by Tom Breuer

"When in despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

"For the second time in our history, a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time. ... Go home and get a nice, quiet sleep." -- Neville Chamberlain

It's a typical mid-October Friday night in Appleton. Chilly but pleasant, a cold wind blows; but it's not yet a buffeting wind. It's 7 p.m. and darkness envelops the downtown, but we're still far removed from the dull gray days and long nights that rule winter.

The evening's bustle has begun to grow as people walk by Houdini Plaza and drivers roll down College Avenue, taking only brief notice of the knot of demonstrators perched on the curb holding signs and candles, conveying as best they can a quiet solidarity.

A pair of men walks by the dozen or so stalwart protesters who have assembled here each Friday now for several weeks. One sighs, as if to say "here we go again." But the group, mostly representatives of the Fox Valley chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, takes no notice,focusing instead on the line of passing cars and their own message of peace. Signs reading "FOR Peace: Fellowship of Reconciliation" and "Peace/Justice Thru Int'l Law" draw sporadic honks from passing cars, and members chat with the couple of curious reporters who have shown up.

For the moment, at least, a deliberate calm rules this small corner of Appleton.

 "The main reason we're here is we want people to know there is an alternative way to solve the world's problems," says Donna Van Grinsven of Appleton, one of the leading members of the group. "Violence is not the answer. We do believe the perpetrators of this crime need to be brought to justice through legal means."

The "crime," of course, is the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, and but for the stated purpose of this assembly, one might think Van Grinsven was referring to something else -- something much less catastrophic or given to understatement.

If anything has ever led pacifists scurrying for cover while at the same time kindling militarist sentiments in the average citizen, it's the September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

This is not the United States government flexing its muscle to effect a favorable strategic outcome in a faraway land; it is, putatively, a self defense measure against further attacks on U.S. civilians. It's personal, and the endorsement of at least limited military action by some of the most dovish critics of U.S. foreign policy (including, in last month's issue, The Scene) shows how different this really is.

Indeed, the peace movement -- which came to a rolling boil during Vietnam, lost steam among the Reagan interventions of the '80s, and despite having a credible case, put up only token resistance to the Gulf War -- might seem completely without a home in this conflict.

While peace activists try to follow in the tradition of Gandhi, recent history shows that as this conflict progresses they will more likely get shoehorned into a different paradigm -- that of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's disastrous appeasement of Nazi Germany prior to World War II.

But while activists might be accused of knee-jerk stubbornness or naivete, they seem to understand better than the average citizen the context in which the Sept. 11 attacks happened.

The issues Osama bin Laden himself has identified as some of the proximate causes of the attack (the favoritism shown by the U.S. to Israelin its long standing conflict with the Palestinians, the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, and the brutal sanctions against Iraq which have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children) are long understood by many in the peace movement. While it's a stretch to believe bin Laden cares much about the poor and oppressed anywhere, these issues do shed light on his appeal to some Muslims. The "why do they hate us?" question becomes less of a conundrum when put in this context, while the "they're jealous of our freedom" answer rings ever more hollow.

"We maintain that in the long run the only way to stop terrorism is to address the inequalities of the haves and the have-nots in the world," said Barbara Hoffman of the Fox Valley Fellowship of Reconciliation in a phone interview. "The fact that the Iraqi people have been suffering for 10 years with those sanctions, the Palestinian people have nowhere to go."

But lest anyone think Hoffman's criticism of U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq is a move toward justifying the terrorist attacks on our country, or to appease their perpetrators, she is quick to assert just the opposite.

"I like to live my life according to principles," said Hoffman. "If one of the principles is it's OK to kill half a million children to reach a political goal then how can you possibly criticize the terrorists who attacked New York? The point is it's not OK. It's not OK no matter who does it, and on a smaller scale it's why the bombing is not OK."

"In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." --Martin Luther King Jr.

