The Woodbury Campus Center became a ground zero of sorts as people of all descriptions descended on the Portland campus to discuss today’s social and political climate. USM’s “Teach In for Peace” ran all day last Friday. The event was prompted by the controversy over Iraq, but the event’s scope was on pacifism.
Speakers at the event included professors, students, and community members. The audience was even more diverse, comprised of people of all descriptions from the University and the community at large. A political buzz was in the air as like-minded people conversed in close quarters.
Tables were open to all students stocked with tiles and painting supplies by Spiral Art, a local nonprofit organization. Students painted the tiles with American flags, other icons, and anti-war slogans.
Another group of students folded colored paper into origami cranes as part of “1000 Cranes for Peace.”
One of the event’s organizers, Desi Larson, assistant professor of human resource development, buzzed from place to place, excited the event enjoyed such a healthy turnout.
Jim Friedman, professor at the University of Maine School of Law, voiced pragmatic concerns with a U.S. military strike against Iraq.
“Whatever we do, as influential as we are, the region will not be transformed by the fall of Saddam Hussein,” he said.
Lou Bergeron, a member of Veterans for Peace and a disabled Korean War veteran, felt the United States warranted an attack on Iraq only if “strictly on the defensive, if we’ve been attacked. I don’t believe we’ve been attacked. I know they say so with Sept. 11, but I think that was a result of our ethnocentrism.”
Other conversations, by contrast, waxed metaphysical. In the “Religion and Peace” seminar, a Buddhist and members of three Christian denominations (Catholic, Quaker, and Episcopalian) explained their commitment to pacifism in terms of faith.
“‘Shalom,’ the word we translate in the scriptures as ‘peace,’ does not simply mean a lack of war. It also includes the concept of justice,” said Larney Oates, an Episcopalian priest.
Bill Slaveck, the Catholic representative, agreed. “We have seen too many examples of non-violent conflict resolutions to think that violence is warranted [in Iraq].”
A documentary called “Greetings from Missile Street” related the desperate conditions of a formerly middle-class Iraqi family under U.S. sanctions. The children of this family were unable to attend school because the family could not afford shoes for them, much less a backpack or presentable clothes. The narrator explained that a pair of shoes cost the equivalent to about $2, approximately a month’s income for the average Iraqi.
Robert Schaible, associate professor at Lewiston-Auburn College, said, “Wherever people are made to struggle … they are fertile ground for people who want to promote violence,” he said. “Hate crime groups don’t go to Cape Elizabeth or Falmouth Foreside to distribute their pamphlets.”
A common thread throughout the seminars was violence is rooted in fear and ignorance. Isolation and ignorance, speakers said, were at the root of Lewiston’s cold reception to the Somalian immigrants.
“I met people [in Lewiston] who hadn’t seen a person of color before, hadn’t been on an airplane, had been born and raised in Lewiston in a way that I didn’t think was still possible in America,” said Michelle Vazquez Jacobus, professor of social work at Lewiston-Auburn College.
The recurring dyad of fear and ignorance was addressed directly by the panel of the last seminar, entitled “Practicing Peace.”
George Caffentzis, associate professor of philosophy, noted, “I do believe there is one major weakness of this power behind the Bush administration, that it is based on fear. This administration has nothing to offer the world but fear.”
American imperialism was a constant theme in all discussions but was tackled most ambitiously by an audience member who wished to be identified only as “Jessie.”
“Our society is based on exploitation … we [the United States] depend on other people to support us who live like dirt. We are essentially abusive to the rest of the world,” said “Jessie.” “We inherited European colonialism and we took it to the next step.”
“Jessie” was vague about his background. When asked what he does for a living, he said he wasn’t a USM student and that he wanders around, consumes as little as possible, and hangs out with anarchists.
General strategies for breaking the cycle of fear were presented. Professor Emeritus Monique Crochet said, “If we’d had compassion [after Sept. 11] instead of a speech about hate–compassion diffuses, takes away the reason for fear.”
The event concluded with the participants of the last seminar observing a moment of silence in the name of peace and a recital of the song “Let There Be Peace on Earth” as everyone stood in a circle and held hands.
John Bronson can contracted at [email protected]