At last I feel mitigated in my avid viewing of „The Next Generation“ and „Doctor Who“, for it seems that I am psychologically equipped for the reports of aliens tampering with the nuclear deterrent. I am not in the least phased by this, in fact I welcome our green friends to join “Global Zero” along with Henry Kissinger and President Obama. If they have found a way of turning the damn things off, then I don’t have to spend any more time on de-alerting, I can concentrate on organising a Nuclear Weapons Convention for Trekkies. And I quite agree with UFO researcher Robert Hastings, that all the secrets on extra-terrestrial activities for peace should be declassified. We have a right to know about this new peace movement from beyond.
But wait, there’s more: someone of unidentifiable origin is trying to turn off all the nuclear installations built by Siemens. Using a virus called “Stuxnet”, installations all over the world (well, okay, not in any of the recognised nuclear weapons’ states) began having problems, including Iran. The cyber war we have all been waiting for has begun and reporters are suspecting state sponsorship rather than terrorism. But what state could possibly want Iran’s nuclear installations to go offline? I wonder. On the other hand, it could be the beginning of a nuclear industry war between Siemens and Westinghouse.
I had only just finished laughing at that excellent film “The Men Who Stare at Goats” with George Clooney and Kevin Spacey, when I discovered that in fact it is all true. A glance at this article by Gary S. Bekkum in the American Chronicle confirmed that the US is still using “psychic spies”, now against Iran. So perhaps the Iranians should lock up their goats.
Bekkum asks the question that I know is on all your lips: is there a connection between cyber invasion and alien nuclear intrusion? Or worse still: will we soon be confronting a 9/11 scale “surprise attack against the human mind”? Apparently Stephen Hawking is convinced there will be an extraterrestrial invasion. I myself don’t mind, so long as they get rid of the nukes and then we can live in peace with each other. Hell, I’m not prejudiced against aliens. I was one myself for long enough.
Anyone remember that Edwin Corley science fiction book back in the 1970s called “The Jesus Factor”? I think I was about 14 when I read that and I have secretly believed that the conspiracy theory is true. Apparently the whole nuclear arms race was a bluff, the darn things just don’t work. Even so, I think we should get rid of them because they cost so much money.
While we’re on the topic of money, I was shocked to hear that just one new “Next Generation” nuclear-armed submarine is going to cost the United States 100 million dollars. Captain Picard would be very cross indeed. This news coincided with reports that people on state benefit (Hartz IV) in Germany are going to get a total of 5 Euros extra a month, so they have a grand total of 364 Euros (489 US dollars) a month to live on. I suppose people in other parts of the world would think they were lucky.
Moral of this story: in the next life, come back as a nuclear submarine. You get more money spent on you, go on world cruises and never actually see any military action. Besides, the missiles on board don’t work anyway. But you might get a visit now and again by an alien, a computer virus or even a psychic spy.
This post was originally published on IPPNW Peace and Health Blog
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Tags: Cyberwar, nuclear weapons, science fiction, Stuxnet
The Bigger Picture
Yesterday I did a press conference on behalf of the Congress organisers on the subject of nuclear disarmament. Christian Schönenberger from the Swiss Foreign Office joined us, as did Rebecca Johnson, Vice-Chair of ICAN.
Christian Schönenberger referred not only to the excellent speech by Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Swiss Foreign Minister in the plenary that morning, but also to the study that caused such a stir at the NPT Review Conference on “Delegitimising Nuclear Weapons“. The fact that nuclear weapons contravene international humanitarian law is a recurring theme, both in New York and here in Basel, and is fast becoming the central argument for the abolition of nuclear weapons. That might seem like a no-brainer for us but on the other hand but needs to be said repeatedly, especially since our friends at “Global Zero” are pushing the argument of fear against terrorism as being the main issue.
Since IPPNW and ICAN have the humanitarian aspect at the centre of their arguments for the abolition of nuclear weapons, I attempted to explain to the journalists present why that was so. And other than what would happen to people if nuclear weapons were used, which has been well documented by IPPNW, both in the case of accidental nuclear war and a so-called limited exchange (which would of course still be global because of the impact through the resulting smoke and drop in global temperature causing failure of harvests and mass starvation). But the point I wanted to make is that it is a humanitarian issue right now, because of the diversion of resources for nuclear programmes and our continuing failure to understand what kind of security humans need in the 21st century.
Take Pakistan as an example. Back then, when the decision was taken to build the nuclear bomb, the then Premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto said (and I don’t have the exact quote to hand) that even if Pakistan had to eat grass, they would make the bomb. Well, they are doing that now, because there is not enough money to help the people of Pakistan feed themselves in the face of these terrible floods. The diversion of resources into the military has left Pakistan unable to cope with this catastrophe.
This shows that investment in our security is completely inadequate. Houses are not built to withstand natural disasters, emergency relief is pitiful, even in daily life there is no protection from the big killers like malaria, dirty water, HIV, etc. Security is instead based on nuclear weapons, a weapon that cannot be used because of its own humanitarian and environmental impact.
It is time, in the 21st century, to understand that climate change and disease are the threats to our security and nuclear weapons do not protect us from them, so they are useless.
