 February 2006
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, 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. Editorial material in Peacework is published under a Creative Commons  Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Boston Area Events Weekly Boston Area Protests Against the US War in Iraq: Sundays, Peace Vigil, Noon-1:30, Cambridge Common, Mass Ave & Garden Street; Mondays, Peace vigil, 5:30-6:30 pm, intersection of Mass. Ave. & Pleasant St in Arlington Center, arlingtonUJP@yahoo.com; Tuesdays, United for Justice & Peace, Boston Copley Square Vigil 5:30-6:30 pm; Hingham Peace Vigil, the corner of North St & Fearing Rd, 11:30-noon, the South Shore Peace Forum, southshorepeace@earthlink.net; Wednesdays, Harvard-Cambridge Walk for Peace, Noon at Harvard Yard at John Harvard statue, www.interuniversitycoalition.org, Thursdays, Vigil Against the War, Newton, MA, 4-5 pm, Newton Center at the corner of Center & Beacon Streets; Newton Dialogues Feminism and Dessert, Tues, 2/7, 7 pm; What could be better than smart talk, swell people & sweet food? Join us for this monthly service of engagingly informal talks about subjects that impact our daily lives. Feel free to bring your dinner; dessert is on us! Center for New Words (CNW), 7 Temple St., Cambridge MA; New Voices Open Mic, 2/22; 7 pm; Supportive literary open mic for women & their allies, held the third Friday of every month. All genres welcome. 5 & 10 minute slots available. Sign up at 7:15; start at 7:30; $5 at the door; Mary Daly, 2/23, 7 pm; Daly, the author of Beyond God the Father, & The Church and the Second Sex, explores the visions of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the 19th century philosopher; Women, Action & The Media: Making Noise, Making Change; 3/31-4/2/2006; MIT's Stata Center, Cambridge, MA; keynote Speakers: Farai Chideya, Maria Hinojosa, Caryl Rivers; This year's conference will bring together more than 300 participants for over two days of meeting, discussing, & exchanging our observations, ideas, experiences, opinions, & tools for change - & to plan together for action. CNW, 7 Temple St, Cambridge, MA; 617/876-5310; cnw@centerfornewwords.org ; 617/876-5310; www.centerfornewwords.orgwww.centerfornewwords.org Studying Young Writers' Diaries Of The Holocaust Workshop; 2/15, 4-6:30pm; Alexandra Zapruder's award-winning book, Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust, is dramatized in the MTV documentary I'm Still Here. Through the film & portions of the book, we'll explore the power of personal testimony & the integration of literature & history through the study of individual diaries. New study guide available at www.facinghistory.org; No Fee, RSVP to Princess Johnson, princess_johnson@facing.org, Facing History and Ourselves International Headquarters, 16 Hurd Road, Brookline, MA 02445 In Their Own Words: Iraqi Perspectives on the Occupation, Sun, 2/19, 1-3 pm; Independent journalist Brian Conley presents video interviews with Iraqis; Donations help Brian return to Iraq in March for the 3rd anniversary of the start of the War, see www.aliveinbaghdad.org; Morrell Meeting Room, Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant Street, Brunswick, ME; co-sponsored by Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks & the Maine Chapter of the Women's League for International Peace & Freedom; for more info, Kate Harris, 207/833-6569, kate@earthlovers.org
Maine War Tax Resisters
Annual Workshop and Meeting, 2/25 (snow date: 2/26); morning
workshops, afternoon planning, 10 am-3 pm, Peace and Justice Center
of Eastern Maine, 170 Park St., Bangor, Maine WTR Resource Center,
207/525-7776 or invert@acadia.net National and International Gatherings Who Wants to Hear Our Story?: A media Symposium, Washington DC; March 2-3, 2006; The goal of this symposium is to engage more journalists; legislators, academics, & religious organizations in issues affecting indigenous people; Cosponsored by Friends Committee on National Legislation (conference coordinator), American Indian Policy & Media Initiative, Americans for Indian Opportunity, American Friends Service Committee, Call to Renewal, Honor Our Neighbors' Origins & Rights (HONOR), Institute for Tribal Government, The Interfaith Alliance, National American Indian Housing Council, National Council of Churches, National Indian Child Welfare Association, National Indian Council on Aging, National Indian Health Board, National Native American Families Together, National Urban Indian Family Coalition, Native American Journalists Association, Native American Rights Fund; sign up at www.fcnl.org/nativeam, or e-mail pat@fcnl.org International Peace Research Association Biennial Conference: Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace, 6/29-7/3/2006; University of Calgary, 1833 Crowchild Trail NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; 403/220-6229; info@IPRA2006.com; www.ipra2006.com War Resisters' International Conference, Globalizing Nonviolence, 7/23-7/27; Schloss Eringerfeld, Paderborn, Germany Counterposing the perspective & values of nonviolent people's power to those of global financial institutions, transnational corporations or governments, we're building a movement of globalization from below; War Resisters' International, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX, Britain, +44 20 72784040 registration@globalisingnonviolence.org, www.wri-irg.org Voices for Creative Nonviolence: The Winter of Our Discontent, 2/15-3/19/2006; Washington DC direct action campaign to protest the Iraq occupation & war; Iraqis continue to die by the tens of thousands, the death toll of US soldiers tops 2000, billions spent on occupation while virtually nothing is spent on reparations or reconstruction, join in civil disobedience, fasting & lobbying to demand an end to economic & military warfare against Iraq; VCNV, 1249 W Argyle St #2, Chicago IL 60640; 773/878-3815; info@VCNV.org; www.VCNV.org
Quaker Initiative
to End Torture has formed a steering committee & is planning
the program for a conference to be held at Guilford College In
Greensboro NC, 6/2-6/4/06; to share the news & get involved,
