POINT
OF VIEW
A
Barefoot Madonna Speaks About War...
I.
Dear friends:
What I have to say is this:
I do not believe in war.
I do not belive in the weapons of war. Weapons and war have murdered,
burned, distorted, crippled, and caused endless varieties of pain
to men, women, and children for too long. Our modern weapons can
reduce a man to a piece of dust in a split second, can make a
woman’s hair fall out or cause her baby to be born a monster.
They can kill the part of a turtle’s brain that tells him
where he is going, so instead of trudging to the ocean he trudges
confusedly towards the desert, slowly, blinking his poor eyes,
until he finally scorches to death and turns into a shell and
some bones.
I’m not going to volunteer the 60% of my year’s income
tax that goes to armaments. There are two reasons for my action.
One is enough to say that no man has the right to take another
man’s life. Now we plan and build weapons that can take
thousands of lives in a second, millions of lives in a day, billions
in a week.
No one has the right to do that.
It is madness.
It is wrong.
My other reason is that modern war is impractical and stupid.
We spend billions of dollars a year on weapons which scientists,
politicians, military men, and even presidents all agree must
never be used. That is impractical. The expression “National
Security” has no meaning. It refers to our Defense System,
wich I call our Offense System, and which is a farce. It continues
expending, heaping up one horrible kill machine upon another until,
for some reason or another... a button will be pushed and our
wolrd, or a good portion of it will be blown to pieces. That is
not security. That is stupidity.
People are starving to death in some places of the world. They
look to this country with all its wealth and its power. They look
at our national budget. They despise us. That is impractical and
stupid.
Maybe the line has been drawn when the bow and arrow were invented,
maybe the gun, the cannon, maybe. Because now it is all wrong,
all impractical, and all stupid.
So all I can do is draw my own line now. I am no longer supporting
my portion of the arms race.”
Writtenby Joan Baez to her fan club in 1964, five years before
her appearance, pregnant, as a featured performance at the August,
1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, NY
II.
Open letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Four years ago,
the United States ended its 20-years presence in Vietnam. An anniversary
that should be cause for celebration is, instead, a time for grieving.
With tragic irony, the cruelty, violence and oppresssion practiced
by foreign powers in your country for more than a century continue
today under the present regime. Thousands of innocent Vietnamese,
many whose only “crimes” are those of conscience,
are being arrested, detained and tortured in prisons and re-education
camps. Instead of bringing hope and reconciliation to war-torn
Vietnam, your government has created a painful nightmare that
overshadows significant progress achieved in many areas of Vietnamese
society. Your government stated in February 1977 that some 50,000
peole were then incarcerated. Journalists, independant observers
and refugees estimate the current number of political prisoners
between 150,000 and 200,000. Whatever the exact figure, the facts
form a grim mosaic. Verified reports have appeared in the press
around the globe, from Le Monde to the Washington Post and Newsweek.
We have heard the horror stories from the people of Vietnam -
from workers and peasants, Catholic nuns and Buddhist priests,
from the boat people, the artists and professional and those who
fought alongside the NLF. • The jails are overflowing with
thousand upon thousand of “detainees”. • People
disappear and never return. • People are shipped to re-edcation
centers, fed a starvation diet of stale rice, forced to squat
bound wrist to ankle, suffocated in “connex” boxes.
• People are used as humain mine detectors, clearing live
mine fields with their hands and feet. For many, life is hell
and death is prayed for. Many victims are men, women and children
who supported and fought for the cause of reunification and self-determination;
those who as pacifists, members of religious groups, or on moral
and philosophic grounds opposed the authoritarian policies of
Thieu and Ky; artists and intellectuals whose commitments to creative
expression is anathema to the totalitarian policies of your government.
Requests by Amnesty International and others for impartial investigations
of prison conditions remain unanswered. Families who inquire about
husbands, wives, daughters or sons are ignored. It was an abiding
commitment to fundamental principles of human dignity, freedom
and self-determination that motivated so many Americans to oppose
the government of South Vietnam and our country’s participation
in the war. It is that same commitment that compels us to speak
out against your brutal disregard of human rights. As in the 60’s,
we raise our voices now so that your people may live. We appeal
to you to end the imprisonment and torture - to allow an international
team of neutral observers to inspect your prisons and re-education
centers. We urge you to follow the tenets of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the International Covenant for Civil and Political
Right wich, as a member of the United Nations, your country is
pledged to uphold. We urge you to reaffirm your stated commitment
to the basic principles of freedom and human dignity... to etablish
real peace in Vietnam. Written and published by Joan Baez as President
of Humanitas in 1979
1979
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