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Ten Ways to Stop the War with Your Body 31. Use your voice! Phone your Senator or Representative, and tell them what you feel. To connect to your elected officials' offices, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Canadians – call your MP in Ottawa. For contact details, see www.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html 32. Pay them a visit. Organize a carload of people to visit the offices of your senator, representative or MP. For US contact addresses, see www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/iraq/IraqActionAlert.html (scroll down to the bottom). For Canadian MPs, see www.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html 33. Join the next big day of global peace marches
on March 20th 2004,
marking one full year since the start of the war on Iraq and
its
subsequent occupation. The international anti-war movement is
back to
say "The World STILL Says No to War!". 34. Distribute flyers. Judging by the opinion polls, most people will be really pleased to hear from you. Good locations include shopping malls, subway stations, grocery stores, college campuses, libraries, churches, and bus stops. Go to www.unitedforpeace.org and print a ready-made flyer. There’s another ready-made flyer at www.peace-action.org/home/iraq/getactive.html 35. Go without food for a day, or a week. Fasting is a very old and powerful way of sharing your feelings. Tell the media. Just ring them up and tell them. Someone will be interested. 36. Do a silent vigil somewhere in public, with a placard. Invite people to join you. They will. On Sunday March 16th, over 6,000 vigils were held worldwide: see www.globalvigil.org. There may be more: keep a track on this website. Tell the media. In January 1991, when it was apparent that the United States was going to start bombing Iraq, a lone individual started holding a nightly vigil at a gas station near Lake Merritt, near Oakland, California, holding a sign that read No Blood for Oil! Richard and Emma, two Lake Merritt neighbors, were walking home from the grocery store one evening & saw him. They decided that something should be done to help this one brave soul who was demonstrating against war. From this one man’s effort has sprung Lake Merritt Neighbours Organized for Peace, who have an incredible website at www.lmno4p.org/indexORIG.htm. They also have the world’s most beautiful logo. 37. Go on strike. Refuse to work for fifteen minutes every day. That’s what Richard Lawson, a British doctor, is doing every Monday from 9 to 9.15 each morning until the war on Iraq ends. See www.greenhealth.org.uk 38. Sign the Pledge of Resistance, and use non-violent civil disobedience. See www.peacepledge.org and Solution #89. For civil disobedience resources, in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Gandhi, see www.civildisobedience.org.uk 39. Put your body on the line. For thousands of years, humans have used violence to deal with their frustration, and achieve change. Today, we are creating something different: a way of seeking urgent change while remaining peaceful and loving. We cannot rid the world of violence if we commit violence ourselves. Peace is the way. If you are involved in an action, and anyone starts to use violence in any way, surround them peacefully with your bodies, and do everything you can to stop them. Violence in anti-war demonstrations will undermine everything we seek.
40. Go
to Iraq. They are in Iraq, right now, with Human Shield Action
- see www.humanshields.org
and/or www.humanshieldaction.org.
They are there with Voices in the Wilderness– see www.nonviolence.org/vitw. Since September
2002, seasoned nonviolent activists have been on the ground in
Iraq standing in solidarity with the people of Iraq while working
to prevent a US attack. See www.iraqpeaceteam.org.
For one woman’s journey to Iraq, see www.iraqpeaceteam.org. |
