November 2000

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

From the editor's desk

My father, a pilot in World War I, always called it Armistice Day--a day of hope, a cause for jubilation. At my childhood school, which he headmastered, even as Hitler's tanks rolled over Europe, we sang Finlandia--A Song of Peace. At mid-century, we celebrated the end of World War II and truly believed the fine words coming out of the UN conference in San Francisco, coming out of Breton Woods--the start of an era of justice, world governance, and peace.

It's tough to believe that anymore; indeed it's dangerously foolish. That we now call November 11 Veterans' Day makes tacit acknowledgment that we no longer believe there will be an end to war, that we measure our national anniversaries by counting the men and women who died, or who survive with their private nightmares.

The articles in this November Peacework are about war--as first of all atrocity, as a deeply dangerous perverter of our moral compass, as a habit-forming instrument of power. Take a look at Dick Bennett's excursion through the history of airwarfare, from Guernica through Hiroshima to Cambodia and beyond, then write him for his longer, more painful version, if you can bear it. Consider with Joseph Gerson why exactly we fight these wars, and for whose benefit. Think about Frida Berrigan's observations of military training and military "cooperation," what it does to civil society here and abroad, and the not-so-subtle messages it sends. Look with Cynthia Enloe at the consequences of our cultural inclination toward a militarized, "manly" way of thinking and behaving as a body politic. Remember and mourn, with John Lamperti, a brave and decent Salvadoran who chose to cast his lot with the wrong--that is, less powerful--side. Ponder what Elaine Hagopian has to say about the self-serving analysis and morality of the victors and the ethics of entrenched and racist principalities.

I guess you get our message on war--we're agin it. This is not easy reading, but it falls in the "Lest we forget" category, and should be required.

We move on to right now, and some of the dangerous, war-prone regions of our planet. Diane Johnstone offers a stringent analysis of the elections in Yugoslavia that goes well beyond what most of us see in our daily newspapers. Joel Beinin and Lisa Suhair Majaj each look, with anguish, at root causes for the awful events now playing out in Palestine and Israel. Karin Lee reports on recent and for once hopeful happenings on the Korean peninsula and the work that lies ahead.

So do we wring our hands, pray, and then simply go on about our business? Often there's not much else we can do. But the connections between power--unbridled, global, economic power--and all this warmaking are pretty clear. The latest iteration of the expansion of the global economy will take place with a Free Trade Area of the Americas (that's NAFTA for the whole Western Hemisphere) summit meeting in Quebec next April. Grassroots organizers, AFSC among them, are gearing up to have a voice. We interrupted the flow of Peacework's November litany about war to insert United for a Fair Economy's invitation to get to work.

And we've made space for the quixotic organization Peaceworkers to issue their call for an international nonviolent peace force. As they point out, it's not as utopian as it might seem. There are many small-scale examples of the efficacy of the idea. Time to move to the next level, they say. Perhaps, with our help, they can.

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