Statement from the International Fellowship of Reconciliation on the attacks on New York City and Washington DC

IFOR Asks for Renewed Peace Efforts

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation offers its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the thousands of innocent victims of the September 11 attacks in the USA. We can only condemn these acts that defy any sense of respect for human life.

As an international, spiritually-based movement whose members believe the only way to peace and reconciliation is through nonviolence, IFOR descries the use of violence as a means of resolving differences, whether political or personal. In the history of humankind, violent methods of resolving conflict have proved to be futile, resulting only in an escalation of violence.

While we mourn the immense loss of life, and we understand the resultant anger and outrage, we also fear the consequences of threatened governmental retribution. We therefore call upon US and allied leadership to exercise caution in planning military and political responses that may threaten the well-being of other innocent members of the human community. We support the use of Constitutional means for bringing criminals to justice under US law and we advocate the use of these, or international means, in resolving this serious issue.

We are mindful that every day innocent victims of war and oppression suffer and die in many parts of the world, their only crime being born in a particular place, or into a particular religion, or with a certain skin color. The deaths of civilians at the World Trade Center, the US Pentagon, and in a plane crash in a Pennsylvania field fit the same category. They were ordinary people going about their lives in an ordinary way.

The normalcy of these conditions raises questions that we, as people of faith, living in many countries, must ask ourselves: What can we do to assure a more fair distribution of resources? What can we do to introduce systems of justice that might make the innocent less vulnerable? What can we do to transform hatred into compassion? What can we do to stop the spiral of terror that has now thrust the world into a new age of war?

The cycle of hatred, violence and retribution that lies at the root of the horror of September 11 must end. The response of the US and its allies must not be driven by a blind desire for vengeance, but rather a renewed determination to work for a peaceful and just world. The single great evil that must be opposed is not one group of people or another, but rather the hatred that continues to find root in human hearts. Humanity must reject hatred and struggle now more than ever to uphold the principles of human dignity and nonviolence.