By: Mohamed Elmasry, President CIC Ottawa Muslim Network
March 18, 2003
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While preparing my federal income tax return, I decided
to overpay my taxes by $1.
Am I crazy? Not at all.
I hope our government will use my extra dollar (and those of many other
Canadians too, I hope) to recruit a new kind of army, a vital force of
Canadian diplomats to "wage peace" on my behalf wherever our world is
racked with conflict.
Just imagine: An army of young Canadians, inspired by the likes of our late
Nobel laureate Lester B. Pearson, working year round for peace, ready to be
dispatched at any moment to engage warring parties in mediation and
negotiation.
How different the world might be now, if Canada's UN ambassador Paul
Heinbecker had been working on the Iraq file long ago, instead of reacting to
Washington's headlong march to Baghdad with our too-little-too-late diplomacy?
As Washington puts its final touches on long-laid plans for invading Iraq,
people all over the world, including Americans themselves, are
just as intent upon waging peace. And I believe that, war or no war, the peace
brokers have already won.
That is, the people have won. They claimed their majority and, working from
the grassroots up, they spoke their principles loud and clear. The first
voices were heard by others, and they in turn spoke up -- people of religious
faith, and people of no faith at all -- to join in a common cause. They've
all said a resounding "NO" to war.
Ex-statesmen like former American president and social
activist Jimmy Carter joined the chorus, along with spiritual leaders like
Pope John Paul II, people of arts and letters like Canada's Margaret Atwood,
and millions of others. All have borne witness to the power of peace.
Now countless voices in the U.S., the U.K. and Spain -- the three nations
whose leaders seem most intent on attacking first and
negotiating later -- are saying to the world that the coming war is not being
waged in their names.
Such a groundswell of public will has never happened in modern history -- not
before the First or Second World Wars, not before Korea, not before Vietnam --
all without a single declared shot being fired.
We are in fact witnessing a historic standoff. One superpower, armed with the
most expensive killing machines money can buy, faces millions (perhaps
billions) of people whose only power lies in their ethical solidarity;
people-power against a powerful, arrogant aggressor. Yes, the people may lose
the battle for Iraq, but they will not lose the war.
Why? Because never before have the warmongers felt so frustrated, so isolated,
and so universally unpopular. Having lost most of their public support, they
are on the defensive; and their war hasn't even officially started yet. If
they push blindly ahead and actually launch hostilities, they will most likely
lose their jobs as well -- by being voted out of office by those same
"ordinary" folks whose collective voices for peace have clearly caught them by
surprise.
If anyone still doubts the impact of peace-waging in these interesting times,
consider the message of Dr. Robert Muller, former assistant secretary general
of the United Nations.
The charismatic 80-year-old said recently in San Francisco, "Never before in
the history of the world has there been a global, visible,
public, viable, open dialogue and conversation about the very legitimacy of
war... Yes, the aggressor is angry and upset and spending a billion dollars a
day preparing to attack. But not one shot has been fired. Not one life has
been lost. There is no war. It's all a conversation."
This coming war will not be waged only against Iraq; it will be waged against
the will and the morals of people, most people, the world over. Certainly
France, Germany, Russia, and China will benefit economically from peace more
than from war, but this time they speak for the majority of their own citizens
who are for peace. They did not threaten military action to stop the war. All
they did was to threaten the use of their legitimate powers in the U.N.
Security Council to say "no." And that has infuriated both Washington and
London, who have become used to having their own way for so long.
Now, imagine once again: What if Canada had spent more on building a
first-class army of trained diplomats to wage peace than it spends on weapons?
The Americans do not need our small, polite army to invade Iraq, but they are
in dire need of respected third-party professionals to help them solve the
world's problems by non-military means.
So I hope more Canadians can be enticed to wage peace, one dollar at a time,
and that Ottawa will get the message. Please don't send my dollar back.
[Mohamed Elmasry, a University of Waterloo professor, is national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.
np@canadianislamiccongress.com]