PRESIDENT CALLS FOR PEACE
Many thanks to all of those past and present members who made possible the recent move to our new resource centre and headquarters (or is it base camp?) at the Emporium in Skinner Street, South Grafton. We recently had our twelfth birthday, so welcome to our thirteenth year of existence. There is so much to be done, but 1 think it is fair to say we have made some progress towards educating our local community. That's why we exist, to create an awareness of the damage thoughtless actions can do to our environment.
On Monday the 6th of August last, a lady came into our new centre and asked for something anything to wear on her jacket that day to signify she was commemorating Hiroshima Day, at a school she would be attending. I was able to help her.
On that day 56 years ago at 8.00 am, people in Hiroshima, Japan were going about their affairs - children on their way to school and workers to work - when the first atomic bomb was dropped. At 8.15 am, 140,000 people were killed instantly with a further 24,000 dying in the next month. Tens of thousands were injured and maimed.
That act started a world-wide reaction, and a campaign of revulsion as to what humans - some humans - are capable of.
I mention this because the Grafton People for Peace, an organisation which had been in existence some years before our founding year (1989), donated hundreds of dollars to help our startup, and since then, further hundreds to help us keep going. This has added up over the years to some thousands of dollars. As a result of that and the wishes of our founding members, we have always had a commitment to peace - World Peace.
Now as a result of the ghastly events of September the eleventh, when four airliners were turned into weapons of destruction in the United States, war has been declared. The ghouls responsible need to be brought to justice. However, that is no reason to wage WAR on another people. War will not stop terrorism. War IS terrorism.
Afghanistan, which was a feudal kingship until about twenty years ago, has been devastated by continuous war for at least the last twelve years. It is a poor inhospitable country with a population almost the same as Australia. It has been wracked by a drought for several years which has caused famine, exacerbated by civil war.
Because the alleged master-mind/s of the U. S. A. terrorism is somewhere within its borders, it is now subject to modern aerial warfare. Will devastating an already devastated country rid the world of terrorism? Who are the terrorists? War is not an answer. We must not allow a tragedy to be the excuse for WAR.
Jim Knight, President, CEC.
Prayer and Meditation for World Peace
The Community Hall – Nymboida
Sunday 11/11/01
10.30 AM (please be prompt)
Refreshments available afterwards.