Last hiems, in domum suam puer Natus Est / officium in Chicago, ut exspectata duobus amicis, qui in urbe erant in mennonite ecclesiae congregatione focused in symbolo gladios suos in vomeres cædentes. Incepto complectitur visionem biblicae «Isaiah" quae desiderat die "concident gladios suos in vomeres et lanceas suas in falces non levabit gens contra gentem gladium, nec studere belligerare. "Our vision amicis satis ad litteram hoc deservientes condere. Utuntur et trahas partem secare sclopetis et bombardis fractam ductile arma vertere in lucem utilis plantarum instrumenta elit.
Totas per easdem officium, una ex hominibus videri non potest, in screen, stans extra ecclesiam mennonite praetorium, fingere et malleum et incudern disposita, et vasa in horto instrumentum. Volavit flammis malleum et exarserunt in iracundiam neminem. Ignis incendium vellent intra nos fratres. In qua possumus reponere bellum opus? Si non disciplina belli facere poteramus? "
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.
Ut una cum fabrica in global foro participes ad astra mille Systems maximum Simulium (18.9%), Saepe valde prodest Northrop Grumman ex disposito systems inquinatiore, culo universa arma peltas pro monitoring quod oculis in caelum dixit. Ingenti custodia et iram generat mortem huiusmodi backlashes earundem terrarum. Quod puri quoque incolae maximam partem christiani robotic armis. Sed et patientibus institutions robora US nobis sentire debemus, qui iam tutior est in universa arma exitium, et loco quem formidet: si femina iuvenis de terris et conteram et a sledgehammer laminam vitrum fenestra.
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.
In atrio poterat esse stabilis obsideri, superior rudis instrumenta ad evolvere operae pretium est multo plures producendo opus officia et bona, quam ut develop a exstinctionis arma systems.
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.
Nulla res in qua est exitus Jessica iudicium, Dominus Nix est quaestio: «Quod tibi non oriri?" In ipso manet. Quo modo enim unusquisque lingua nostra: auxilium levare malleo de iustitia, in quo agricolarum cultus terrarum in pace.
Kathy Kelly ([Inscriptio protected]) 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)
ZNetwork sola largitione legentium funditur.
Donate
1 Comment
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.