[Peace-discuss] Letter in Sunday Tribune

[David Green]

Mothers must encourage all to reject violence

Laurie Hasbrook

May 9, 2004

Chicago -- Mother's Day 2004. My 6- and 8-year-old
sons, under their father's supervision, will
"surprise" me with breakfast in bed, handmade cards,
lots of hugs and kisses and promises of perfect
behavior and brotherly cooperation in the year to
come. I'll bask in that simple joy of spending the day
together as family.

I am acutely aware, though, that for mothers with sons
or daughters in Iraq, this day will be one of
tremendous longing and anxiety. For mothers whose
children have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom or in
the occupation, Mother's Day will be a day of grief
and mourning, a day of loss that those of us who have
not suffered the death of a child can never fully
comprehend. Many Iraqi mothers also know this loss.

The cruelties of war led Julia Ward Howe to write in
the original Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870: " . .
. `Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All
that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy
and patience. We, the women of one country, will be
too tender of those of another country to allow our
sons to be trained to injure theirs.' . . . `Disarm!
Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of
justice.'"

As a mother raising sons in a country whose government
is using the deaths of its young people in war to
extol the virtues of sacrifice, honor and devotion to
family and country--as do all governments in time of
war--I have never been so acutely aware that war, far
from being a necessity in a terror-plagued world, is a
foreign policy failure that actively contributes to
terrorism.

It is a challenge, while our politicians and military
leaders masterfully weave a national narrative that
gives military service God's imprimatur, to say loudly
and clearly that I will not raise my children to be
killers. Teaching my sons the distinction between
being willing to die for their beliefs as opposed to
being willing to kill for them is difficult in a
culture that melds the two.

As I grieve for the families who receive word that a
beloved son or daughter has been killed overseas, I
reaffirm my commitment this Mother's Day to help build
a world in which all violence, whether it is
individual or state-sponsored, is rejected.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune 




	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs  
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover