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BEING
PEACE
As I write in November 2011, I sense that it is a time of
fear and confusion for many of us. We wonder about what will
happen in Europe’s financial crisis, in Greece and Italy
in particular. Some of us are involved in opposition to CETA,
the acronym for a proposed Canada-EU free trade agreement.
The culture wars continue in the US. One can only shake one’s
head at the convictions of some of the leading Republican
candidates for the presidency: Herman Cain with his sexual-assault
history; Rick Perry with the n-word as the name of his ranch;
Michelle Bachmann with her views on wifely submission, meaning
that if as president her husband opposed one of her decisions,
she would have to defer to him (!). President Obama seems
at last to be showing some fight as the presidential election
of November 2012 approaches, but one wonders if it is too
little and too late. The Occupy movement is both a strong
statement against the financial victimization of ordinary
people, and a welcome distraction to some of the prime political
actors, who are happy to have media attention turned away
from them.
In Canada we have what many of us have long feared, a majority
Harper government. The long-form census is gone; the long-gun
registry will follow soon, as will the Canadian Wheat Board.
The government finds itself short of money for homelessness
and health, but has no difficulty finding $35 billion for
warships (remind me who we are at war with, please?) and $39
billion for fighter jets. With a Conservative majority, it
is clear that no brakes will be put on the environmental obscenity
which is the tar sands project.
In the Middle East, the Palestinian Authority has made some
progress in the public-relations arena with its application
for statehood to the UN, and its acceptance as a member of
UNESCO. The Security Council will of course reject the application;
but the massive votes in favour of a state of Palestine in
the General Assembly and at UNESCO, against the opposition
of the US and Israel, make it clear where the world’s
sympathies lie. Meanwhile, the sabers are rattling again in
Israel, with paranoid talk about the “necessity”
of attacking Iran—something the Israeli government regularly
proposes in order to distract our attention from the Palestinian
claim for justice. As Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery points
out, an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran would for Muslims all
over the world transcend the ancient Sunni-Shia split, and
make it clear beyond rational argument that “the West”
(which for many Muslims includes Israel understood as essentially
a European colonizing state) is against “Islam,”
as if Islam were one simple reality. Something along the lines
of WW III would likely result.
So these are not good times. How then to respond? St Augustine
says something to the effect that in bad times, good people
must do good things, and then good times will return. It’s
a pretty obvious statement, but in such a time we need to
remind ourselves of the truth in truisms. Others tell us that
we need to learn how to find stillness in the midst of the
fire—something that applies as much to parenting (!)
as it does to geopolitics.
Here I can recommend the later books of Thomas Merton, Faith
and Violence, for example, or Gordon Zahn’s anthology,
Thomas Merton on Peace.
In many churches, the worshippers greet one another with the
ancient greeting, “Peace be with you.” It’s
time to crank up our sense of the importance of these simple
words both in our personal relations and in our commitments
as engaged citizens.
THINGS YOU CAN DO
"Become the change you want to see in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi
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