Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community

Afterword

afTerworD L aw does not equal justice. The people in this book stood up for gigantic justice issues and were jailed for violating small laws. They are not as famous as Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, Dietrich Bonhoeffer , or Gandhi, but they stand squarely in the same historical tradition—people who were jailed for trying to stop injustice. Whether they describe their actions as civil resistance or civil disobedience, the people in this book will be raised up for centuries whenever people of conscience search for those who resisted the gross injustices of our time. I helped some of these fine people try to make the legal system open up to deal with the injustices they challenged. But the gap between law and justice was unable to be bridged in court. Despite their inspiring actions, they paid the price of prison for their beliefs. The United States has a long tradition of people risking jail to take action highlighting injustices. Many women seeking the right to vote, untold numbers of workers fighting for the right to form unions, and thousands of African Americans struggling for civil rights were jailed in their campaigns for justice. As I write this in the fall of 2011, thousands have been arrested just since President Obama was elected, protesting against the injustices of Guantanamo, nuclear weapons, the tar sands pipeline, police brutality, the many wars the United States is engaged in, mountaintop removal by coal companies, human rights violations by our military, illegal roundups of undocumented families, Wall Street economic injustices, and immigration and deportation policies. The people in this book resist the powers of death with courage and determination . Each paid a real price for their stand. Our political and legal systems were unable to respond to their cries for justice, so they were arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed for months, sometimes even for years. Dozens speak about how and why they challenged war, nuclear weapons, and gross human rights violations. Mothers, fathers, priests, religious sisters, married couples, and singles, each spent considerable time in prison. We must ask ourselves: why were these people jailed when they acted for peace? National and international laws are violated repeatedly in the cause of war. Why are there no presidents in jail? No generals? No secretaries of state or defense? No war profiteers? Why just these people acting for peace? Despite the years in jail, these are stories of hope. St. Augustine told us that 341 hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to do something about it. The hope of the people in this book give us all reason to think more deeply about what we can do for justice and peace and the courage to do something about it. I end with a poem I wrote when a friend went to prison because of an act of conscience. Yesterday My Friend Chose Prison Yesterday my friend walked freely into prison chose to violate a simple law to spotlight the evil of death squads and villages of massacred people that we cannot even name mothers and children and grandparents butchered buried and forgotten by most, but not by my friend Yesterday my friend stepped away from loves and family and friends was systematically stripped of everything, everything and systematically searched everywhere, everywhere was systematically numbered and uniformed and advised and warned clothes and underwear and shoes and everything put in a cardboard box, taped and mailed away Yesterday my friend joined the people we put in the concrete and steel boxes mothers and children and fathers that we cannot even name in prison for using and selling drugs in prison for trying to sneak into this country in prison for stealing and scamming and fighting and killing but none were there for the massacres no generals, no politicians, no under-secretaries, no ambassador Yesterday my friend had on a brave face avoiding too much eye contact with the stares of hundreds of strangers convicts, prisoners, guards, snitches not yet knowing good from bad staying out of people’s business hoping to find a small pocket of safety and kindness and trust in the weeks ahead Last night my friend climbed into bed in prison an arm’s length away from the other prisoners 342 Doing Time for Peace laying awake on the thin mattress wondering who had slept there last wondering how...