Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace

Mothers can be taken for granted as all children are used to the mother providing for their needs. Mothers give birth through excrutiating pain which has been described to me as similar to passing a watermelon, others told me they were extremely afraid. I am also told when the baby is born they just fall in love with this tiny being. They then feed that person through their body. Many feel it is the purpose of their lives. I am told it is the most amazing experience of a woman’s life to give birth. Mothers are typically the ones to take on responsibility for children’s lives and as adults mothers are still worrying. In some respects it would be good to not have a mother’s day to show our appreciation, when every day could be naturally a mother’s day. With my own mother I try and let her know she is appreciated but also to show her to look after herself and to become more aware of her own needs. To know her children are fine and life will bring what life brings, that mothers cannot control life to protect children. They are the bearers of children but it is important to understand the role of parents is to prepare children to be independent throughout life.

In this blog I am focussing on all women and mother’s who feel the pain of loss when their child or anyone’s child is killed in war. This is the worst case scenario for any woman.

I think mother’s around the world want peace for their children. None of them want their children to be hurt in anyway, nor fight in wars or engage in violence that harms another. This has always been the message of mothers.

I found out today the meaning of Mother’s Day to my surprise. I checked out Wikipedia to find out that one of the earliest calls for Mother’s Day was due to a pacifist reaction to the American Civil War. So it was centrally about peace. In Australia we are at war with Afghanistan, yet you would never know it from the media. We only hear the occasional soldier being killed, we don’t know about the afghan boys and men killed because the media focusses on our nationality, as they are subtly seen as the enemy. Yet as a woman I see human beings. I will outline the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870

This is what wikipedia states about the Mother’s Day Proclamation:

One of the early calls to celebrate a Mother’s Day in the United States was the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” by Julia Ward Howe. Written in 1870, it was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.

International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time in 28 February 1909, in the US,[4] by which time Anna Jarvis had already begun her national campaign in the US. It is now celebrated in many countries on March 8.

The Mother’s Day Proclamation is a message to women today, it is time for women to speak up about the world they want for their children. We are facing environmental collapse and economic collapse and I keep looking at families and wonder if they realise the state of the world. I heard a song about women running the world and I got chills up my spine. I know the power of women and imagine when it is aroused. You men will love it when you see what can be created. No more war or power games, it will be a world built on love and at the very centre the wellbeing of children.

This is my call to women for which I feel inspired to communicate.

The Mother’s Day Proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1870:

“Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.”

The majority of casualties in war are now predominantly civilian 90%. Here are a few examples of women protesting for peace to save their sons.

Mother’s Protest in Yugoslavia

http://www.abrahamsvision.org/documents/readings/2008vision/the-balkins/obligatory/Feminist2.pdf

I recall the 40 buses of women who were protesting the war in Yugoslavia. Here is an excerpt of what they had to say.

The Mother’s Protest-1991

During the summer of 1991, women concerned about their sons in the Federal Yugoslav Army organized protests against the war. At the beginning of the war all regular soldiers belonged to the Yugoslav National Army, whose responsibility was to stop moves for independence by Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. Croat mothers did not want their sons fighting with Serbs to prevent Croatia’s move for independence-which would put their sons on the “wrong” side of the war. Serb mothers did not want their sons fighting in Croatia, a
land that they didn’t perceive belonged to them anymore. The women used their role as mothers to express concern for their sons and call for peace. The women stated their opposition to the war:

“We refuse that our sons become
the victims of senseless
militarists. It is not clear what are
the goals for which we should
sacrifice our sons. Our sons have
been deceived: they have to
participate in a war for which
they are not the least bit
responsible, in a war that has not
even been declared. That they
should give their lives for
imperialist purposes is the project
of politicians. It is a disgrace to
win a fratricidal war” (Mothers of
the Soldiers of Belgrade 20 July
1991, 8).

The first large protest against the war was held by several hundred parents, mostly mothers of conscripted men, in the Serbian National Assembly in Belgrade on 2 July 1991. In their statement they said, “The protests of mothers is a feminine spontaneous reaction to the
disgrace of the civil war” (Mother’s Movement July 1991, 7). Repeatedly, throughout the summer, in letters to officials and public statements, the mothers called for an end to the war and a return of their sons.

