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Lance Lindsey
Death Penalty Focus, USA
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, Kollegen und Freunde: Viel Dank! Molto grazie a! Thank you. It is a genuine honor to be part of this significant and timely conference at this unimaginatively challenging and difficult time in all of our lives. As I reflect on all the heroic men and women assembled here who year after year remain undeterred in their "common engagement for peace," and, specific to this forum, unrelenting in their courageous struggle to abolish state-sanctioned killing, I am reminded of a story told by Rabbi Leonard Beerman, a member of the board of directors of my organization - Death Penalty Focus: A traveling merchant, who walked to the village market everyday to sell his goods, noticed that a frail man had been sitting on the roof of a Synagogue for many days and nights. He finally called up to the man and asked him what he was doing. "I am looking for the Messiah," said the man confidently. "This must be very difficult work for you," sympathized the merchant. "Well," said the man on the roof, "The pay is low, but the work is steady!" Our work is "steadier" than we would like of course; our only real payment for now is the certain knowledge that our struggle is a proud expression of what is best and most civilized in us as a people, keeping in mind H.G. Wells' definition of civilization as a race between education and catastrophe; and like the man on the roof, we look to the future with determination and hope. For hope, as Jim Wallis of the Sojourner Community reminds us, "is the very dynamic of history, the engine of change and the energy of transformation - the door from one reality to another. Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change. Hope believed is history in the process of being changed." In fact, as the title of this forum implies, "The Abolition of the Death Penalty in the 21st Century," a future without death chambers, without the noose, the needle, the sword, or the chair as instruments of social policy, is nearer than many might think. Opposition to judicial homicide is now the majority view globally: more nations have abandoned the practice of killing prisoners than use it; all Western democracies have abolished it; virtually all major religions and every human rights organization work to end it; international declarations, treaties and covenants prohibit it; and even within the United States, more than 85 per cent of all executions happen in only a handful of former southern slave states, the Death Belt as we call it (also sadly known as the Bible Belt) from Texas to Florida. Perhaps we should call it the Bush Belt! The politics of death has become a politics of desperation, moral cowardice and international isolation. Political regimes that glorify, institutionalize, and promote judicial violence and public vengeance as a "final solution" to complex social problems are becoming increasingly conspicuous and isolated for so-called criminal justice practices that are now widely acknowledged as particularly unjust and, by every international human rights standard, fundamentally criminal themselves. Um es einfach zu sagen: Die Todesstrafe ist ein Verbrechen gegen das erste Menschenrecht - das Recht auf Leben. [Entschuldigen Sie bitte mein schreckliches Deutsch] Now more than ever we must refuse to allow this time to be marked forever in the pages of our history as the time that we were driven back to one of the vestiges of our primitive condition because, in the words of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, "we were not strong enough, because we were not intelligent enough, because we were not civilized enough, to find a better answer to violence than violence." Whether in Iraq, Washington D.C. or Texas we must continue to speak out with one voice: Nicht in meinem Namen Non nel mio nome Not in my name. In the not-too-distant-past the voices for reason, peace and justice were often marginalized or, worst, rarely heard. America in particular kept itself distracted with empire building - an Empire of Fear - and voices of hate, vengeance and death became deafening. Mike Farrell, DPF's board president describes this time well in a recent speech: "In such a time, when people are frightened and easily manipulated, confusion abounds. And in the midst of this confusion arise voices; voices in the media, in popular organizations, in some of our churches, in business and in positions of political power. These voices are often articulate, persuasive and highly seductive, and are, in very clever ways, giving people permission to hate. You know them. They no longer burn crosses; they sit in the United States Senate. They preach the name of Jesus and ignite the fires of bigotry. Because of these clever, manipulative, power-seekers with honeyed voices, many lose their balance and grasp at easy appearing, quick-fix solutions. They lose a sense of their own value, they lose a sense of the value of others and, with it, they lose what I consider to be the most important asset one can possess, the courage to love." But now, everywhere around us, slowly but surely, we hear new courageous voices, unafraid: the old, familiar, never completely extinguished sounds of conscience, hope, possibility and, yes, love; but not a maudlin, self-interested love, but the fighting kind that demands that those in power promote and insure human dignity, not wage war against it. A sea of protest signs rise up on the nightly news, many using language from the anti-death penalty movement, speaking truth to power, speaking to those everywhere who have been seduced by hate, fear, and the lust for violence: "Justice without Vengeance," "As We Act, Let Us Not Become The Evil We Deplore," "Violence Begets Violence," "Execute Justice Not People," "Justice Is Never Advanced In The Taking Of Human Life," "Don't Kill For Me," and "Not In Our Name." Love cries, le cri du Coeur, on behalf of the simple things we hold dear: humanity, justice, life, and, of course, hope - the believed kind that will transform our lives and change our history. I will end with a small poem: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the degradation of what matters most to civilized, visionary people. Luster and hubris. Acts against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, do not spend your spirit dry bewailing these difficult times. Do not lose hope because, the fact is, we were made for these times. We have been in training, just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. Don't focus on what is wrong. We will meet great people who will hail us, love us and guide us. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one can do to help another, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second or hundredth gale. There are always times when you feel discouraged. I have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. It is times like these when we must be fierce and show mercy towards others. Both are acts of immense bravery and the greatest necessity. Be grateful that we are here at this time and that we have each other.
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