 July/August 2003
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
From the editor's desk Summertime. And here at Peacework that means the delight of putting together our annual Review issue—a tradition we dreamed up a couple of years ago. Typically we tell our reviewers it’s “dealer’s choice.” We invite them to choose books old and new; sober nonfiction to be sure, but also stories, drama, art, photography, verse, for young or old. The only criterion—that they would genuinely recommend them to a friend. Well, actually, one other rule—that they tilt toward justice. It’s an invitation that reviewers have responded to with imagination and wit in the past. And so they have in 2003 as well. But looking over the whole of this little anthology, while it’s durable, and some of it quite important, we’re not sure you would want to take it along to that cabin on the lake or weathered seaside shack. It’s a subdued collection, somber, born under the shadow of perpetual war. It brings to mind this year’s collection of graduation speeches—an idiosyncratic but not unreliable gauge of the temper of the times. The times of course are dark and the best of the valedictories reflected that. Susan Sontag, speaking at Vassar College, had this to say:
So dip in. Maybe you will have some extra hours for reading, as our friend Scott Schaffer Duffy did, if you decide as he did to spend time in jail. Start on any page. It’s all good stuff, and makes sense in whatever order. Try the poets. Check out the title poem in Martín Espada’s Alabanza. Go visit Edward Said who demanded of his interviewer if he “had any good questions.” (Turns out he did.) Look up the book Patrol that our volunteer Eoin discovered when he was shelving books at the Cambridge Public Library. It’s intended for young people and has stunning illustrations. (Why do kids get all the good pictures?) But its subject is for the ages. We thought to mention to you the delight of some particularly well-written reviews in this collection, but quickly backed off from that bad idea. These Peacework reviewers are all exceptional writers, excited and engaged. Savor them, then follow their advice. Better yet, heed Sontag’s admonition: “Be clenched, curious. Despise violence. Be less afraid. Pay attention.” 
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