Time to retire the bomb.
This post originally published on Nuclear Abolition: For A Future
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Tags: ICAN, IPPNW, Pakistan
Cutting the Gordian Knot
“Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter” (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47)
Before you all physically or mentally traipse off to New York – volcanic ash allowing – I’d like to say something. Nuclear weapons do have a purpose. What I want to share with you may seem a tad too philosophical for your liking, but as the daughter of a philosopher and a nurse I feel that we may have been missing the point. Of course, we need to get rid of them. Like cancer, they are spreading disease that cause pain and suffering and no-one wants to talk about because of the feelings of helplessness they engender. But we are now, at last, really talking about nuclear weapons. That is a good start in the process of healing ourselves. Getting out of denial.
There are two sides to everything: a positive and a negative one. The negative side to nuclear weapons has preoccupied our thoughts almost exclusively up until now. We have left others to surmise what the positive side might be and have always simply negated it. No, they do not prevent war; no, they do not protect us from ruthless and unpredictable dictators; and so forth. But the true purpose of nuclear weapons lies in their absolute ability to destroy everything. The ultimate weapon of suicide for humanity as a whole. And this ability to destroy everything, discovered through the deaths of millions in two world wars, brought us to a brink. For the past 65 years civilisation has stood teetering on that brink and has not yet truly stepped back. The purpose of nuclear weapons is to constantly remind us of where we stand and of the task that humanity has before it: to make peace.
I am not arguing that we need to keep nuclear weapons to do this, quite the contrary. In order to make peace we have to talk about why we have nuclear weapons and how to get rid of them. In my opinion, this discussion has at last begun. All over the world protagonists for abolition are facing open doors (well maybe so much in North Korea, France or Israel) to the corridors of power where questions are being asked. How can it be done? What are the preconditions for nuclear abolition? What are the first steps? How high is the mountain and can we see the top?
Take Germany, for instance. Who would have thought that getting rid of 20 nuclear gravity bombs would end up being so difficult? Debating the role of nuclear weapons has brought all of the worms out of the woodwork of NATO. Suddenly we realise that – although the world has changed immeasurably – our attitudes towards security remain encrusted in Cold War thinking. We’re back to talking about missile defence and common security, the positions that Reagan and Gorbachev brought to the Icelandic negotiating table in 1986. Old Europe finds its anti-nuclear ambitions tied contractually to the fears and distrust of New Europe and is unable to do anything but reassure them that we will not do anything. Why is the US foreign minister proposing that we should hold on to these old relics unless the Russians are prepared to negotiate away theirs? Surely she knows that this means that nothing will happen? The Russians are equally unable to break free of the confines of the balance of terror. They see plans for Prompt Global Strike and cling desperately to their aging nuclear arsenal as the only possible answer.
To free ourselves from this scourge, we need to cut the Gordian Knot. It needs a bold stroke of unilateralism to engender trust and finally make peace with Russia. Both new START and the Nuclear Posture Review demonstrated how stuck we actually are, unable to do more than rearrange the numbers and engage in fine semantics without actually engaging in real disarmament. The withdrawal of the two hundred bombs in Europe could be one such bold stroke. A demonstration of goodwill and willingness to begin true negotiation. How can we make friends if we are afraid of giving a sign of weakness which in fact is a sign of real strength?
When I read the US Nuclear Posture Review I could see why it took so long to complete. It is the work of an administration in internal conflict. There are grand visions and statements alongside pettiness. You can almost smell the arrogant fear that is clutching its position of strength and pouring billions of dollars down the nuclear drain, while a small voice shines through, saying: “but in the future…” Yes, what about that future? This document doesn’t tell us how to get there. It talks of others giving up their small vestiges of power and of building up more reserves of strength, of remodelling its weapons and reaching into every corner of the earth with its military might.
How would I read this document if I was a proclaimed enemy of the United States of America, or even a potential one? I could not in all conscience say I will lay down my arms and leave my country defenseless. I would have to be another Mahatma Gandhi to do that. In the face of these expressions of absolute hegemony there is only one answer, and it is to wield the nuclear threat. Never mind that it is suicide, should we ever be forced to use it. Never mind that it will drain all our resources and poison our land and people.
If we could at last begin to understand the meaning of common security and how to achieve it, nuclear weapons would have served their purpose. It means putting ourselves in the shoes of our adversaries and understanding what their problems are. The process of negotiating nuclear abolition, like with any disarmament treaty before it, brings with it an exchange of needs and desires and seeks fulfilment of those, in order to bring security. A nuclear weapons convention is not just the phased reduction and elimination of the weapons themselves, it is about learning how to trust while evolving a system of verification (through governance and societal control) to underpin that trust. It means opening up and becoming transparent so that fear is reduced and less is based on assumption and more on reality. It also means talking about history and the reasons for conflict while seeking resolution. It means countries that have experience in resolving conflict stepping up to mediate with those who have not yet done so. It is, in fact, a whole new world.
We could begin the process in New York by committing to preparations for a negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention. Or we could stay here on the brink, distrusting and fearful. Some of us looking down into the maw of disaster and repeatedly crying for change. While others have turned their backs and pretend that nothing is wrong, saying there are other more important problems to be solved.
This post was originally published on IPPNW Peace and Health Blog
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Tags: common security, missile defence, START
Reality kicks in
13. Day Forty-two
You haven’t heard from me for a while, not since day twenty-seven and today is already day forty-two of this Lyme Diary. I’ve been concentrating very hard on two things: planning for next year and what I want to do when I’m healthy again (that’s real proactive positive thinking, or what we used to just cheerfully call “optimism”). And secondly, I’ve been working on my treatment.
I started a new antibiotic on day thirty-five. We Lymers call it Clary. All the antibiotics have nicknames, like old friends: Doxy, Metro, Tetra and so on. And then I had four days of “herxing” – that means Herxheimer reaction, the pain you suffer from bacterial die-off. Not nice, but necessary, unfortunately. So on day thirty-eight (that was Friday), I decided to try out the sauna and swimming pool right next door. It was heavenly. I’m going to go there again today, just as soon as I’ve finished writing this, and spend three hours sinking into a state of utter relaxation. I can see you all going green from here.
I’ll probably take the book with me that has kept me spellbound for the past week or so: “Cure Unknown” by Pamela Weintraub. The story is too complex for me to summarise here, but it takes you through the history of the discovery of Lyme disease in a place called – you guessed it – Lyme and what the medical and scientific community then did with it. It is not nice reading. It is a story of treatment denial and patient belittlement. And the worst of it is, it doesn’t seem to have got any better in the meantime. In fact, most doctors have been scared off treating chronic Lyme disease in the US at all. Actually, chronic Lyme disease doesn’t even exist. It has been renamed “post-Lyme disease syndrome”.
That word syndrome kills me. It always crops up when noone knows what else to call a disease where the cause is a subject of intense debate and no agreement has been reached on how best to treat it. Chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, Chernobyl syndrome. Look it up in the OED, it says: 1. a group of concurrent symptoms of a disease. 2. a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, behaviour, etc. Take your pick.
I could rant on for hours about Lyme disease, but I guess you don’t read this really to find out more about my complaint, even if it is shared by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. And the point of writing this therapeutic blog was to explore the connection between my chronic illness and the pitiful state of the world. In other words, why did I get sick in the first place?
One of the points made in the book is that not everyone gets sick, even if they are infected with Borrelia Burgdorferi. And the other point worth mentioning is that I was not sick all of the time in the last nine years either, only some of the time. Obviously, this has to do with the state of the immune system. The results of the test I had back in October showed that my CD57 rate was 47.9. This number indicates the level that the immune system is working at. A normal immune system should have a number between 60 and 360. Ergo, I have a suppressed immune system. This is a sign of an active, chronic infection and should disappear when treatment is successful.
But according to Weintraub’s book there are some questions about how much of the disease is caused simply by the bacteria and their toxins and how much is an immunity problem or even an autoimmune reaction. This is what the big fight is about. It could be, however, that it is a combination of both factors and not just one or the other.
So what gives us a strong immune system, other than eating endless quantities of fruit and vegetables like Mum told us to? That’s where the psychosomatic reality kicks in. An immune system is like a firewall. It keeps the pathogens out. But what happens when you are always worried about all the bad things going on in the world? What happens when you feel responsible for them because of your colour, your country’s history or even your own family history? What happens when although you work your socks off to change the world to be a better place and it just doesn’t happen?
I read Michael Moore’s letter to Obama today. I just adored his naivety. I hate resignation and people who say it isn’t worth bothering. It is worth bothering, because it is easier to live with yourself if you bothered and did something. But there is always the stupid, nagging question behind it all that says: but will it work? I know that as I read his letter I was thinking at the same time that Obama won’t change his mind and suddenly say, “Okay, I read Michael’s letter and decided to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan after all. Thanks for the tip, Michael!” I feel so sorry for everyone that hoped it might be different after all, that Obama would change more and the terrible disappointment they must feel. And I hate reading the e-mail messages that say “I told you so”. Yes, we did read the speeches before he got elected and we knew he had a bad policy on Afghanistan. But sometimes people are ostriches. Even me.
While the Empire of the United States is busy digging its own grave, the German government is giving the fox the run of the nuclear hen-house. Having handed over the regulation of nuclear power plants to a guy that was working for the nuclear industry, they have also just privatised the biggest nuclear dump in the country. Not enough to have Asse leaking radioactive sludge into the drinking water, let’s take the controls away from the next mega-dump. Gerald Hennenhöfer was the guy who – it was discovered back in 1998 – tried to cover up the radioactive contamination of Castor containers that Merkel had to take the rap for because she was Minister of the Environment. Obviously, she has since forgiven him.
And since I am on a roll with my complaining, I’ll just add the Swiss to my list of totally unbelievable idiots. Well, 57.5% of the ones that voted in the referendum anyway. Need I even mention why? Okay, the clue is “tower on mosque” and the answer has seven letters beginning with M. Can’t wait for that one to go before the European Court of Human Rights.
So what am I doing wrong? Caring too much? Probably. But how much is too much?
The moment where it all became more than just being active because of political awareness was when I became a mother, corny though it sounds. You can worry all you want about climate change but in the end its not going to be my funeral. But when you have a child you suddenly become acutely aware of the world you are passing on to the next generation and your responsibility for that. When I was childless, I used to ridicule those people who said in their speeches “for our children and our children’s children”. I said, “why not do it for ourselves?” I still think, academically, that we should care more about ourselves and not martyr ourselves for our children (especially our sleep!) But the real world is different. A child opens up a whole new panorama of fear. Sometimes I dream that I am witnessing some incredible violence and then I suddenly realise that Jaime is right beside me and he is seeing it too. It was bad enough when I was alone, but with him there it reaches a level of agony that is unbearable. I feel like I have failed to protect him. And I know, when I wake up, that that is the truth. I cannot protect him from this world, this brutal and polluted world. All I can do is show him the lovely things and share my sense of humour.
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Tags: antibiotics, autoimmune, borrelia, cd 57, change, herxheimer, lyme disease, michael moore, nuclear energy, pamela weintraub, positive thinking, war
Learning to Fly
12. Day Twenty-seven
The observant among you might notice that the numbering of these posts has changed. This is because I changed them. All of them. Day One is the day I started writing about my illness in order to externalise it, as part of the healing process (along with all the pills, dietary changes and exercise protocols). But since I don’t really want to write every single day, there are gaps. Today is day 27, but only my twelfth post. Got it?
This last gap was quite big because I was – once more – busy having a life. Good sign, huh? Several things were on the agenda:
- the second day of the Nobel Peace Summit;
- becoming a German;
- having my 50th birthday.
All of which were very notable and would deserve a post each, but no time for that, I’m afraid.
Going back to the Nobel Peace Summit, which feels like it was about a year ago, we need to revisit the Berlin Wall again. The title of the Summit was “Breaking Down New Walls for a World without Violence”. As I indicated in my last post, the old Wall actually still needs some demolition work on it, despite the fact that is so hard for tourists to find. And that Wall was the ultimate symbol of the Cold War, which used nuclear weapons to create a prison of fear that held us all in its iron grip. Well, the Wall has gone, but about a third of the nuclear weapons still exist. We have learnt to bury our fear in the unused nuclear bunkers that are now open for viewing by tourists, as though the problem is one we have already dealt with. Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
Paolo Cotta-Ramisino from the Pugwash Movement made a very salient point at the Summit. Everywhere, where we find Walls (and I mean Walls with a big “W”), we find nuclear weapons. Just as the Berlin Wall was the location of the nuclear stand-off, we find the same in Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, the Korean Peninsula – impenetrable Walls coupled with a nuclear threat. Taking down those Walls is the first step to resolving the conflict and getting rid of nuclear weapons. The core issue is conflict resolution.
And to resolve conflict, as any six year-old can tell you (because they learn it at school), it is important not to take sides. I add this to what Paolo had to say: “Extended Deterrence” – that is letting your country be a base for US nuclear weapons – is very definitely taking sides. Ergo, if Germany wants to do something about conflict resolution in the most dangerous places in the world, it should get rid of the nuclear weapons based on its soil. Basta.
Gorbachev made another very important point. The militarisation of the planet prevents us from saving it. In order to solve the major problems of our time, like climate change or poverty, we need all our resources and to work together. But instead the military budgets grow, we remain in conflict with one another and we still threaten each other with nuclear annihilation.
The third person I want to mention here, without in any way meaning to say that the others were not worth mentioning, is Annie Lennox, one of my most favourite people. Apart from being a great singer, she has a heart as big as a giraffe’s. The videos she showed of the AIDS catastrophe in South Africa left not one eye dry in the house. Even Wowi, the Mayor of Berlin, was weeping.
I wasn’t so sure whether I should stay for the award of Woman for Peace 2009 that was given to Annie. My feeling was that I had enough grief dealing with the nuclear issue, without enlightening (or burdening) myself with another topic like AIDS. But the truth is, they are all interconnected. We only have to join the dots. What you spend on this, you don’t spend on that. You can solve a problem through love and care, or you can drop a bomb on it, but you can’t do both. Winning hearts and minds while carrying a machine gun does not work. Militarism causes poverty, poor people can’t get education or medical care. The Millenium goals are not the goals of those who want maximum profit. Selling an F-16 fighter plane will earn you more money than digging a well. And so on, and so forth.
Well, we know all that. Like in the Easy Way, the point is not all the reasons that things are bad, but what can we do to get out of the prison? How to rid ourselves of the pathogens and become healthy again (or at last). Mairead Corrigan Maguire says: forget the past, you are not responsible for it; don’t look to the future, it will happen anyway. Live for the moment and enjoy it to the full. Actually, I was so busy listening to what she had to say, I didn’t write it all down, so I can’t be sure I remember it correctly. She was talking to the youth, but I still felt it was a message for all of us.
I dreamt that in order to fly, you just had to slow time down enough not to fall. Sometimes I was even able to do that in my dreams. During the daytime, I tried to slow time down by focussing fully on what was happening at that moment. That means that when I awoke, instead of thinking about what I was going to do that day , I listened to the birds in the garden or the footsteps of my husband in the kitchen, and felt how my body was or smelt coffee brewing. On the bike ride to work, I wouldn’t run over all the work I had to do that day, instead I would notice trees or little animals or how cross people in cars would look, what the weather was like, how the day smelt. Instead of getting places quicker, I wanted to get there slower.
That was a long time ago, before I gave birth. Having a child as a working mother (even a part-time one) speeds time up because you have to get to places on time, quickly and you have to remember all the things that need doing, and there are way many more things to do, and to remember to do. Multi-tasking is not a talent, it is a bare necessity. I would love to be able to just do one thing at a time. But there just isn’t the time.
Now, again, I have the time. Because I am sick. I can choose to use the time to my benefit or to benefit others. I can stay longer in bed after Jaime has gone to school and just lie there listening to the rest of the people in the house slamming doors and running to their cars, shouting at the kids to hurry up. I can read a book or watch a video. I can play Scrabble on the computer with people in other time zones. Jealous? I can work. I can write. And when Jaime comes home, we find time to talk about the day. What he did, what I did. And then we say: what shall we do now?
It is all a question of balance. Equilibrium. That is my weakest point. I am still trying to learn that yoga exercise where you stand on one leg. Hopeless. I always fall over.
If you only care about the world and not yourself, then you will get sick. If you only care about yourself and not the world, the world gets sick. And if you tell me you haven’t got time for both, then learn to fly. But it’s not easy.
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Tags: Gorbachev, lyme disease, Nobel Summit, nuclear weapons, The Wall, time, war
Walls Come Tumbling Down
11. Day Twenty-one
I didn’t write the blog yesterday because I was just too busy having a life. The 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall was something to behold, Berlin style. Big pompous show at Brandenburg Gate with Thomas Gottschalk and a spectacular domino event plus fireworks, while the more hands-on activist types like me preferred to take part in the “Mauer Mob”. We recreated the Wall by standing in the rain flashing our torches and holding the traffic up. The more they honked and hooted, the more Wallish we felt. And when they were really fed up, we gave them permission to travel and down tumbled the Wall once again, everyone applauding.
We welcomed people crossing from East to West, just like back then. I remember me and my friend Bryan going to the Ku’damm on the day after the Wall came down and going up to people in fur coats to say “welcome to West Berlin”. Well, you know – British sense of humour.
And then there was the guy in the pub from the East that said he was never, ever ever going to go back to the East, didn’t matter what anyone said, never ever. And several hours later he got up, drunk as a skunk, knocked on the table and said he was going home.
Trabis left in the middle of the street with a long line of honking traffic behind, while the occupants ran out to look in the brightly lit shop windows. The excitement was contagious. But it was hard to believe we were watching history in the making.
And in the usual Berliner style, everyone started to moan as soon as the hangover set in. The banks were full because everyone from the East was collecting their 100 DM “welcome money”. The underground was jam packed. The streets stank from the smell of the Trabis. The first T-Shirt was printed with “ich will meine Mauer wieder haben” (I want my Wall back). Up until today there are Berliners that refuse to cross the by now invisible border, only marked by a double row of cobblestones for the observant.
Yesterday, after meeting with a group of IPPNW students in the cafe beneath the taz newspaper on Rudi-Dutschke-Straße (remember Rudi Dutschke? Student leader in 1968?), I cycled back along the old route of the Wall from Kreuzberg to Treptow, my favourite cycle route. Houses are springing up along the way, parks have been created, but a few spots are still wild.
And today, everyone was full of it. The city was bristling with history. I joined the 10th World Summit of the Nobel Peace Laureates in the Red Rathaus a little late because of treatment for my knee (put getting healthy first, that’s the new protocol), and walked into a session on the implications of the Fall of the Wall.
Muhammed Yunus is probably fantastically well known and I’m the only dumbo who had never heard him. But boy did I hear him today. By far the best speaker of the whole pack, this little guy from Bangladesh really wowed the audience with wisdom. His main message: don’t concentrate just on the possible, let’s go for the impossible and get it done. The impossible will happen anyway, like the Fall of the Wall. The power of individuals, the power of joy, brought it down. Where is the enemy? It is in your mind. Our home is on fire – what are we negotiating about? As an inhabitant of this home we have to decide to make it safer, not more dangerous. All crises are rooted in the same cause – greed. And so on. Much too much good stuff to recreate here in a short blog.
But the funniest bit was this: when Gorbachev got back from meeting the German President, he joined in the session and all of a sudden an argument with Lech Walesa got underway. Gorbachev was promoting the idea of a common security architecture for Europe, perhaps in the form of a European Security Council. And Walesa said, that if we had that, we would be recreating the Soviet Union, because Russia would be dictating to them. No, no, protested Gorbi – it would be a common project of all concerned including all states in NATO, Europe and Russia. But Walesa wasn’t having any of it. Maybe in 10 years time, when Russia had learnt to recognise the independence of states on its periphery that have achieved their liberty. Only then, when the consciousness in Russia has changed could we have common security.
There was more to the argument, but the main reason I mention it here is to show that we have still a lot of baggage from those Cold War years, a lot of underlying conflict that is preventing us from achieving a new kind of inclusive security.
And that baggage is also to be found here in Berlin itself. A full generational cycle is needed to overcome it. For many people, prejudice against the “Wessies” or “Ossies” abounds. Walesa spoke about levelling the economic playing field in Europe in order for it to become more united. The same is also still true in Berlin. With the gradual gentrification of more and more neighbourhoods in the East, the poorer people are being driven further out and those are generally East Berliners. The West is expanding and driving rents up. I too moved from Kreuzberg to Treptow to live what was once the Cultural House of the GDR. Only Wessies live in our house and just two of our nine children go to a school in the East. But that’s another story (and it is really time for bed, remember? Health before politics).
Filed under: lyme diary, writing | 1 Comment
Tags: Berlin, change, Gorbachev, Nobel Summit, The Wall
Loud as a Whisper
10. Day Eighteen
You may have been surprised when I admitted to being a Michael Jackson fan, but I have another confession to make. I am a Trekkie. And after many years of being totally purist and insisting on only watching the orginal series, I have discovered The Next Generation and I like it. I remember when I saw it for the first time all those years ago, I couldn’t stand Captain Picard. I thought the man who played him was a terrible actor. Well he is really. But now, a week before my 50th birthday I realise that bad acting doesn’t bother me like it used to. And in any case, Star Trek was never really reknowned for the superlative acting skills.
My son likes The Next Generation as well. When he said to me he wanted to watch Star Wars I said, try this instead. Less shooting at each other, more humour and good storylines. But actually TNG is meant to be for 12 year olds and above. So you might often catch me late at night, when Jaime is already in bed, reviewing a TNG episode to see if its suitable for his young sensibilities. Well, it’s a good excuse to have to watch Star Trek.
The other night I watched “Loud as a Whisper” from the second series. And I was surprised by a moment that spoke to me in a way I had not expected. Riva, a deaf and dumb mediator who communicates through the help of a “chorus” of three people who can read his thoughts, has been mandated to settle a 15 century long conflict between two factions on some far-flung planet. During the briefing on board the Enterprise he talks about how to mediate in a conflict and it is pointed out that the conflict parties have been at war for so long, it has become personal. And he says “The basis for peace must also be personal”.
That brought me to thinking about an old favourite of mine: the political and the personal. In what way is one driven by one’s personal biography to hold a political position? Like Emma Goldman said “If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution”. So I often stop and look at parallels between my personal and my political life.
One of those was when I gave up smoking. I got the idea that I could write a series of self-help books on nuclear disarmament. “The Easy Way to Give Up Nuclear Weapons” for people addicted to having ultimate power over others. Learning how to reverse the brainwashing of nuclear deterrence sold to us by the military-industrial complex.
Here is a breakdown of what such a book might look like:
The IPPNW Easy Way to Give Up Nuclear Weapons
Confronting the Addiction to Power
1. How the method works
Don’t concentrate on the reasons why nuclear weapons are bad for us: the money, the slavery, the health risks, proliferation, etc. We know that already. Instead we concentrate on why states continue to possess nuclear weapons despite these obvious and well-known facts.
2. It is fear that keeps the nuclear weapon possessor hooked!
Fear of losing their status and power in the world or of being open to attack by another state. Fear of the effort needed to become free of nuclear weapons.
3. We remove these fears, to be FREE
After becoming nuclear weapon-free, using the IPPNW method, states enjoy the satisfaction of a new and morally improved image, a huge sense of relief, an increase in trust, and very large amounts of financial resources become available to spend on employment, education and health.
4. Reversing the brainwashing that led states to go nuclear
We don’t need nuclear weapons for our security. They don’t make us look smart.
5. Going from deterrence to empathy
How to talk to states so they will listen and listen so states will talk. Just like we don’t threaten our kids with violence when they don’t do what we say, we should use new methods for dealing with each other.
6. The Health Dividend
Nuclear weapons are very bad for our health. Without them, radiation levels are bound to sink and will be freed from the risk of annihilation.
7. Lots more money for better things!
Just think of the billions that we can spend on health and education. Maybe we will at last have enough money to spend on ridding the world of malaria and AIDS, real threats to our security.
8. “Light” nuclear weapon states
Those with only a few find it hardest to give up because they feel the big possessors should cut down first. But they are addicted just as badly.
9. Co-Dependency and Denial
Those in alliances are just as hooked. The NATO addiction. UK is in denial when it believes it is “independent”.
10. The nuclear industry profits from proliferation
The trojan horse of so called civilian nuclear power. How the only countries really interested in nuclear power are those who want the nuclear weapons “option”, and the industry knows it. (Parallel with the tobacco industry knowing how addictive nicotine is).
11. Listen to those who are free
Quotes from politicians in New Zealand, South Africa, Libya. The community of nuclear weapon-free zones.
And so on. You get the picture. Maybe I’ll get round to writing that one day. It was fun thinking it up, in any case.
But turn it round the other way. Not only applying the personal onto the political, but what does the political do to us personally? What does it mean if you are an activist and you spend most of your life trying to change the world for the better? It is so easy to lose yourself within that vocation and identify with it so much that it becomes us. What am I? Disarmament expert. And all the other things take second place. Mother, wife, writer, actress, painter, gardener, family historian.
My son is always trying to drag me away from the computer. In normal homes, it’s the other way round. The kids play a game on the trampoline called “atomic bomb” in the garden. If the ball falls on the ground, then they all fall down dead. That comes from my son, who never talks about ordinary bombs. They are always nuclear. When he was five, the Mayor of Hiroshima came to Berlin and he wanted to know why I had to spend so much time with him. So I told him about Hiroshima. He was probably the only five year old in Germany who knew what happened in Hiroshima in 1945. Is that good? I don’t think so. He goes around taking toy guns off the other children and throwing them away. But they know why he does it. It’s because of his mother. Even they try to explain to me that I don’t have to worry, the guns aren’t real. As if I didn’t know.
The story of the military psychologist in Fort Hood haunts me. He didn’t want to be posted to Iraq. Some say he had arguments with other people on the base because he was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first is personal, the second political. Who knows what came first. But it becomes very personal when the shooting starts. For everyone concerned. And then when the shooting stops, it becomes political again. What the media reports, what the consequences are, what we are led to believe. Someone wants us to know that he was a Muslim and regularly attended the Mosque. It is rumoured that he posted stuff on the internet about suicide bombings. They don’t say whether it was in favour or against. They report that maybe it wasn’t even him that wrote them. We are offered pieces of a puzzle that add up to a picture that is pre-planned.
A young colleague writes “the existence of nuclear weapons hurts my heart”. I can only say we have a duty to ourselves to remain unbroken in the face of so much that is broken.
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Tags: change, conflict, nuclear weapons, star trek
Heal the World
9. Day Sixteen
Hey, I feel great. Almost no pain at all. Two whole days already. Probably because I stopped taking the Colestyramin. Or because I took it. Is it a good sign or a bad sign that there’s no pain? Was I having Herxheimer reactions (sign of bacterial die-off) and now I’m not? Well, who cares, really? Its just great to feel great.
I stopped taking Colestyramin because I’m switching to Quantalan because it’s sugar free. That’s the same stuff they gave me almost exactly nine years ago when I was in hospital with the high liver counts. Deja vu. Or rather deja bu. Its like coming full circle, which is somehow comforting, don’t ask me why.
So I bet when you saw the title of this blog post you thought “oh oh, she’s gonna go on about Michael Jackson again”. Well it did cross my mind, being such a big fan and all, but you’ve probably had enough of hearing about him lately. I will admit that we are going for a second time to see “This is It” on Sunday, and taking two of Jaime’s friends with us because their parents wouldn’t be seen dead going to it, but the kids want to go, of course.
Now “Heal the World” is one of my least favourite songs. I’m not a great fan of these lets-get-together-a-bunch-of-big-stars-to-sing-a-song-for-the-world sort of songs. The cynic in me balks at the sentimentality of it. One wonders how much the Bob Geldofs of this world actually change, deep down, at the end of the day. Ending poverty is a noble cause that anyone can put their name to, but we have to ask ourselves how we got rich in the first place. Because we are rich. I can guarantee that anyone reading this blog is rich compared to those who live in sub-Saharan Africa or in a favela in Brazil. Ooh I can hear the screams of: she’s equating poverty with lack of computer literacy. But all I am saying is: my problems are not the problems of a poor person, so why would they bother reading this blog? I wouldn’t.
Jaime asked me yesterday what the CEO of VW earns. He wanted to compare it to what his father earns in order to know if we are rich. Of course, if you use that scale then we are big losers in terms of hard cash. But then, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that money, really I wouldn’t. I’d probably give it away.
Yesterday, I spent most of the day writing a draft work plan for 2010. Big year coming up for nuclear disarmament. Well it could be, if things go as planned. And that’s the idea, you see. By getting rid of the worst of all the weapons you begin to change the mindset. If we could get Germany to publicly say that they don’t need a nuclear umbrella to feel safe, then people can start to redefine security. Security is built on trust and friendship, not weapons. And think of the resources that would free up that could be used on real human security: safe drinking water, a roof over everyone’s head, better protection against disease, education for all.
I read about the British soldiers who were shot up by the Afghan police trainee in the paper. At the same time, German politicians were praising the new defence minister for at last calling it a “war” instead of an “overseas contingency operation” or some such euphemism. For many Afghans, we are just the next lot of invaders. The new pathogens in a long history of chronic conflict. The only difference is that we say that we want to get out, only we don’t know how. No exit strategy. And meanwhile we are destroying the psyche through trauma of the young men fighting in that war, like Iraq, like Vietnam, the Falklands. They come home and beat their wives, or worse.
I shouldn’t have read that newspaper today. Everything in it bothered me (except the one article that quoted my organisation on the question of post-traumatic stress disorder). Yesterday, I make big plans of how to advance nuclear disarmament as a therapy for the world’s ills. Today, I read about the world’s ills – Afghanistan, CIA kidnappings, unfulfilment of climate change promises, reversal of the nuclear phase-out – and I think: those plans aren’t big enough. Little drop on hot stone, as they say here.
