RISKING IT ALL FOR PEACE--Stories of Occupation and Solidarity from Iraq to Palestine
Members of the Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) at McHenry County College will present yet another of their outstanding programs in the long-running Current American Issues Series this Friday, February 19 from 7 to 9 PM in the MCC Conference Center.
Two veteran Christian peace activists of have risked their lives in Israel and Iraq will speak from first hand experience.
Organic farmers and members of the historic Mennonite peace church, Art and Peggy Gish work as human rights activists for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an international organization "committed to reducing violence by getting in the way." They have been getting in the way of injustice and violence from Hebron to Baghdad.
Peggy Gish was in Iraq as peace advocate and witness before, during and following the 2003 U.S. invasion. In 2007 she was kidnapped but released after only 2 days because she showed her captors a photo of her husband Art standing in front of an Israeli tank which had been smashing the central market in Hebron.
Art Gish has been part of CPT in Hebron since 1995, getting in the way of Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinian civilians. He led a two day training course in nonviolence attended by Rachel Corrie. Art is the author of several books, including Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking. Peggy is the author of IRAQ, A Journey of Hope and Peace, a moving story of the horrors of war yet never dimming her vision of peace.
The program will be moderated by MCC Political Science Instructor Todd Culp, Ph.D. Joining SPAN as sponsors are Pax Christi, and the McHenry County Peace Coalition.
The event is free and open to the public.