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Peace

By Nasrin Zahed

A small yet meaningful display of unity and hope unfolded at Resistance Corner in Port Jefferson Station last Sunday, Nov. 5.

This was no grand protest outside the hamlet’s Train Car Park but rather a quiet gathering. Along the side of the road, cars passing by, demonstrators delivered a message of peace and compassion against the stark backdrop of geopolitical unrest in the Middle East.

A handful of peace demonstrators stood by the roadside holding small, homemade signs bearing messages calling for peace in Gaza.

“It is important for our community to come out and let people see that we’re here,” said event organizer and Port Jeff resident Myrna Gordon. “We’re active. We’re not going to be silent while tens of thousands of people are being killed, injured and homeless.”

Gordon urged that locals throughout Long Island should lend their voices to speak up on international affairs such as these. “We have to step up,” she said. “It’s not taking a side — it’s for humanity.”

This message encapsulated the essence of the gathering, bringing to light the voices of those who desired a halt to the ongoing violence. They maintained that taking a stand for humanity was paramount, irrespective of their background or identity, and as necessary.

As cars whizzed by, the demonstration continued a small yet resolute display amid everyday life.

Photo by Raymond Janis

Congregants, community members and peace advocates gathered Sunday, Jan. 15, outside the Mount Sinai Congregational Church to erect a Peace Pole.

The ceremony was part of the international Peace Pole Project, a program that has spread to every country with the universal message of global peace. 

Kevin Mann, president of the Rocky Point Rotary Club, attended the service. Though not a member of the Congregational Church, he traced the church’s long history championing various social causes throughout American history.

“Before the term ‘social activism’ was invented, this congregation was doing it,” he said. “This congregation’s history goes all the way back to being a part of the Underground Railroad. They also had the first free men of color as members,” adding, “They were always ahead of the curve and involved in every single social activism movement.”

Sunday’s peace ceremony carried symbolic significance as well, marking the 94th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Tom Lyon is a congregation member and co-founder of Building Bridges in Brookhaven. “Martin Luther King did get the Nobel Prize for Peace,” Lyon said. “That wasn’t just about the United States. That wasn’t just about segregation. He talked about universal love, unrequited love. … That’s kind of the concept: the universality of peace.”

He added that King “spoke out against the Vietnam War, which became very controversial. That was in 1967, exactly a year before he was killed.”

To Lyon, peace is often caricatured in popular culture as passive, even pacifistic. The example of MLK, he said, awakens one to the possibilities of peace, something he viewed as highly active and courageous. 

“Martin Luther King was always talking about how being a person of peace takes much more courage, much more strength, than a person who just gives into their anger or acts out violently,” Lyon said. “To seek peaceful solutions often is more difficult, more challenging, but in the long run, that’s what we feel we’re called to do.”

Corridor of Peace

Above, Tom Lyon (left) and Kevin Mann pose with the newly planted Peace Pole outside Mount Sinai Congregational Church. Photo by Raymond Janis

The Peace Pole planted at the congregation is part of a major local effort tied to the Peace Pole Project, the proposed Corridor of Peace, coordinated by the Rotary. 

“We are attempting to declare a Corridor of Peace, which is [routes] 25 and 25A and four school districts at the moment — Rocky Point, Miller Place, Shoreham-Wading River and Longwood — that will designate how they want to make their communities a more peaceful environment,” Mann said.

Through this initiative, Mann hopes community members can better understand the problems unique to their area and work toward positive change. “You have very common themes and issues — food insecurity, inequality, housing, opioid addiction — many things,” Mann said.

Through the project, he sees an opportunity “to continue to increase the quality of life for people in the corridor.”

Lyon added to this sentiment and vision. He said members of the corridor could find unity through shared values and a mutual desire for peace. “Hopefully, people in the communities of peace will be reminded that’s the connection with the Peace Pole Project,” he said. “You see one in front of a couple of stores or another in the neighborhood where you are walking. It’s just a reminder.”

