Quakers The Religious Society of Friends - Aotearoa/New Zealand Te Haahi Tuuhauwiri Joint Yearly Meeting Clerks Merilyn & Michael Payne 76 Virginia Road, Wanganui, NZ Phone oo64-4-345-5738 Fax 345-2520 ymclerk@quaker.org.nz The following statement was released by the Yearly Meeting Clerks on Sunday, September 16th, 2001 We mourn with those who have lost family members, friends and colleagues in the terrorist attacks on the USA. We share their sense of disbelief that the most powerful state in the world has been unable to protect them from a handful of men armed with only boarding passes and small knives. We can understand the wish for revenge. But might this be a moment for changing focus to see more clearly what it is that the western world with the USA at its centre, has done to attract this catastrophe. US military and economic intervention in a number of different countries has caused unbearable pain and misery. We cast our minds to images of smart bombs being dropped with "surgical precision", killing civilians and destroying infrastructures; sanctions, which have killed hundreds of thousands of people: ordinary citizens forced into appalling conditions of life under which people are continuing to die. These deaths also deserve our tears. We need to understand how a sense of despair and powerlessness has led to hatred for the west. A retaliation by the USA to last week's tragedy will ensure that the cycle of violence continues. Who will pay the price for what happens next? If we want our children, and theirs, to inherit a safe and civilised world we need to care-fully consider how our actions, in the past and in the present, have contributed and will contribute to that future. As Quakers we believe and now restate that violence is no solution. We believe that the challenge before us all is to break the cycle of violence and retribution.