November 23, 2002
Peace without Rhetoric
by William Sylvester
Last Friday the Western New York Peace Center had a supper and meeting at the Buffalo Convention Center, with a surprisingly large number of people. The audience was mostly middle aged, middle income, conservatively dressed. I noticed one active professor from UB, and some retirees: radical youth was remarkably absent, but well-mannered and thoughtful youth was in charge and did a splendid job.
The program began with filmed interviews of people who had lost family members in 9/11, and these people who suffered closely and deeply were intense in their opposition to war. Why inflict upon others what they themselves had suffered?
So much is reasonably foreseeable from a meeting for peace.
Quite unexpected was the main speaker, Catherine Allison. Her talk was quiet in tone, and gave a portrait of America—seen from the outside—as having a growing split between the haves and have nots. She did it without rhetoric, but with statistics. I wasn’t thinking of the Buffalo Report at the time, and did not take them down. I do remember her pointing out that large numbers of professional and executive women have lost their jobs, that the long term unemployment and economic pressures force most of them to look for temporary jobs at $7.00 an hour. She also said that Walmart is indirectly supported by the government, because they hire people old enough and poor enough to be on benefits.
But her talk wasn’t a lecture; it was political, for the purpose of inviting agreement on a way of thinking, of inviting people to share a particular stance—essentially a need for compassion.
After her talk, during the question time, a somewhat older man made a statement: “I’d vote for you for President.”
A slight murmur of pleasure.
She was silent for a moment, and said:
“I am 21.”
Peace without relevance
by Bill Sylvester
How charming that William was enamored of good behavior at the WNY Peace center, but what’s the use of talking about the gulf between the poor and the rich? If we become a more compassionate society, will anybody in the Middle East care? That gulf has nothing to do with the Gulf war.
Who in the Middle East has complained about low living standards? Or that any leader is getting a shamefully large amount of money?
Poverty’s good for a society, they say.
“People in your country have a life expectancy of 40 years. You could afford to set up an entire medical system out of your own income,” a reporter put to a ruler of an emirate some years back.
“And they would live longer, and have all the sins of the west. Now they live only 40 years, but with a faith in God.”
Their purpose is quite clear. “We are not fighting for our land, or for democracy, we are fighting for God, and to bring God back into society” –last night on TV.
The suicides are not committed by dispossessed and desperate poor, but by educated, well dressed, fluently spoken, and wealthy.
The evidence that an Egyptian pilot willfully crashed the plane was discounted: he wouldn’t kill himself and all the others—he came from one of the “best” families.
Arabs don’t care about Israel as a “land.” They can’t stand Israel’s success, and higher standard of living.
So how do we protect ourselves from theocracy or the threat of it?
Find a SECULAR leader.
Find someone who could subvert the dominating religious tendencies of the region.
Someone we could trust, trust so much that we’d be willing to share our arms and biological weapons.
Suppose he is a tyrant?
We knew how to get cosy with them down in South America.
Now who fits that description in the Middle East?
I’m thinking about it.
Thinking hard.