Blue Marble View

 

March 19, 2003

This is the banner I made and hung on my porch in Wake Forest, NC when the Iraq War started. I decided at the time that I would keep it out there until the war was over, a statement of protest consistent with my belief, then and now, that the war was unjustified. Patriotic fervor ran high at the time, as it always does when war is in the offing. It was not prescience or politics that positioned me against the tide.It was my fear for the mothers and fathers and children of the country we attacked. It was my grief for the inevitable lives that would be changed and lost in our own country. And it was the cavalier manner in which we, the USA, bypassed diplomacy in favor of death. Mainly, for me, it was the mothers and children. I pictured them huddling in the only home they had, the place where they had felt safe to live out the daily dramas of family life --- preparing meals, doing laundry, playing, talking, singing, sleeping. No longer safe from bombs and sirens and sudden death, life would come to a halt and never be the same. 

I was skeptiacl of war, but still naive enough to believe it would be short-lived, that perhaps the destruction would be curbed, that this country where I live would remember itself and pull back. I wasn't proud of my country's propensity to throw its weight around like a schoolyard bully, to retaliate on an order of magnitude many times greater than the perceived original offense, the excuse for executing an all out attack to destroy another land. I wasn't going to tie a yellow ribbon around my beautiful old maple trees out front, but I wanted to show support for those who would suffer, here and abroad. 

Collateral damage. Civilian casualties. Soldiers. Enemies.

The words of war make no sense to me. I have never in my 62 years been in a physical fight. I expect my  life to proceed in much the same way until the end. I'm not always peaceful, by no means have I avoided conflict, argument, betrayal, pain. But just as, on the individual level, fighting is not a clear option for conflict resolution, so it seems wildly incongruent for nations to engage in ritualized mortal combat as a way to settle differences. Is it mass psychosis? Is it the many who suffer for the egos of the few?

I grew up in the role of observer on US military bases in foreign countries. I was the daughter of teachers, perhaps one of the most peaceful and forward-looking professions, who taught the sons and daughters of warriors. It was only much later that I wondered if, in actuality, I was part of an occupying force. Why were armed, uniformed men (mainly) living, drilling, working, and guarding beyond their own country's borders? 

Whatever the political and military ramifications, I was fortunate to live in countries outside of the United States. I was able to learn other languages, meet other people, learn firsthand about customs and attitudes different from my own. I learned from the inside out that all people experience love for their families and their homes, that we are the same in many, many more ways than we are different. I learned with certainty that borders are artificial --- I never saw lines on the ground when I crossed through those checkpoints. I realized  that countries, nationalities, races, ethnicities, were all constructs invented for division, not unification and wholeness.

Ten years ago I hung my handmade banner with pride and hope for a quick resolution. It would hang outside my house until the gunfire ceased. I've moved twice since then. The banner, being only made of cloth, began to wear and fade as the years went by, so I brought it inside. We placed it with other items that denote peace, to form a place in our home devoted to peace, an altar to love.

Ten years and counting. The United States is still at war. My hope has not died, but is subdued these days.