Remarks via zoom to conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 21, 2024.
It’s wonderful to be joining you even virtually in St. Petersburg, which I am informed is even more beautiful than Moscow, which I was fortunate enough to visit seven years ago — Moscow is a wonderful city 20 times the size of Washington, D.C. Just the long hours of sunlight were amazing to me. I met a lot of wonderful people when I was there. I didn’t agree with every one of them on everything, but I’ve never met anyone here in the United States with whom I agreed on everything either.
I’m looking forward to being in Norway and Sweden in November, if any of you will be there.
There are some differences between people in Russia and the United States, and even more misunderstandings. In Moscow I met an elementary school student who said to me, “I saw a movie, and I want to ask you, in the United States are there black people and do they always kill the white people?” When I assured him that they did not, he breathed a deep sigh of relief. A high school student asked me, “Is it hard to live in the United States with the CIA and FBI after you all the time?” I assured her it was not. Back in the United States people asked me if it was dangerous in Moscow. Are you permitted to just talk and say anything you want? Can you walk around without state controllers? Is it safe for women? Don’t they hate Americans?” I like to explain that in Moscow I saw a car pulled over by a police car, and the driver jump out and run back to yell at the police officer, an act which in the United States could end up getting you shot.
Between Russians and Americans and all the rest of us, there are, of course, mostly similarities. For example, almost nobody in Russia or the United States is stupid enough to think it’s a good idea to burn enough fossil fuels to heat the planet enough to melt more ice to allow easier access to more fossil fuels with which to further heat the planet, and yet here we go down just that path, with the U.S. government leading the way and most other governments playing right along, filling the roles of sidekicks and enemies without which any emperor could be recognized as having no clothes.
Militarism is a widely unacknowledged major contributor to environmental destruction, not to mention devourer of the funding needed to address non-optional crises, not to mention the source of hostility that prevents international cooperation when it is desperately needed. I want to express my great admiration and appreciation for everyone who speaks up for peace in all the countries from which people are taking part here, but especially Russia. And I want to express my shame and regret that there has been so little opposition to the war in Ukraine from the people of the United States. There has been more opposition to the war in Palestine, because the propaganda has been less accepted in that case. There has been even less for the war in Sudan because people have hardly even heard of it.
I met some great people in Russia seven years ago who told me they opposed wars, but I later found out that they only opposed U.S. wars. I’ve met many, many people in the United States who have stood shoulder to shoulder with me opposing particular wars in past years and decades who now passionately support either Ukrainian or Russian warmaking. This is a problem the whole world over. People struggle to identify the bad and the good cases of senseless mass murder and destruction, unable to recognize that the entire war industry is unsupportable in each and every case.
We know that without the militarism of NATO the current conflict could not have come to be. And we know that Russia’s attack on Ukraine gave NATO exactly what it wanted and boosted it far more than it could ever have done on its own. We know that the West has sabotaged treaties and negotiations for years, and also that this did not justify or require Russia invading Ukraine. We know that even with the most recalcitrant opponent, it is possible to use nonviolent resistance, boycotts, communications, and laws in place of joining in their dance of death. And we know that it is a relatively easy thing to admit that more than one party is in the wrong. A great many people will tell you that both Israel and Hamas have done wrong, who find it too difficult to say the same when it comes to NATO/Ukraine and Russia.
But the intellectual feat here is not so difficult really. We are risking nuclear war and nuclear winter. Even the most hideous alternative is far preferable. The war industry, dominated by the U.S. military and U.S. weapons sales, does immense damage every year to the environment, to government budgets, to the rule of law and foreign relations. We hardly stand a chance of dealing with climate and homelessness and poverty if we don’t end the wars and the war preparations. Obviously, the U.S. government, as the worst offender, ought to take the biggest steps. But others can help. When someone in Romania tells me they want all the U.S./NATO bases out, they add that they don’t want them replaced with Russian bases.
It occurs to me that the U.S. and Russian governments could take some world-changing steps together if we could move them to do so.
Neither the United States nor Russia is a party to the International Criminal Court – and the United States punishes other governments for supporting it.
Both the United States and Russia defy the rulings of the International Court of Justice.
Of 18 major human rights treaties, Russia is party to only 11, and the United States to only 5, as few as any nation on Earth.
Both nations violate treaties at will, including the United Nations Charter, not to mention their abuse of the veto in the Security Council.
While most of the world upholds disarmament and anti-weapons treaties, the United States and Russia refuse to support and openly defy major treaties.
Russia and the United States stand as rogue regimes outside the Landmines Treaty, the Arms Trade Treaty, the Convention on Cluster munitions, and many other treaties. They each use cluster bombs and each denounce their use by the other.
Neither the United States nor Russia supports the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Neither complies with the disarmament requirement of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and the United States actually keeps nuclear weapons in six other nations, while Russia has put them into one, with the excuse that the U.S. does it. Both threaten to use nuclear weapons.
Imagine every good person in the world who wants peace together telling the two governments that possess most of the nuclear weapons on Earth to reverse all of the foregoing positions — either together or one of them unilaterally until the other is shamed and pressured into following suit.
I’d like to invite everyone who hasn’t to visit worldbeyondwar.org and sign the peace pledge that indicates that you are part of a movement to end all wars by everyone.
This would be one of the better available paths to greater friendship and understanding across borders, but that greater understanding may actually have to come first. In the United States we have to work to inform people that Russia is not determining the outcomes of our elections, that we are electing these horrible people all on our own — not to mention the U.S. government openly claiming credit for Boris Yeltsin. We have to remind people that the Russian government is run by human beings, not monsters, that one can speak with and become friends with human beings. We should remind people of that memorial given to the United States by the Russian government in 2001 and stashed away quietly in New Jersey, perhaps move it to the National Mall in Washington D.C. while there are still a few spots not yet occupied by war monuments.
While we’re at it, Washington should borrow some of Moscow’s tour guides who actually tell the truth, good and bad — shockingly to U.S. ears. In fact, an exchange of tour guides between the two cities might have very interesting results. The more we can talk with each other the better. The Russian Ambassador has a house a couple of blocks from the White House. Whoever is running the White House could do nothing better than to take that little walk.
Talking can be awful, but I’m sure you’d rather hear whatever thing I’ve said with which you passionately disagree than be bombed, just as I would love to hear what you have to say and give it full and open consideration.
Thank you!