Sen Shahani's Speech on Peace ( pt. 1 )

Sen Shahani urges peace within and without    (Editor's Note: Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani of the Phillippines delivered this keynote speech at the "Breaking Down Barriers & Building Bridges of Peace" Conference on April 29, sponsored by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson's office, the Dallas Peace Center, Peacemakers Inc. and the DFW International Community Alliance. Sen. Shahani is the co-chair of the Third International Women's Peace Conference to be held in Dallas July 10-15, 2007.) It is a great honor for me to be invited by the World of Women for World Peace, an organization founded by the dynamic Congresswoman from Dallas, Eddie Bernice Johnson, as well as by the Peacemakers, Inc., the DFW International Community Alliance and the Dallas Peace Center to speak before you today on the theme of “Breaking Down Barriers and Building Bridges of Peace”.  I have come all the way from the Philippines to come to the beautiful city of Dallas for this happy and memorable occasion.  Although this is only my second visit to Texas, I am not a stranger to the United States.  I lived for many years in New York and Washington, D.C., went to college in Wellesley and finished graduate work at Columbia University.  I spent nine years in the United Nations Secretariat about four of which were spent in New York City.  As you can see, my stay in your country was spent in the Eastern seaboard, facing the Atlantic Ocean and Europe.  I am, indeed, looking forward during this visit of mine to learn more about the mothers and women of the Lone Star State of the USA, which is also the native state of your President, George W. Bush.  Dallas, Texas is also the venue of the forthcoming International Women’s Peace Conference which will be held in July 2007.  It is a privilege to have been invited by the President of the Conference, Carol Crabtree Donovan, to serve as her Co-chair for the conference.  Carol and I have been working together for the past few months and I certainly look forward to collaborating with her closely in putting together such a worthwhile project.  At the end of this talk, I hope, together, we shall have planted several seeds of peace. Peace Begins With the Self I shall start with something very obvious and because it is so obvious it is easily overlooked and taken for granted, that is, peace begins with us,, thus, the subtitle of my talk: “Peace Within and Peace Without”.  This is a truth which mothers, who are the number one peace-makers and peace advocates in the world, instinctively understand.  This is because they want to raise happy children whom they want to live in a peaceful world.  Mothers instinctively shun violence and avoid hurting others in the same manner that they would treat their own children. The Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) opens with this moving statement: “Since wars begin in the   minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” There is no escape from the fact that the beginnings of war and violence originate in the dark recesses of the human mind and heart, in the same way that hopes for a better tomorrow begin with an inner radiant vision.   We, who are advocates of peace, must be peaceful within and, more than that, we should manifest our inner state of peace in our daily behavior and lifestyle if we are to live in peace with our families and with the outside world.  This is what I mean by the phrase “peace without” which is part of the title of my speech.  This meeting today is an indication of that universal longing for peace inside and outside ourselves, the origin of which is a spiritual insight signaling to us that peace and harmony are the basic conditions of life without which we cannot hope to evolve as human beings nor progress as families, communities and nations.  My long-time guide in combining the inner and outer worlds of peace is Mahatma Gandhi, the great spiritual and political leader and the father of the Indian nation.  He was single-minded in his quest for God and truth but social reform and the struggle for the independence of his country were his chosen playingfields; he did not follow the monastic and isolated path.  Gandhi once said: “I could not be leading a religious life unless I identified myself with the whole of mankind and that I could not do unless I took part in politics.”   But why is peace, all the same, so elusive and fragile? Because, as Gandhi found out through his own life, there has to be a deep personal commitment to be peaceful, that is, not to be angry or violent in thought, word and deed.  As peace advocates, we must be at peace with ourselves and with others, even in thought which does not necessarily manifest itself in action.  This is not easy to do but we should strive to achieve this stage. Yet, the perfect peace we desire, that is, peace within and peace without, cannot   be completely achieved and sustained because many events are beyond our control, in terms of time and space.  The beginnings of the Arab-Israeli conflict, for example, go back to Biblical times.  The seeds of the Cuban-American enmity, in the same way, were already planted during the discovery of the Americas by two ethnic groups with different cultures, the Anglo-Saxons and the Spaniards who came from Europe.  Years of misunderstanding and inequality have led to deep-rooted conflicts which cannot be resolved nor transcended by concerned groups or even by entire nations.  As a result, many of the proponents of peace become angry, vindictive and blinded by hatred because they discover that events are beyond their control or influence.  With this frame of mind and heart, there can be no peace, only increased oppression and renewed violence.  Peace does not only mean the absence of violence.  It requires mutually accepted virtues such as truthfulness, respect for the human rights of others, objectivity and, yes, gentleness.  Peace among Nations What we are interested at this gathering dedicated to honoring mothers and also in preparation for the International Women’s Peace Conference in 2007 is to help achieve peace among nations as well to foster friendly relations and understanding among women from different countries and cultures.  I firmly believe that a first step which women peace advocates should take in our confused and troubled times is to acquire accurate knowledge of the geography, history and foreign policiesof our respective countries.  If I may be allowed to say so, this is particularly important for Americans.  I say this not only as a former diplomat of the Philippines but as a functioning NGO at present.  You might be tempted to say: “But we have nothing to do with the State Department or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of my country.  We don’t care about Government.  We just want to help create peaceful conditions and friendly relations.”   I suppose for many of you the careers of ambassadors or diplomats are something that is far too removed from your daily lives.  But what diplomats do is important for they implement their countries’ foreign policies in their respective posts.  What the American Ambassador in Iraq does everyday can advance the cause of war or peace; what the Chinese Ambassador decides in Washington, D.C. about his priorities in relation to the trade deficit of this country can affect the lives of many Americans; what the Philippine Ambassador does in Saudi Arabia to protect the human rights of Filipino women workers in the country of his assignment affects the  record  of the Philippine Government at the United Nations in the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. We should be ambassadors of peace in our own way; but more than that we are peace volunteers because we our hearts tell us to be so, not because it is just another official job to do.  