Sara Bilezikian Internship Inaugurated
On January 16, Sophie and John Bilezikian, WRl, and the AJ Muste Memorial Institute (AJMMI) hosted a well-attended reception at Alwan Center for the Arts in new York City to inaugurate the Sara Ann Bilezikian Peace Internship Program.
Sara Bilezikian was a peace and justice activist who worked with WRL as a volunteer in 1997 and as a paid Freeman intern in 1998. Sara had a sophisticated analysis of and interest in a number of intersecting issues. In addition to her antimilitarism work, her activism included work with native Americans in the Southwest, support for a women’s building cooperative in nicaragua, opposition to corporate globalization, and participation in the campaign to close the School of the Americas. She graduated from Evergreen State College in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Sara died on January 12, 2002. To honor Sara’s legacy and commitment to social change, her parents Sophie and John began an endowment at WRL, through AJMMI, for an internship program to provide young activists with an opportunity to develop and refine grassroots organizing skills.
It seemed fitting for this auspicious launch to take place on the same day that we remember and honor Martin Luther King Jr., who connected racism, poverty, and militarism—as did Sara. I opened the short program by saying that I was privileged to know Sara and that anyone who met her could feel her warmth and see her brilliance. I shared how happy WRL is for the chance to show what Sara meant to our community and how grateful we are to the Bilezikians for the opportunity to let her legacy live on through our work . We then heard from our very first Bilezikian intern, Nikki Rankine, who talked about feeling welcomed as a much-needed staff member and discussed the research she’s doing on Bayard Rustin in preparation for WRL’s participation in his centennial celebrations this year. Sara’s friend Sascha Altman Dubrul, who co-founded the Icarus Project (a radical mental health education and peer support organization) after Sara’s death, spoke of their friendship woven with threads of politics, a cross-country trip together, and their mutual love of art and punk. Laurie Wax, Sara’s oldest friend, came up from Virginia to talk about Sara’s rich imagination and how inspired she was by her friend’s commitment to change in a world full of suffering.
Jane Guskin, AJMMI co-director and friend of Sara’s, encouraged us all to take up the work of resisting and “occupying” on behalf of all the people like Sara who have struggled before us. Former WRL staff member Chris Ney, who came down from Boston, shared his memories of working with Sara and of her political and personal blossoming in that period. Then John Bilezikian read a letter from his close friend, nobel Prize winning author Elie Wiesel, written about Sara for the occasion. Sophie Bilezikian closed the program with a few beautiful excerpts from Sara’s journals—poetically wrought entries in which Sara wrote of the activists and organizations that inspired her, revealing her wisdom and compassion as she mused philosophically and asked hard questions about how to make a difference.
Although it was difficult to mark the 10-year anniversary of Sara’s death, the remarks and memories shared about her were uplifting, and the mood was hopeful. Many of us felt moved to redouble our own commitment to peace and justice, sparked by Sara’s passion, evoked as her friends, family, and fellow activists brought her spirit and voice into the room. Having Sara Bilezikian interns at WRL will keep her present for us and allow many young people to carry forward the work she cared so about so deeply.
Liz Roberts
WRL BRINGS ANTI-MILITARISM TO “FAIR DEVELOPMENT”
When United Workers held a conference in Baltimore on “Fair Development” the last weekend in October, WRL organizers were there with our vision of the links between militarism and the economy.
WRL National Committee member Prachi Pantankar of the South Asia Solidarity Initiative, WRl field organizer Ali Issa, and WRl organizing coordinator Kimber Heinz co-facilitated a workshop at the conference on “The War Economy and our Economy, At Home and Abroad.”
The workshop covered key aspects of WRL’s Bombs and Budgets curriculum, including interactive ways to teach how much of the U.S. budget goes to the military and ways to link economic justice issues that the Occupy movement and hundreds of organizations across the country have been raising. The workshop was attended by members of United Workers, organizers with the Poverty Initiative, and the Border network for Human Rights.
One participant shared, “I am really interested in connecting the anti-poverty movement and antiwar movement…. They are fighting the same issues, and I just think we haven’t had [the] language yet to bring them together. So being together to develop that is really important.”
Several attendees were in the middle of campaigns against J.P. Morgan Chase, our featured example of a war profiteer as a central cause of local economic crises. That Chase has been spearheading a gold mining project in Afghanistan was especially resonant for many participants. Geoff Millard of Iraq veterans Against the War also presented on veterans as workers.
Before the conference ended, many also attended a powerful presentation from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, learning more about a leading voice in the movement to end poverty.
23rd ANNUAL WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE RAFFLE FOR RESISTANCE 2011 WINNERS
G Duras
Nutley, NJ
Four nights on Cape Cod, MA
Bridget D’Amico
Youngstown, oH
$75 PM Press gift certificate
Rita Maran
Berkeley, CA
$50 Donnelly Colt gift certificate
Sandra Berrigan
Albion, CA
Signed Jerry Downs photo print
Philip Corrao
Mount vernon, NY
Four pints of Pacifeast’s house dressing
Claire Feder
Atherton, CA
Lilly Rivlin’s documentary Grace Paley
Stephen Swift
Rockville, MD
Martin Duberman’s book A Saving Remnant
Emily Cook
Pembroke, NH
Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s book The New Earth from Above
Aaron Kleinbaum
Rutherford, MJ
Textile from Jalalabad, Afghanistan
F.A. Carlen
New York, NY
Pan African peace book Seeds Bearing Fruit
Lawrence Turk
Hendersonville, NC
Hand-woven textile from East Timor
Ed Wujciak
Hollywood, Fl
Blood orange necklace by Real Fruit Jewelry
Carol and Bob Hall
Lincoln City, OR
War Resisters League merch pack
Elena Kingsland
Boston, MA
(Bonus prize) Herkimer diamond bookmark
WRL needs prizes for our raffle!