visit www.home.ix.netcom.com/~quit Opportunities I Dream a World: Youth Art Contest; an opportunity for youth, ages 14-20, to produce works of art that express their thoughts on justice, nonviolence & capital punishment; submissions accepted: 2 & 3 dimensional artwork; electronic media; written word; performance; photography; First place/second place in each media $200/$50; entries must be post-marked by 5 pm, March 1, 2006; cosponsored by AFSC & the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty; more information & submission forms, www.afsc.org/ct/idream.htm Before You Enlist!, a video work-in-progress by Telequest Inc, in partnership with Veterans for Peace & AFSC is seeking Iraq or Afghan war vets who wish to share their stories of recruitment as compared to actual wartime experiences; also seeking donations & videotape pre-orders; Telequest Inc, 66 Witherspoon St #383, Princeton NJ 08542, 609/430-3004, enlist@telequestinc.com GI Resistance Oral History Project in cooperation with Quaker House, a 35 year-old military counseling service in Fayetteville NC; soldiers, veterans, family, anti-war activists & others who have been affected by the Iraq War are encouraged to share their stories for this oral history project; Betsy Brinson, Ph.D., project director, oral historian; 804/353-1711, brinson422comcast.net
The Meg Perry Memorial
Fund, donations sought in memory of the People's Free Space organizer & Gulf Coast mutual aid worker who was killed in a bus accident
in New Orleans; Donations for hurricane survivors & other
work that Meg supported. Donations can be sent to the Meg Perry
Memorial Fund, c/o Key Bank, 172 Maine St., Brunswick, ME 04011 Campaigns Student Week of Action, 3/13-3/17; Students Say NO to War in Iraq; College Not Combat; Troops Out Now; Campus Antiwar Network, RecruitersOut@yahoo.com, www.campusantiwar.net Nationwide Call for a Week of Local Action to End the War on Iraq, 3/15-3/22; Three Years Too Many; End the War on Iraq; Bring All the Troops Home Now; United for Peace with Justice, PO Box 607, Times Square Station, NY, NY 10108, 212/868-5545, www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3172 Global Call for Nonviolent Civil Resistance to End the U.S.-Led Military Occupation of Iraq, 3/19-3/20, First Day of International Actions, the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq; The second International Day, 5/1, May Day, the International Day of the Worker; The third International Day, 8/9, the 61st anniversary of the US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Japan - to demand an end to US proliferation of nuclear weapons of mass destruction & an end to US state terrorism in Iraq; The fourth International Day, 9/11, the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US - to commemorate & deplore that horrible act of violence & to denounce the terrorist violence which the US government is inflicting on Iraq under the false pretense of the "war on terrorism;" If necessary, we will continue with the Fifth Day on 12/10, International Human Rights Day. (it's a Sunday, so legal demonstrations on 12/10, civil resistance actions on 12/11, similar to the situation of 3/19-3/20); Global Call to Action, dm@aglobalcall.org , Voluntown, CT, USA, www.aglobalcall.org/
The Control Arms
Campaign, Existing arms controls are powerless to protect innocent
civilians, according to a recently released report on the impact
of arms transfers to Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo &
Sierra Leone by Control Arms Campaign, Oxfam International, Amnesty
International & International Action Network on Small Arms;
The UN is preparing a conference on small arms in June, 2006.
"…The world has a choice. Either it continues to ignore
the massive human cost of arms proliferation or it finally acts
to control the arms trade," said Barbara Stocking, Director
of Oxfam. "No one but a criminal would knowingly sell a gun
to a murderer…." For an online copy of the report visit
the CAC website at www.controlarms.org/downloads/index.htm Resources Doctors Without Borders: Top Ten Under-Reported Humanitarian Stories of 2005; 1) Extreme deprivation & violence endured by millions in the Congo; 2) Chechen civilians caught in the crossfire between Russian Federation forces & Chechen armed groups; 3) Haitians trapped by violence since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was pressured into exile in 2004; 4) near-total lack of R&D into tools to help HIV/AIDS patients living in poverty, e.g. the urgent need for a test for tuberculosis for HIV infected patents & diagnostic tools & treatments for infants with HIV; 5) Civilians in India's northeastern Assam & Manipur states suffer recurring outbreaks of political violence; 6) In Sudan, one year after peace agreement between government & the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), those most affected by the 20 year conflict are still living under abysmal conditions; 7) 14 years of conflict in Somalia has lead to the collapse of public health structures & absence of health care services; 8) In Colombia violence continues to be the leading cause of death as military, paramilitary, & armed guerrillas fight against the backdrop of the narcotics trade; 9) People in northern Uganda have suffered nearly 20 years of brutal conflict, including attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA); 10) The war that started in the Ivory Coast in 2002 has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths & hundreds of thousands made homeless; for the full report visit the DWB site, www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2006/top10_2005.html On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about Fundamentals, by Robert Helvey, Albert Einstein Institution, 2004, pp178, downloadable for free from http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/OSNC.pdf; Successful nonviolent action campaigns against repressive regimes pose dilemmas to the regime which they cannot win (e.g. nonviolent demonstrations which, if the regime attacks, the government loses support of critical constituencies, & if they don't it undermines the myth of regime invulnerability) Stitched Up: How those imposing unfair competition in the textiles and clothing industries are the only winners in this race to the bottom; Low prices offered by Chinese manufacturers, due to exploitation of workers & repression against labor activists, are used by employers & governments worldwide as a pretext for forcing terrible working conditions & low salaries on workers & intensifying repression against trade unions; available for free download from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, www.icftu.org 
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