Bishop urges peace advocacy

The beautiful readings and chants from our various religious traditions, which have graced this interfaith prayer service for peace, underscore the solidarity that exists among the members of the human family. That solidarity should lead us to relate to one another with love and concern, not fear and hostility.

We gather from our diverse faith communities to reflect upon and to pray about the real possibility of war, and the impact this may have upon us and people throughout the world.

I would like to place my reflections in the context of a series of events which occurred 40 years ago.

Something remarkable happened in 1963 that too few people remember today. Because the events pointed to a different way for cultures and nations to relate to each other, it seems important now, when international relations are so strained, to recall a "peace race" that spanned a four-month period.

On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was delivering the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. He stunned even some of his own advisors when he said: "To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us to achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it."

Thus began the so-called "Kennedy Experiment," an attempt to address the problem of how to achieve mutual arms reduction by the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Spirals

Nations in conflict tend to be caught in a spiral. The hostility of one nation as perceived by the other evokes a similar reaction of hostility. On the other hand, independent actions of good intent by one party, while not putting its population at risk, can serve to reverse the spiral. This theory was validated in the events that followed.

Although the Soviet government was not anticipating President Kennedy's announcement, without delay they responded by not jamming the Voice of America broadcast so that the news was heard immediately by Soviet citizens. Also, the declaration was printed in Pravda, the official Communist Party newspaper, again without delay.

On the very next day, June 11, the Soviet Union removed its objection to a U.S. proposal on Yemen under consideration at the United Nations. On the same day, our government responded to the Soviets' move in the UN by removing America's objection to granting Hungary full status in the United Nations.

Only four days later, on June 15, President Kruschev of the U.S.S.R. gave a conciliatory speech on the radio, in which he congratulated President Kennedy for his bold move and announced that the Soviet Union would cease the production of the strategic bombers that were capable of dropping nuclear weapons.

Peace moves

Five days later, on June 20, the entire world became safer when the Soviet Union agreed to direct communications between the two nations via a White House-Kremlin hot-line so that an accidental missile launch or anything picked up on radar that was mistaken for a missile would not result in nuclear war.

In July, the Soviets declared that they would no longer conduct tests of nuclear weapons above ground, and on August 5, less than two months after Kennedy's initiative, negotiations had been completed and the Atmospheric Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed. It was ratified by the U.S. Senate the following month. In the world of treaty-making, this was lightning speed.

The momentum towards peace continued on Sept. 19, when Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko suggested a pact against putting nuclear weapons into orbit around the earth.

More peaceful efforts

On Oct. 9, Kennedy lifted the grain embargo by approving the sale of $250 million worth of wheat to the Soviet Union. This was followed by the symbolic reduction of trade barriers to U.S. goods by the Soviets; and, after much debate, the U.S. decided not to put nuclear bombs in orbit above the earth.

The two nations then exchanged captured spies; and on Oct. 17, little more than a month after the measure had been suggested by Gromyko, the UN passed a resolution, with both U.S. and Soviet approval, against orbiting nuclear weapons around the earth.

Also in October, Kennedy privately discussed with Gromyko the desirability of taking simple steps leading to disarmament, for example by each nation reducing its military budget. Mutual budget reductions were made in the two following fiscal years, stopping only in 1965 with the escalation of the war in Vietnam.

Slow-down

In late October, there was an obvious slow-down of U.S. initiatives, and American reciprocation to Soviet initiatives almost stopped completely. This was largely due to two factors:

* First, a lingering mistrust of each others' motives, not helped by Kennedy's first proposing the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty as a move towards international reconciliation, but later stressing that part of its importance lay in preventing the Soviet Union from catching up with U.S. nuclear capacity.

* Second, the political and diplomatic culture was unable to quickly understand and adjust to such a change in processes and relations.

Thus, while this experiment in unilateral initiatives was brief and incomplete, it did bear out that:

* Unilateral gestures were reciprocated. As each side reciprocated, its response was proportional to the other side's gesture;

* Tensions were reduced. Gestures and responses created a psychological momentum that reversed the Cold War spiral of hostility. When gestures stopped, tension reduction also stopped.

Why it happened

I believe that this experiment was successful because each side recognized the humanity of the other and their need for security as much as one's own.

Probably all of us wish we lived in a nice, harmonious world where nothing would disturb us. But, as much as conflict makes us uncomfortable and even fearful, it is inevitable. How we live through a conflict can actually bring us to a deeper knowledge and experience of God.

