Tag: bombs

Don’t buy “dirty gold”

Posted on by kathiemm

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OWj1ZGn4uM

The desire for control of natural resources has been at the root of many wars—including imperialist wars in the Middle East and the global south.

How many Americans know that not just their cell phones but bombs and other deadly weapons use coltan extracted from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)? Or that the past three years of deadly fighting in the DRC have resulted in the loss of three million lives?

And what have the militia been fighting each other for? Control of the rich mineral resources in DRC:

  • Richness that leaves most inhabitants in dire poverty
  • Riches in the form of gold on wrists and around necks
  • Riches in the form of weapons containing coltan
  • Riches made possible by the labor of women and children who work—and often die—in the mines.

As you think ahead to holiday giving, please don’t buy “dirty gold.”

To learn more about what makes coltan mining bloody, watch the video above.  To learn more about makes gold “dirty,” watch this video.

Even if you do not want to confront the inhumane mining processes that produce the gold for our jewelry and the coltan in our electronic devices and bombs, please learn more about the No Dirty Gold campaign and the Golden Rules for Responsible Mining (this link opens a pdf).

Surely there must be ways for people to pursue gift-giving and happiness without wasting countless lives in the process.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Gratitude on Thanksgiving

Posted on by patdaniel

Today, Thanksgiving Day, 2011, we are thankful that we did not grow up in a country that deals daily with armed conflict on its own territory. We are glad that we have been sheltered from bombs, terror, and torture.

First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe
First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe. Image in public domain

We also are thankful to be activists during an era when activism is growing around the world–activism aimed at ending economic inequality, social injustice, and costly and wasteful wars. We are grateful for the U.S. Bill of Rights and Constitution that protect our rights to activism and free speech.

We are thankful to be part of the 99% who are recognizing that we can have a voice, that we need to speak out against those members of the 1% who have gained so much control over the lives of ordinary peace-loving, justice-seeking people around the world.

We feel a rush of happiness seeing a police captain join the Occupy Wall Street movement and speak out against ruthless militarism in fellow wearers of the badge. (See story and video about retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis  arrested at OWS).

We feel pride and intensified optimism when we hear a veteran speak out against the tragic wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. For example, see the great new essay by Ross Caputi, a frequent contributor to this blog.

Please join us in being grateful for all people of conscience who resist war and other forms of inhumanity. Enjoy the celebration on this video or this one.

And check out the New York Times article about the benefits of gratitude, including mention of a research study showing “…that feeling grateful makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked…”  Perhaps gratitude provides a path to world peace.

Finally, we are grateful for you, dear readers of Engaging Peace, for your comments, your stories, your commitment to peace in your own lives and work.

Please submit your own comments about what you are grateful for this Thanksgiving Day.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology, and Pat Daniel, Managing Editor of Engaging Peace

Book review: Stones into Schools

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie MM:  For Valentine’s Day, we would like to share a wonderful love story—a story of a love for a people and a place, for peace, and for education, especially for girls. This guest book review by Jillian Zingarelli provides a glimpse at this love story.]

Review by Jillian ZingarelliStones into Schools (image of book cover)

Anyone who read number one bestseller, Three Cups of Tea – the collaborative effort by journalist David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson – will be excited to see Mortenson take over the narrative wheel in his new book Stones into Schools.

In Three Cups of Tea we learn about the start of Mortenson’s passion for educating children, especially girls, and how it sparked the creation of the Central Asia Institute (CAI). Since 1995 the CAI has helped to build 131 schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, the majority of which are located in some of the most rural and remote areas in Central Asia.

In Stones into Schools the CAI ventures into post-9/11 Afghanistan where it encounters an unrelenting desire by the Afghan people for more schools for their children, even as poverty and bombs threaten their personal security.

How with all of these obstacles do Mortenson and his team (whom he endearingly terms “the Dirty Dozen”) continue to yield successful results? And why of all forms of relief to poverty, starvation, war, etc. do they offer educating girls as a principal means for engaging peace?

In Stones into Schools, Mortenson cites an African proverb he heard growing up in rural Tanzania: “If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.”  Education enables both men and women to recognize the ignorance of turning suicide bombers into martyrs, and Islam–a religion that is both inherently peaceful and complex–into a simplistic doctrine of violence and suppression.

If you would like to learn more about the CAI and become involved in their mission in Pakistan and Afghanistan, visit them at www.ikat.org.

What do you think about the idea that educating girls helps to promote peace?

Advantageous comparison (Moral disengagement, part 4)

Posted on by kathiemm

Advantageous comparison is another form of moral disengagement described byUp and down arrows psychologist Albert Bandura. This mechanism is a way of trying to make one behavior look good by comparing it with a more frightful alternative.

For example, during the Vietnam War, massive destruction of the Vietnamese countryside by means of Agent Orange was portrayed as being a lot better for the Vietnamese people than being enslaved by the Communists.

One of the most familiar forms of advantageous comparison used to justify war and torture is “sacrificing a few to save thousands.” Undoubtedly, many people still believe that the dropping of atomic bombs on citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved thousands of American lives—an assumption with no real support.

Advantageous comparison became integral to “24,” a popular American television show. The program routinely justified the use of torture as essential to avoiding the greater disasters that could (ostensibly) hurt the innocent if torture had not been used.

The TV series was particularly popular among conservatives, many of whom apparently accepted the program’s message that not only is torture necessary to safeguard “national security” but also that it works.

This belief in the justifiability of a practice banned in international law flies in the face of warnings by experts on torture, including senior military and FBI officials.  These and other experts criticized “24” for misrepresenting the effectiveness of torture and contributing to the misbelief that torture is justifiable.

Kathie-Malley Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.