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These are regular editorials
produced alongside the corresponding issues on Nonviolent
News. |
Also in this editorial
It is dangerous to romanticise the past, and
the Irish today are among the happiest people in Europe, believe
that or not, at least according to a recent survey (www.eurofound.eu.int)
which among other things showed relatively high family interaction
and involvement in voluntary activity.
Most people on this island never have had it
so good. But as the recent Eurostat survey (mentioned in Billy
King’s column) shows, this has been at an ecological
price. It has also been at a social price. The pressure on
low income families is intense and individual social, consumer
units (= families, however defined) are more isolated than
previously, and it is almost obligatory for both members of
a couple to work outside the home, usually full time. Even
if Ireland retains a high level of intra-family interaction,
practical support and solidarity is now more difficult than
it was (e.g. with children being unable to live near parents
due to the cost of housing). However the end of forced emigration
is one major factor in well-being, social and economic; remembering
the difficulties of an emigrant in a strange land is not,
however, something which everyone has collectively learnt
when it comes to appreciating the position of newcomers to
Ireland.
The past may be a foreign country (literally,
in the case of Ireland, with mass emigration) but the future
will bring considerable challenges. The end of the oil-based
economy is not yet at hand but it is staring us in the face,
both due to global warming and to decline in supply (reserves
diminishing). The days of consumerism as a culture are numbered
and if its days are numbered that must also raise questions
about the level of inequality existing on this island; a system
with an unjustly divided cake cannot survive so easily when
the cake ceases to get larger. The development of a multi-cultural
society, North and South, and the ending of sectarianism in
the North are very considerable challenges which will continue
to take years of hard work and constant vigilance.
But there is currently a tendency to think everything
has its price (in the case of big houses and big gardens in
posh parts of Dublin, it can be a case of thinking of a price
and multiplying by ten). The introduction of so-called market
forces to aspects of government, including absurd private-public
programmes where the cost to the state is greater, show the
dangers of thinking market forces are necessarily an answer.
The arena of health and social provision in the Republic also
show the dangers of a low tax, low expenditure system. The
lesson has often been for the individual to simply think in
terms of how much they can make from a particular project.
The end of the oil economy will mean big changes,
costly, but ones that can and should be afforded by a rich
country like Ireland. The hope is that it is not all too little,
too late, to save the world from the worst ravages of global
warming. Welcoming millions of climate change refugees is
not a task which the rich western countries are going to lightly
undertake – but it is they who have largely caused the
problem.
In the changes to come there is the possibility
of rebuilding the cooperative, meitheal-type working together
of everyone in a society for the common good. Combining the
happiness of all with meaningful, well-paid employment in
a socially-sound, just and ecologically based society; that
would really be worth struggling for. The individualistic,
divil-take-the-hindmost, consumerist and gombeen culture which
is so much part of where and what we are today (though certainly
not the whole picture) has to go. There is no alternative
if we want what is both fully sustainable (a much abused term
in recent years) and just to all. Tiocfadh ar lá –
our day will come.
Larry Speight brings us his monthly column:
The recently announced plans of St. Anne's Cathedral in Belfast
to raise the enormous sum of 300,000 pounds to build a "spire
of hope' illustrates the narcissism and disregard for nonhuman
nature of the mainstream churches. One suspects from the simple
life lived by Jesus Christ that such a grandiose project is
something he would disapprove of if he were alive today. Building
the spire, and illuminating it day in and day out, year after
year, as is proposed, will involve the emission of greenhouse
gasses. In addition, obtaining the materials to build it will
almost certainly involve harming Creation in a number of significant
ways.
The plan to build the spire reveals that the
cathedral authorities, and the churches that have given their
support, do not recognize the concept of ecological sin, which
Patriarch Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church is renowned
for promoting. In 2002 he said that:"we witness death
approaching on account of trespassing against limits that
God placed on our proper use of Creation."
It is ironic that institutions that consider
themselves pro-life behave, as a matter of course, in ways
that result in death, destruction and misery, and while spending
a great deal of time and effort praising the figure they imagine
created the Earth, destroy what their revered figure created.
This is perhaps what Karl Marx meant by the term "false
consciousness".
If it is hope that the cathedral authorities
want to give the people of Ireland, then they would be better
building a 'garden of hope', or promoting ecological education,
either of which would benefit humankind and nonhuman nature
and be a fitting homage to the entity they praise.
By Christy Bischoff
Christy is known to many people locally through
her previous work at Quaker Cottage, Belfast, and she has
also been involved in INNATE.
Below is a reflection I wrote while spending
2 months with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) living in Israel/Palestine,
mostly in the small Palestinian village, At-Tuwani, south
of Hebron. CPT is committed to supporting local nonviolent
efforts and violence reduction.
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) offers an organized, nonviolent
alternative to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict.
