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| This November 16-18, 2001, more than 10,000 peace activists will be gathering at Fort Benning in Georgia to shut down the School of the Americas, recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Peg Morton, Bonnie Tout and Nick Routledge, three residents of Oregon, are planning to make pilgrimage to the SOA vigil in Columbus, Georgia. It looks as though others are joining us in Eugene and along our route. We hope to leave Eugene around October 25th, in one or more banner-bedecked vehicles, taking us directly south to Los Angeles, and then east to arrive at Fort Benning in time for the annual gathering there on November 16-18. Our exact route will depend partly on the responses of those we are currently contacting, but at this juncture we are anticipating a route through: the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Gilmer, Shreveport, Vicksburg, Birmingham, Columbus, and others - though, needs be said, our route is ever-changing. As we firm up dates, we will be keeping note of our schedule and appearances on an update page and web calendar. Within this site, you will find links to resources related to this effort, our biographies and articles some of us have written. We hope they may go some way toward deepening an understanding of what we're about and how we hope to share with others along our pilgrimage path. |
 "This Pilgrimage is a yearning and a prayer. We thank you for "joining" us in whatever way you can." |
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"At heart, Paradise Gardening |
We are hoping that sympathizers along the way will take the opportunity of our presence to help nurture their own local efforts to birth a gentler understanding of the nature of the world and existence.
We are calling our effort a "Pilgrimage to close the SOA and Plant the Garden," because our journey is not simply about alerting people to the grim details of the SOA's work; we also travel with a vision, a vision of a world where all people can live in simple dignity; where people around the world and their leaders return to a connection with the earth that teaches, feeds, sustains us, committing themselves to simple lives of environmental sustainability and programs that will achieve that goal and vision. Wherever we stay, we would like to share words and resources, based in our own experience in Eugene and elsewhere.
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We know that, all along the way, we will meet with others who share our sorrow at what is happening to our planet and the people on it, and who share a peaceful vision for our future - a vision born in sorrow, but not in itself sorrowful. This trip is about establishing and deepening the connections that will move us forward. If you live along our route, please consider hosting us and arranging a gathering/meeting/potluck/seedshare around our travels. Contact us at: Peg Morton: pegmort@aol.com Nick Routledge: fellowservant@yahoo.com |
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| The movement to close the SOA began 11 years ago. It has its roots in the Catholic Church, especially among Jesuit and Maryknoll Priests and nuns, who have lived among the poor and oppressed in Latin America, and who, like them, have been tortured and murdered by SOA graduates. Since then, the movement has spread hugely. It remains a movement rooted in the nonviolent philosophy of Mohatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day. We take suffering upon ourselves, rather than afflicting it on others. We treat others, including our opponents, respectfully, while we act as firmly and imaginatively as we are able to end the atrocities and the U.S. policies that support them. More than 50 people have spent more than 30 years in prison as a result of their SOA actions. Fifteen people are currently serving prison terms. Others have engaged in lengthy fasts. Over 10,000 individuals have been present at each of the past two Fort Benning rallies and solemn funeral processions honoring the hundreds of thousands who have been killed in Latin America. |
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| I am a Quaker, carrying a travel minute from North Pacific Yearly Meeting of Friends. I am 70 years old. A yearning for true peace, based in social and economic justice, has been a defining element all my adult life, leading me to attend a Black college as an exchange student, and later into the struggle for housing and school integration. I have been a war tax resister for 20 years. I lived in Europe as a high school student for a year, soon after World War II, and asked myself: How would I have responded, had I lived in Nazi Germany? How would I respond, should my country behave in such a way? During a Central America Week in the 1980's, I viewed several videos, including "Guatemala: The Hidden Holocaust," and was galvanized into action. Some 200,000 mostly Mayan people, and human rights leaders, were massacred, assassinated, disappeared and tortured during the 30 year war, mainly by the Guatemalan army and their related death squads and civil patrols. The CIA and Pentagon Intelligence were active participants. Since this time, I have traveled frequently to Central America, and most especially to Guatemala, with delegations, to study Spanish, to be a supportive presence with returning and returned Guatemalan refugees. In this country, I have participated actively in the Central America solidarity movement, have written