From: Peace Movement Aotearoa

11 September 2007

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

Statement on the 6th anniversary of 9/11

It has now been six years since our world changed forever. We endure not only our own private pain, but the public acts of others who would memorialize those we loved, often in ways that are contrary to our beliefs.

During those six years we have had the privilege to meet other families around the world who have been directly affected by violence, through war, terrorism and genocide. And we have derived great hope from learning how many of these survivors responded to violence not with acts of retribution, but by working for peace through non-violent means. We have wept with them, we have laughed with them, we have even sung and danced with them. And through this embrace of our common experience, we are healing and learning. We have traveled the world and spoken to crowds of people yearning for peace and in speaking out for nonviolence we have touched the lives of hundreds of members of the human family.

But we have been unable to stop this war. We have witnessed the use of 9/11 to justify the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of our own soldiers have been killed. Two million refugees in Syria and Jordan languish in poverty and desperation. And we have witnessed as well the suppression of our constitutional rights at home. We have been unable to stop any of it.

The sights and sounds of Vietnam were ignored by those in power when they ordered the invasion of Iraq and the torture of prisoners. So they have repeated that nightmare scenario and the world watches in horror. What will it take to stop it? For if our leaders did not know before what horrific slaughter would ensue, they surely must know now.

And so we come to the sixthanniversary of the attacks of September 11th. There has been too little introspection concerning those attacks, no accountability from our government, and reports more secretive than revealing about what happened in the immediate aftermath of those attacks. Six years later, we have more questions than answers, more dead to mourn, and a thing with feathers still perches in our souls, yearning for peaceful tomorrows.

"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows" Martin Luther King, Jr.

[*] September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is an organization founded by family members of those killed on September 11th who have united to turn our grief into action for peace. By developing and advocating nonviolent options and actions in the pursuit of justice, we hope to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism. Acknowledging our common experience with all people affected by violence throughout the world, we work to create a safer and more peaceful world for everyone. http://www.peacefultomorrows.org

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