CPT provides organizational support to persons committed to
faith-based nonviolent alternatives in situations where lethal
conflict is an immediate reality or is supported by public
policy. CPT is just beginning to form a regional group in
the UK. In Northern Ireland contact Tim Foley (timf@clara.co.uk)
if interested finding out further information. Also check
out www.cpt.org.
March 20, 2005
The sheep started to come from each direction.
I could see four or more flocks come from over the hill, I
looked behind me to see another five flocks. My stomach started
to do little flip flops, this was an amazing moment. All of
the sheep, the shepherds, and the women gathering herbs were
headed for the hill where the sheep had not grazed in 4 years,
close to the Israeli settler road and the Israeli settlement
of Maon. One Palestinian man held in his hand the paper saying
this land all belonged to him and his extended family (together
25-30 people). They were passing the part of the hill where
just 2 days previous Palestinian shepherds had been chased
away by men coming out of the Israeli settlement shooting.
In the last 3 weeks there had been 8 attacks on Palestinian
shepherds near these hills. But today, the shepherds had organized
themselves, they came together, they asked for international
presence. When intimidated, they decided to stand up, to find
what power they have nonviolently. They carried no weapons,
no stones, only the power they had from coming together and
the love of the land and the determination to stay alive.
I want to continue with this story, but just
to give you a little background information. Christian Peacemaker
Teams (CPT) has a project in the village of At-Tuwani, a small
Palestinian village south of Hebron. The village has problems,
including much of the land from the village and surrounding
villages is all in an area the Israeli military wishes to
make a military training area. There is also an extremist
Israeli settlement, Maon, right next to the village, and people
coming from the settlement have on numerous occasions come
out and attacked people from the village as they herd their
sheep, work in their fields, or as children walk to school.
The Palestinian village has close relationship with an Israeli
peace group, Ta’yush. The villagers and their Israeli
friends asked Christian Peacemaker Teams and an Italian based
peace group, Operation Dove to commit to being an international
presence in the village. Much of the work has included walking
children to and from school and currently accompanying shepherds
to the fields, carrying video cameras and attempting to ‘get
in the way’ of the violence that has befallen the village.
Over the last 4 months, with organizing skills on behalf of
the Palestinian villages, and International and Israeli accompaniment,
shepherds from At-Tuwani and nearby villages have been able
to graze on fields they haven’t been able to graze on
in the last 4 years because of fear from attacks from settlers.
-So as the shepherds grazed their flocks, there
was also a nervousness in the air because they knew this would
not go unnoticed from the settlement, Ma’on across the
road. Soon enough security from the settlement came out and
started taking pictures and called the Israeli military. The
shepherds continued to graze their sheep, feeling some strength
in their numbers. The military came, and the drama began (a
similar drama seems to happen everyday, the shepherds go out
in different fields, the settler security comes and calls
the Israeli military or police, who come and then they go
back and forth with how far the shepherds can go or not, sometimes
threatening arrest or closing the land completely as a closed
military zone) Today, however, on this land, it was not contested
land, but here the Palestinian shepherd had proof this was
his land. As he came to show the soldier his paper, the dialogues
began.
The soldiers began to tell us that they could
close the whole area as a closed military zone, that they
had the order in their pocket, we argued with them how legal
that was and what for, a few more Israeli settlers came down
and it seemed to be getting more and more tense and then came
the secret nonviolent weapon. A tour bus full of US Americans!
By some divine timing, a tour we had scheduled to come and
visit At-Tuwani, rounded the hill and when they saw us and
the soldiers and settlers they braked and immediately piled
out of the bus. The soldiers and settlers eyes got incredibly
big, as the 20 US Americans, in oh so stereotypical manner
began clicking cameras and loudly questioning what was going
on. The soldiers backed away sheepishly as the owner of the
land began to tell his story and the US Americans clicked
their cameras as the sheep munched away peacefully and the
soldiers slowly backing away from the cameras, and the settlers
looking like their plans had been foiled. The rest of the
day went by peacefully, with the sheep tasting the grass of
long forbidden land, and the shepherds joyfully celebrating
their small victory.
And so there was a small nonviolent victory,
but I see in At-Tuwani a situation that is at once delicate,
fearful, and a place where people are starting to come together
and realizing the potential of nonviolence. But it is a long
road, and the situation complex. Is it possible for these
neighbors to live in peace with justice, do they go together,
can they be separated? I realize my desire to have it happen
quickly. So many of the days in At-Tuwani seem the same dance
between Palestinian, Israeli military, and Israeli settler,
and it feels tiring, but each day the sheep get fed, slowly,
slowly. I think of the Montgomery bus boycott; looking back
it sounds great, but at the time I am sure 1 year of walking
to work was not easy and probably looked hopeless at the time.
Nonviolence can be slow and it can be messy, I need these
reminders of looking at the bigger picture, and at the same
time being able to celebrate the small victories, like the
other day in At-Tuwani...
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