From the Editor's Desk
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“Sorry for the annoyances. What happens is that we are making our history.” This sign is taped to a lamppost in the historic City of Oaxaca, cheerfully letting tourists know that they will be welcome again soon — as soon as several hundred thousand teachers, police officers, peasants, children, and grandmothers succeed in tossing out their corrupt and murderous governor and starting a new society. In the meantime, the city may not much resemble what tourists travel from around the world expecting to see, but it is filled with beauty, and certainly with history, nonetheless. Encamped in the center of town since June, striking teachers and their supporters have laid their lives on the line, not just for their original demands — which include books and school lunches for their students — but for free speech (denied a voice on the state-run radio station, several hundred women simply took it over for themselves), the right to demonstrate peacefully, and a meaningful election system. Please, while there is still time, organize your union, congregation, or peace group to stand in solidarity with them. They have lost much already, and face a grave threat. Let’s make sure both the Mexican and the US governments know that the world is watching.
Some areas of the world covered in this issue of Peacework are better represented in the news than Oaxaca. Yet we believe that the Africa Action report, “A Tale of Two Genocides: US Responses to Rwanda and Darfur” brings a much needed cohesion to the story of recent US involvement in African crises. The Lebanon ceasefire agreement, too, has been in the news, but Stephen Zunes brings a closer reading of that document — including what is written between the lines — than other accounts we have seen. There is quite a gap between the machinations of US foreign policy in that region, and what is demanded by the rising voices of Israeli and Palestinian Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and many others who are calling for peace. Conn Hallinan offers an account of how the Israeli peace movement has grown and deepened, and Allan Solomonow’s review of the new book The Lemon Tree is also an example of the brave, inspiring work to be done when we talk with our “enemies.”
David Krieger and Judith McDaniel critique the US government’s obstinate insistence on bullying and buying its way out of international legal agreements that could, if upheld by this powerful nation, save hundreds of thousands of lives. Having trampled the lessons of Nuremberg in its rush to militarize Iraq, the US had the audacityto stack its delegation to the UN small arms control conference with representatives of the gun lobby, who waxed poetic about the horrors of an unarmed world.
Yet after the gun lobbyists had their say, fifteen survivors of gun violence shared their stories, without waiting for sponsorship from any governmental delegation. At another carefully orchestrated world gathering, the International AIDS Conference in Toronto last month, activist Gregg Gonsalves used his platform to raise up a model of true, grassroots revolution, declaring its value over philanthropy and the “de-politicization” of public health.
From this rich, roiling mix, a few bubbles pop up here and there that we hope will make you smile. Adam Baum has filed a story on how the expulsion of Pluto from the group of recognized planets has sparked the keepers of some other hallowed lists to do some trimming of their own. And in “Deadlocked Wedlock,” the poet Marge Piercy (come hear her at our annual Peacework event on November 8!) challenges another cherished tradition, pointing out wryly that marriage has never really meant only one thing anyway, any more than the landscape has always stayed the same. Sorry — we are making our history.
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