As part of our "Peace, Not Famine" rolling hunger strike, nearly three dozen of us gathered on April 5 outside CoMo City Hall to rally in support of adequate food and other necessities being provided to the desperate people of Gaza. We also called for a lasting ceasefire, the release of hostages and political prisoners, and a halt to U.S. military exports to Israel.
We
had three speakers at the rally. The first was Palestinian-American
activist, humanitarian aid worker and adjunct professor, Rasha
Abousalem. The text of her talk at the Rally for
Gaza, May All be Fed peace gathering has already been posted here.
Today, we are posting the text of the comments of the Rev. Larry Brown. We will also be posting soon the
texts of
the remaining speaker, Rachel English.
More then 33,000 dead, mostly women and
children, in just the last six months; AND at least a million more at
risk of starvation, disease, and further displacement. Gaza, and
some places in the West Bank and Southern Lebanon have been blasted
into rubble with an intensity of explosives the world has not seen in
decades. Gone are villages, neighborhoods, homes, schools, hospitals,
religious facilities, orchards, museums, parks, businesses,
infrastructure, refugee tents, graveyards, and safe passage relief
workers, and now we are leaving behind a toxic wasteland. These are
real people in a living nightmare who have become the tragic
consequence of failed policies of power, resource acquisition,
revenge, and ethnic cleansing.
And despite much of the world’s
condemnation of this atrocity, it continues. We gather here today to
say, “No more! Stop the killing! Step back and find the way out
of this worsening disaster.” Must a million more die to make a
point of revenge? Cannot we as citizens of countries around the
world be better than our governmental policies, at least to stop the
killing of civilians and aid workers, at least pause the war long
enough to insure safety, food, and health for innocent victims? As
Bob Dylan sang, “How many deaths will it take ‘til we know that
too many people have died?”
My cynicism leads me to say, “I doubt
we can do better,” primarily because my cynicism is deeply rooted
in our American experience. After all, this country was founded on
the practice of colonial settlement where Europeans, specifically
Christian Europeans, invaded and declared possession of a continent
(indeed a hemisphere) occupied by indigenous cultures; then
ethnically cleansed, slaughtered, removed, forced them into
concentration camps. And when they violently resisted in desperation
we justified further violence against them, destroying their homes,
livelihood, land, and ecology. And we replaced indigenous people
with enslaved people from other continents. We Americans know how
this works, justifying our behavior with religious perceptions of
superiority, and dehumanizing those we want removed. Centuries later
we still struggle to remember that history and are attempting to
repair the damage.
What is going on in Palestine and Gaza
today is in one sense the continuation of the same processes of
colonial settlement, and for the past seventy-five years the specific
continuation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians: the Nakba of
1947-48 (that killed thousands, destroyed hundreds of villages, and
forced at least 700,000 Palestinians out of their country), and the
1960s and 70s internationally illegal possession of the so-called
“Occupied Territories,” the annexation of land and resources, the
imprisonment into refugee camps, tightly controlled movement, and the
continued forced diaspora over the years, and now the forced
relocation of 2 million. Have we forgotten this history, as we
forget our own history? I must add that remembering is a spiritual
discipline.
But I want to be optimistic. I want to
declare and support the concept of food as a universal right, not
conditioned upon who one is or what identity one claims. And, as a
practicing follower of the teachings of Jesus, I want to stand on a
spiritual, moral foundation by which I can support the not just the
general cause of freedom, but specifically support the Israeli
conscientious objectors to the war, and Christians for a Free
Palestine, for example; and support all the movements, voices, and
actions that are working for a just and equitable peace. As John
Prine sung, “Jesus don’t like killing, no matter what the
reason’s for.” I want us to find all the reasons to stop the
killing. Could we dare consider turning the other cheek, forgive one
another, and/or love (even enemies)?
I realize that
there are many, many passages in the Hebrew texts from Deuteronomy to
the Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and Amos) that
clearly condemn nations who oppress others, who deprive the rights of
the needy, who do not care for the refugee and stranger, who sell out
the innocent for self-satisfaction, power, resources, who spill the
blood of the innocent. In all those passages is stated the
consequences of such behavior—doom and destruction. An eye for eye
and a tooth for a tooth was a radical departure from the
disproportionate revenge of wiping out a whole village to avenge one
criminal act. Even then, as Gandhi said, such proportionate revenge
leaves everyone blind and toothless. Could we dare NOT seek
revenge?
What if we rediscovered the places in the texts of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religious traditions that call for the compassionate, forgiving, merciful, reconciling, if not sacrificial behavior that makes for peace? We have the moral foundation to act to stop the bombs, feed the people, and negotiate for peaceful coexistence. But this will only happen when we remove the perceived profitability of war, ethnic cleansing, and power over others. The world cannot survive any more greedy, authoritarian, supremacist, racist leaders, organizations, and countries. Let us do the things that make for peace.
