Isn't
there a better way?
by Jane
Hanna, Witherspoon Society president
[2-18-02]
Feeling outrage and pain, people filled churches to
pray and find comfort in the first weeks following 9/11. Seeking solace,
trying to understand why evil acts occur, did we hear the voices of
despair and suffering around the world? I hoped that congregations
across the country would wrestle with theological and ethical
discernment for wise and humane response to the enormity of the crime
against us.
Many voices cautioned against haste and the use of
military power in retaliation, warning that reacting with violence would
only increase violence. These messages were not well received in
Washington. Within weeks we were bombing Afghanistan and sending planes,
ships and troops to that part of the world. The purpose, as first
explained, was "to get Osama bin Laden and his terrorist training
camps." He has not been found. Instead estimates indicate 5,000 to
7,000 civilians have been killed, many more injured, their homes
destroyed, and thousands more sent fleeing to overcrowded refugee camps
in countries not eager to accept them. No one knows how many more have
died from starvation and exposure.
Freeing the Afghan people from their Taliban rulers is
a good thing, but we need to discern whether there may have been less
lethal and destructive means for accomplishing that goal. In a matter of
weeks we seem to have forgotten the US role in the Taliban's rise to
power in the first place.
Prior to 9/11 our government had repeatedly spurned
international treaties that would address climate change, arms control,
biological and chemical weapons, land mines, a world court,
manufacturing and trafficking in firearms, ignored a UN Summit on Racism
and failed to pay our UN dues. There was little indication that global
cooperation was on the agenda until alliances were needed to wage war. A
groundswell of support for a war of revenge seemed the only alternative
offered our frightened and stunned citizenry.
As Christians, we are called to think beyond national
interests and share God's concern for the world. Should we not be
focusing on what it means to be committed to the ministry of Jesus who
taught us to love our enemies? Do we call it "terrorism" only
when US citizens die? Do not the Afghan people living under the rain of
death falling from US bombers experience terror? Or when they plow their
fields or fetch food supplies dropped from the sky, knowing they may be
maimed or killed by land mines?
Rather than attempting to discern why such a
catastrophe occurred, we have been urged to pursue and perpetuate the
"American dream," to buy more for the good of our economy, to
get on with enjoying our lives, to demonstrate to terrorists that our
way of life will not be curtailed. There seems little recognition that
what we dream as our ordained right, has become a nightmare for poor
countries and their ecosystems.
The greatest threat to world stability is the rapidly
widening inequality of income within and between nations. This is the
real enemy of peace and justice, the cause for hunger, illness,
homelessness, joblessness and illiteracy. Communities without hope for a
better future beget angry people. This kind of misery and death is
preventable. It is not God's plan for humanity.
A few weeks after the bombing of Afghanistan began, I
attended a conference in Cuernavaca, Mexico on "Prophetic Voice and
Globalization" where we acknowledged the 35,000 people who died of
hunger the day the twin towers were struck. Forty million dollars, five
percent of what is spent on arms around the world, could feed all 35,000
who die each day from hunger. The cost of one bomber could have fed
everyone in Afghanistan. The death and destruction that struck us on
September 11 was a terrible crime, but so is inflicted hunger. From the
perspective of those around the world whose lives are a daily struggle
to just survive, our problems look small in comparison. We take for
granted the support systems -- hospitals, funds, aid agencies, shelter
and food -- disaster victims in other places do not have when tragedy
strikes.
We teach our children "conflict resolution"
and develop programs in our communities for dealing with domestic
violence. We label a family as "dysfunctional" when violence
is the means for settling differences and maintaining control. Should
not nations be similarly judged when the use of violence is used
"to get them?" When do we forgive, devote our efforts to
reconciling and healing? When "God Bless America" signs were
hung across the country I cringed, wondering if they meant that God was
blessing us for being hurt, for our violent response, or that we were
petitioning God's blessing only for the United States.
There were some encouraging voices at the recent World
Economic Forum in New York, a small indication that a few people inside
heard the grievances of those cordoned off rallying on the outside.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan closed the meeting of the
world's political and business leaders declaring, "the reality is
that power and wealth in this world are very, very unequally shared, and
that far too many people are condemned to lives of extreme poverty and
degradation."
This message should be heard from faith communities.
Those who were inside the Waldorf Hotel as delegates are most likely
unaware of the extent to which misery has spread about the globe. It
costs $26,000 to belong to the Economic Forum, a sum that automatically
excludes the majority of the world's people. Such wealth enables them to
live so separately from the rest of humanity, socializing with those of
similar privilege, that they neither see nor hear the desperately poor.
Those attending the World Social forum in Porto Alegre,
Brazil, were much more in tune with reality. They talked about human and
ecological depredation caused by a globalized capitalist system with too
few labor and environmental regulations. They criticized US military
spending for pushing the world's most impoverished nations further into
despair, and called Third World debt an illegal burden that should be
forgiven.
Congregations, instead of quarreling over who are
"right," should be a voice for a more just distribution of the
world's resources and wealth. We should be gathering in our churches for
thoughtful analysis of our nation's foreign policy from the center of
our faith. We do not put our trust in bombs and guards to save us. Nor
should we allow fear to lead us to relinquish our democratic right to
voice our moral and ethical concerns. Wars, of whatever size, should no
longer be considered a moral choice for Christians. If there ever was
such a thing as a "just" war, that day has long passed. The
expense, lethality, and total destructiveness of today's weapons, let
alone those the Pentagon intends to develop, can in no way be considered
"just" instruments for addressing conflict.
Who will pay for the proposed increase in military
spending, for the war our president says will go on for a long time? We
need to examine what it will mean if a national priority for more
military spending allows less for meeting the basic needs of our own
people. Unless Congress has a different version from that spelled out in
the State of the Union address, the burden will be borne by the most
vulnerable of our citizens, the poorest children and elderly in our
communities. Congress raised taxes on the wealthiest during both World
Wars, as high as 94 percent on incomes over $200,000 during WWII. Today
the wealthy are receiving tax cuts, corporations are subsidized and the
programs that most assist the working poor and unemployed are being
trimmed.
Are we missing an opportunity to envision the
possibility for a better, saner world, one in which the humanity and
basic rights of all are honored? Violence, from weapons and deprivation,
is tearing our world apart. Jesus taught that forgiveness is the hope of
the world, the beginning of moves away from remembered wrongs. Let our
churches lead the way to forgiveness and nonviolent proposals for
healing and setting right human relationships around the globe.
Jane Hanna
