We Can Stop the War in Iraq [Translation: Possiamo Fermare la Guerra]

We can stop the war in Iraq, and we can do it nonviolently, without torches and banners.

The war in Iraq and the Italian participation in it is coming quickly. But our opposition to its stirring is possible even beyond what is necessary. Our oppositional power is great, but we should decide how to use it. The initiative programs in the next few days are good and just, and it is important that they affect as much as they can. But they are not enough. We need to exhaust all of our alternatives: we should not feel like a whiny minority that protests ineffectually, but a strong majority that can and should defeat the strategies of warmongering outlaws. But through exhausting our alternatives we should also get rid of any ambiguity. And through exhausting the ambiguities that weaken, discredit and even ridicule us, one preliminary, indispensable choice needs to be made: the choice to not only be opposed to the war, but also to create peace and justice. But to make this happen there needs to be a decisive step: the choice of nonviolence.

If, and only if, we make this choice—the choice of nonviolence—and redirect the feelings and actions of the movement for peace internally towards this choice, then and only then can our actions be substantial and effective. Let us be honest: to make marches or hang banners will do something, but very little. In 1991, 1999 and 2001, we made ourselves hoarse with the noise from our marches, with a laughable result (in fact, many marches were determined to be counterproductive and draft dodger-like.) And the banners and the rags of peace are a good publicity stunt, a good leftist reminder, but no more. Of course, the publicity—or, rather, the publication of our sentiments—was most positive, but risked becoming recognized as a spectacle too readily by society. Something else needs to happen, and that something which needs to happen is the choice of nonviolence.

And these are the other things that need to happen:

1. Instruct all to nonviolence: immediately, on a mass level, warning all our supporters about the personal risks that there may be for taking on a task that should begin immediately where it is not yet begun, and to continue to make impressions where it has already begun, with regards to educating a mass of supporters to the braveries, techniques, and strategies of nonviolence—all and all, here and now.

2. Study and prepare for direct and truly nonviolent action (not the hopeless silliness that goes under this name that has neither rigorous morality nor material force) to counteract bellicose leadership. In 1999, the one action planned and achieved in Italy with this logic of concrete nonviolence to counteract the bellicose war machine was that of the "Wild Mongols" for peace, the project to block the take-offs of bomber planes by obstructing the air space overlooking the departure runways of airports. If we could persuade millions of people to this action, we will have the material power to block for days, and perhaps for weeks, the bombers that depart from Italian land, and also give an impression on the international level just how nonviolence can confront and defeat, above the ground floor, the war machine running the world.

Alas, though we did not listen before, we can achieve this initiative in a short amount of time, and with the smallest number of participants. But this is the way to do it: direct nonviolent action made by supporters of nonviolence who are prepared and adequate, conscious and flawless, who can concretely counteract the war machine and defeat it on the ground. The symbolic initiatives do not serve to enlarge or satisfy narcissism—others may do that. The supporters of nonviolence should have the capacity to conduct themselves with real effectiveness in the fight against nonviolence.

3. Prepare a campaign of mass-civil disobedience in defense of peace and the constitutional right to block the chain of command of the political and administrative power that would decide Italian participation in a war. Absolute clarity and discipline are also needed in the initiative: all who are involved should know perfectly well that the goals of the campaign are to be reached strictly through nonviolence; all should have participated in preparation, elaboration, and discussion; all should have participated in the meetings of preparation, explanation, and training; all are aware of the personal risks they run; all should be prepared to personally undergo retaliations and prosecutions; all, finally, are persuaded to act exclusively in a non-violent manner. There also needs to be a strong training in nonviolence as well.

4. Give the word, immediately, to start the general resistance against the war, and in defense of constitutional right. Begin to prepare this resistance both in people’s minds and hearts, but in a logical and organized manner. It’s a matter of setting forth the goal of paralyzing the political power of outlaws, of raising the county to a peaceful but firm proof of strength that is rooted in the respect of the fundamental right of our courts, to defend peace and the lives of all human beings; especially the declared defense of constitutional legality and of international law; especially the declared defense of "humanity."

5. Denounce any government, parliament and head of state that would decide to have Italy participate in war, and who would violate (and it would not be for the first time, for many of them) Article 11 of the Constitution; demand their arrest for violation of the Constitution (which the leaders have pledged faith to, and which the head of state should be most responsible for) and as criminals against humanity. But to also achieve this initiative, there should be a mass of supporters, not only symbolically but concretely made up of as many persons as possible, that revolts to all forces of order and to all the requests of judicial power; the movement for peace needs to have a clear position without any ambiguity: a nonviolent position in defense of democratic right, in defense of rights given to all human beings to defend peace, truth and justice, and the defense of (and fidelity to) the Constitution of the Italian Republic. The foolish and the vain who praise legal illegitimacy are effectively accomplices to the warmongers. No ambiguity or lip-service are permissible if we wish to stop the war.

But for all this to be possible there needs to be a preliminary choice: to all those who wish to fight against the war, we should demand them to make, now, and truly "without if and only if," the choice of nonviolence, without which we will be too weak to stop the parades, the supporters and the flag wavers, or worse, the lifeless mannequins that will be in front of living room televisions, while at that very moment airplanes carry horror and death to Iraq. And now is the time for the decision.

Peppe Sini is responsible for "The Center of the Search for Peace" (Centro di ricerca per la pace) of Vitrebo.

Translator’s Note: The "Wild Mongols" are the "Mongolfiere" in Italian.