 While the lingering shock of the Sept. 11 attacks has yielded to a somewhat better understanding of the circumstances in which terrorists have become incubated, a with-us-or-against-us patriotism has also pervaded the country. Suddenly, those who raise concerns about civil liberties, criticize the president and his policies, or make any connection between terrorism and U.S. foreign policy (without, of course, justifying the attacks) are somehow viewed as unpatriotic.

The truth is, this war may require a balance between militarist and pacifist sentiments, giving rise to a campaign that draws on both force and compassion. It's an approach many Americans have come to favor, and which Richard Falk credibly argued for in his cover story "Ends and Means: Defining a Just War" for the Oct. 29 issue of The Nation. It's also an approach that the Bush Administration so far seems to be taking, though reports of civilian casualties as well as the transparent public relations function of food drops in Afghanistan (according to most accounts, the drops reach a minuscule percentage of the hungry, while some are bound to land in mine fields, endangering children further) give one pause.

It's just these kind of unpleasant facts that make the peace movement as vital as ever, say some observers, regardless of whether one favors limited or no military action.

"I believe personally the peace movement is more important now than it's ever been in our entire history, especially since the United States Congress has basically bowed out on this one and basically allowed the president to run the war uninhibited," said Tony Palmeri, a UW-Oshkosh professor and host of the cable-access public affairs program Commentary, which frequently takes a critical look at U.S. government policy. "It's up to individual citizens to make sure they are monitoring the war effort and determine if some abuses are taking place."

Far from being dismissed as cowardly or naive, says Palmeri, peace protesters can fulfill a role in wartime that might be abandoned by not only Congress but by much of the rest of the population.

"Everybody from Gandhi to Henry Thoreau to Martin Luther King will all say the same thing," said Palmeri. "If you stand for peace you are not going to be popular in your lifetime. Standing for peace challenges the assumptions of not just our country but the world. ... I think if you go underneath the lampooning (of the peace movement), if you try and see what the peace movement is actually saying, it is those difficult questions that we need to confront. Democracy and freedom and justice, if they will prevail they will only prevail when the difficult questions are asked, and that's what the peace movement in my opinion is good at doing, and that has been true in every war in my opinion."

And though he cautions that the peace movement should in no way blame the U.S. for the Sept. 11 attacks, to Palmeri, the questions that still need to be asked are clear.

"We should ask ourselves, does the United States really stand for peace and freedom globally," said Palmeri. "Is it perceived as standing for those things? Are the tremendous resources of the federal government used in a way that would encourage democracy and freedom in other countries or do those resources often go to support groups and individuals that don't stand for those things?"

That sentiment is echoed by other activists who see an opportunity now for the global peace movement to begin to win the hearts of people in this country.

"Because of the tragedy the American people have woken up, so to speak," said Tom Kees, a Neenah activist and a member of the Independent Progressive Politics Network. "I think a lot of people in the peace movement concerned about foreign affairs knew that America sooner or later would get a wake-up call. Unfortunately, it came in the way it did. However, people are becoming much more concerned, as they should be, with what's going on in the rest of the world. We are no longer insulated."

Among the issues Kees would like Americans to pay more attention to are world poverty, the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the history of U.S. support for brutal and undemocratic regimes, and heavy arms trading throughout the world, much of which is conducted by the U.S. and its allies.

"We have a global economy, let's strive for a global pluralism where the poor people of the world are brought up to a decent standard of living and the tyrants are rooted out, as we appear to be doing," said Kees. "But I think the age of unilateralism has got to be over with."

Bonnie Block, chair of the Madison-based Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, and an activist who opposes the military strikes in Afghanistan, agrees.

"We have never really had a terrorist attack on our soil and therefore we've been able to sort of ignore the whole thing, and I think a part of the fear and the anger is related to that vulnerability we now feel," said Block. "What (the attack) can also do is make us part of the whole community of nations and the shared humanity and fragility of human life and maybe that can make us more compassionate, but that's not to say it should have happened, I want to make that real clear."