Some ideas include a weekend in a vacation home, spa visits, theater tickets, artwork, jewelry, gift certificates, a homemade quilt, gift baskets with wine or bath items, and free website design. Consider asking your friends, colleagues, and family members—artists or folks with businesses. It's great advertising!
Email liz [at] warresisters.org (liz [at] warresisters.org) with ideas.
EMPIRE ON WALL STREET: WRL AT OCCUPY
At the edge of a large crowd, a dozen or so people stood along a fence. Paper images covered their mouths like gags—images of U.S. flags and logos of the mega-bank J.P. Morgan Chase. Each one held a sign giving, in stark black on white, the name of a country, a year, and a caption. “Iran, 1953; CIA overthrows Democracy, Installs Shah.” “vietnam, 1950– 1970s; long and Expansive War, 1–2 Million Killed.” “Afghanistan, 2001-20??; U.S. Invasion And occupation”
It was November 17, and some 30,000 people filled the 1.2-acre-space, a short distance from Zucotti Park, where the Occupy Wall Street encampment had been suddenly evicted two nights earlier. This rally in support of the occupation had been scheduled months before as part of a national day of actions intended, in the words of one participant, “to expose economic inequality in the United States and the fact that corporate control of politics and public space is killing the ability of ordinary people to participate.”
Above the crowd, the banners of labor unions fluttered in the breeze; the majority of the 30,000 here were union contingents, with economic inequality the predominant motifs in the banners and signs of the unions and of the activist groups. Fewer were addressing issues of war and peace, with the group along the fence the notable exception: “Empire on Wall Street,” a performance piece born of a collaboration between the al
most-90-year-old War Resisters League and the much newer South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI). This was the second performance of “Empire,” which had had its premiere at Zucotti Park some weeks earlier.
Speaking of the place of antimilitarism in the Occupy movement, WRL Field organizer Ali Issa said that WRl co-authored “Empire on Wall Street” because the economic crisis can’t be separated from war and militarism. It’s “not just another issue, it’s the same issue. The money is going from the U.S. taxpayers to the banks and corporations through wars and occupations (for instance, Chase cluster bombs, gold mines in Afghanistan). Every corporation implicated in the global financial crisis is also directly implicated in war and occupation.”
Judith Mahoney Pasternak
A longer version of this piece was published in French in Planète Paix, the monthly magazine of the Mouvement pour la Paix in France.
WRL INTERNS BREAK NEW GROUND
There are now two endowed internships to bring talented young people into antimilitarism work. This past fall, WRL was overjoyed to welcome Nikki Rankine as the first-ever Bilezikian Intern and Isham Christie as our first Freeman Fundraising Intern.
The Bilezikian Internship program was created to honor the memory of Sara Bilezikian and her passionate commitment to social change, and we couldn’t have found a better candidate than Nikki to kick off the program. She has a B.A. in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies from Bates College and studied abroad in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey, and the netherlands. Beyond academics, she has worked intensely with youth and activist-based organizations that deal with reforming institutions such as urban landscape, education, and new York State politics. Those experiences helped her build a comprehensive set of skills that includes multimedia communications, web-based development, video, and print marketing, all of which she brought to WRL—along with her passion for education, activism, and empowerment.
When we decided to devote our other funded internship to fundraising for the fall of 2012, we didn’t know we would get as lucky as we did with activist/student/musician Isham Christie. Isham was born and raised in Choctaw Nation, Oklahoma. At college, he co-founded a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and participated in anti-racist, environmental, antiwar, student, and labor organizing. In 2010, he moved to new York to study at the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and the CUnY Graduate Center; since the Egyptian uprising, he has become involved in organizing with Occupy Wall Street. As the Freeman Fundraising Intern, Isham has been speaking with our supporters, working with national Committee members, sending packets to prospective members, soliciting calendar sales from independent bookstores, updating the supporter database, coordinating the annual report, and helping bring WRl organizers into the occupy Wall Street action planning process.
Thanks for joining us, Nikki and Isham—we hope you remain involved for a long time.
PEACE AWARD DECLINED
The 2011 WRl Peace Award was declined by an Afghan grassroots peace community, so the War Resisters League is asking members and affiliates to focus on ending ten long years of terrible and expensive war. One way of doing that is reaching across all the borders and barriers that divide us and engaging in conversation. The community wrote:
Dear members of the War Resisters League,
I had to consult with the [community] when I first read about the possibility of your awarding us this privilege, from a League that has done so much for peace since 1923.
We are encouraged and grateful but would like to respectfully decline this award because we had already decided about 2 years ago that, in the particular context of Afghanistan, we would decline ALL awards.
In short :
1. We want to avoid the ‘Afghan/human’ tendency to be distracted by a name
2. We are ordinary, and don’t want any award to ‘distinguish the ordinary’.
This is considered in the particular context of Afghanistan where awards are unfortunately seen as stepping stones to personal or partisan interests, thus driving the un-named masses into greater dis-empowerment and silence.
We thank you for thinking of us. Your continued friendship gives us great honor! Please convey this email and our warmest thanks to all in the War Resisters League.
