Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
Give Peace a Chance
Borlänge, Sweden
July 2, 2011

I Am Somebody.

Stop the Violence. Save the Children.

Jobs, now.

Justice, now.

Healing, now.

Peace, not war. Now.

We come here tonight to the Peace & Love Festival in inauspicious times. We’ve inherited a world of increasing daily doses of violence, multiple wars, and concentration of wealth. We must choose democracy. We’ve inherited a house of war; we must choose to build a house of peace.

Here at the Peace & Love Festival joy abounds – where music is the conduit for the message of life and peace, where a spirit of live and let live in a world that ought to be - that world that we hope for and dream of, comes alive.

Here in Sweden, we are the voice of conscience - where we struggle to make the world better and more secure, a world without hunger and poverty, drinkable water for all, a world where our children can breathe free. Our children who for the entirety of their young lives have never known day without the reality of bombs dropping around them and wars swirling in their homelands.

Our voice of conscience rises up like a mighty chorus tonight for the whole world to hear – our voice of conscience tonight challenges the deteriorating moral and spiritual bankruptcy we see all around us.

This year, we’ve seen revolts spread throughout the globe. The Arab Spring is upon us - the Arab Spring will turn to summer and inevitably to the Arab Fall and Winter unless justice is done in the Persian Gulf and the world as suffering people rise up. Unless there is power sharing. Unless reason prevails.

We cannot turn the clock back on yesterday or re-call days past; but we can march to a brighter tomorrow. Old orders must give way to democratic sharing of power and responsibility.

Just this week, tens of thousands of people are marching in Wisconsin and Michigan, in Britain to Greece and throughout the Middle East… people everywhere are rising up to demand freedom, equality, and economic justice. Democracy.

We ask the question tonight, what type of world will our children inherit? The extremes beget extremes - extreme power concentration, sinking working class - growth of poverty and exploitation has the world on edge. Whether in Egypt or Syria, or Greece, Britain or the United States, the times they are a changing.

Some think violence is the answer - but in today's world there is too much violence, too much greed, too much corruption, too much poverty and too much war. We need reciprocal trade, not reciprocal violence. We need mutual caring, not mutual destruction. An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth leaves all of us blind and disfigured.

War and violence is not the solution . . . the answers are blowing in the wind.

We must learn to live together and not die apart foolishly and unnecessarily. We have managed to survive apart we must now learn to live together.

Old wine skins must make room for new wine. Populations are shifting – going to where the grass is greener. Immigrants must be seen as therapy for economic growth, not threats. They must be embraced as neighbors, not rejected as foreigners. The earth is the Lords; it belongs to all of us. Let’s share it.

We must dream and struggle for life without war and violence - sing a new song or peace, a chorus of justice equality and love.

Dream, dream above our pain.

Dream above our fears and doubts. Dream.

Our dreams must not succumb to nightmares, or fear. When it seems that all is lost, dream anyhow. Don’t let anything break your spirit.

Freedom is blowing in the wind...it challenges the raging wars that poison the air - too many bombs falling, too many youth killing youth, too much poverty, joblessness giving rise to frustration …

The world is changing. Yesterdays colonized and enslaved peoples, from Pakistan or Iraq, Asia, Africa or the Middle East, are now today’s generation of immigrants. They now are becoming citizens. And they and their children - this new generation is now making democratic demands of inclusion.

We must build bridges and not walls.

We must Co-exist, not co-annihilate or co-destroy.

We must never give up on a new day.

We dream of a new heaven and a new earth - beauty rising from the ashes, as the old one passes away...

We live in one world – tightly connected by science and speed, technology and human need.

We've globalized capital and war and greed...in the pursuit of cheap markets to exploit. We must now globalize peace. Global human rights. Globalize workers’ and women’s rights. Children’s and women’s rights. Globalize justice. Globalize housing and health care. Globalize education... Globalize environmental security.

We must have a foreign policy not foreign to our values – we must transition from foreign policy, to neighbor policy. We are all neighbors. We are our brothers and sisters, brother and sister – not just our brother and sister’s keepers.

When there is a nuclear disaster in Japan, it is our disaster in our world. When there is destabilization in the Persian Gulf, it is our world. When there is tension in Pakistan, it is our world.

Where there is an earthquake in Haiti, it is our world.

When the levees break in New Orelans, it is our world.

We must reject the scape-goating of “foreigners” and “foreign values” - there are no more foreigners. Oceans and mountains don’t separate us anymore. We are connected to each other in real time. What affects one of us directly, affects the rest of us indirectly…and immediately.

At least in the athletic world, the reason we can have global soccer, tennis, track, baseball and basketball – is that there is an inherent sense of justice that gives the least of us an opportunity, and gives no one an inherent advantage by birthright.

On the playing field, in the World Cup, the playing field is even, the rules are public, the goals, the referee are fair - - - the game is transparent. Those principles must apply to access to drinkable water, education, health care, economic development, environmental security.

The world is not “broke” financially – we suffer from a mal-distribution of resources. Too few have too much. Too many have too little and are pushed in to the margins. We have a surplus for all human needs.

There is enough water and food and air – there is enough of everything the world’s children need.

There is enough room for all of us with room to spare. We must choose peace and coexistence. Peace and love must replace war and fear.

The prophet Isaiah admonished, we should “study war no more, and beat our swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.” Turn weapons of destruction into tool of development, and develop peace scientists, and not war scientists.

Today we see mighty powers being defeated by the power of non-violence. Even as we fight the terrible scourge of terrorism, and the painful acts of suicide and self-demolition, we must not sink to the level of invasion and occupation, pre-emptive strikes, political assassinations that undermine international law. We cannot afford to lose our moral high ground and moral authority in the process.

Let those that declare unnecessary wars, and profit from wars – wars of greed and territory and oil – let them fight them. Let those that insist on war and make money from war – let them fight them. Don’t assign the poor to die in the battle, while those that profit from war live lives of luxury on the mountaintop.

If the human body has too much blood in one area, you get a clot, you get dizzy, and you get a stroke. The human body demands a just distribution of blood, oxygen and water.

Whether on the football field or the human body, all roads lead to fairness and justice. All these signs point to using our money and scientific know to go another way and create shared dreams.

The prophet Amos said, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a might stream…”

Let’s go another way.

Choose life over death. Choose hope and healing over hurt and hate.

Choose graduation marches, not funeral marches.

Choose futures and faith, over funerals.

Let’s go another way.

Choose reconciliation, over retaliation.

Choose new priorities.

Let’s go another way.

Those with the power, must share responsibility. A burning house spares no one. We must change the flow of the river.

Our nation alone has spent $1 trillion in a misplaced war in Iraq; $2Billion a week in Afghanistan. $10 million a day on an undeclared war in Libya. Our best scientists and engineers focus on creating weapons of mass destruction – to fuel the military industrial complex. We refer to the victims of war as “collateral damage.” We as a nation and the world must be better than that.

Use that money: to fight malnutrition.

Use that money: to educate our children.

Use that money: to vaccinate against disease.

Use that money: to end poverty.

Use that money: to win the peace.

Dr. King was right when he quoted Carlisle, “the arch of the universe is long and winding, but it always bends toward justice.”

Some times questions of war and peace seem so complicated. So confusing. John Lennon was right when he said, “give peace a chance.”

Sam Cooke was right when he said, “change is gonna come.”

Bob Dylan was right when he said, “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind…”

Yes, my friends, the times they are a changing…..

Keep Hope Alive.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand
How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they are forever banned
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea

How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind