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Out to Lunch with Sue Carr Novotny,peace activist and Methodist.In this series of interviews, I talk to Summit County residents about how they feel and think about politics. Friday, I met Sue Carr-Novotny at LaCosta’s Mexcan Restaurant for happy hour. We accomplished a serious discussion amid margarita drinkers, and I think this is when she came up with a better idea for the Friday Afternoon Club, to hold anti-war protests, or to be positive, peace rallies, which she now does every week from 5-6 p.m. She was recently arrested while protesting at Halliburton Oil, in Denver, but the first protest she organized, herself, was aimed at Saturday morning ski traffic. Talty: What do you hope to accomplish with the peace rallies? Novotny: To show that the people of Summit County do care about peace issues, they’re aware of what’s going on, that this isn’t some little town removed from it all, we’re engaged, and we care. In the best case scenario, somebody drives by and says ‘these guys can take the time and effort to stand on the street. I can do this and have my voice heard.’ Talty: What’s your sign going to say? Novotny: There’s a slogan we chanted at the rally in Denver, “This is what democracy looks like.” It stuck with me because I just came back from a trip - four weeks in Cuba. Cubans are allowed to speak freely, they’re allowed to complain. What they’re not allowed to do is organize. There is a local CDR, Committee for Defense of the Revolution. Every neighborhood, every municipality has one. You can go to your CDR and talk about issues in your neighborhood, and then they (committee members) get together and decide whether yours is a viable concern - whether it’s something they care about - and whether to take it to the next level through the government. Talty: Cubans don’t feel disenfranchised? Novotny: No. But, right now they’re very frustrated. They want their life to be better. They remember the good old days trading with the Soviets. I studied Spanish at the University of Havana. I brought pencils with me, but it never occurred to me that I couldn’t find pencil sharpeners. The teacher brought in her own chalk, kept it with her in her bag, so it wouldn’t get stolen. The bathrooms didn’t really have running water. You look in the science labs, and everything was 50s, 40s. Talty: You said an economist, spoke to your class. Was he a professor? Novotny: He was a Cuban, working for the government, for the economic affairs ministry. They’re working toward, what you could call, controlled capitalism, encouraging people to run their own businesses. Everything is state run, and everyone works for the greater good. Talty: Like a liquor store in Utah? Novotny: Yeah. You go into the grocery store, or you can go to the open markets. You have a ration card that allows you beans, rice, a little bit of meat and, if you have children, milk. They’ll have vegetables produced on the state-run farms - and they are cheaper - or you can buy from independents. Talty: Independent farmers own their land? Novotny: No, it’s still owned by Cuba, and that’s true of investing. You can own the building, but Cuba will own the land, so it’s a 51 percent 49 percent deal. Talty: If you could dictate American policy toward Cuba, it would be…? Novotny: The embargo - it’s been 44 years - was supposed to bring Castro to his knees and crush communism forever. It hasn’t worked, just made a lot of people miserable. Definitely, lift the embargo, but do it with eyes wide open on both sides. They’re going to have to get used to capitalism, and we’re going to have to get used to the idea that the socialist state is not going to collapse. Talty: What about that other regime we’re trying to get to collapse? Novotny: Iraq? Common sense says war doesn’t work. If war solved our problems, they would have been solved long ago. So, we go in there, and we’re going to have democracy. I don’t think it’s going to happen that way. Talty: Well, we’re going to install a military governor for a while. Haven’t they already picked Tommy Franks for the job? Novotny: It makes you laugh. We’re going to take out one military regime and install another military regime. As long as it’s ours, it’s okay? Talty: What’s the alternative to war? Novotny: We need to start thinking about the legal process, the international courts. Give these courts more weight in the global community. It seems to me that giving the U.N. more power is the way to work through things. First of all, you have to recognize the sovereignty of other states, even if you don’t agree with their political philosophy. You have to recognize that they have the right to govern themselves as they see fit. Talty: Even if its socialism, communism, dictatorship? Novotny: What is freedom? Is it what the United States wants, or is it the freedom to do whatever Iraq, or any nation wants. We have to start recognizing that all of our cultures are different, that we do live on a very diverse planet, that war is an antiquated concept. The way we have done things up to this point, because of technology, we have to find new ways of relating to each other. It seems like the present government particularly is wanting to do things the way they have always been done. Talty: Don’t you think Bush thinks this is new communication, to talk so tough we get disarmament, or regime change, without going to war? Novotny: This may be very naive, but why can’t we talk to people on a level of honesty. ‘What do you need? What do we need? Let’s negotiate.’ We can talk about people like Ghandi and Martin Luther King. We will come to you with soul force, not brute force. We will, because of our moral strength, rather than our physical strength, come to you unarmed. We are going to change your mind, not just change the leader. Talty: And what do we do if Saddam won’t talk? Novotny: Iraq still needs to deal with the rest of the world. As far as oil prices go, there’s a world market out there. That’s the positive side of globalization. So, we do very aggressive inspections, work things from an economic standpoint, from a global perspective, not just as the voice of one. We work on educating everyone on what political systems work. If we’re going to say ‘our way, or no way at all,’ it isn’t going to be effective, and we’re never going to be safe. Talty: You don’t think the peaceniks threaten the U.S. position? Novotny: I think they (Bush and his advisors) need to relook at the position they are taking. I do question their motif. Why Iraq? We’re the most heavily armed nation on the planet, we’re the only nation to ever deploy weapons of mass destruction, or nuclear weapons, and gobble up more fossil fuel than any other nation on the planet, and here we are going to another country and saying “you’re bad.” It doesn’t seem like we have much of a moral ground to stand on. Talty: What did you learn when your church group studied fundamentalism and violence? Novotny: Fundamentalists start reacting the way they do because they feel the world is against their religion, attacked by - not only secular society - the rest of their faith. They feel there is a need to have a pure version of the religion. Look at fundamentalist Christians, they think their way is the correct way to live. If we start living this way - not killing, not stealing, not coveting our neighbors’ stuff, things like that - God will favor us. If you think about the things that are (similarly) true for Islam - if we (Muslims) treat women with the Muslim version of respect, if we have a government that follows the tenants of Islam - doing those thing, God will bless us (Muslims). Talty: Most people don’t think it thunders because God is angry with us. Novotny: It’s not because we believe in science, (that fundamentalist become violent), its because we’ve marginalized them. It was the fundamentalists Christians who supported the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights. They said, if we are to have a legitimate kingdom of God, this is what it will look like - equal rights. The Quakers started the Underground Railroad. At the Scopes Monkey Trial, one of the lawyers takes the creationism part of these religions - and it wasn’t an issue at this point in American History - and made fun of it, and people start mocking fundamentalists. They’re seen as people without a brain. And so, (as a Christian) your back is against the wall, and then you’re ready to start retaliating. In this country, you retaliate with your money, accumulate power, start making your own seminaries and schools, and start the Moral Majority. Talty: As a recently-arrested, anti-war person - apparently a minority in America -do you feel marginalized, like the fundamentalists? Novotny: No. I feel that I am acting on my choices, my rights as a citizen. I don’t feel like they’re being taken away from me - yet. Going back to the Cuban experience, it made me a much stronger believer in the Democratic system, because we do have the right to speak out, to organize and assemble and to create change in our neighborhoods and society. So we don’t have to go along with what our government says, and that’s a profound, powerful thing. It goes back to that sign “this is what democracy looks like,” which means we have the right to have our voices heard. |
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