Forty-two people were arrested on Friday during the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq for doing civil disobedience to express their religious opposition to the war in Iraq, down from 222 arrests in last year’s action. (I had planned to attend although not commit civil disobedience — had to back out because of bronchitis.) Very little news coverage, probably because it’s a much smaller action. Both Christian Peace Witness for Iraq and the related Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership are not particularly strong on organization — the sad truth is that spiritual progressives are not really doing much about the war in Iraq, except whining a little bit. Or if we do something, it’s like it is straight out of some 1960’s-era “Manual for Hippie Protests”.
Sigh. Are we spiritual progressives really that ineffectual when it comes to affecting U.S. policy on the war? … actually, I’m not sure I want you to answer that question.
More info on the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq 2008….
Blog aggregator for bloggers who participated in this year’s peace witness may be found here.
Forget trying to follow the Twitter feed — it looks like they shut it down.
News about local peace vigils here — but not much is happening.
No videos posted online at this writing (how sad!).
Official press release from Olive Branch:
PEACE ACTIVISTS WORSHIP, PRAY, GET ARRESTED
Forty-Two Arrested for Civil Disobedience in Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC, March 7, 2008 — More than forty religious leaders and faith-based peace activists were arrested in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill late Friday afternoon for their non-violent witness to end the war in Iraq. Hundreds of people assembled earlier in the afternoon for a public demonstration against the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq, and thousands of worshippers gathered at noon Friday for services calling for peace and an end to the war in Iraq.
The arrests came at the end of a day of worship and prayer. Following noon-time services in ten different houses of worship in Washington, worshippers processed in the rain to Upper Senate Park for an interfaith witness near the U.S. Capitol. In the midst of a driving rain, leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Unitarian traditions insisted that people of faith will be relentless in encouraging their political leaders to take bold, unequivocal action for peace.
Multi-faith delegations from the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership, the organizing coalition of the afternoon’s events, met with high level staffers from both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s offices. The religious leaders expressed grave concern that there must be both a clear exit strategy from Iraq and a regional, multi-lateral effort at development and diplomacy to bring about genuine security.
Participants from across faith boundaries are clearly united in expressing five core convictions:
- The war in Iraq must end and diplomacy must replace the threat of war with Iran.
- We must provide far better support to our returning soldiers.
- We must commit to the long-term work of development in Iraq.
- There can be no equivocation in our renunciation of all use of torture.
- We must commit real resources to justice in our own communities in the U.S.
Among the forty-two people who were arrested were:
- Lois Baker, who is 86 years old, a World War II Veteran, great-grandmother, and committed Presbyterian Peacemaker.
- Joan Nicholson, 73 years old and infamous for her role in the legal decision Nicholson v. United States, which established the right to peaceful demonstrations on Capitol Hill.
- Will Covert, a Vietnam Veteran and member of Veterans for Peace.
- Khristine Hopkins, a strong advocate for housing and the environment, and traveled from Cape Cod for her second year in a row to join Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.
- Eighteen members of St. Luke Presbyterian Church traveled together from Minnesota to participate in the faith-based witness. Seven were arrested as they knelt in the atrium of the Hart Building to pray.
- Six students came from Hastings College in Nebraska, and three chose to risk arrest. Nathan Tramp said that he “came to learn a prayerful attitude toward the work of the peace movement, and to better discern how to make peace building a greater part of my life.”
It almost sickens me to hear of well-meaning people getting caught up in the local cottage industry of getting arrested in ritualized civil disobedience a la 1968.
Rather than “getting engaged” they seem more like they have gone to the places where they could make a realistic difference only to abdicate their participation at the very last minute. I can only image what the Hill staffers — left and right — make of these actions, and if you want to be effective that’s rather important.
Scott – what would you suggest?
Indeed — Scott, what would you suggest? You talk about making a “realistic difference,” but could you be more specific?
