January/February 2001

Peacemaking for the Long Haul

by Richard Deats

When Jimmy Carter was the US president, those of us working for peace were upset that his administration was doing so little to advance the cause of disarmament. So during the 1978 Special Session of the United Nations on Disarmament, several hundred of us had a "die-in" at the US Mission to the United Nations to dramatize the urgent need for getting rid of all nuclear weapons.

During the die-in, Andrew Young-President Carter's Ambassador to the United Nations-walked by with his daughter. Many of us knew him, and we engaged him in vigorous yet friendly conversation. I'll never forget his response to our pressing the case for disarmament and our laments over Carter's lack of sufficient concern. "If you build a strong enough movement," he said, "I assure you the President will have to come to terms with your cause. But you cannot expect a president to act without the citizens pushing him to do so."

Unfortunately, these many years later we have yet to build a critical mass for disarmament. Even though the end of the Cold War did not bring the long expected peace dividend, there has been insufficient public reaction to break the strange fascination with nuclear weapons and the discredited space defense shield. In October 1999 the US Senate voted fifty-one to forty-eight against ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimates that there are approximately 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with Russia having 20,000; the USA, 10,925; France, 450; China, 400; Britain 185; and India and Pakistan with unknown quantities. Israel is also believed to possess nuclear weapons. The end of the Cold War has not reduced the dangers posed by nuclear weapons-but it has lulled many into complacency and even disinterest in disarmament.

Nonetheless, there are some hopeful signs that give us encouragement. Early last year at a UN conference, the five original nuclear powers agreed for the first time to the unequivocal elimination of nuclear weapons (alas, without any deadline!). Then, in June 2000 a significant number of high-ranking religious and military leaders brought months of working together to their culmination by issuing a ground-breaking statement. It began: "We deeply believe that the long-term reliance on nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nuclear powers, and the ever-present danger of their acquisition by others, is morally untenable and militarily unjustifiable. They constitute a threat to the security of our nation, a peril to world peace, a danger to the whole human family."

This statement is in harmony with the New Abolitionist Covenant that was adopted in 1998 by FOR, the New Call to Peacemaking, Pax Christi USA, Sojourners, World Peacemakers and others. The covenant says in part: The maintenance and development of nuclear arsenals is a sin against God, God's creatures, and God's creation. There is no theology or doctrine or spiritual tradition that could ever justify the use or the threat of nuclear weapons. Whether one begins with nonviolence or with the just war doctrine, nuclear weapons are morally unacceptable.

The God of all Life, who is revealed through holy scriptures and the wonder of creation, loves the poor and demands justice for the oppressed. To continue to spend tens of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons every year while millions go hungry is a grievous failure of compassion and an affront to God. But by God's grace our hearts can be softened. It is time for all religious traditions to bear witness to the nonviolent and benevolent essence of all faith, which is finally our only hope. (For the above statement and covenant, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Fellowship or e-mail fellowship@forusa.org.)

We have no alternative to building a peace movement sufficiently committed and active that the nuclear terror will be rolled back and our resources will be channeled toward the victims of injustice and the healing of the earth.