What We Can Do Right Now as Disarm Activists

Graphic provided by Cherrill Spencer.

By Robin Lloyd and Cherrill Spencer
DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee

April 2020

Dear DISARM activists (and all WILPF members):

We hope you are well and staying home. We are all seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities that the coronavirus plague imposes on our global health and civic society.

What can WE do?

Will the virus so decimate our health and capacity that the war machine will be seen as a cruel extravagance which will totter and fall…or….will the crisis accelerate hostility and walls and defensiveness leading to accidental or intentional military exchanges?

The world is on the cusp of momentous decisions.   

In an appeal issued on March 23, 2020, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged warring parties across the globe to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger battle against COVID-19: the common enemy that is now threatening all of humankind.   

“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war”, he said. “That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”

The ceasefire would allow humanitarians to reach populations that are most vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19, which first emerged in Wuhan, China, last December, and has now been reported in more than 180 countries. It is the most vulnerable - women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized, displaced and refugees - who pay the highest price during conflict and who are most at risk of suffering “devastating losses” from the disease. Furthermore, health systems in war-ravaged countries have often reached the point of total collapse, while the few health workers who remain are also seen as targets. The UN chief called on warring parties to pull back from hostilities, put aside mistrust and animosity, and “silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes”. This is crucial, he said, “to help create corridors for life-saving aid. To open precious windows for diplomacy. To bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.” (UN News)

What can WE do to support this appeal?

We suggest talking with our circles of concern locally and nationally. It is crucial that our focus on peace and disarmament be heard far and wide. Use the arguments in Guterres’ appeal to help you write to your congressional representatives.

This is a time when more Americans will be open to cutting military spending. Let us take advantage of the moment.

Some Ideas for Homebound Activism

Fortunately, we can still work on issues from home while the coronavirus is circulating. For example:

1. Explore US military, nuclear weapons and space force budgets and demand that those funds be diverted to Trump’s  coronavirus response funding  (as of late March those budgets are sitting at 2 trillion dollars!). Be sure to listen to Marylia Kelley’s excellent speech about nuclear weapons costs on the March 2020 ONE WILPF Call reached here.

2. Study the work of our anti-war allies to raise consciousness about the environmental and economic impacts of militarism: Abolition 2000, Black Alliance for Peace, Code Pink, Extinction Rebellion, Mayors for Peace, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Poor People's Campaign,  Raging Grannies,  Veterans for Peace, World Beyond War, … and let us know if there are others who should be included on this list, currently posted on the WILPF US Disarm page.

3. Preparefor Hiroshima-Nagasaki Days during August Nuclear-Free Future Month. This year we have many hundreds of paper cranes which were donated to WILPF US by atomic bomb survivors in Japan last year and are sitting in our national office. Contact Chris Wilbeck at the WILPF US office and ask her to ship some paper cranes to your branch (your branch will pay for the shipping), to use in your 75th Anniversary of the Bomb events.

Several members of Disarm took part in a stimulating planning meeting via the web sponsored by ReThink Media, which is coordinating a collaborative publicity effort for the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here is a description of ReThink Media taken from their website, rethinkmedia.org:  it is a unique, non-profit organization focused on building the communications capacity of nonprofit think tanks, experts, and advocacy groups working toward a more constructive US foreign and national security policy, the protection of human and civil rights, and strengthening our democracy. In collaboration with 65 other groups working towards peace and nuclear disarmament they have written a position statement, it is an internal document that can be used for creating public facing materials - like talking points, graphics (we are using one of their graphic designs in this eNEWS article), and eventually things like model Letters To the Editor and Op-eds.  We will be urging our president to sign on to their Position Statement on behalf of WILPF US.   

4.  Call and write/fax your Representatives and ask them to support HR-2419, which says take the money from nuclear weapons and put it into human needs!  

5.  Call and write/fax your Senators and ask them to support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons!  

6.  Share these links and this information with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and by email!

Update on Spring Events

Due to the crisis, many activist events that WILPFers were going to, have been cancelled or postponed.

•  Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC Days, April 19-22, is canceled but may be rescheduled to the fall.
•  The World Conference in New York City won’t be happening April 24-26 - but the organizers are planning to hold an online conference, and you can keep track of their plans at World Conference 2020.
• The UN’s review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is 50 years old this year, is about to be postponed. We had an accredited WILPF-US delegation ready to attend this review at the UN in New York City; we hope we can attend the postponed conference when it occurs.
• The Stop the Nuclear Arms Race conference in Tennessee (May 22-25) has not been canceled yet, but keep an eye on nukewatchinfo.org.
• The World Beyond War conference in Ottawa (May 26-31) has not yet been canceled. But WBW is urging us to call for the cancellation of CANSEC, Canada’s biggest annual weapons expo, which is due to take place at the same time as the Conference. What an obscenity if the weapons bazaar takes place and millions of dollars are exchanged to bomb and destroy people in the midst of this health crisis!  

As Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will, says in an International WILPF response to the coronavirus crisis: “Compassion, care, and collective action will see us through this crisis, and will be the bedrock upon which we can build a world beyond capitalist exploitation, militarised security, and environmental destruction. The time to start imagining and structuring that world is now.”

Inset graphics credits:
1. Drop the MIC Campaign.   
2. rethinkmedia.org