Creating a Department of Peace
By Dennis Kucinich
This September, legislation will be introduced to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace. This is an opportunity for a new discussion about the nature of violence in our society and in the world. It is a moment when we can consciously reflect on the type of thinking which leads to violence, and to war.
At a domestic level, the Department of Peace will address domestic violence, child abuse, spousal abuse, violence in the schools, gang violence, violence against gays, and police-community relations among many areas of interest. The Department will work with community groups and support programs in education which promote peace-building. Some schools have already begun teaching children principles of peace-sharing and mutuality. We have to have a belief in our capacity to create transformative change through renewing our commitment to peace and creating a new structure to fulfill a new mission. This is a domestic imperative as well as internationally urgent.
We are at a time in our nation's history when some believe that we must go to war to achieve peace.
A belief in the inevitability of war produces war. War is manifested as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the case of Iraq a war arose from pure falsehood. But those falsehoods took root in a soil laced with fear. Those falsehoods were propagated in the media. Those falsehoods mushroomed as violent weeds in the garden of our humanity. We have reaped a bitter crop.
There is a better vision of humanity, and of our future. We reach it through understanding the interdependence and interconnectedness of all people. We reach it through compassion. We reach it through cooperation.
We have a right to defend our nation. We have an equal obligation to defend our humanity and to rescue it from those who see the world as being necessarily divided into warring camps. The "us vs. them" thinking cuts us off from the rest of the world and from the soul power which connects us to the rest of the world.
We must confirm the power of the human heart and act from our hopes, not our fears.
The Pope John Paul II well understood that young people are hungering for transcendence, for a spiritual connection, for joy, for love, for freedom from fear.
The day before the funeral of Pope John Paul II, I had heard several news reports which discussed the dangers of a terrorist attack at such a large gathering, similar to news reports I heard in December of 1999, just prior to New Year's Eve. Nevertheless, people gathered around the world by the millions in an open celebration of their own humanity and in joyous anticipation of a new century. What we saw in St. Peter's Square, in Rome and throughout the world were hundreds of millions gathering in prayer and joy.
Television can be a distorted mirror of our social reality. Terror is a distorted mirror. Fear is a distorted mirror. We know terror and fear exist, but if we allow them to occupy too many moments of our conscious thought, we deprive ourselves of the expressive power of our humanity, the power of the human spirit, the power of our love to transform all circumstances.
The thoughts of danger which were percolating were swept aside by the great masses who gathered to honor the Pope, who in his very first address exhorted all of us "Be Not Afraid." 'Be Not Afraid', begins the hymn, 'I go before you always, come follow Me....'. His was a call to a fearless world citizenship.
And as the world shared a few moments of collective spiritual reflection, we come to glimpse the possibilities of peace, of a world in prayer for peace, not just for one departed soul, but for all embodied souls. We paid respect not only to the life of the Pope, and to the life of the world John Paul served. We saw and felt Spiritus Mundi at work when the hands of leaders of nations clasped. When the flags of many nations fluttered in the same wind, the Communion of Saints became the Communion of Nations, reflecting the common unity of all people.
Let us, in our nation, unite to create a new structure for an enduring peace. The creation of a Department of Peace will lead us in that direction. |
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