So what am I saying? I have to heal the world to heal myself? I have to heal myself to heal the world? The latter sounds more realistic, albeit more selfish. But if I get any sicker then I can’t do anything at all and that would be useless. On the other hand, maybe I can’t do anything that will be significant enough to help heal the world. Still, I can make myself feel better by doing something. And every now and again, I get quoted in a newspaper too and it feels good.
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Tags: change, climate change, conflict, herxheimer, lyme disease, nuclear weapons, pathogens, war
This is it
8. Day Twelve
People look at me askance when I say how much I love Michael Jackson’s music. Except my husband who feels exactly the same. And now my son is in love with him too. He probably would never have bothered to listen to him had he not upped and died.
We went to see “This is it” on Halloween. Very fitting, I thought. There is something spooky about MJ’s story. And the remake of Thriller was perfect too. But the line that I took with me out of the cinema and back home was when he said “I just love the earth”. The man is not just a tragic figure, a product of our sickened society practically born in a limousine, unable to go shopping without closing the shop down but totally fixated on materialism. He was also someone really genuine, truly honest, very simple. He let them destroy his face in order to be beautiful and ended up looking only gruesome. But he really really would have done anything he could have, anything at all, to save the world.
Now I can identify with that. Saving the world and all that jazz. Right up my street. Yet at the same time I often look around, especially at crowded airports, and think: I wish we humans would all just go away. We are like vermin filling up every available space on this earth with the things we want. Like my kid’s wish list that has everything in the 2009 Lego catalogue on it, we want everything and we want it now. Another motorway to get to work quicker, another car to drive the kids to their play-dates on the other side of town, another house because the other one had the wrong neighbours, another computer with broadband, blu-ray instead of DVD, bargains galore, gadgets, touch-screen mobile phones that get you quicker onto Facebook, more Tweets per screen.
Underneath it all is the earth. Crammed fuller than my son’s wardrobe. Need some more space? Rip up another rain forest. Have a hamburger but don’t think about what you’re eating in case it chokes you. Climate change is earth’s sweet revenge on mankind. Now we won’t have to fly south to get sunburn. Only trouble is the polar bears. Wiping them out seems a high price to pay, but then we still have Knut only a bus ride away. Yeah and a couple of those very flat islands will have to go, but since we have to stop flying so much we won’t be visiting them anyway. In any case I am rather fond of mountains and some of them might even still have snow on them.
Soon we will be tired of all the complaining about the environment and turn back to the big screen to watch death and destruction or maybe play Modern Warfare II for a while. It is, after all, our forte. Killing. But even in this day of drones and virtual Eyes in the Sky piloted by men 7000 miles away, shooting at images on a screen like the video games the kids eat for breakfast, atrocities are still being committed in the name of freedom and democracy. Only the numbers are not so mind-boggling as they once were. And yet one single life of the people living in the same land as our enemies should be worth at least the same as an unborn embryo, surely? Pro-life? Or only pro American life? Not even that, if you take capital punishment into account. Who is to decide which life is sacrosanct and which isn’t? The grounded pilot at his screen in the Nevada desert shooting at “hot guns” in Afghanistan?
Anyway, I think I got the point at last. It came to me after watching “This is it”. I care too much about the world. My empathy is such that I have internalised all the pain. I am suffering along with the world, the earth. It is easy to understand why MJ took painkillers. It hurts to look, but some of us just can’t look away. And the feeling of responsibility, of being a part of the problem, means that it isn’t possible to just drop out either. To just go and live by the ocean and watch the waves, or on top of a hill with a view of the forest and grow your own vegetables. Or in Neverland. I too would die of loneliness.
There is no other choice but to try and change the world and save it from further destruction by the incredibly stupid or unbelievably greedy. That description covers a good two-thirds of us (not including you, of course). Resignation is not an option, that would mean the pathogens would win.
When I at last allowed myself the luxury of having a child, I let the whole world in. My defences were dropped and I made myself vulnerable. In order to love someone as much as a mother loves a child the dangers around me became personal. He could die any time and it would kill me. No, it would be worse than that, an agony that defies description, living with that kind of loss. The birth of my son meant living in fear that he would be taken away again. We are no longer talking about wars that happen to other people, or reckoning up the millions of dead after a nuclear holocaust. We are talking about me and my love (how selfish). Too much to bear even thinking about but true to type I think about it.
We have to save the world because I can’t bear to tell my son that we didn’t and he will have to live with the mess we made. Even now I hear the youth telling us that it is our fault. Well it is and I know, but I just don’t know if we can really do anything about it. Even though every word that I breathe says the opposite and people ring me and mail me to ask what we should do. Write a letter, join a flashmob, start a Facebook cause, tell your friends and while you’re at it, tell your enemies. Recycle, shop at the food co-op, eat organic food, ride a bicycle. Be good, be careful, remember the date.
At the end of the day the beauty of life is really in the moment, however kitsch that sounds. Not in a possibly unattainable future. Every tiny victory is worth celebrating because it might be the last one. If you wait to see what the outcome will be before having the party, you might never have a party. Better get on with it. Even the rehearsal could be as much fun as the show itself – this is it.
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Tags: birth, climate change, lyme disease, pathogens, war
Xanthe Hall
