Our letter to the Generals

We also wrote this letter to give to the generals of the Australian and US forces should we have the good fortune to find them. We passed them on to an officer who assured us he would pass them to the generals.

Dear Australian and US forces participating in Operation Talisman Sabre,

We are five unarmed, nonviolent Christians who are extremely concerned about the military exercises in which you are taking part. We are here only to invite you to dialogue and exchange ideas. We would like to see these preparations for war cease, and preparations for peace begin. Thus we come here to invite you to play peace games with us, and stop the war games. We do so, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to pay the penalty”.

We have been inspired in our actions by people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day, who committed their lives to nonviolence and who bore the costs of it. On the night before he was killed, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It’s nonviolence or nonexistence.” I’m sure the fragile ecosystems of Shoalwater Bay would agree; as would the estimated 655,000 Iraqis who have died in the Iraq war, and the 3,500 Coalition soldiers. And so we work towards a world with no war.

In this cause we have written letters, had street marches, and held public meetings, yet still we have had no response. And so, as the saying goes, “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain.”

Now we place the choice before you: the way of life or the way of death; construction or destruction; nonviolence or nonexistence. We urge you to train for peace, by discovering the power of nonviolence. This is by no means an easy road as we, even today, are finding out. But this is the most important task of our lives; we dare not fail, and we invite you to join us in it.

With love,

Simon, Simon, Krystal, Carole, and Sarah.

Imagining Peace – A Statement

The following is the statement we released prior to entering the base:

We are 5 nonviolent Christian people who like the prophet Isaiah are working towards the day when people will “beat swords into plowshares and study war no more”. As followers of the nonviolent Jesus we cannot stand by while our country plans the destruction of our brothers and sisters in other countries and the environment at Shoalwater Bay.

We plan to enter the base to disrupt these military exercises with our presence. We do so openly and honestly without deception and while actively seeking out military personnel with whom to dialogue. We do not take these actions lightly but with an awareness that the gravity of our actions pales in comparison to the crimes of Australian and US militaries this week. The destruction of pristine wilderness with unique and endangered wildlife is unacceptable as is the increased reliance on violent methods of conflict resolution. We take these actions because all other legal attempts to stop the exercise have failed.

People are likely to say that we have no respect for the law: not so. Rather we say with Martin Luther King Jr. and in accordance with the principles of nonviolence. “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

We believe that practicing for war only means more war. That is why we must imagine peace, embody peace, practice peace.

Another world is possible – that is why we act.