Because at this point, I don’t see any realistic alternatives — lobbying by ordinary citizens has not had any appreciable effect — the elections hold no real hope for any serious change — Web-based “protests” have proved a joke — the 1960’s-era New Left playbook has not drawn any real support (we know from Gandhi and the U.S. Civil Rights movement that the way civil disobedience works is to have so many people getting arrested that you plug up the jails, but 47 arrests is not going to make that happen). What then shall we do? I mean, I’m all for prayer, but I’d like to try something a little more tangible in addition.
I see increasing conflict between the terms “spiritual” and “progressive”. It’s pretty hard to mobilize a group of energetic people when it’s all they can do to remember what the heck the seven principles mean, beyond well-meaning pablum. Until the UU religion consists of more than a stale buffet cobbled together from everyone else’s religion (our “living” tradition is a bunch of people long dead – where are our new spiritual leaders?), expect us to remain on the fringes of society, for better or for worse.
Jay Bee @ 4 — I’m right there with your cynicism, but, ummm… actually what I was writing about in the post is how all spiritual progressives, of whatever denomination, seem to be unable to get out of their own way. “Well-meaning pabulum” could as well apply to Jim Wallis, for all he has done in practical terms.
As far as new spiritual leaders, your point is well taken that we Unitarian Universalists look too much to the past, but I’d actually say there are one or two UU spiritual leaders alive today — theologians William R. Jones (Is God a White Racist?), Paul Rasor (for his doctoral dissertation), and Jerry Stone (for his work in “religious naturalism”), for example; William Schulz for what he did at Amnesty International; and geek that I am, a big vote for Tim Berners-Lee (yes, HTML is spiritual, see Tim Berners-Lee’s online essay WWW, UU and I). Some people would add Matt Groenig, and for the sake of Futurama (after all, Bender is a minor god) I’ll concede that one.
Oh, and I have to say I am not a big fan of the so-called seven principles; which I consider to be leftovers from the selfish and self-serving Reagan era. So from my point of view it’s just as well most Unitarian Universalists cannot remember them. Actually, now that I’ve said that, I may be even more cynical than you are….
No time to reply at length now, but this seems to be a better way — one of many — to act:
http://debrahaffner.blogspot.com/2008/03/religious-leaders-to-congressional.html
Scott @ 6 — Nice example. And I’m with you as far as it goes. But this assumes that the existing political process is essentially just, which it often is, but it clearly is not in all cases. It also assumes that one has access to the political process, which frankly I do not. So I’m still left with the question: what can I do to address injustices (e.g., war in Iraq) which the political system is not addressing?
Henry Thoreau came up with the idea of civil disobedience to address the situation when the existing political process is not just:– in his case, an unjust system of slavery supported by an unjust war against Mexico and paid for by an unjust poll tax; all of which was supported by the existing political process in Washington, a process to which Thoreau didn’t have access in any case. Gandhi extended the idea to civil disobedience by masses of people (something Thoreau was probably incapable of doing); MLK and the Civil Rights Movement applied Gandhi’s teachings and backed them up with references to the Western Christian religious tradition. I feel as though the New Left turned the idea of civil disobedience towards the idea of street protests, which worked to a point, but stopped working probably at about the time the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated (c. 1980).
Yes, we need to participate in the political process whenever appropriate. But we spiritual progressives also need to figure out what to do when the political process ignores serious moral wrongs.
Scott and friends,
Just seeing what folks said about the event and realized your conversation was missing some critical information.
This year civil disobedience was complimented by delegation visits to reid and pelosi’s office. i was suprised when one of reid’s staffers told me “political theater” was extremely effective and welcomed. i was also told by a kennedy staffer that he was inspired by the civil disobedience in the atrium. i am biased, i worked as an organizer, but i thought it was worth sharing actual conversations vs. perceptions of staffers. peace, clay
Clay @ 8 — Good to hear that things went well! I’m still concerned that we don’t have a mass movement going here, and I would still like to see the the political left’s playbook updated.
If you happen to check back here, please do let us know what’s being organized for the coming year — the sixth year of the Iraq invasion. (Or email me offline, so I can write a post about it!)