Block also agrees with Palmeri that, far from making the peace movement irrelevant, the terrorist attacks and the U.S. response have made diligence among peace activists even more important, and that individual rights, including the right to protest government policies, need to be protected.

 "We have to be sure that we don't allow our civil liberties to be diminished in the name of this counterterrorism legislation which would allow sort of unfettered wiretapping, allowing the government to enter our computers.

There's really bad stuff in that," said Block. "I'm also really concerned in terms of this push for silencing dissent."

Indeed, far from retreating in the shadows, says Block, now is the time that our constitutionally protected rights need to be exercised.

"One of my favorite lines is being a pacifist or peacemaker between wars is like being a vegetarian between meals," said Block. "Now is when we have to embody the values we talk about."

"War is a contagion." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

One of the lingering taboos among many Americans in the wake of Sept. 11 is to suggest that U.S. policy, right or wrong, may have had a role in the attacks. Unfortunately, the easy explanation for terrorism, that these people simply hate democracy, does not stand up to close scrutiny.

While some observers with a more pacifistic bent have been pilloried for even bringing it up, the possibility that anger toward the United States has been fomented by U.S. policy is something that at least merits a fair hearing.

 Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Rev. Roger Bertschausen, minister of the Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, gave a sermon titled "How Do We Respond to Terrorism?" in which he favored limited military action, though stopped short of endorsing indiscriminate bombing.

However, he also criticized President Bush's analysis of the causes for Sept. 11.

"When he said in his speech to Congress that these people hate us because of our wealth and freedom, I think that's such an inadequate answer," said Bertschausen. "We need to be able to have a debate on that, and that doesn't mean I'm unpatriotic. To dismiss that sort of hatred so blithely I think is a huge mistake."

While Bertschausen agrees that the first step toward making America safe is rooting out terrorism, he says that doesn't go nearly far enough, and that citizens interested in a sustainable peace need to make themselves heard.

"I still think since we are part of a democracy that we need to let our voices be heard, and one of the ways to do that is really advocate for much stronger humanitarian aid to troubled regions," said Bertschausen. "Probably the most effective weapon of the Cold War was the Marshall Plan, and maybe we need to look at that."

Another tack, both for peace-minded people who support and oppose the current military action, might be to protest U.S. foreign policy that doesn't fit into a vision of global peace.

"Why is it our government for many, many years has supported some of the most oppressive regimes in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, such as Kuwait?" said Palmeri. "Why had we done that? Isn't it reasonable to expect that after we root out the terrorists that we would also reevaluate those governments and groups we support in the world?"

Scrutinizing U.S. military actions whenever they arise is also important, say some.

"I think in some ways the most important thing we need to do is the hard work of paying attention to what our government is doing not just now but all the time," said Block. "I've been saying a lot that terrorism and militarism are really two sides of the same coin, and both result in death and destruction, and we've done militarism out in the world. In some ways what happened in New York and D.C. was a response to that militarism and I think we need to be aware of that or it's going to keep on happening."

In more than one sense, then, the pursuit of peace is something that really starts at home.

"The best place for starting to work for peace is in your own family or own city or town, for example reaching out to the Muslim community here is a very tangible way to respond," said Bertschausen. "My sense is that people coming to church, ours and everyone else's, people really are looking for what they can do to promote peace. How can they look at their own lives and own souls and own habits and find better ways to be peaceful and sharing? So I would really dispute the notion that peace is passe."

Editor's note: It almost goes without saying that mainstream media coverage of armed conflicts involving the United States has been superficial at best in the last two decades. Wherever you stand on U.S. military action in Afghanistan, we feel it's important to get a rounded picture of our role in international affairs. For this reason, we urge readers to seek out alternative analyses of the current conflict. A few recommended Web sites: thenation.com, counterpunch.org, inthesetimes.com, fair.org, alternet.org.

 Scene Publications

© 2001 Scene Publications

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