“The cause of peace, seeking peace, is more important than any other challenge facing our country, including the military challenge. We have showered money on the Pentagon to strengthen our capacity to wage war. We have exponentially increased our power to kill. We must now increase our capacities — moral, intellectual, and political — to wage peace.”
Our Quote of the Week acknowledges the United States’ inclination towards resolving conflict through war, and calls on us to choose a path of peace.
The speech from which our quote is taken, the 1985 Address Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Peace Corps, is one of several speeches from Shriver’s later years that shows his continued support for Peace Corps and peacebuilding. Although Shriver spends some time recounting the origins and history of the Peace Corps in the speech, he is very much rooted in the present and looking to the future. He asks the audience to focus on a new direction for the the country, i.e., “Strength through Peace”. He highlights the importance of “seeking peace,” and stresses that it is time to move away from a militaristic approach to showing strength, to a broad demonstration of the ability to “wage peace”.
Reflecting on the origins of the Peace Corps, Sargent Shriver refers to its creation as “a unique occasion in American history":
”... that occasion when for the first time an American President proposed to put the full strength of our Government behind a voluntary movement of free men and women dedicated to the pursuit of peace. Many nations in human history have undertaken many tasks; many have boasted about their economic power and military victories. But none has ever put its prestige and money into so sustained an effort to seek peace through education, work, and service to others, performed by its own citizens volunteering for that service. The success of the Peace Corps is proof that moral vision coupled with perseverance and courage can overcome great obstacles.”
While Sargent Shriver led the Peace Corps from 1961 to 1966, his intention was that it should be an instrument for service, collaboration, and problem-solving so powerful, that it could bring about stability and peace on a global scale. Since that time, advancements in everything from transportation to communications and other technologies have made us significantly more interconnected as a world community. We can leverage our connections to make our human family much more unified and prosperous, just as we can use them to make ourselves more vulnerable to everything from war to pandemics to climate change. The bottom line for our species is that we need each other for our very survival—and only by waging peace with others can we ensure our own collective well-being.
To be sure, as an influential nation we must wage peace internationally as well as within our own borders. And, as the Peace Corps has proven, we do not have to hold political office to wage peace; we can all play a role in creating a more peaceful world. We can wage peace in our communities, in our workplaces, in our families, and we can simply start by waging peace within our own hearts. Indeed, in a moment when our leaders seem more intent than ever to emphasize a need for war, peace must start with each of us.
Wishing you peace during the holiday season and every day.
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