Conflict abroad

Mann and Lyon defined the Peace Pole Project as apolitical, a program committed to the mantra, “May peace prevail on Earth.” However, both acknowledged the ongoing human conflicts around the globe, namely the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Lyon said the Peace Pole Project reminds Americans of the need to promote peace, especially when the United States is not at war. “It’s sometimes easy to be a little complacent when things are going good for us as Americans,” he said. However, the project is “a universal thing,” and the cause for universal peace applies equally to Americans as it does to Ukrainians and Russians.

Outlining the Rotary’s response to Russian belligerence, Mann said the club has sponsored training for trauma nurses and has even brought a 9-year-old Ukrainian girl to Long Island for heart surgery. 

“There’s no political stand involved, but there are people in need,” he said. “We’ve been very, very active in the Ukrainian concept … and bringing focus to the Ukraine issue.”

‘The military is a business that drives economies, unfortunately.’ — Kevin Mann

Finding peace

Despite the war and violence dominating the headlines and news cycles, Mann maintains that humans are naturally peaceful. Drawing from the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he said peace usually endures for long periods of human history, with brief interruptions of war.

“For long periods of history, peace has prevailed,” Mann said. “For short periods of history, war has broken out.” 

Finding a silver lining in those interruptions of war, Mann added that technological advancements had accelerated during wartime. “One of the byproducts of war breaking out, as bad as it has been, is that it has led to technological and medical advancements that have helped humanity.”

Defining some of the problems inherent to these times, Mann said high-speed communication and mass media culture now spread news and images of war quickly and widely. At the same time, war remains a lucrative international business.

“The military is a business that drives economies, unfortunately,” he said. “Peace hasn’t gotten that kind of focus internationally.”

As warmongers in the press continue to drive nations into battle, and as arms dealers continue to profit from the blood spilled on the fields of human strife, Mann maintains that there is still room for hope.

“Polio is almost being totally eliminated, and malaria is well on its way to being controlled,” he said. “Over the last hundred years, people have worked to make those things happen,” adding, “They’ve happened despite diverting resources to other causes, so I think there’s great room for optimism.”

METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Peace. That is what religions ask for, what billions of people across all nations pray for. Why in our family of humanity is that goal so elusive?

Perhaps this is a question only for theologians and  philosophers to answer. But now, in this glorious holiday season, when we speak and sing of Peace on Earth, we all articulate the ideal.

Many seek, and indeed can find inner peace. But the dream of peace, the kind of peace that is defined as lack of conflict and freedom from fear of violence between individuals and groups, has never been achieved. 

When will there be such peace?

The answer, it seems, is when all humans are of good will.

And what does that involve?

For starters, it requires acceptance and respect for the “other.” We need to see each other as humans with the same ambitions and desires and feelings. Rather than look down on and despise people who are simply different, we can be intrigued and interested in those differences and therefore in those who are different.

We can invite into our world those who are different from us in the way of skin color or appearance or beliefs. And if we can do so, we can see them as humans, just like us, and bigotry cannot exist. For we cannot look down on ourselves. If we are to do so, starting now, racism and antisemitism and every other sort of hatred of our neighbors disappears.

For there to be Peace on Earth, it must start with accepting the stranger, the “other” among us.

Above, members of North Country Peace Group on Saturday, Dec. 10. Photo by Raymond Janis

This month, North Country Peace Group marks its 20th anniversary.

Posted at the southeast corner of Route 25A and Bennetts Road in Setauket, NCPG has maintained a visible weekly presence within the community, advocating various causes throughout its history. On Saturday, Dec. 10, some members reflected on this milestone year for their organization and discussed why they remain committed to their cause.

Roots

Bob Becherer was among the founding members of the peace group. He traces the organization’s origins beyond 20 years when, in the early 1990s, a group of civic-oriented parishioners of the St. James R.C. Church formed the Peace and Justice Community.