Being afraid in the face of conflict is understandable, since when someone disagrees with us or is actually our enemy, we sense how much dealing with this other might change us. Our negative choices are to deny that a difference even exists or to destroy the other. In other words, both responses are ways of making one's enemy "invisible:" We deny differences by attempting to assimilate the other or by co-opting their opposition. We destroy the other crudely by killing or evicting them, or by demonizing them, which allows us to discount their position and justify anything we might do to them.

Another way

Is there an alternative? I believe there is, and it starts with understanding that our enemy is like an intruder who disturbs our narcissistic desire for everyone to agree with us.

When such a person enters our life and refuses to become what we want, that person forces us to recognize that we can never claim a complete understanding of what life is all about. We are then obliged to recognize our finite condition as created human beings. Thus, our enemy forces us to acknowledge that we are not God. At the same time, the presence of an enemy forces us to accept our uniqueness as we learn to stand for something with which another disagrees.

Thus, God uses our adversaries to save us from idolatry and to elicit from us the taking on of responsibilities that shape who we are. Then we can communicate with, act with and even pray with others because we recognize that there is a transcendent God who is beyond all our differences.

Application to Iraq

Such a humble awareness of our limited human insights and perspectives, of our own self-centeredness and of our need to rely upon the God of all humanity -- who has an unconditional love for every person, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or national origin -- should be the foundation of our efforts to address the imminent possibility of war with Iraq.

It should inspire us to be peacemakers who are convinced that war is the ultimate obscenity; war is a defeat for reason and for the civility and solidarity that should govern relationships between nations and peoples.

To work tirelessly for peaceful resolutions is not a sign of weakness but strength. It is not to adopt a pollyanna view of life, nor to condone the irrational and reprehensible behavior of dictators like Suddam Hussein, who has a long history of engaging in brutality against his own people and others. Rather, it is to have an historical perspective which reveals the folly of warfare, and the possibility of creative, diplomatic and non-violent alternatives, which the four months of unilateral initiatives in 1963 highlighted.

Our responsibility

As citizens of the world's only military superpower, we in the United States have a special responsibility to be advocates for peace and promoters of the UN Charter, which allows force only for self-defense and, even then, only after all non-military solutions have failed.

In the face of the present crisis, there is a grave reservation about whether the conditions for military action on our part or on the part of a multinational operation have been met. The arms inspections are taking place; and while Iraqi compliance has not been totally satisfactory, there seems to be no reason to short-change the present process or to conclude that Iraq is an imminent threat either to its neighbors or to the world community.

It should be noted that the Iraqi people have already suffered tremendously both at the hands of Saddam Hussein, and as a result of the economic sanctions and the air raids to which Britain and the United States have subjected Iraq for more than ten years.

Listen to what Bishop Shlemon Warduni of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq has to say on this point: "There is already a war. It is a war without end. It is destroying children, the sick, the old, women -- everybody. It is worse than conventional warfare."

Devastation

Underscoring the bishop's lament, a recent report made by a group of relief agencies (Save the Children U.K., Care International U.K., Christian Aid, Cafod and Help Aid International) pointed out that one in every three Iraqi children is chronically malnourished. Since the imposition of sanctions, child mortality rates have risen 160 percent.

These agencies voice the fear that an armed invasion of Iraq would undermine the flow of food and medicine upon which the Iraqis depend, disrupt water and electricity supplies, create serious health problems, and lead to a massive displacement of people -- in addition to the thousands of civilian casualties that bombing and a ground war might cause.

Further, a war with Iraq could destabilize that region of the world for years, ferment further anti-American and anti-Western sentiment in other parts of the world, and force the United States or some international body to impose an imperial rule upon Iraq which could last indefinitely.

Papal call

Hence, we must heed well the admonition of Pope John Paul II: "The future of humanity depends upon the earth's people and their leaders having the courage to say 'no' to war."

More specifically, in light of the present threat, the Pope says "The UN Charter and international law remind us war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of insuring the common good, except as a last option and in accordance with strictest conditions."

Finally, and perhaps most pointedly for us Americans, the Pope says, "Solidarity must be seen as a duty," and he calls for an end to selfishness, "that is to say, to all that impels man to protect himself inside the cocoon of a privileged social class or a cultural comfort that excludes others. The lifestyle of the prosperous, their patterns of consumption, must be reviewed in the light of their repercussions on other countries."

May these thoughts, then, frame our attitudes and actions, and lead us to be vigorous, undaunted and prayerful advocates for peace and justice in our day.

(02/03/03) [[In-content Ad]]