Bonds of Humanity: What Does Your Armband Mean?

This is a call to dialogue – an invitation rooted in the belief that we are all linked, and that compassion, understanding, insight and movement come when we practice listening to one another. How can we create the America that Will Be without first being honest, as a nation and as individuals, about where we are now, where we have been, and why?

How has war impacted us? We live in a world that has been shaped by war. Some of us have known war personally as members of the military, military families and friends, or as civilians and loved ones of civilians in war zones. We are people of one world with many nations, young and old. We are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and strangers. Our varying ideas around how to build a healthy world have been shaped by our experiences living, playing, working and studying in different places and with different people over our lifetimes. We bring our many individual experiences to form a complex, collective truth.

We join together, wearing symbolic black arm bands in order to:

  • · Mourn each life lost in war – lives of people we have loved and people we have never known.
    · Grieve the loss of mental, physical and emotional health caused by war and perpetuated by grossly insufficient access to long-term healthcare for both civilians and returning veterans.
    · Lament the destruction of land, air and water in war zones.
    · Call specifically, insistently and compassionately with or as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW.org), for:

  •
    • 1) Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq;
      2) Reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered, and
      a stop to the corporate pillaging of Iraq so that the Iraqi people can control their own lives and future; and
      3) Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women
  • · Generate discussion, connection, engagement and power in our communities, remembering that our knowledge is partial, and can be refined and expanded by the knowledge of others. We are many, and we create our future together.

We acknowledge the reality of many wars and many tactics. We believe that our conversations can hold the complexity of these realities. We anticipate a celebratory removal of our armbands based on what will be, with the end of the occupation of Iraq, one essential step in the direction of peace.

Suggestions for assembling your armband:

Find some black or mostly black fabric and a safety pin. If you don’t have any, ask around or find something cheap at a thrift store. Share with others…

  • -Cut a strip of fabric that is more than long enough to fasten with the safety pin(s) around your upper arm.
  • -Take some time to consider why you will wear this symbol. What will you say when people ask you about it?
  • -Attach a symbol of your own to your armband. The black strip of cloth is our symbol of collective loss, and the attached symbol will refer to our very personal motivations for participation in this dialogue.

You may consider reflecting on some testimony from the 2008 Winter Soldier Hearings by Iraq Veterans Against the War http://www.democracynow.org/features/winter_solider, In this World, a short poem by Wendell Berry http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/wendell-berry/14001, and/or For Eli, a spoken word piece by Andrea Gibson below: