We Must Dedicate Ourselves to Ending Violence/span>
by Mary Beth Sullivan
Let's listen again to Julia Ward Howe: "We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
Sadly, more than a century later, we must add to the sentiment the following:
We will not allow our sons OR our daughters to be trained to torture, to humiliate, to ridicule or to define as evil another people. We must give our lives over to the cause of ending violence.
Americans, it is time for us to sit down in front of a mirror and look carefully within. Last week, I heard some corners of American media comment that the actions of our sons and daughters at Abu Ghraib Prison looked more like a university campus fraternity party than a problem. A few bad seeds, they said. No big deal ...
On the contrary. I see in those photos the fruits of a society hooked on pornography, immune to its addiction to violence. The commentary of denial portrays an inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to recognize the most basic images of violence.
It was an Arab commentator who drew the parallel for us. The photos aired around the world last week brought his mind immediately to photos taken in the United States in the 1950's — the images of black men hanging dead from a tree, while white women, men, and children gazed attentively, smiling — the direct legacy of centuries of slavery on these shores.
Look again, my friends. Do not turn away from or deny the massacres of Indian men, women and children, and then the forced displacement of every single indigenous nation within our borders. Those government actions took place with the complicity of white American citizens. And white Americans grew wealthy as a result.
But wait. While we look at the perpetrators and profiteers of violence, we must also see the power and the strength of those who, from the earliest days of our history, struggled against it. In Abu Ghraib, there were American soldiers who refused to participate in the violence against Iraqi prisoners. There were those who chose to report the abuses to superiors. And, there was one soldier, named Darby, who slipped the photos under the door of a superior officer. Finally, the complaints could no longer be ignored. Darby stands on the shoulders of very many who came before him — citizens who risked their lives to share an ugly truth.
I have heard some declare Darby a hero. I've heard others say he should be killed as a traitor. Friends, this very divided country we live in is at a crucial crossroads.
Good people whose lives are busy and who are completely alienated from political involvement have begun to ask questions. They are looking for answers. The consequences of the violence this administration has been selling us has begun to rear its ugly head... Now, more than ever, we need to be out there in the public. We need to be engaged in the debate. We need to be DIRECTING the debate. We must be out there sharing clarity about where we go from here.
We need to throw away our cynicism, embrace hope, and challenge ourselves to do more than we have ever done before.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Summer, 2004