Dear Members and Friends,
Like fine wine or sour vinegar, with the passage of time, the words we express tend to either increase in flavor or grow stale with age, particularly as history and hindsight begin their powerful fermentation process. The aforementioned statement at the head of this piece is one I authored in reference to the Persian Gulf War, yet it is one I wish to repeat for today.
At the start of the Memorial Day weekend I received a presumptuous mailing with petitions to sign and an invitation to attend a “Prayer Witness for Peace,” in clerical garb, at the Federal Building in Hartford. This demonstration seeks to protest an invasion of Iraq, claiming the “prophetic vision of non-violence.” Hearkening back to Vietnam, the reverse of the flyer declares that “the war outside our country is intimately linked to domestic policies that leave the marginalized ever more vulnerable.” Thus the “blame the victim” approach is used with great fervor and skill, as even despicable acts of evil committed against Americans are said to really be the fault of America itself and not tyrannical fanatics who wantonly use airline passengers as human firebombs.
My first response to this mailing was to immediately phone the offices of Senators Lieberman and Dodd to articulate my complete support of current US policy in the war against terrorism, particularly if it means the aggressive and rapid destruction of the current regime in Iraq. Personally, I find it incredible and reprehensible that capable nations have watched as Saddam Hussein has systematically used poison gas against his own people. I believe it is disgraceful that some will protest loudly over sanctions and invasion, yet are utterly silent when it comes to Mr. Hussein’s internal practice of extermination. This becomes almost laughable as US domestic policy is then vaunted as being the root cause of the current terrorism in the world!
Under the guise of “reclaiming a prophetic voice” it is said we are “living within a culture of violence.” Perhaps, but compared to where? Nazi Germany? Imperial Japan? Soviet Russia? Bosnia? The Sudan? Afghanistan? When I see that self-proclaimed prophets cannot see or affirm the positive greatness in the recent agreements between Presidents Bush and Putin, then I must conclude I am witness not so much to a culture of violence, but a cavalcade of convenient ignorance.
To be sure, war is always a terrible thing. Just ask those who’ve lost either loved ones or limbs fighting one. Yet to avoid war at any cost and call that “peace” is tantamount to fighting cancer with ice-cream instead of chemotherapy and calling that “healing.” Such an approach may be pleasant, politically expedient and predictable, but it is not peaceful. Quite apart from a “prophetic vision,” it is more a blurred moral myopia that mistakes turning the other cheek with turning a blind eye or cold shoulder to those egregiously oppressed. It is an approach that professes to love our enemies, but only enables them, as unilateral non-violence is once again taken to mean open season on defenseless victims nobody cares to protect, like the Khurds – the real marginalized people of our world.
The words I wrote back in 1991 were heartfelt. Now I find them heartbreaking. Not because they are no longer true, but because they still are. For indeed, if the facts and sentiment expressed can so easily be restated without an iota of adaptation eleven years hence, it means that the awful situation that inspired them remains, and nothing of substance was done to change it. As a Christian first and American second, I cannot fathom why this is.
From Reverend William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
|