“It was really out of that group that we became the North Country Peace Group,” Becherer said, crediting Bill McNulty as the founder and leader of both organizations.

In an exclusive interview, McNulty chronicled his “traditional, apolitical” upbringing and his eventual reawakening. Growing up, he said he maintained a 16-year connection to the military. Between U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, ROTC, active duty and active reserve service, McNulty kept in close contact with the military and military culture. Over time, however, he began to question these ties.

Catalyzing McNulty’s transformation was America’s foreign policy throughout Latin America during the 1970s and ’80s. His early advocacy work centered around the School of the Americas, a training ground founded as a bulwark against the spread of communism. Over time, McNulty said, the school devolved. A string of murders and rapes connected to the School of the Americas prompted him into action.

During that time, McNulty said he devoted his energies to “increase the knowledge among the American population that this school existed and that we were, through our tax dollars, paying for training for these soldiers.” His resistance led him to a federal prison, where he served for six months.

Within the full swing of these events, McNulty soon got involved with the Peace and Justice Community, initially focusing on America’s involvement in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War (1990-91). As the PJC’s work took on more secular aims, they moved out of the church and onto the streets. NCPG emerged from the second Iraq War (2003-11). 

Organizational principles

Above, Bill McNulty, one of the founders and thought leaders within NCPG. Photo courtesy Myrna Gordon

McNulty offered some of the philosophical precepts underpinning the NCPG’s activism. He said the group seeks to challenge conventional wisdom, to prompt community members to think critically about the information authorities give them. Through this, he said the group has often met fierce resistance from dogmatists and partisans.

“Very often, when you bring a message that’s contrary to the conventional wisdom, they get angry at you,” he said. “They don’t want to hear what you have to offer because it’s very startling and shocking. There’s a cognitive dissonance.”

McNulty maintained that NCPG, since its inception, has rejected the notion of reciprocal violence. “The Old Testament thinking of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you have to break it with that idea of love and acceptance,” he said.

He viewed the human propensity toward violence as a conflict between instincts and ideals. Though he held that most people are born peaceful and good, he sees many as conditioned to accept violence and war as the natural order.

“People, I think, are pretty good, but they acquire a lot of these characteristics as a result of what they experience in life,” he said. “Down deep, people are good because they always act well when the dog falls down the well or when the tornado rips the roof off the house.”

McNulty said that overcoming aggression requires conscious effort, but doing so may be the recipe for lasting peace. “The idea is to take the words of the song, the words of the poem, to take the suggestion of the painting or the sculpture or whatever else and to put it into practice,” he said. “It’s a very hard job.”

Two decades into the struggle for peace

One of the essential features of NCPG throughout its 20-year history has been the persistence of its members. Member Susan Perretti regards the organization as a weekly reminder to the community that there is an alternative to unceasing human conflicts worldwide.

“We’re sort of a reminder to the community that passes us by,” she said. “It’s a reminder that we still have war — endless war — going on and that violence itself is not the answer.”

Robert Marcus, another NCPG member, said the fight for peace and preserving democracy go hand in hand. He said that standing on the street corner is a way to promote both ends.

“We have to do everything we can to make a more peaceful world,” Marcus said. “We can’t just take it for granted. We have to work really hard for peace and to strengthen our democracy because it’s under threat.”

For John Robinson, participating in the peace group’s various activities is a way to connect to a larger cause and to make a difference on a grander stage. “It feels good to be around people who have the same concerns, the same thoughts, the same issues that I do,” he said. “Coming out here makes a real statement about the need for peace and the need to treat each other well.”

Myrna Gordon said she and NCPG use their platform to advocate a new mode of thinking around the way the United States government spends its taxpayer dollars. According to her, too great a share of the federal budget is devoted to perpetuating violence.

“We need to move the money out of the military and back into human needs and human lives so that we will have that money and be able to fix roads, provide better education, health care and everything else,” she said.