and given slide presentations about my experiences. My heart has become tied to the courageous and beautiful people I have known in Guatemala and to their valiant struggle that continues, even as extreme atrocities continue. In becoming a part of the movement to close the School of the Americas, I have joined thousands of others with similar experiences in Central and South America. Our hearts are entwined with each other as they are with the oppressed and struggling people we have known and loved there. This movement to close the SOA is a faith-based movement, with its roots in the nonviolent philosophy of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day. I am at home in this movement. By closing this infamous school, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). we will not end U.S. policies that permit and promote atrocities, but we will have increased awareness and commitment throughout the country and the world. The struggle for an end to policies of death and towards a new vision will be strengthened and will continue. Two articles written by Peg. |
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| Everything I ever need to know I learned at Angel Elementary School in Detroit, Michigan, where I was raised as that neighborhood's ethnic mixture changed rapidly. As long as I can remember, my primary desire is for people to relax their conflicts and enjoy each other - and themselves. Trained as a teacher, formally and informally, I've looked upon education as a tool for understanding, and storytelling a key to healing. My current project, expressing these goals is the Guatemala Accompaniment Project. That leads to my concern about the training of terrorist techniques that has caused such grief. Other interests that enrich my relationships and activities include spiritual discovery, massage in many forms, home improvement and tai-chi. Several church communities have nurtured me along my paths. Methodist principles and ideals have won my allegiance, and Methodist members have won my heart as we work and pray together. Their encouragement as I explore possibilities in Guatemala has rearranged my worldview and deepened my bond with the church. Meanwhile, back in Detroit, my family flourishes. I now have five grandchildren who deepen my ties to Michigan. Speical friends there celebrate my interests in central America with me, too. And so I embark on this pilgrimage with great hope that as new friends join old across the States, our union will build the foundation for justice to create the peace we long for. |
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| I'm a houseless mendicant, sliding around on the foothills of middle age, with an abiding passion for the ups and downs of village life. For the past four years, Serendipity has kept me mostly within the borders of the Whiteaker neighborhood in Eugene. Whiteaker is materially ranked as one of the very poorest neighborhoods in the State of Oregon, but in terms of color, it's more than likely one of the richest. When officialdom refers to Eugene as the anarchist capital of America, it's a fair bet it's actually referring to one wing of the ragtag collection of musicians, artists, midwives, ethnobotanists, stand-up comics and other fiercely iconoclastic brave hearts who account for a sizeable contingent of Whiteaker - this little village in search of itself. |
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Why the description of Whiteaker in this bio? Because, elementally, my interests of late have been largely intertwined with the purpose and destiny of this small plot of land and the deeply eclectic tribe whose hearts are also planted here - the plants and critters, too. My focus shifts constantly, but these days, some interests are: the communion of local landscape and culture and its relationship to the Big Picture, wotevah that means; and ways to nurture learning and teaching that respect the integrity of friends and enemies alike. My passions are somewhat holistic, but focus today on the art of friendship, poetry, music and the internal arts, especially tai-chi - yang long form and old style chen. I'm a sucker for kind fellowship and kind food, especially in tandem. Raised in the Far East and educated in England, the U.S. has been my home for over 15 years. Long before I made it to the States, I've always yearned to make a cross-country trip through the states we will be visiting. As a young child, Texans and Southerners were the first Americans I met, and the experience made an indelible impression that drew me inexorably to this remarkable country and its magnificent peoples. |
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| In the years before I started wandering, I hung around the web - here's a "broken" home page from circa five years ago. These days, the work revolves largely around the visionary explorations of Whiteaker's Food Not Lawns collective. A recent article for The Permaculture Activist, around the subject of right livelihood, broadens the lowdown. In closing, I'm especially fond of a maxim I recently found on the website of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City: "Light candles. Do not curse the darkness." | ||
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Web sites we recommend: School of Americas Watch Organizations helping sponsor our pilgrimage include: Oregon PeaceWorks |
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Last updated: October 4, 2001
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