POSTED: Sunday, Sep. 13, 2009

Day of Peace offers chance to help make world better

Remember the made-for-TV movie "The Day After?" If you were an adult in 1983, there's a 50 percent chance you watched it. Maybe you considered calling the 1-800 number that was set-up to counsel distraught viewers. For some people, it was an abrupt first glimpse into the potential aftermath of nuclear war. For older adults, it brought back childhood memories of hiding under desks during mock air-raids and stockpiling homemade fall-out shelters. For some WWII veterans, it wasn't a severe enough depiction of what they witnessed in Japan.

"The Day After" became a colloquial, fear-generating phrase that circulated grocery stores and even elementary schools.

The movie's emotional effect reached beyond the average TV-viewer. After President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987 (a step towards ending the Cold War), Reagan wrote a letter to the director of The Day After, Nicholas Meyer. It read: "Don't think your movie didn't have any part of this, because it did."

Today's younger generation does not have an iconic cultural product like The Day After to sear into their minds the dangers of a nuclear holocaust. Naturally, the human psyche prefers to sublimate such content. The threat remains, nonetheless, as does the need for public education and anti-nuclear activism.

According to the Center for Defense Information, the U.S. has 10,455 total nuclear weapons.

Out of necessity, President Barack Obama has revived the topic. Rather than framing the discussion in fear-provoking language, however, his message is surprisingly positive.

In July, he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to decrease the number of U.S. and Russian warheads. In a speech given four months earlier in Prague, Obama declared, "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it ... So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

The United Nations fully supports this agenda. The theme for its 2009 International Day of Peace is "WMD: We Must Disarm!", a bold challenge not only to parties considered terrorist or rogue, but also to presently nuclear nations, including the United States.

On Monday, Sept. 21, the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center will host its 6th Annual International Day of Peace at First Congregational Church at 7:00 p.m. This inspiring, family-friendly event features The Kulshan Chorus, a Children's Peace Art Program, and Musician Swil Kanim as master of ceremonies. The event is preceded by a half-mile peace march that gathers at Maritime Heritage Park at 6:15 p.m.

This year's recipients of The Howard Harris Lifetime Peacemaker Award are Vietnam combat veterans Bill Distler and James Gillies, who have been peace activists and steadfast advocates for veterans for more than 30 years.

This year's honored guest and keynote speaker is John Dear, SJ, an internationally-known peace and anti-nuclear activist recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In 1993, Dear - a Jesuit priest - symbolically disarmed an F-15E bomber by hammering on its radar tracking device. At his sentencing, he reflected, "I hope I would have had the grace and the strength...to walk into those German death camps and begin to take apart the gas chambers and cremation ovens, to literally and symbolically start dismantling." He spent six months in jail and nine months under house arrest.

In the vein of Gandhi and King, John Dear has been arrested 80 times - each action undertaken thoughtfully in the name of nonviolence.

Most well-known for his passionate activism, Dear has also done the quiet work of feeding the hungry and housing the homeless in Washington, D.C.; volunteering as a chaplain at Ground Zero after 9/11; and advocating for death row inmates, facilitating clemency for one man and working with Mother Teresa to secure a stay of execution for another. He worked with the poor in El Salvador, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, and Northern Ireland.

Bellingham is proud to host this extraordinary man.

The Day After was fictional. The nuclear holocaust perpetrated by the U.S. against the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was real. In his Nobel Lecture, Dr. King avowed, "We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war...we must shift the arms race into a 'peace race.'"

Instead of living as fearful people under the specter of imminent annihilation, we can be inspired to act for a world free of nuclear weapons. Peace, justice, and good will can be stronger instruments than weapons in building long-term global cooperation, if we invest in them.

All are invited to be a part of this vision on International Day of Peace. When we work for peace together, we can be assured that the day after will be a beautiful, more secure tomorrow for all humanity.

Marie Marchand is executive director of the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center. www.WhatcomPJC.org