At the end of August 1991, approximately a thousand parents, mostly mothers, from Croatia and a few from Bosnia-Herzegovina attempted to protest in front of the General Headquarters of the Yugoslav National Army. They were forced to move to the soldier’s barracks. To
enable such a large gathering 40 buses were used to bring the women from Croatia to Belgrade. The leaders of the group, Mothers for Peace, from Zagreb, had the Croatian flag as a sign of their organization. Lepa
Mladjenovic attended the protest and participated with mixed feelings.

‘I was very excited. The first
night the auditorium of the
soldier’s barracks in Belgrade
was packed with women. It was
amazing. Never before in this
male space had there been such a
scene. At the front of the
auditorium, on the podium, were
the “fathers”-the army officers.
The women were sitting
everywhere, talking and eating.
At one point women from the
villages in Croatia stopped
listening to the men and started to
softly sing a tender old Croat
song. In contrast to the fathers in
uniform with their hard strict
military culture, the women’s
voices were from another world.
On the other hand, at that time if
more than 20 women got
together, I had to wonder how did
it happen. It usually meant that
some larger political thought or
organization stood behind the
event.’

While Mladjenovic was excited and moved by large numbers of women coming together to protest the war, she recognized that some women acted with the support of men whose goal was their own nationalism and interest in preventing the Federal Yugoslav Army from intervening in their move for independence. The Mother’s Protests were the first public resistance to the wars. Since the political tradition of fifty years of communism had suppressed people’s rebellious motivations, the Mother’s Protest was important in breaking that tradition. Also, the Mother’s Protest contained a general peace message. It was a good use of the patriarchal role of mothers to save men and stand
against authority.”

Women In Black – Israel

I interviewed on radio the founder of Women in Black in Melbourne. I remember her telling me how as Israeli women they would hold silent vigils protesting the Palestinian occupation. They wore black as if in mourning and stood silently. They would be spat at, abused, seen as traitors. She told me of one of her group who was considered a peaceful communicator, she was able to discuss issues and turn people towards peace. Very brave woman I was told. The founder was an academic from the University of Haifa. It was interesting to learn of their story

Here is an outline of their history:

A Short History Of Women In Black
http://www.womeninblack.org/en/history

“Women in Black” was inspired by earlier movements of women who demonstrated on the streets, making a public space for women to be heard – particularly Black Sash, in South Africa, and the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, seeking the “disappeared” in the political repression in Argentina. But WIB also shares a genealogy with groups of women explicitly refusing violence, militarism and war, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom formed in 1918, and the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the UK and related groups around the world opposing the deployment of US missiles in the eighties.

Beginnings in Israel

Women in Black as we know it today began in 1988 in Israel. In 1987, 20 years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian intifada began. In response Israeli Jewish women began to stand in weekly vigils in public places, usually at busy road junctions. Starting in Jerusalem, the number of vigils in Israel eventually grew to almost forty. In the north of Israel, where the concentration of Arab communities is greatest, Palestinian women who are Israeli citizens were also active in Women in Black groups. Many local WIB groups made contact with women across the Green Line engaged in support work, e.g. visiting Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

Establishing a formula for action

At WIB vigils, women carried placards saying “End the Occupation” and closely related messages. The focus was quite precise, in order to be able to draw in a wide group of women. The vigils were predictable: same site, regular intervals. The women wore black. Although they were not particularly silent in most Israeli locations, as they have become in some countries since, there was no chanting. They were seen by, and provoked reactions from, many passers-by on foot and in vehicles, some of whom heckled and abused them, both in sexualized terms (“whores”) and for their politics (“traitors”). Their policy was not to shout back but to maintain silence and dignity.

In other countries, including Canada, the USA, Australia, and many European countries, Women in Black vigils soon began to be organized in support of those in Israel. In Berkeley, California, for example, Women in Black has been standing weekly since 1988. In the UK at this time, women (mainly Jewish, with Palestinians and others) picketed the offices of the Israeli state airline, El Al.