I have a question stemming from this sentence, “I believe that many people are attracted to the peace movement because of their lack of inner peace.”

If this is true, is there anything we can say about whose who are not attracted to the peace movement? Are people who are apathetic really peaceful? How about those who actively support the wars in Iraq and Afganistan? Do we know anything about their inner peace based on their stance on these issues?

There are actually many levels of peace- peace between countries, peace within countries, peace within your community, peace with your family and inner peace. We tend to only concentrate on the one type of peace over which we have little control- peace between countries and pay less attention to the other types of peace, particularly inner peace, and peace in our families and communities. There, we can have a very important impact.

There isn’t a way to peace- peace is the way. I also used to go to protest marches in Washington D.C., which were sparsely attended. In order to get enough people there, there were huge coalitions of groups- everyone who had something to complain about. And each of these groups battled for power- for their leader to speak, etc. I remember one peace march in D.C. about the U.S. support for the Contras in Central America where we were sandwiched between the Haitians protesting Baby Doc Duvalier, and the Phillipinos protesting U.S. support of Marcos. There was also the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil war- old guys who were socialists. These different groups each had their own agenda. Many groups were not even pacifist.

A month after 9-11 when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, I drove several hours to attend a protest of that invasion. I somehow felt that it was important for me to be able to say I took an unpopular stand against a popular war. But, since then, I have not attended these sorts of war protests, and have concentrated more on the other types of peace- inner peace and peace in my family and community. I sometimes wonder though if I am somehow an accomplice to the things my government is doing by not standing up and taking a stronger stand. I don’t want to lose my inner peace or the other types of peace in the process though. I’m sure you all struggle with similar issues.

Thanks for bringing up this topic.

I have a copy of the speech. I’ll email it to you.

Tim

Are you quoting Dula from memory or is his talk available?

Josh

But does this sap strength for political organzing? I’m not so sure. The internet is an invaluable organizing tool, so any disbursing it does should be weighed against that.

I think the high standard of living we enjoy contributes more to political inaction. When people are generally happy to consume and be entertained by TV and culture, they don’t feel the need to protest their political situation. It isn’t until a policy actually touches them that they get off their couches. For example, I think if the draft were re-instated, the war would end in 6 months, because suddenly everyone would be potentially affected.

Definitely keep us posted on the conference - it sounds great.

What movements have overcome divisions and presented a unified voice? How can we learn from them? Was civil rights of the ’60s fragmented? It seems to be a human problem to be petty and pick fights, so I can’t imagine we’re the only ones ever to face it.

Short of a solar flare knocking out internet access, internet communities are probably here to stay. At least for the short term until people tire of them. How do we become compelling enough that people will respond when we tell them to get off the computer and do something offline? We could use group blogs like YAR to organize events, but “events planned on the internet” still have a certain stigma among people I meet offline. It’s less legitimate, it seems.

Tim, where are you planning to have this symposium about cynicism? You mentioned Chicago. I do have to wonder: would the cynics actually come? Seems to me it would be mostly optimists and a few cynics who got dragged along.

I agree that cynicism has taken over. I wondered for a while if it was the shotty organizing tactics that was undermining the peace movement as well. United for Peace and Justice was doing a lot of really great work to reorganize the peace movement, because it had been heavily dominated by alphabet soup Marxist groups with really tiring slogans like “Smash Global Imperialism!” Of course, this is something I agree with, I’m just tired of getting into arguments with socialists about effective organizing for change.

But those organizing tactics couldn’t have been the only thing. As an organizer, I’ve thought that no one will do anything unless moved to action by an organizer. But that’s pretty pessimistic; as if we’re all totally bankrupt until some 20-something tells us war is wrong.

I have to believe there is a significant amount of what you are identifying: cynicism and catharsis through blogging. Your conference sounds important to reinvigorate Christians working for peace. Keep us posted!