An alternative to war

‘We have to evolve past this idea — as a human species and not just as Americans — that war and killing one another is the only solution.’

— Susan Perretti

McNulty was asked if he believes a lasting peace is possible or if humanity is doomed to a fate of unending war. He admitted that lasting peace may not be attainable but that pursuing such an ideal is.

“We would like to hope that it is possible,” he said. “We helped each other to a great extent, and we have affected a few people around our immediate neighborhood, but they’re still making war. The School of the Americas is still open, still training soldiers to keep people under control.”

Perretti offered a slightly different take by suggesting humanity could adapt itself to a condition without war.

“The point is that we have to evolve past this idea — as a human species and not just as Americans — that war and killing one another is the only solution,” she said. “I don’t know what that takes, but for me I’m here because I won’t give up the struggle, and I want to be faithful to what I believe in my heart.”

Whether humans can coexist and overcome violence is still to be decided. Twenty years after their organization’s founding, members of North Country Peace Group remain stationed at their usual street corner, committed to giving peace its fair shake.

Stock photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

The year is rapidly coming to a close, and it is leaving us with impassioned thoughts. At this time, probably more than any other in the year, we pray for peace: “on earth peace, good will toward men.” Never in the history of the world were people more united than in this wish. And yet, we are so far from the reality.

Tessa Majors, only 18 years old and on the threshold of adult life, bright with promise, is stabbed to death in Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan. A Barnard College freshman from Virginia, an out-of-towner, was in the park after dark, although it was only 7 o’clock on a Wednesday evening, Dec. 11. Ostensibly the cause was a robbery gone bad. Her death is a personal tragedy for her family, her friends, the neighborhood, the Barnard and Columbia communities and all New York City. I know. I’m a Barnard alumna and my roots are in New York. The murder tugs at my heart. I lived on the Columbia campus for two years, only a short block from the park. One thing I understood: Don’t go into the park at night.

So I have lots of thoughts, lots of questions. Why was she there? Was she not told that simple fact? At the first assembly of my entering class, the president of the college cautioned us about safety in the neighborhood, warned us where to walk and how to be safe. That was a different time, I acknowledge, over a half-century ago, when the city was a more dangerous place. But dark places in any city can be dangerous anywhere in the world. The president was trying to teach us urban smarts. Are the new students still getting that important message on many college campuses? New Haven is not any different, neither is the University of Chicago and wherever there are universities adjacent to neighborhoods that are prone to crime.

“As of Dec.8, there had been 20 robberies inside Morningside Park or on its perimeter this year, compared to seven in the same period last year,” wrote The New York Times. The article continued, “Since June, five people reported being robbed on or near the staircase at 116th Street and Morningside Drive, near the spot where Ms. Majors was killed.” 

Why, then, was the park not better patrolled by the New York City Police Department? That’s what compiling those statistics is for, yes? To send help where help is most needed? This is an issue the NYPD will have to deal with in coming days.

The other metropolitan area tragedy at the top of the news at the moment is the slaughter of four innocent people in Jersey City Dec. 10 by, according to reports, a couple of heavily armed drifters. While those investigating the murders are not saying much while they work on the case, there seems little doubt that this was a hate crime directed specifically against both the police and one segment of the population: Jews. Why do people hate? Particularly why do they hate strangers, people they don’t even know? It’s a question as puzzling as why people would ever want to kill each other. For bigotry to be so strong as to result in violence is unfathomable. For that matter, why conclude that just because people are different, they should therefore be despised? In fact, they might be thought of as more interesting for their differences.

Which brings me back to my original thought. If everyone is praying for peace, why is there war? Why is there violence? Why is there bigotry? Why is peace so elusive? Is peace, real peace, impossible because of the makeup of humans? Will there always be a Hitler and a Stalin, a Napoleon, Vikings and an Attila the Hun?

