Op-ed article by TMC Executive Director Tim Vining.
Published in the Post Gazette, October 17, 2001: |
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Midweek Perspectives: Patriotism in this time
of war
In the peace movement, we want to be true to our values and the best of the
American character
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
By Tim Vining
There has been much discussion in the local peace movement that we not
surrender the flag and our values to the militarists. We must insist that our
response to terrorism is both true to our values as peacemakers and true to the
best of the American character.
What we need to understand is that the real targets in this struggle are the
hearts and minds of the American people. This is not a war of weapons or
counterterrorism strategies, it is a struggle over competing visions for the
future of the world.
In this struggle, our strongest weapons will be our ideals and the core
values of what it means to be an American and a peacemaker. At our best, we
reject the principle of collective punishment that was used with such
ruthlessness by the Nazis and by so many other oppressors throughout history. We
are called to make distinctions between those who commit crimes and those who
happen to share their belief, religion or national origin. At our best, we also
abhor the notion of guilt by association, which brought us the scourge of
McCarthyism in the 1950s.
We are called to move beyond dangerously simplistic judgments that assume
that those who do not share our views are our enemies. We recognize the folly of
the logic of the Vietnam War that dictated the need to destroy a village in
order to save it. We are called to protect the innocent and not allow our desire
for justice to become a fire of vengeance.
A patriotic response to terrorism built on the best of what it means to be an
American and a peacemaker includes the following principles:
- American patriots are committed to the rule of law. We are a nation
of laws that supports the establishment of international law, conventions and
treaties. We should insist that our government bring those responsible for
planning and assisting in these crimes before a duly constituted international
tribunal. Through patient and persistent international diplomacy we should
call for the political and economic isolation of any country that does not
cooperate with these aims; taking care to protect the innocent from harm.
At the same time, the United States must be willing to place itself under the
rule of international law. We cannot have one set of rules for the United
States and another for the rest of the world. Until the disenfranchised of
this world have the means and ability to stand as equals with the most
powerful before an international court to seek redress and justice, terrorism
will continue.
- American patriots are committed to democracy and human rights over
corporate profits. Beyond bringing the terrorist to an international bar
of justice we need to recommit ourselves to promoting democracy and human
rights around the world.
These bedrocks of our civic values hold that every person has a right to
participate in their government's political process and deserves to have their
human rights protected by their government. Unfortunately, many in the world
see the United States government as obstacles to democracy and human rights.
They cannot understand how we can condemn a dictator in Cuba and support one
elsewhere in Latin America. They believe our foreign policy is designed to
maximize corporate profits, not democracy and human rights.
Unless all the people of the world can enjoy the fruits of democracy,
terrorism will become the tool of the politically disenfranchised. Terrorism
will end when we give democracy and human rights primacy over corporate
profits.
- American patriots are committed to the common good. Part of the
American ethos is that government should work for the common good of everyone,
not just the rich and powerful. To overcome terrorism we need to put this
ethos at the heart of our foreign policy. Terrorism will end when we create
the economic mechanism that will ensure that the wealth and resources of this
world are distributed in a way that all people can live in dignity. Making the
global economic system work to meet the basic needs of those with little or no
money must become a global priority. As long as the gap between the rich and
poor continues to grow, terrorism will be the choice of the disenfranchised.
We have a choice to make. We can embrace the best of who we are as
peacemakers and as Americans in addressing the root causes of terrorism, or we
can repeat the mistakes of the last century of death and destruction.
As peacemakers, we need to be sure that our anger does not cloud our reason and
that our desire to be patriotic does not cause us to abandon our own deeply held
values. We should not have to choose between the two.
There will be those who will try to tell us that criticizing our national
policies in time of crisis is unpatriotic.
But, as William Fulbright, the late senator from Arkansas, reminded us,
"Criticism is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism -- a higher form of
patriotism, I believe, than the familiar ritual of national adulation. All of us
have the responsibility to act upon the higher patriotism which is to love our
country less for what it is than for what we would like it to be."
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