We have made it through our first full week of “social”/physical distancing. We hope you are all getting through this challenging and uncertain time as well as can be. At the end of this email you will find a list of resources, from health tips to unemployment to how to help vulnerable populations. There is a long road ahead, but the social distance doesn’t mean an end to social justice work and collective action. You are needed now more than ever.
In answer to the question many of you may have had regarding our weekly vigils, three of four – Environmental Justice at the Peace Bridge; Prisoners’ Rights at the Erie County Holding Center; Women in Black at Elmwood & Bidwell – are each currently on autopilot. This means that they have been shifted to be individual activities; so if you join and others are participating, please keep enough distance between you so that it’s clear you are not part of a group. And remember to bring your signs! The Immigrant & Refugee Justice vigil at Delaware North (home of the ICE Buffalo field office) is on hiatus due to the public health emergency. We will continue to share information in our IRJ taskforce FB Group on how to stay involved digitally.
Moreover, Crisis~=Opportunity! Please check out Naomi Klein and Joseph Stieglitz on Democracy Now!’s 3/19/20 edition. You may also be interested in celebrating Now Ruz, Afghanistan’s New Year’s and its biggest holiday of the year, if you’re up at 12:30am this Sunday morning, with the Afghan Peace Volunteers. Their extended war-zone experience can help guide us now! See livestream link and more info below.
We also offer you more information on continued activism that you can get involved with from the comfort and safety of your homes. This should include reminding those friends and family members who are unplugged about the upcoming Census, which can be completed by mail, phone, and online. STAY COUNTED – AND SPREAD THE WORD!
the secret to effective nonviolent resistance.
Please see much more below, including great online events this week, and more at wnypeace.org, on our Facebook page, Twitter (@wnypeace), and Instagram (@wnypeace)!
Peace, thanks, solidarity and yes – love.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Here’s a summary (with more details on various items directly below):
Beinginformed, getting involved, and taking action on issues that affect Buffalo Niagara by making your voice heard to government and media. https://ppgbuffalo.org/action/overview/
Peace and Diplomacy Lobbying – demanding peace, diplomacy, and sane domestic and foreign policies from your Senators and/or House Representatives. https://www.panys.org/current-actions/
#DemandJustice #HousingJustice – holding District Attorneys across New York accountable to ending mass incarceration, plus fighting against tenant abuse, homelessness, environmental violence, and racist housing policies. https://citizenactionny.org/
Let My People Go – supporting the campaign to free our immigrant and refugee neighbors from detention facilities during the current public health crisis. https://nyimmigrantfreedom.org/let-my-people-go/
Completing Census 2020 – The results of the 2020 Census will help determine how hundreds of blllions of dollars in federal funding flow into communities every year for the next decade That funding shapes many different aspects of every community, no matter the size, no matter the location. https://2020census.gov/en.html
Resources at Peace Action New York State (PANYS) that includes current legislation and co-sponsors, scheduled lobbying meetings, Town Halls in New York state – and most importantly – lobby packets and one-pagers that you can take to your Senators or House Representative. The only way to influence our Elected Representatives is to get their attention – through calls, letters, in-district meetings, and public events. Not sure who your Representatives are? Go to whoismyrepresentative.com to find out. Current issues include: Iran, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Venezuela, Yemen, and Opposing Israel Anti-Boycott Act
#DemandJustice and #HousingJustice
Together with Citizen Action! New York, you can help in building two movements:
to hold District Attorneys across New York State accountable to end mass incarceration! Learn how to take action to ensure our District Attorneys full implement the new pretrial laws that were passed in 2019 to keep thousands of legally innocent New Yorkers out of jail while they await trial. Tell state legislators that you support the new pretrial laws that will keep thousands of legally innocent people out of jail, and to implement them without any changes.
fighting the NYS real estate industry which prioritizes profits over the safety and security of the 50% of our residents who are renters. Half the state’s tenants are unable to afford their rent, and over 90,000 people are in homeless situations on any given day. Support the campaign against tenant abuse, homelessness, environmental violence, and racist housing policies.
U.S. sanctions against Iran, cruelly strengthened in March of 2018, continue a
collective punishment of extremely vulnerable people. Presently, the U.S.
“maximum pressure” policy severely undermines Iranian efforts to cope with the
ravages of COVID-19, causing hardship and tragedy while contributing to the
global spread of the pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Iran’s Foreign Minister Jawad
Zarif urged member states of the UN to end the United States’ unconscionable
and lethal economic warfare.
Addressing UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres,
Zarif detailed how U.S. economic sanctions prevent Iranians from importing necessary
medicine and medical equipment.
For over two years, while the U.S. bullied other
countries to refrain from purchasing Iranian oil, Iranians have coped with
crippling economic decline.
The devastated economy and worsening
coronavirus outbreak now drive migrants and refugees, who number in the
millions, back to Afghanistan at dramatically increased rates.
In the past two weeks alone, more than 50,000 Afghans returned from Iran, increasing the likelihood that
cases of coronavirus will surge in Afghanistan. Decades of war, including U.S.
invasion and occupation, have decimated Afghanistan’s health care and food distribution systems.
Jawad Zarif asks the UN to prevent the use of hunger and disease
as a weapon of war. His letter demonstrates the wreckage caused by many decades of United
States imperialism and suggests revolutionary steps toward dismantling the
United States war machine.
