I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three
block long town in the desert of northeastern New Mexico. Everyone in
town--and the whole state--knows that I am against the occupation of
Iraq, that I have called for the closing of Los Alamos, and that as
a priest, I have been preaching, like the Pope, against the bombing
of Baghdad.
Last week, it was announced that the local National
Guard unit for northeastern New Mexico, based in the nearby Armory,
was being deployed to Iraq early next year. I was not surprised when
yellow ribbons immediately sprang up after the press conference. But
I was surprised the following morning to hear 75 soldiers singing, shouting
and screaming as they jogged down Main Street, passed our St. Joseph's
church, back and forth around town for an hour. It was 6 a.m., and they
woke me up with their war slogans, chants like "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
and "Swing your guns from left to right; we can kill those guys
all night."
Their chants were disturbing, but this is war.
They have to psyche themselves up for the kill. They have to believe
that flying off to some tiny, remote desert town in Iraq where they
will march in front of someone's house and kill poor young Iraqis has
some greater meaning besides cold-blooded murder.
Most of these young reservists have never left
our town, and they need our support for the "unpleasant" task
before them. I have been to Iraq, and led a delegation of Nobel Peace
Prize winners to Baghdad in 1999, and I know that the people there are
no different than the people here. The screaming and chanting went on
for one hour. They would march passed the church, down Main Street,
back around the post office, and down Main Street again. It was clear
they wanted to be seen and heard. In fact, it was quite scary because
the desert is normally a place of perfect peace and silence.
Suddenly, at 7 a.m., the shouting got dramatically
louder. I looked out the front window of the house where I live, next
door to the church, and there they were--all 75 of them, standing yards
away from my front door, in the street right in front of my house and
our church, shouting and screaming to the top of their lungs, "Kill!
Kill! Kill!" Their commanders had planted them there and were egging
them on.
I was astonished and appalled. I suddenly realized
that I do not need to go to Iraq; the war had come to my front door.
Later, I heard that they had deliberately decided to do their exercises
in front of my house and our church because of my outspoken opposition
to the war. They wanted to put me in my place.
This, I think, is a new tactic. Over the years,
I have been arrested some 75 times in demonstrations, been imprisoned
for a "Plowshares" disarmament action, been bugged, tapped,
and harassed, searched at airports, and monitored by police. But this
time, the soldiers who will soon march through Baghdad and attack desert
homes in Iraq, practiced on me. They confronted me personally, just
as the death squad militaries did in Guatemala and El Salvador in the
1980s, which I witnessed there on several occasions.
I decided I had to do something. I put on my
winter coat and walked out the front door right into the middle of the
street. They stopped shouting and looked at me, so I said loudly, publicly
for all to hear, "In the name of God, I order all of you to stop
this nonsense, and not to go to Iraq. I want all of you to quit the
military, disobey your orders to kill, and not to kill anyone. I do
not want you to get killed. I want you to practice the love and nonviolence
of Jesus. God does not bless war. God does not want you to kill so Bush
and Cheney can get more oil. God does not support war. Stop all this
and go home. God bless you."
Their jaws dropped, their eyeballs popped and
they stood in shock and silence, looking steadily at me. Then they burst
out laughing. Finally, the commander dismissed them and they left.
Later, military officials spread lies around
town that I had disrupted their military exercises at the Armory, so
they decided to come to my house and to the church in retaliation. Others
appealed to the archbishop to have me kicked out of New Mexico for denouncing
their warmaking. Then, a general called the mayor and asked him to mediate
"negotiations" with me, saying he did not want the military
"in confrontation" with the church. Really, the mayor told
me, they fear that I will disrupt the gala send-off next month, just
before Christmas, when the soldiers go to Iraq.
This dramatic episode is only the latest in a
series of confrontations since I came to the desert of New Mexico in
the summer of 2002 to serve as pastor of several poor, desert churches.
I have spoken out extensively against the U.S. war on Iraq, and been
denounced by people, including church people, across the state. I have
organized small Christian peace groups throughout the state.
We planned a prayer vigil for nuclear disarmament
at Los Alamos on the anniversary of Hiroshima this past August, but
when the devout people of Los Alamos, most of them Catholic, heard about
it, they appealed to the archbishop to have me expelled if I appeared
publicly in their town. In the end, I did not attend the vigil, but
the publicity gave me further opportunities to call for the closing
of Los Alamos. I receive hate mail, negative phone calls and at least
one death threat for daring to criticize our country.
But New Mexico is the poorest state in the U.S.
It is also number one in military spending and number one in nuclear
weapons. It is the most militarized, the most in need of disarmament,
the most in need of nonviolence. It is the first place the Pentagon
goes to recruit poor youth into the empire's army.
If we are to change the direction of our country,
and turn people against Bush's occupation of Iraq, we are going to have
to face the ire and persecution of our local communities. If peace people
in every local community insisted that our troops be brought home immediately,
that the U.N. be sent in to restore Iraq, that all U.S. military aid
to the Middle East be cut, and that our arsenal of weapons of mass destruction
be dismantled, then we might all find soldiers marching at our front
doors, trying to intimidate us.
If we can face our soldiers, call them to quit
the military and urge them to disobey orders to kill, then perhaps some
of them will refuse to fight, become conscientious objectors and take
up the wisdom of nonviolence. If we can look them in the eye and engage
them in personal Satyagraha as Gandhi demonstrated, then we know that
the transformation has begun.
In the end, the episode for me was an experience
of hope. We must be making a difference if the soldiers have to march
at our front doors. That they failed to convert me or intimidate me,
that they had to listen to my side of the story, may haunt their consciences
as they travel to Iraq.
No matter what happens, they have heard loud
and clear the good news that God does not want them to kill anyone.
I hope we can all learn the lesson.
-------------------
John Dear is a Catholic priest, peace activist, lecturer, and former
executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His latest books
include "Mohandas Gandhi" (Orbis) and "Mary of Nazareth,
Prophet of Peace" (Ave Maria Press).
For info, see. www.johndear.org
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, PO Box
652, Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517
(352) 871-7554 (Cell phone)
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
"Global
Network"
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