Peace comes from within. That’s what the Nobel Peace Prize winners said in Helena Cobban’s book, The Moral Achitecture of World Peace. When I read this I thought they were crazy—how could peace within stop armies, dismantle missiles, reroute misguided leaders?
Yet through all my work, I’ve come to understand that peace does indeed come from within. When you, in your heart, make a choice, decide to take one small or one large step for peace, it matters.
In 1990, I watched what was then a stand-off with Iraq, and wondered how one might send a message to Iraq, to ask them to leave Kuwait and join us in building a just peace. It was a very different message from the inflammatory language our president, Bush-father, was using when he stood before his generals in full regalia to call Sadam Hussein a Hitler.
History has been changed by messages moving from one person to the next. I launched a gesture, simple, neighbor-to-neighbor, once a week, to reach the people of Iraq: a candle in the window on Friday evenings, at the close of the Muslim day of rest.
Maybe 10,000 Americans participated. The New York Times printed my op-ed on Christmas Eve 1990, and then Koreans wrote that they read it with tears in their eyes, in the only other country where the U.N. had voted to go to war. The Op-Ed was translated into Arabic and carried to the Iraqi Women’s Federation by the former first lady of Greece, just a week before the war started. It touched them; there was not enough time to respond.
Was it naïve? Perhaps… but 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the dessert during that first Gulf War. Then hundreds of thousands of children died in the embargo—and now, well, you know the story.
With a small ray of hope, I send the following open letter to an Iraqi doctor who recently visited the U.S. as part of Code Pink’s delegation to bring peace and sanity to our world. I hope my message will reach her and that she will respond.
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Dear Dr. Rashad Zidan,
Thank you for your courage and your message and your willingness to visit the U.S. to help Americans understand that our army must leave Iraq to bring peace. May I offer a suggestion?
Would women in Iraq consider organizing a gesture-message "from the people of Iraq to the people of the US", a peaceful but clear message to convey how much they want the US Army to go home. The message: "American soldiers, please take your guns and go home." The means: A candle in the window, one home and the next, window after window, apartment by apartment, neighborhood by neighborhood. ... that's what the Czechs used to bring about their Velvet Revolution when no other message could get through.
Such a candle, with more and more families joining the gesture each night, could get news coverage in every town, large and small, building momentum with news coverage throughout the Middle East and the world and the US. Such a gesture would provide overwhelming evidence of the will of the Iraqi people to move our President to a different course of action.
Can a candle in the window stop an army? It proved effective during times of martial law in Eastern Europe, it may show its value now. Through the power of the signal light (one of the few tools available in times of house arrest), the Poles kept their Solidarity movement alive during martial law in1981—and even President Ronald Reagan told the world he "lighted his candle in the White House window as a small but certain beacon of our solidarity with the Polish people". In 1989, the Czechs and Slovaks used candles in their windows as the most important tool in their Velvet Revolution. Their 1968 armed revolt failed them but the candle gesture in 1989 sent the Soviet army home without bloodshed.
Personal Experience: In New Hampshire in 1990, during the standoff w Iraq, I asked my neighbors to join me to use this signal to send the people of Iraq a message they might be able to hear. We asked Iraqi families to join us as neighbors to peacefully end the standoff before the 1991 Gulf War. Some 10,000 Americans participated then - and my essay in the New York Times was translated to Arabic and carried to the Federation of Iraqi Women just a week before Desert Storm. I am attaching that essay... perhaps the NYTimes would publish a reply from Iraq, now, 16 years later.
What we learned was that the candle was a starting point - it signaled personal intention. My neighbor, despairing and powerless in her home, saw my light, heard my voice, and then took her own bold steps for peace. Candles sold out in New Hampshire; soon every third house in Chicago suburbs was participating, and people in Korea were writing us to tell us they joined with tears on their cheeks. We started learning that politicians lead best when they see a purposeful mass movement propelling them to action.
I know a lot about how to organize such a gesture, and would be happy to share further logistics information. Please let me know if you feel this has value.
Sincerely, Donna Baranski-Walker Executive Director, The Rebuilding Alliance
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