Friends,
We plan to honor Peter DeMott at the Pentagon on Tuesday morning. Call Max at 410-366-1637.
Kagiso,
Max
Mar. 03, 2009
National Catholic Reporter
The committed life of Peter DeMott
By John Dear SJ
http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/committed-life-peter-demott
Last week, Peter DeMott, 62, a friend to peace and justice people
everywhere, fell from a tree he was trimming. He was rushed to the
hospital and died during surgery. A
words, Peter worked full time since the 1970s for peace and
disarmament. Some of those years he spent behind bars for civil
disobedience. His death leaves those who knew him shocked and
grieving. But we also recall his life with gratitude.
“My experience in the military convinced me of the futility of war and
of the sad misallocation of resources which war-making requires,”
Peter wrote. “My faith in God prompts me to work for a world which
unifies us all by ties of love, solidarity and mutual cooperation.”
I first met Peter in 1982, at a protest sponsored by Jonah House, home
of Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister. There Peter lived before
moving to
daughters.
But stories about him preceded my meeting him. I knew that in 1980
during a protest at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in
Groton, Conn., Peter passed by an official van, saw keys dangling from
the ignition and, on the spur of the moment, climbed in, revved the
engine, and -- in a novel enactment of Isaiah’s oracle to beat swords
into plowshares -- rammed the van into a partly constructed Trident
sub. A spontaneous act of disarmament, he called it.
Two years later, as part of a Plowshares group, he returned to the
scene of the crime. Having no van on hand, he used a hammer.
Just two days before the
March 17, 2003, he and three friends poured their blood in the lobby
of a military recruiting station outside of
disrupt plans for the impending war, the four said.
The “St. Patrick’s Four,” as they came to be called, brought down the
government’s heavy hand. But the harder the government pressed, the
more attention the four garnered. With the government embarrassed and
hamstrung, prosecutors could only manage to win a four-month sentence.
The sentence completed, and the war now underway, Peter, quite
unchastised, traveled to
there in the spirit of CPT, “to get in the Way.” And just two months
ago, he was arrested again, this time at the Pentagon. He was to
appear in court this Friday.
At the recruiting station the four declared:
We mark this recruiting office with our own blood to remind
ourselves and others of the cost in human life of our government’s
warmaking. Killing is wrong. Preparations for killing are wrong. The
work done by the Pentagon with the connivance of this military
recruiting station ends with the shedding of blood, and God tells us
to turn away from it.
We come here today with pictures of Iraqi people -- mothers,
children, those who have been the victims of
sanctions for the past twelve years. We come here with love in our
hearts for the young
Peter and his friends put the protest in the context of
long, noble tradition of civil disobedience: The
1773, the smuggling of slaves to freedom in the 19th century, the
women’s suffrage movement in the early 20th century, the Civil Rights
movement of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“These few examples,” Peter said, “could be amplified considerably to
show that civil disobedience has helped to change unjust laws and
practices in our country and has played a significant role in the
realization of a more just and equitable society.”
The audacity Peter exhibited in the recruiting station didn’t fail him
in court. At his sentencing he said he looked forward to the day when
President Bush and his cohorts would stand trial for genocide in
“The war on
President Clinton and those who have aided and abetted them have
gotten away with murder…. Jesus tells us that those who live by the
sword will die by the sword.”
And then he dared lecture the court on matters of law. “It is the
responsibility of each and every one of us to nonviolently confront
those who break the law with impunity, which is what our leaders have
done through their use of lies, deceptions and forgeries to promote
and prosecute this war. The law should promote life and the well being
of everyone and should preserve and protect the earth and its
creatures.”
If audacity accompanied him to the recruiting station, and into court,
it surely followed him into prison. In an interview with Rosalie
Riegle, author of the forthcoming Doin’ Time, he said: “I always see
my jail and prison experience as part of that larger context of
nonviolent, peaceful struggle for social change.” The long litany of
American civil disobedience -- including inevitable jail time --
grounds him, he said. The cloud of witnesses who preceded him puts his
work on a noble and solid foundation.
As I ponder Peter’s sudden, tragic death, I’m impressed by his
faithful committed life. It recalls to mind Dr. King who, two months
before he died, said that as he thinks on his life and likely
assassination, he didn’t want to be remembered for his awards or
accomplishments. He wanted to be remembered for living “a committed
life.” Dr. King lived such a life, and so did Peter.
Many dismissed Peter’s steady work of disarmament, unassuming as he
was. But he suffered for it, kept going like a quiet river when so
many others had given up. Peter DeMott showed us what single-minded,
faithful, Gospel peacemaking looks like. And that, in my estimation,
is an amazing achievement.
We mourn his death, but we find lessons. Peter’s dying teaches us how
precious life is, how fleeting it is. And thus it reminds us how
important it is to spend our days working for a just, peaceful world
on behalf of suffering humanity. I thank the God of peace for this
quiet, faithful peacemaker. Let his example inspire us to carry on.
--------------------------------
By line to attached photo: Liz McAlister of Jonah Housae with Peter
DeMott and a donkey named Vinnie outside the White House, December
2007
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