O inverno pasado, na casa/oficina de Voices en Chicago, demos a benvida a dous amigos que estaban na cidade para unha reunión da igrexa menonita centrada no símbolo de bater espadas en rejas de arado. O seu proxecto abraza unha visión do bíblico "Libro de Isaías" que anhela o día en que "farán as súas espadas en rejas de arado e as súas lanzas en podadoras: a nación non levará espada contra nación, nin máis estudarán a guerra. ” Os nosos amigos, literalmente, representan esta visión. Usan serras para cortar armas e rifles pola metade e despois martelar as armas rotas, converténdoas en útiles ferramentas para a xardinería e a construción lixeira.
Durante todo o oficio, un dos homes podía verse, nunha pantalla, de pé fóra do salón da igrexa menonita, modelando, con martelo e yunque, un rifle nunha ferramenta de xardín. Co seu martelo voaron chispas, pero ninguén se enfadou. O lume que querían prender os nosos amigos estaba dentro de nós. Con que traballo podemos substituír a guerra? Se xa non estamos adestrando para a guerra, que máis poderiamos estar facendo?
That winter night, at the Mennonite church, I couldn’t help but think of another activist who had swung a tool last December, in this case, a sledgehammer, because she was inspired to confront weapon makers and encourage alternatives to war. Jessica Reznicek, age 34, didn’t own the weapon system she wanted to transform. But she felt responsible to help the general public own up to its complicity with weapon systems funded by U.S. taxpayers. She took a sledgehammer to the doors of a major weapon producing company, Northrop Grumman, outside Offut Air Force base. In a written statement explaining why she swung her tool at the plate glass, Jessica asks people to understand that Northrop Grumman’s weapon systems shatter and destroy the lives of people the world over.
Como un dos fabricantes co maior cota do mercado global de sistemas aéreos non tripulados (18.9%). Northrop Grumman saca inmenso beneficio da comercialización de complexos sistemas de armas deseñados a miúdo para ser ollos nos ceos vixiando obxectivos para o asasinato. Este tipo de vixilancia e execucións extraxudiciais xeran intensos enfados e reaccións noutras terras. Tamén promove a proliferación de armas robóticas. Pero o exército estadounidense e as institucións aquiescentes anímannos a sentir que as complexas armas de destrución nos fixeron máis seguros e, en cambio, deberíamos ter medo dunha moza que empuña un martelo para romper unha fiestra de cristal.
On May 24, Jessica Reznicek went to a trial in Nebraska, expected to last two days, for her action. She has chosen to go “pro se,” – to defend herself. Courts in the U.S. seldom allow the necessity defense. If the judge in Jessica’s case does so, Jessica could try to defend herself saying she acted to prevent a greater harm. She could establish that the U.S. government consistently provides Northrop Grumman with lavish funding, devoting immense resources of materials and scientific ingenuity to the study of war, all desperately needed elsewhere. Northrop Grumman steadily experiments in perfecting the high-tech advantage of an empire bent on endlessly dominating the world through endless war.
I wish that the testimony of my friends who literally beat guns into garden tools could be part of the courtroom proceeding. They urge us to make guns and other weapons unnecessary, using raw tools of compassion and service to heal the conflicts in which weapons are used. I wish my young Afghan friends here in Kabul, who live under constant surveillance of Unmanned Aerial Systems, could testify about their desire to refine tools of peace making and constructive service.
Poderían asegurar ao tribunal que paga moito máis a pena desenvolver ferramentas brutas para producir bens e servizos necesarios que desenvolver sistemas de armas de destrución masiva.
Jessica’s action makes me wonder if the “norm” in our society is the opposite of the biblical plowshares exhortation. Our major institutions study the ways of war comprehensively and our “top crop” in the U.S. has become weapons. Jessica encourages, one might even say provokes, discussion of the role militarism plays in our world.
I hope the words of a legendary barrister in Ireland, Mr. Nix, who defended “The Pitstop Plowshares,” can be recalled as Jessica’s trial nears conclusion. Shortly before the U.S. led coalition began bombing Iraq in 2003, five activists invoked the swords to plowhsares saying from the Book of Isaiah and hammered on a U.S. warplane parked on the tarmac of Shannon airport. Ireland is a neutral country, and they believed that the U.S. Navy warplanes making “pitstops” en route to a war zone violated that neutrality. They undertook the action shortly after attending a retreat during which the Sisters of St. Brigid, in Kildare, Ireland had asked me to speak about Iraqis who suffered under 13 years of U.S. led UN economic sanctions. Before returning to Baghdad, I gave them enlarged, laminated photos of Iraqi children who were among the half million who died, according to the U.N., as a direct result of economic sanctions along with photos of children killed by an earlier U.S. aerial attack on the city of Basra. They used these photos to set up a memorial shrine next to the warplane they had damaged. Mr. Nix, preparing for trial, asked that I come to Dublin as a witness to help establish the defendants’ motivations. I will never forget his closing statement in which he delivered a fiery indictment of war makers and described the hideous punishment wars inflict on innocent people, especially children. He ended his remarks by addressing everyone assembled in Dublin’s Four Courts, saying: “The question isn’t ‘Did these five have a lawful excuse to do what they did?’ The question is ‘What’s your excuse not to do more? What will rise ye?!’ The Irish jury acquitted the defendants on all charges.
Non importa cal sexa o resultado do xuízo de Jessica, a pregunta do Sr. Nix: "Que vos levantaredes?" permanece. Como podemos, cada un de nós, axudar a levantar o martelo da xustiza, cultivando un mundo en paz.
Kathy Kelly ([protexido por correo electrónico]) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence. (www.vcnv.org)She is writing from Kabul where she is a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers. (ourjourneytosmile.com)
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Thank you for a most moving account of actions towards peace. It led me to sense drones more deeply for what they really are:
“TERROR GENERATORS FOR BOTH SIDES”.
I suggest this as their new name.