The time has come (again) to move
by Julie A. Wortman

Concepcion Picciotto, a long-time peace activist

Last April I found myself writing a letter to the Christian Science Monitor complaining about its lack of coverage of a speech given by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Boston's Old South Church. [And I hereby apologize for that letter: The very next day the Monitor ran a thought-provoking inside piece about Tutu and other progressive Christians who are calling for peace with justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike, a call that is quite different from the pro-Israel position of evangelical Christian Zionists.] About 500 people heard Tutu say that the situation in the Occupied Territories is "even worse than under apartheid [in South Africa]" (see http://www.thewitness.org/agw/tutu.050802.html for the full text of his speech).

Surely this veteran of the South African liberation movement should know. But both U.S. leaders and the mainstream press have discounted the importance of his perspective on the conflict. Perhaps this is because, as many now say, the U.S. Congress is just another of the Israeli Occupied Territories.

I'm enraged that this should be so. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is unjust, pure and simple. As Tutu observed,"The Arab nations made a mistake in not recognizing Israel's sovereignty [following partition]. So it is understandable that Israel would be nervous and on military alert. But what is not all right is what Israel has done to others to maintain its security." The litany of U.N. resolutions that Israel has violated is long. U.S. complicity in their violation is stunning. I find myself itching to do something to shift the situation, like signing on to be part of a peacemaker delegation or to serve as a human-rights monitor.

Only a few weeks earlier I had called each of Maine's U.S. senators urging their opposition to drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Somehow, for the person now occupying the White House, oil drilling in ANWR (and in other wilderness areas) is so crucial to U.S. national security that both the rights of the Gwich'in people and the welfare of one of earth's last pristine wilderness areas are worth the sacrifice. Attacking Iraq is to be next. I find myself preparing for more resistance.

I'm not sure what is happening to me. I'm not usually an outraged letter-writer or phone-caller. I've never met the criteria of "activist." I've participated in Washington protest marches about a half dozen times. Been arrested in a pretty no-risk way at the Nevada Test Site. Refused to pay my phone tax during the Vietnam War. Worked to set up a homeless shelter. Banned factory-farmed meat from my diet. Been an election monitor in El Salvador. Stopped patronizing big-box chains. Boycotted my city's newspaper to support striking journalists. Protested construction of a nuclear power plant and vigiled outside a nuclear-weapons factory.

But I've never belonged to an affinity group planning civil disobedience, never done jail time, never helped organize a single direct action or protest, never walked a picket line. I've simply made my witness as my outrage and conscience have dictated. Moved when moved. Changed my life when I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. Spoken up when silence seemed an act of violence and destruction.

Somehow, it seems, the time has come, again, for me to stand up and be counted -- to play a part in this global movement for social change that appears to be finding fresh energy and clarity through the calls to "End the Occupation" and stop oil drilling in what remains of the wild.

But I don't fool myself that my willingness to act now has much to do with the strength of my personal moral compass. In fact, I credit any justice-making I've ever been involved with to the activist movement-builders in this world and their steady, usually uphill, efforts to keep people like me awake, urging us to show up, take action, embody the values we claim to hold dear. As James M. Jasper, the author of The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography and Creativity in Social Movements (Chicago U. Press, 1997), points out, the witness of these tireless social-change activists is crucial to society's moral health. "Protest quickly gets at the deepest moral questions," Jasper says. "How should we live our lives; what are our moral responsibilities, and to whom?"

Archbishop Tutu told those gathered at Old South Church last April that he is heartened by the "End the Occupation" protests by college students, Women in Black, Israeli soldiers and others. "We're free [in South Africa] because of people who cared even when it seemed impossible [that apartheid could be overcome]," he said. "God has no one except ourselves. God doesn't dispense lightning bolts to depose tyrants. God says, 'You are my partners.'"

Movement activists, it seems, understand this better than most. Now, more than ever, I'm grateful for their witness and the way it empowers mine.

Julie A. Wortman is Witness editor/publisher.