Nexus - 0110 - New Times Magazine-pages

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REPORT FROM REPORT FROM Iaformation Contre helped tm Send Bill Pfeiffer of The Sacred Earth Network to visit the Soviet Union as part of an American environmental delegation. He found a "complex ° . , ecological nightmare”... but also b y Bill Pfe eiffer an underlying hope working hard towards a safer, healthier future. he Soviet Union is 1/7th ofthe land mass of the planet. Interestingly, because the overall situation is desperate and crisis can create opportunity, the USSR might be able to pull off a REAL revolution and be the first industialized country to make the solar transition. Ina New York Times editorial, U.S. Senator Albert Gore said, “Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with our planet. Unless we quickly and profoundly change the course of our civilization, we face an immediate and grave danger of destroying the worldwide ecological system that sustains life as we know it. It’s time we confront that danger.” RUSSIA by Bill Pfeiffer bout 8 years ago, I came to to a similar realization as the one quoted above, but it was based only on part of the wider environmental crisis we find ourselves in. People like Helen Caldicott and Jonathan Schell were warning us of potential nuclear catastrophe; speaking of 150 nation states, competing for wealth, armed to the teeth, with the 2 largest among them prepared for war. Then I started to work with the Nuclear Freeze Campaign. An invigorating time... connected to amass movement that, in retrospect, I think, made history. In 1984, after two solid years of volunteer organizing, my colleages and I ran into a wall. The American fear of the Russians was so pervasive that reasonable calls for a cessation of the arms race feil on deaf ears. Who were these ‘enemies’ that were going to vaporize our cities? Who was the ‘Evil Empire’? As I asked myself these questions, a friend offered me an inexpensive trip to the Soviet Union wuich I took instantly. Soon after landing in Russia, at a birthday party of a Moscow artist, whilst dancing to songs like “Twistin’ by the Pool” and being feda five course meal, I knew first-hand my assessement of the Soviet threat was very different than the Pentagon’s. Yes, they lived under political and psychological repression. Yes, their awesome military capabilities were real; but after that first trip I saw flesh and blood people, not monsters. There was a space for change, and that same month, April 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. It was about that time many Americans began doing the same thing as I had, and "citizen diplomacy” came into being. If the leaders couldn’t make headway on peace and disarmament, then ordinary people were going to take a stab at it. Their lives depended on it. I organized and led a couple of trips after that first one, and was struck by two common themes: how much the Soviets longed for genuine peace with America, and how much they disliked their own government. On my most recent trip, I also found that the overwhelming concern for a reversal of their rapidly deteriorating environmental situation could now be added as a third major theme. Nexus *10 43