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