Address underlying issues

During a march to advocate for plastic waste reduction, I met a woman from Indonesia who wore a costume made of plastic waste from Canada that she found in a river near her home in Indonesia. She was in Ottawa to work for a new global plastics treaty. Her presence highlighted that something has gone terribly wrong in the way we use plastics and dramatic change is needed.

In the same week, student protests at the University of Ottawa and elsewhere put a spotlight on the connection between our investment portfolios and wars that kill and destroy people in Gaza and the West Bank in Israel. They reminded me of the 1968 Vietnam War protests and the turn of the century protests about globalization. They are happening in Canada at the same time as the federal budget debate is sparking new questions about generational fairness and how wealth is or is not shared in Canada.

Connections

Deeper connections settled in as I took public transit home from another rally for peace in the Middle East. First, a heavy use of police force to stop protests against injustice is not effective. It mostly illustrates the truth that violence begets violence. Until we address the underlying issues there will be more protests and more violence.

Second, young voices often see and name what we need to hear. History showed that the Vietnam war protestors were right. Think about how many lives could have been saved and how much destruction of the earth and economic costs would have been averted if people had listened in 1968 and changed course. A decade after the mass protests about fair trade, official Word Bank reports recognized that the neo-liberal approach to globalization had failed and caused harm instead of good for the global economy. It is hard to imagine what international relations might be now if a Jubilee-type course correction had happened around the year 2000, as protestors wanted. For certain, the earth would be less damaged. While our current political leaders rarely make connections between wars, saving the planet and economics in public, the student protestors do. They dare to challenge the basic directions that our leaders tiptoe around to maintain power.

Church talk

Then my mind turned to Christian witness. This week I heard about a Christian Reformed Church that asked one member to stop submitting bulletin announcements about peace in the Middle East because it is too controversial. In contrast, the dialogues I had at the protest rallies were deeper than most church talk. I met Jesus at the protest rallies as much as in church. More focus on what it means to be peacemakers and earth-keepers in 2024 might build connections between church and protest rally. I think God would be pleased.