Library of War

[Melissa Ruhl]

I believe that if we are going to move this world beyond war, we must show the ugliness of war. We must be an educational organization that educates people of war and all its atrocities. No on will care about peace if they don't understand why war must be done away with. I propose that we make a war library. In this library, we can have books and articles on the history of war, biological/evolutionary perspectives of war, nuclear war, current wars around the world, and, of course, various weapons of war, like cluster bombs. If we are to overcome this thing called war, we must ourselves be aware of what it is in all its parts and be a resource for others who wish to know what this monster is that we must abolish.

Unfortunately, I am starting grad school and will not have the time to head this project. However, I would be more than willing to help. I imagine that we would follow Anne’s method for the library project so far. We ask members for ideas for books. We consult experts of war and ask for book/article recommendations. We research books. And we compile a list. Then the list can be organized into the subcategories that I discussed in the previous paragraph. For this aspect of the library project, we don’t have to pick out core books. Rather this can just be a reference. It can be on the website for consultation. Maybe it can be more in the future, but for now it can be our library on war. What do you think?

[Sally Suzanne Marie]

Melissa, I think this is a great idea. And you will probably recall that Steve Shankman of UNESCO at UO has said that we need to study war before we study peace. Perhaps your idea of a bibiliography of war books would make a good joint project for UNESCO, Beyond War and students at UO. It could even be presented at the Week of Welcome for freshman during our 2 hour time slot for exposing students to university and community peace groups. I love your enthusiasm.
I also agree with what you wrote earlier that we need more ACTION in BW projects. It is great to learn more about how to help ourselves be better people in the world, gaining skills to help us with communication and spreading the word. But many of us need to be actively doing things, that some may say is political. We learn about all the treaties that the US has not signed onto. And communicating with our senators, representatives and president about them is consistant with BW principles and practices. I think it is obvious that we should be taking steps to stop use of each and every weapon, one at a time or all at once. All at once doesn't seem very likely to happen though, Sally