There seem to be two forces which motivate and push individuals as well as nations as they interact with each other.  On the one hand, there is the desire to live in peace with one’s neighbors and with the rest of the world; on the other, there is the drive to compete with each other, to the extent of wanting to dominate the weaker ones, and be acknowledged as the superior presence in the neighborhood or geographic region.  These two contradictory forces can also be complimentary and, I believe, it is in coming to terms with these two tendencies for sustained harmony and for intense competition, that we can create the conditions for peace in the world, a “win-win” situation as modern managers calls it. I realize this particular aspect of international relations is too vast and complex to be covered at this meeting but let me, for the sake of illustration, confine myself, using broad strokes, to the Spanish American War (l898).  This event is close enough in time and space to those of you from Texas and the other states of the Southwest region of the USA to have affected your lives, even up to the present.  It is also this event which brought the Philippines under the political control of the United States and assured the presence of the United States in the Western Pacific and East Asia, an event which made it a major world power.  Philippine-American relations continue to affect today the daily lives and fortunes of the Filipino people.  I am aware I am treading on controversial waters but peace advocates, like ourselves, if we are to be effective, must be intellectually courageous and emotionally strong, to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and understand the origins of causes to which we commit ourselves. . In addition, the passage of time since the Spanish-American War, has tempered the heat and passion of the day.  Americans and Filipinos can look at the matter, I hope, in a more detached and constructive way.  I might also add that the analysis of this example can be used for similar events the world over. The Spanish-American War (l898) You will recall that the oppressive and despotic rule of Spain as a colonial power caused resistance in two of their colonies far away from each other – Cuba and the Philippines.  The demands of the Cuban patriots swayed the US Congress to intervene in Cuba.  The expansionists in the US Government saw an opportunity for  the emerging colossus of the North to get a foothold in Asia through the Philippines, Spain’s colony in that part of the world.  I might also add that there was organized at this time the Anti-Imperialistic League whose members were the writers Mark Twain and William James. The sinking of the USS Maine with the loss of 260 American lives exacerbated the situation. To cut a long story short, President William McKinley on April 20, l898 signed the Joint Resolution of Congress to declare war on Spain.  It was at the same time that the Philippine revolution against Spain was gathering momentum after more than three centuries of oppressive colonial rule. The efforts of great Filipino heroes like Dr. Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio culminated in the establishment by General Emilio Aguinaldo of the Malolos Republic in l898, the first Republic in Asia to be successfully established against Western colonial rule. The Filipinos would have succeeded in their revolution against Spain had not a stronger power, America, appeared onthe scene and made the Philippines suffer colonial rule, a second time around. By the Treaty of Paris of December l0, l898, Spain renounced all rights to Cuba, allowed an independent Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, bought the Philippines from Spain for $20 million dollars and imposed over the islands American sovereignty. The Filipinos continued their struggle for their fledgling independence this time against the Americans and thus began the Philippine-American war, a bitter three-year war which claimed the lives of 4,200 American soldiers, 20,000 Filipino soldiers and 200,000 Filipino civilians.  Think of all the Filipino and American mothers of that period grieving over the loss of their sons in a war (the Philippine-American War) whose origins were based on chance and accident.  It is my considered opinion that loss of lives and property could have been avoided if Americans understood the Filipinos’ long and frustrating struggle for national independence and granted them, instead, greater autonomy.  Memories of the Filipino-American War persist even until today, the most vivid of them pertaining to the bells of Balingiga, a town in Eastern Samar, Philippines.  Allow me to relate the story not to rub salt on old wounds or to re-stir a hornet’s nest but to show how peace was lost and how it could be won again. In l899 during the Filipino-American war, Filipino insurgents surprised and killed a contingent of about fifty American soldiers stationed in Balingiga. According to plan, the church bells were rung to alert the Filipino soldiers to begin their assault on the Americans. It was a well-coordinated and successful operation. The victory of the Filipinos, however, was short-lived.  In a few days, the Americans, angry and humiliated, returned with a plan to burn the town and reduce it, to use the language of their American general, to a “wilderness”. They did just that, destroyed the whole town, killed civilians and Filipino soldiers and brought back with them to the USA two big bells of the church tower of Balingiga as their war trophy. This is not surprising for after all to the victors belong the spoils of victory.  Also, let us not forget – history is written by the victors. Over the past years the town of Balingiga tried to recover the bells, claiming that under the Articles of War church property cannot be taken as war souvenirs or war trophies. Nothing moved for many years until the appeal finally reached the highest levels when President Fidel V. Ramos, in l996, transmitted the request to then President Bill Clinton; to recover the bells.  After both sides tried to find a solution, a Solomonic decision was reached whereby the US would retain one bell and the Philippines could keep the other.  Just when President Clinton was going to sign the appropriate Executive Order, a Senator from Wyoming (whose name I have yet to verify) objected to the arrangement on behalf of his veteran constituents who wanted to keep both bells which, they felt, belonged to the USA.  The bells remain in Wyoming until now.  Don’t you think it would do so much for peaceful relations between our two peoples and countries, now good friends and tested allies over the years, if both sides kept a bell each?  The Philippines and the USA had their reasons to want the two bells but since this was not possible why not settle for less?  In the pursuit of peace, it is sometimes necessary to compromise or to be content with what one gets.  Perhaps the saying: “Half a loaf is better than none.” applies in this case.  I have related this episode because it illustrates how superior power can obstruct justice.  Perhaps there will be some women in this audience, real peace activists, who will help bring one bell back to Balingiga while the other remains in Wyoming.