Voices in the Wilderness
A Campaign to End the Economic Sanctions Against the People of Iraq

Attachment III to VITW Response to "OFAC"

Theological Statement

by: G. Simon Harak, S.J.

A Voice cries in the Wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord ...   Isaiah 40: 3

"Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stood to address them: 'Rulers of the people, and elders! If you are questioning us today about an act of  kindness done to one crippled, then I am glad to tell you all . . . it was done in the name of the Lord'"   (Acts of the Apostles 4:10).

To the Leaders of our Government:

We write to you with great respect and hope. We write because you are questioning us today about an act of kindness done to a crippled people: we, who call ourselves "Voices in the Wilderness," have brought medicines and toys to the people of Iraq, though your laws forbade us. We offer you the same explanation that the apostle Peter, and so many others before and since, have offered to their rulers: we have done this, and will continue to do it, in the name of God.

What does it mean when we profess that we are "one nation, under God"? It means logically that our laws and customs, our practices and policies, are lower in importance than the laws and commands of God. And yet governments, especially powerful governments, and rulers of the people, often forget that. They even go so far as to convince themselves that their own will - euphemistically called, national self-interest, in all its forms - must also be identical to the will of God.

Nevertheless all through our history, individuals and groups have arisen to challenge their governments' and rulers' claim to divine authority. Their resistance was always met with persecution, trial, and sometimes even death. We know many of them. Most of them we revere; some we even worship. Yet even now, even here, governments and rulers repeat the persecution of those who raise their voices to recall their people to the pathways of God.

From our Western tradition, we might recall the actions of Antigone, immortalized in Sophocles' play. Faithful to the higher law of her religious principles, Antigone buried her brother, though Creon, the ruler of Thebes, had forbidden it. For this she suffered death.

From the same tradition, we hear the story of Socrates. Faithful to the higher law of the Oracle of Delphi and of the call of his inner god, Socrates pursued his quest for truth among the people of Athens. For this he was accused of misleading the youth of the city, and sentenced by the state to drink deadly poison.

In the story of the Buddha, we hear that the Buddha's father tried to prevent his son from becoming the Buddha, so that his son could rule the world. Instead a higher power, the gods, intervened. They showed the young Siddhartha the "four signs" which drew him from the wealth of his father's home, to seek a
solution to the suffering of the world. When he discovered it, he became the first religious leader in recorded history to proclaim the doctrine of  nonviolence toward all living things.

From the Jewish tradition, we find that prophets are always challenging their leaders and people to return to the ways of the Lord: to care for the widows and the orphans, to tend to the sick and to liberate the oppressed. This was entirely in keeping with the covenant and character of the Hebrew God, revealed most decisively in the Exodus. There, God did not side with the rich and powerful Egyptians, with their "super-weapons" of chariots and horses. He sided with the oppressed and led them to freedom. God proved Himself to be a power greater than the rulers of Egypt and all their weapons.

Later the prophets, voices for that God, continued the tradition of challenging rulers in solidarity with the oppressed. We see, for example, the prophet Nathan challenging King David. King David had sinned by committing adultery. Then the king arranged to use a war to cover over his crime. Though he was successful in killing his rival, God sent the prophet Nathan to expose and challenge the king himself. For God is no respecter of persons, or of offices.

And while it is true that the God of Moses gave the talionic law [Eye for eye, tooth for tooth], that same God always called for mercy for the oppressed and helpless, and promised the most dire punishments to those who ignored that call. Then, as the Jewish people moved closer to strict monotheism (Isaiah=
40ff.), we hear a stronger and stronger call to nonviolence. In the song of  Isaiah 52:53, we see that once again the one who espouses the call to nonviolence is persecuted and killed. And yet all the while the "Suffering Servant" is praying for those who persecute him.

That same talionic law is presented in Qur'an. But there Allah reminds us that, though one has the right to self defense, God loves the merciful, and will bless those who forgo that right for the sake of peace. And we know that the prophet Muhammad was also persecuted by the religious, economic and political
leaders of Mecca, until following the Voice of God, he had to withdraw to Medina in a hijra that marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. A reading of Qur'an also offers us strict laws to restrain the practice of war, laws which, we cannot help but observe, our government has consistently violated in its       more-than-eight-year war against the Iraqi people.

The Jewish movement toward nonviolence found its principle expression in the teachings of Jesus, who expressly taught His followers, "You have heard it said, 'You shall love your friends,' and hate your enemies. But I say to you, Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors ..."  (Matthew 5:43-44).

This same Jesus told us that we would be judged by what we did to the least of our sisters and brothers, since Jesus would "take it personally," as though it had been done to Him (cf. Matthew 25: 31ff). For 300 years the early Christian Church practiced this nonviolent love for others. They would not take part in war, or abortion or infanticide - practices most common in the empire of their day. They would not even go to the gladiatorial contests, since it meant the shedding of blood. For their "defiance" of the practices of empire in the name of their God, these Christians were persecuted and martyred in their thousands by their own government. Yet still they refused in the name of   God to take part in killing, and in the shedding of blood. They refused to take part in any of the violent revolutions against their government. You see, they
understood their "love of enemies" to extend even to their own government which was persecuting them.*

It is this same love we extend to our Iraqi brothers and sisters. In the name of  our God, we respectfully refuse to have anything to do with shedding their blood. We refuse to support our bombing of their country, now defenseless against our attacks. We refuse to participate in any way with the sanctions,
which kill so many hundreds of thousands of them. We go so far as to love them and minister to them, as God wants us to.

We know that the sanctions are "legal."  But we remember that everything the Nazis did during the Holocaust was "legal."  And again, we remember that whatever we might call "lawful"  has first to be subject to the laws of God. And our God is a God of nonviolence.

It is that same love we extend to you, our persecutors. In love, we ask you to examine yourselves before the Last Judgment about which the various religious traditions speak. In the playing out, in the historical drama of our religious tradition, which role are you playing?

The "law" we have violated is to take medicine and toys to our sisters and brothers without a license. We brought the medicines and toys because of the higher law of God's love of the people of Iraq. But to this reason, we add our higher, religious reasons. If we sought a license from you, it would be acknowledging your right to levy these massively lethal sanctions on the people of Iraq. We do not believe that anyone has such a right, for any reason. We respectfully and nonviolently prescind from the entire regime of the
sanctions, including seeking a license.

Further, in our love for you, our persecutors, we cannot support you in doing such an evil thing. No one who truly loves would allow another to pursue a path that would jeopardize his or her soul's standing before God. Instead of  persecuting us, we ask you to work with us to end the sanctions on Iraq which
quietly and inobtrusively kill some 250 of our brothers and sisters each day. We beg you to abandon the ways of the pharaohs and the emperors of our own time, and to take up the way of God.

Even if you choose not to join us, however, we will not stop challenging the sanctions which, by reliable UN reports, claim the lives of 5,000 to 6,000 children of Iraq each month. Precisely because we obey a higher Law, we refuse to pay the proposed fine, or in any way cooperate with the evil of  the sanctions regime. It is our duty, under God, to help our Iraqi sisters and brothers. It is our duty, under God, not to cooperate in any way with evil, or bend to its false claims to power. For the sake of those divine duties, we are ready endure any suffering, as did Socrates and Antigone, the prophets, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and all our other ancestors in the struggle before us. But we will not stop calling our country to repent for the harm we have done. We will not stop calling for just, nonviolent, God-led solutions to our problems with Iraq. We will not stop speaking in the voice of prophecy, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. We will continue to challenge the sanctions on Iraq, openly and publicly.

To quote Socrates in the Apology, we respectfully say, "We will not abandon our ways, even if you were to kill us many times." To quote Peter and John in their defense for their good deed, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right for us to obey God, or to obey human beings. As for us, we cannot stop proclaiming what we have seen and heard."   (Acts 4:19-20).

Rev. G. Simon Harak, S.J.
Professor of Theology.
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* Later, the Church became the official Church of the Roman Empire, and began to think of ways to accept limited acts of war. Such a process resulted in the informal adoption of what is now called "Just War Theory [JWT]." However, the sanctions against Iraq violate the canons of JWT as well. Principally they violate the criteria of non-combatant immunity, since the sanctions target particularly the weak, and proportionality, since no possible good can overbalance the harm done in killing so many hundreds of
thousands. This JWT position against the sanctions is best laid out in a letter to President Bill Clinton, signed by 54 Catholic Bishops, dated January 1998 on Diocese of Detroit letterhead.

[Voices in the Wilderness]

Voices in the Wilderness
A Campaign to End the Economic Sanctions Against the People of Iraq