Still, let us pray for peace, however hard to imagine. Let us keep this idea alive before us as a goal someday to be realized. Let us work to make our world less violent, less filled with hate, less bigoted. Maybe the operative word is “less?” That we surely can do.

Suffolk County Legislator William “Doc” Spencer (D) holds up signs kids made in support of peace. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

By Victoria Espinoza

The divisive nature of the 2016 presidential election is still affecting many Americans, and racist, anti-Semitic and other xenophobic actions have occurred in some communities.

Local legislators, police officers, school administrators and religious leaders gathered at the Tri Community Youth Association in Huntington Nov. 23 to preach inclusivity and acceptance after several hate-driven incidents were reported.

Two weeks ago, police said multiple swastikas were found spray painted on walls at Northport High School, and town officials said residents have reported hearing hateful language as well.

Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) said parents and community members need to teach children the importance of accepting one another.

“One of these incidents is one too many,” he said during the Huntington event. “It’s our responsibility to speak out against it and educate our youth of the ramifications of such actions.”

A local rabbi holds up another sign encouraging unity. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
A local rabbi holds up another sign encouraging unity. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Suffolk County Legislator William “Doc” Spencer (D-Centerport) echoed the sentiment.

“I want to take this opportunity to come together, to speak to our anxieties, our fears, our concerns that have been spurred by acts of predominantly ignorance,” Spencer said at the event. “We now have a new generation of young people that may not have experienced the Holocaust or the civil rights movement, and this call of unity is not speaking against acts for any particular group, but for all of us. Whether it’s with minorities, in the Jewish, Muslim, Christian community; this is condemning acts of hatred for all of us.”

Spencer said he has received multiple calls from friends and colleagues detailing stories of bullying and threatening acts in recent weeks.

“We are better than this. We can disagree with dignity and without being threatened or going as far as to commit a crime,” Spencer said.

The legislator outlined the many resources available to the public to battle hate crimes and encourage the observation of human rights, including education programs for students, and officers who are specifically trained to recognize hate crimes and counsel victims.

Rabbi Yaakov Saacks from the Chai Center in Dix Hills detailed programs offered to educators to help them teach about the Holocaust.

Saacks urged teachers to give extra attention to Holocaust studies and racism studies. The rabbi said he is involved with the Memorial Library, an organization that supports Holocaust education with satellite seminars, mini grants and more to help schools teach students about the Holocaust. He also offered to travel to schools himself to teach students.

“I believe a Holocaust symbol, while it’s true it’s hurtful to the Jews, the swastika … is hurtful to us all,” Saacks said. “Sixty million people died because of Hitler’s nonsense in World War II. Ten percent of those were of the Jewish faith. Fifty-four million non-Jewish people died. Over three percent of the world’s population were killed in WWII — 292,130 U.S. soldiers were killed in battle. The Iraq War was 5,000. The Civil War was 87,000. It’s not only a Jewish problem. The swastika hurt us all and hurts us all greatly.”

“We are better than this. We can disagree with dignity and without being threatened or going as far as to commit a crime.”
— William Spencer

Kenneth Bossert, superintendent of Elwood school district as well as the vice president of the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association, agreed educators need more help teaching students about these sensitive issues.

“Schools are a reflection of what’s happening in society,” Bossert said. “What children bring with them to the classroom is not only what they learn from their teachers, but what they’re learning in their homes.”

Bossert said he has been an educator for more than 20 years, and this is the first presidential election he remembers that required teachers to talk about issues of race and division.

“Typically, after a presidential election, the results come in and teachers instruct about lessons on the Electoral College and the popular vote and how states break it down,” he said. “The lessons were very different this year. The lessons were about community and respecting others and making everyone feel comfortable and welcome in the hallways and the classrooms.”

Bossert said he wanted to correct one word used throughout the rally: tolerance.

“That’s not a word I use,” he said. “The word I use is acceptance. Tolerance implies that we’re going to tolerate someone who is somehow less than we are. Acceptance implies respect, community and love for one another.”