During
the United States’ 1991 “Desert Storm” war against Iraq, I was part of the Gulf
Peace Team, – at first, living at in a “peace camp” set up near the Iraq-Saudi
border and later, following our removal by Iraqi troops, in a Baghdad hotel
which formerly housed many journalists. Finding an abandoned typewriter, we
melted a candle onto its rim, (the U.S. had destroyed Iraq’s electrical
stations, and most of the hotel rooms were pitch black). We compensated for an
absent typewriter ribbon by placing a sheet of red carbon paper over our
stationery. When Iraqi authorities realized we managed to type our document,
they asked if we would type their letter to the Secretary General of the UN. (Iraq
was so beleaguered even cabinet level officials lacked typewriter ribbons.) The
letter to Javier Perez de Cuellar implored the UN to prevent the U.S. from
bombing a road between Iraq and Jordan, the only way out for refugees and the
only way in for humanitarian relief. Devastated by bombing and already
bereft of supplies, Iraq was, in 1991, only one year into a deadly sanctions regime
that lasted for thirteen years before the U.S. began its full-scale invasion
and occupation in 2003. Now, in 2020, Iraqis still suffering from
impoverishment, displacement and war earnestly want the U.S. to practice
self-distancing and leave their country.
Are
we now living in a watershed time? An unstoppable, deadly virus ignores any
borders the U.S. tries to reinforce or redraw. The United States military-industrial
complex, with its massive arsenals and cruel capacity for siege, isn’t relevant
to “security” needs. Why should the U.S., at this crucial juncture, approach
other countries with threat and force and presume a right to preserve global
inequities? Such arrogance doesn’t even ensure security for the United States
military. If the U.S. further isolates and batters Iran, conditions will worsen
in Afghanistan and United States troops stationed there will ultimately be at
risk. The simple observation, “We are all part of one another,” becomes acutely
evident.
It’s
helpful to think of guidance from past leaders who faced wars and pandemics. The
Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-19, coupled with the atrocities of World War
I, killed 50 million worldwide, 675,000
in the U.S. Thousands of female
nurses were on the “front lines,” delivering health care. Among them were
black nurses who not only risked their lives to practice the works of mercy but
also fought discrimination and racism in their determination to serve. These brave women
arduously paved a way for the first 18 black nurses to serve in the Army Nurse
Corps and they provided “a small turning point in the continuing movement for
health equity.”
In the spring of 1919, Jane Addams and Alice Hamilton witnessed the effects
of sanctions against Germany imposed by Allied forces after World War I. They
observed “critical shortages of food, soap and medical supplies” and wrote
indignantly about how children were being punished with starvation for “the
sins of statesmen.”
Starvation continued even after the
blockade was finally lifted, that summer, with the signing of the Treaty of
Versailles. Hamilton and Addams reported how the flu epidemic, exacerbated in
its spread by starvation and post-war devastation, in turn disrupted the food
supply. The two women argued a policy of sensible food distribution was
necessary for both humanitarian and
strategic reasons. “What was to be gained by starving more children?”
bewildered German parents asked them.
Jonathan Whitall directs Humanitarian Analysis for Médecins Sans
Frontières / Doctors without Borders. His most recent analysis poses agonizing
questions:
How are you supposed to
wash your hands regularly if you have no running water or soap? How are you
supposed to implement ‘social distancing’ if you live in a slum or a refugee or
containment camp? How are you supposed to stay at home if your work pays by the
hour and requires you to show up? How are you supposed to stop crossing borders
if you are fleeing from war? How are you supposed to get tested for #COVID19 if the health
system is privatized and you can’t afford it? How are those with pre-existing
health conditions supposed to take extra precautions when they already can’t
even access the treatment they need?
I
expect many people worldwide, during the spread of COVID – 19, are thinking hard about the glaring, deadly
inequalities in our societies, wonder how best to extend proverbial hands of
friendship to people in need while urged to accept isolation and social
distancing. One way to help others survive is to insist the United States lift sanctions
against Iran and instead support acts of practical care. Jointly confront the
coronavirus while constructing a humane future for the world without wasting time or resources on the continuation of
brutal wars.
Photo
credit: Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2013
Photo caption: Protester’s sign decries sanctions, “a silent war”Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Keeping our balance, each of us …. Hoping you’re deep slow breathing, and not worrying too much, while taking needed precautions. Prayerfulness, keeping the Good Mind, maintaining our perspective (the big picture) while balancing it with the small (doing what we need to do and the wisdom to know what that is ? and yes making sure to have joy, beauty, and mindful care and compassion every day and every way we can. #OneLove
We’re in a strange place right now, as a whole. So we put this out to report on what we do know (e.g., all SUNY/CUNY schools – and many others, like Canisius and Daemen – going to online classes). We have suspended our own office hours until further notice. Many events are being postponed (Work2Win) or cancelled (World Conference 2020 in NYC before the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review). Some are not cancelled but are planning to move online (Women’s Issues & Solutions) or aren’t being promoted (67 Uprising). Check ours and other’s websites (we’ll keep you posted as well as we can, without too many emails!)
Do remember to keep washing your hands (see John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on Coronavirus), keeping your personal space ample – and boy, will we miss hugging!! And remember,
We have nothing to fear but fear itself (Franklin D Roosevelt), and what must be done can be done (Elinor Roosevelt).
On that note, be sure to see “Defending Your Life” with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks. It’s very much fun and on topic.
So with that in mind, we’ll give us all a little time to catch our breath while keeping solidarity and love in the Spirit, and plenty of space and care with the body.
More to follow… We’ll just keep taking it as it come, Together/Harambe!! Si, se puede/yes, we can …!
Peace, Thanks, Solidarity, and of course Love!
#CourageousCompassion
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
#Unite! #OneLove
