SPC
Home 
Back
to PNL Page From January 2-8, 2002, I attended a Peacemakers Training Institute for young
adults, sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. This program is designed
to train young activists in nonviolence and organizing, and to teach them about
peace and justice issues. The Syracuse Peace Council, along with other local
organizations, gave me a donation so I could attend this training.
This year’s institute centered on the three evils identified by Martin
Luther King, Jr.—racism, poverty, and militarism. The rich get richer,
and the rest are getting poorer. Meanwhile, US government spending on the military
continues at a terribly high level.
The following statistics show the interconnectedness of economic injustice and
militarism, with racism.
A) by 2017, there will be more African-Americans in prison than the number of
slaves at the height of slavery
B) 46.5% of African American youth are in poverty (less than $17,000 per family
per year)
C) 50% of front-line soldiers in the Gulf War were African-American.
Our social and governmental systems contribute to the continuation of poverty,
racism, and exorbitant military spending.
King says our values must change:
We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to
a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives
and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets
of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. (King,
“A Time To Break Silence,” pp. 231-241, in A Testament of Hope, ed.
James Washington.)
It is important to build communities where people are valued more than things.
In accordance with this change in values, our society should redirect money
to services such as education, healthcare, housing, and food, rather than to
the production of weapons to destroy others. Also, if all people in the community
cared about the well-being of everyone, the tremendous gap between the richest
10% and everyone else would begin to shrink.
For more information on these issues, see:
Poverty—United for a Fair Economy: www.faireconomy.org
Militarism—War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org
Racism—The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond: www.thepeoples
institute.org
It was inspiring to spend a week with a group of young, dedicated activists.
It is my hope that young and experienced activists can work on these issues
together to bring about a more just society.
—Christi Jureller