From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Fri May 08 2009 - 23:27:52 EDT
Do You Know Why Mother's Day Was Started?
By Jodie Evans, The Women's Media Center
Posted on May 7, 2009, Printed on May 8, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/139897/
Women know that war is SO over. We know it in our hearts, in our guts, in
our wombs. We know that the madness in Iraq and Afghanistan has to end,
that we cannot keep sending our children to kill the children of mothers
across the globe. Last month at an appearance in Turkey, President Obama
himself said “…sometimes I think that if you just put the mothers in
charge for a while, that things would get resolved.”
It is nearly 140 years since Julia Ward Howe wrote her Mother’s Day
Proclamation, a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War
and the Franco–Prussian War. It flowed from her feminist belief that
women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.
Every year since CODEPINK began in 2002, we have worked to remind the
public and media that Mother’s Day isn’t really about Hallmark and
Teleflora, but was a call for women to gather in “the great and general
interests of peace.” Howe knew then what we know now. It will take
women’s leadership to undermine what have become the USA’s greatest
exports: Violence, Weapons and War.
This year we knew those who could attend our 24-hour weekend vigil outside
the White House would be smaller than before, given the fiscal crunch we
are all feeling. We created a project so those who wanted could add to the
activities. In the past we have done an aerial image of thousands of bodies
spelling Mother’s Say No To War photographed from the Washington Monument
with the White House in the background. But this year we put out a call for
people to knit pink and green squares that we would sew together to read
“We will not raise our children to kill another mother’s child” and
place across the White House fence. Thousands of pink and green knitted
squares have been filling the basement of the CODEPINK house in D.C. They
arrive with stories of how they were knitted with love, passion and
conviction, with photos of the joys shared in knitting circles around the
world. The surprise has been that more women than ever want to participate,
more women want to join together in community and engage in conversation.
They want answers. What they hear in the media makes no sense. Why are we
leaving more soldiers and private mercenaries in Iraq and not getting out
on the date promised? Why are we moving soldiers to Afghanistan when our
military has told us there is no military solution? How can we end the
violence and protect the women? How can we turn our back on the women and
children in Gaza? Why is the military budget larger than under Bush (and
that’s not counting another supplemental on Iraq and Afghanistan tacked
on)? Why are we spending so much money on destruction, when Obama himself
said in his inaugural address, “people will judge you on what you can
build, not what you destroy”?
Women are fired up to gather together and expose the emptiness of the
continued push for more weapons and more money for war.
We hope that our gathering on Mother’s Day will plant the seeds of new
energy and new coalitions we will need to affect a world drunk on war. It
falls on us to bring peace to the table, to push our way to the table and
not let up. Women know that instead of sending our young people overseas as
soldiers, we need to send troops of doctors, teachers, business leaders,
economists, farmers and peacekeepers who can build the economic structures
for security to take root.
During our Mother’s Day weekend in DC, we will celebrate our sisterhood
with song and poetry and fun, peace-building children’s activities, but
we will also share our pain and grief by hearing the stories of women whose
lives have been shattered by war—both women from war zones and mothers of
American soldiers. When we bear witness to one another’s stories, we
create a deeper, more compassionate foundation from which we can work
together for peace.
Even if you can’t join us in D.C., you can send a rose to honor a mother
whose life has been profoundly affected by war. On Mother’s Day we will
deliver the roses to the mothers and tie others to the fence outside the
White House as a memorial to the dead and a moving call for peace.
However you spend your Mother’s Day, remember those women who have
relentlessly stood for our rights in the past and know that we can bring
peace. But first we MUST see it as possible and put our hoe in the ground.
Jodie Evans is a co-founder of Codepink: Women For Peace.
© 2009 The Women's Media Center All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/139897/
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