice the number of people in the world
who die of starvation each year.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, "A Citizen's Guide to
Food Recovery," 1999.
From 1945 to 1997, the U.S. "lost" 11 nuclear weapons, still
unaccounted for.
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, "Lost Weapons," 1997.
-------------------------------------------------------------
F o r M e r c y ' s S a k e
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Aid for Afghanistan
In his press conference last night, President Bush appealed
to the children of America to send dollars to the White
House for Afghanistan aid. You may prefer giving to these
trusted organizations which are also accepting donations:
Catholic Relief Services
http://www.catholicrelief.org
Christian Aid
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk
Church World Service
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Lutheran World Relief
http://www.lwr.org/
Mennonite Central Committee
http://www.mcc.org/afghancrisis
World Vision
http://www.worldvision.org
*****************************************************************
P o l i t i c a l l y C o n n e c t
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Death Penalty, Dramatized and Documented
Two important television films this week take on the issue of
capital punishment in no uncertain terms - though from vastly
different angles.
*"Shot in the Heart" (HBO, Oct. 13, 9-10:30 p.m.) is the
wrenching true story of Gary Gilmore's execution for murder
in Utah, as told from the perspective of his youngest
brother, Mikal.
A child is beaten and humiliated again and again for years on
end, gets into trouble with the law, spends most of his adult
life in prison, and when he does get out, murders two
innocent men for no reason he can ever explain.
Based on the book by Mikal Gilmore (a winner of the National
Book Critics Circle Award), the film does not sentimentalize
Gary Gilmore, nor does it whitewash his rash nature. In fact,
the film is much more about Mikal's attempt to understand why
his brother became what he was than it is about Gary's
remorse.
*"Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis" celebrates its 10th
anniversary with an outstanding documentary, "Investigative
Reports Special Edition: Death Penalty on Trial" (A&E, Oct.
16, 9-11 p.m.). The numbers tell a staggering story, says
Kurtis: More than 90 men and women have been exonerated of
capital crimes by DNA testing after their convictions in
recent years.
Poverty and race still make a difference. Corrupt or
incompetent defense attorneys -- and even in some cases,
police torture and collusion -- have been implicated in the
death-penalty convictions of innocent people.
"Journalists started the whole investigation of the justice
system," says Kurtis. "I think there will be a moratorium
on the death penalty in time, but what is more significant is
a reexamination of the legal system. Is it working?"
Read the full review at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1012/p18s1-altv.html
*****************************************************************
S o u l W o r k s
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Another Look"
Taller than a three-storey house,
the steep, shaggy old cypress
in front of my window outdarkens
an off-white, rain-battered day.
Fronds tangle and wave
like seaweed in the undersea heave
into deeper bluegreen. The stage
for nothing to happen is set,
then something, a bird, flickers
and hops through the wind-ruffled ledges,
a blackbird glossy as split coal
lights for a few seconds, cocks
a pared cadmium-yellow beak
and the afternoon breaks.
--by MARK GRANIER
From his new collection of poetry "Airborne". Available at
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/airborne.html
*****************************************************************
B u i l d i n g a M o v e m e n t
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From 'Anti-globalization' to True Internationalism
by Naomi Klein
Our civil liberties, our modest victories, our usual
strategies -- all are now in question. But this crisis also
opens up new possibilities. As many have pointed out, the
challenge for social justice movements is to connect economic
inequality with the security concerns that now grip us all--
insisting that justice and equality are the most sustainable
strategies against violence and fundamentalism.
But we cannot be naïve, as if the very real and ongoing
threat of more slaughtering of innocents will disappear
through political reform alone. There needs to be social
justice, but there also needs to be justice for the victims
of these attacks and immediate, practical prevention of
future ones. Terrorism is indeed an international threat,
and it did not begin with the attacks in the United States.
As Bush invites the world to join America's war, sidelining
the United Nations and the international courts, we need to
become passionate defenders of true multilateralism,
rejecting once and for all the label "antiglobalization."
Bush's "coalition" does not represent a genuinely global
response to terrorism but the internationalization of one
country's foreign policy objectives -- the trademark of US
international relations, from the WTO negotiating table to
Kyoto: You are free to play by our rules or get shut out
completely. We can make these connections not as "anti-
Americans" but as true internationalists.
Read the full story at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011022&c=1&s=klein
---------------------------------------------------------------
C u l t u r e W a t c h
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
12 Ways the Media Misreport Violence
Norwegian peace studies professor Johann Galtung has laid
out 12 points of concern where journalism often goes wrong
when dealing with violence. Each implicitly suggests more
explicit remedies.
l. Decontextualizing violence: focusing on the irrational
without looking at the reasons for unresolved conflicts
and polarization.
2. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict
to two, when often more are involved. Stories that just focus
on internal developments often ignore such outside or
"external" forces as foreign governments and transnational
companies.
3. Manicheanism: portraying one side as good and demonizing
the other as "evil."
4. Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting
alternatives.
5. Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding
structural causes, like poverty, government neglect, and
military or police repression.
6. Confusion: focusing only on the conflict arena (i.e., the
battlefield or location of violent incidents) but not on the
forces and factors that influence the violence.
7. Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining
why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence.
8. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact
of media coverage itself.
9. Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists,
especially big powers.
l0. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of
peaceful outcomes.
11. Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace.
12. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to reemerge if
attention is not paid to efforts to heal fractured societies.
When news about attempts to resolve conflicts are absent,
fatalism is reinforced. That can help engender even more
violence, when people have no images or information about
possible peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing.
Read more:
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/coveringviolence.shtml
**************************************************************
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B o o m e r a n g
++++++++++++++++++
Send criticism, comment, or commendations on today's issue to:
"boomerang@sojo.net"
-------------------------------------------------------------
W e b S c e n e
+++++++++++++++++
Interfaith Resources
*World Conference on Religion and Peace works internationally
with religious institutions and through NGOs and the U.N.
community, addressing a host of peace-related in arenas
such as conflict-resolution, disarmament and religious
freedom.
http://www.wcrp.org
*North American Interfaith Network offers networking
among approximately 60 interfaith organizations in Canada,
Mexico, and the United States. Its Web site offers a
directory of interfaith organizations, a list of religious
Web sites, NAIN's online newsletter and Interfaith Digest,
a chat room, a library, young adult pages, and other related
information.
http://www.nain.org
*United Religions Initiative is a grass-roots international
interfaith organization with more than 130 cooperation circles
and numerous affiliate organizations and individuals. The
URI Emergency Response Network offers a model in which more
than 100 religious leaders have formed a network to respond
instantly to acts of hate violence perpetrated against
religious, ethnic, and racial minorities.
http://www.uri.org
*World Interfaith Congress offers free directory listings,
content, discussion, and network services to more than 800
faith-based, ecumenical and interfaith organizations, plus
many individual participants.
http://www.interfaithcongress.org
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