BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY - P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081--(610)544-1818BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY - P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081--(610)544-1818
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...We face an epidemic of gun violence in our communities, continuing war in Iraq and intensification of war in Afghanistan, the continuing threat posed by nuclear weapons to life and the living, and an earth poisoned by greed, poverty, toxins, and war...It is time for another declaration of independence, one every bit as revolutionary, in which people declare peace and demand justice, by removing our lives, our communities, and our children's future from the scourge of guns, bombs, war, nuclear weapons, violence... - from the And Now, DECLARE PEACE handout, July 3, 2009
It's time for another declaration of independence...2009
And Now, DECLARE PEACE!
Stop the wars and end the violence, handgun to H-Bomb
Over much of the past decade, the Brandywine Peace Community with the endorsement of other area peace activists and friends, has held something declarative around Independence Day in Philadelphia's Olde City section, surrounded as it is by the symbols and sites of American independence and promise of freedom: the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the National Constitution Center, historic Christ Church, etc. People have vigiled and processed solemnly with the display of boots and other representations of the death toll in Iraq. People have paraded in the hundreds, loudly, raucously - drums, bag pipes, bells tolling, puppets - throughout the area, voices echoing and pouncing off the buildings. These expressions, from the raucous to the solemn, were all about declaring peace ala the predominate anti-war sentiment of recent years.
Something else seemed in the air around Independence Day 2009 - a time for making a declaration of connection, addressing the most fundamental fact of our society and the world today: violence. So this year, we gathered in Independence Mall, not just peace and anti-war activists, but gun violence prevention activists, anti-poverty advocates, and nuclear weapons abolitionists, declaring: Stop the wars, End the violence, handgun to H-Bomb
It's time for another declaration of independence, so declared activists gathered in Philadelphia on July 3rd, feet from Independence Hall where that other Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. In the middle of the Declare Peace circle was a large coffin draped by the Earth and U.S. flags and bound by heaving chains. Next to the coffin read a sign stating "Break the Chain of Violence" along with large posters of the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. There were, of course, speakers (Celeste Zappala from Military Families Speak Out, whose son Sherwood Baker was killed in Iraq, April '04, while guarding an unit looking for those "weapons of mass destruction"; Ed Aguilar, director of the Project for Nuclear Awareness, and people from Heeding God's Call, a faith-based gun violence prevention campaign). We heard a statement from a Vietnam combat medic of what gun violence and war really looks like. There was also music and poetry. The demonstration concluded with Philly Code Pink leading us in a "cleansing" of U.S. flags from the violence and evils that remain interwoven in the cloth of the nation: racism, poverty, class, hatred and intolerance - violence, handgun to H-Bomb.
Co-sponsors of the "And Now, DECLARE PEACE" demonstration: BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, Catholic Peace Fellowship, Coalition for Peace Action, Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia, Heeding God's Call, Philly Code Pink, Project for Nuclear Awareness, and Veterans for Peace #31.