Peace activist is in prison for child's
sake
By JUDY
GROSS Special to the National Catholic Reporter
It's a question few mothers ever have to answer. Should she risk
separation from her baby by imprisonment or give up nuclear disarmament
activism to stay home?
When Michele Naar-Obed decided to commit an act of civil
disobedience, the understanding that she might go to jail was only part of the
torment of her decision.
Michele and her husband Greg Boertje-Obed agonized over the
choice. In the end, she was the one to enter the Newport News, Va., shipyard.
On Aug. 7, 1995, Naar-Obed and fellow activists pounded on and poured their
blood down the vehicle launch tubes of the USS Greenville fast-attack nuclear
submarine, designed to carry Tomahawk Cruise missiles.
In a 20th century twist to the Old Testament story about Solomon
and the two women who were fighting over a baby, Naar-Obed chose to give up her
daughter for "her sake and the sake of all children." Why are she and other
women activists willing to sacrifice their motherhood on the altar of
righteousness?
"When you can accept in your midst a weapon that can crack the
earth's core, that can wipe us off the face of the earth, it's the pinnacle of
insanity," she responded.
As a result of her action, Naar-Obed was arrested for destruction
of federal property and sentenced to a year and a half in the Federal
Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Fla.
The sentencing judge, Rebecca Smith, warned the mother she would
return to prison and "be away from your child even longer" if, during the
three-year probation to follow, she received even a traffic ticket.
Critics may ask, Which is the greater insanity, the proliferation
of nuclear weapons, estimated as costing the United States $9,000 a second, or
leaving one's child during her most formative years? Why would a woman who
cherishes her motherhood chance missing so much of her only child's infancy?
Making of an activist
Tanned from working in the prison gardens under the Florida sun,
Naar-Obed, an intense woman, told her story. Growing up in a New York family
and attending Catholic schools didn't prepare her for life as an activist. "I
think the Catholic schools at that time were a lot more centered on doctrine,
memorizing prayers and understanding sacraments but not the social implications
of the gospel." In her teenage years she left the church because she thought it
irrelevant.
"I came of age during the Vietnam war. I watched the body counts
and saw the graphic footage of the war on television." She said she knew people
were in the streets protesting the war, "but I didn't know what to do. I made a
promise to myself and God I would find a way to speak out against this, to not
be complicit with it."
The Iraq war was just building up when she finished graduate
school. Troops and weapons were being sent to Saudi Arabia. "There was a lot of
hype about bombing and becoming actively involved in the war," she said.
At that point she began to study the history of war. "None of them
ever arose in a vacuum," she said. "There was a history that preceded them and
things that could have been done to prevent them."
Naar-Obed committed her first act of civil disobedience in January
1991 by climbing up on the roof of an Air Force recruiting center and pouring
blood and oil on the building's sign. She was arrested and was acquitted in a
jury trial. She realized then that if she was going to be involved in civil
disobedience, she would have to be "very grounded in faith."
A search for a vehicle for her faith led her to explore different
paths. At one point she spent some time on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South
Dakota. "Their moral and religious beliefs were those I resonated very deeply
with," she said, "but it wasn't my tradition." So she returned to her Catholic
roots.
Along with the rediscovery of her faith, the young woman began
asking herself questions like, "Why did Jesus break the law? He did and there
are many examples."
Looking for answers led her to Jonah House in Baltimore. A
community of peace activists, Jonah House was started about 25 years ago by
Philip Berrigan and his wife, Liz McAlister, both of whom have been arrested
countless times for anti-military protests.
Caring for Rachel
The nine adults at Jonah House, including Naar-Obed's husband,
form an extended family that cares for Naar-Obed's daughter, Rachel. Not
surprisingly, Naar-Obed met the man who became her husband at a demonstration.
She is emphatic that it was a family decision that determined she would be the
one to risk a prison sentence. Misty-eyed, she says the decision was difficult,
"very difficult."
Beyond the family, the community also was in on the
decision-making. According to McAlister, who speaks from her own experience,
all opinions were heard and considered. "Some may have felt she should wait a
bit but still respected Michele's conscience." McAlister was sentenced to a
six-month term when her children were only 1 and 2 years old. She remembered it
as "rough and unanticipated."
Activists often must second-guess the consequence of their
actions, weighing the possible consequences against their zeal to protest,
McAlister says. "One can't guarantee anything, so you anticipate the worst and
are grateful for anything less."
Emphasizing the need for a strong support system, McAlister talked
about the time she and Berrigan were jailed at the same time in 1977. Their
children were in early childhood at the time. "It was unexpected, but the house
filled with friends from our wider community. What Phil and I learned was not
to risk arrest simultaneously."
It is precisely that kind of support that sustains Boertje-Obed
now. He is a veteran of 10 jail terms and has participated in four Plowshares
actions. He views his wife's imprisonment calmly. "I knew there were enough
caring people and Rachel would be well taken care of," he said. He noted the
Jonah House community plans that ensure "all don't end up in prison at the same
time."
He said, "In a sense Michele is not leaving a child completely. We
have weekly phone calls and we visit every few months."
Rachel, now a lively, giggling, bright, 2-and-a-half-year-old
seems to relate to adults easily and, according to her mother, is learning that
her family goes beyond her parents. "When she's older, she'll be able to take
that next leap to understand she is part of a community of humans that goes
beyond blood, beyond nations, a part of the world family."
To her critics, the mother answers, "Part of what I do is being
responsible to Rachel. These weapons threaten her as well as the other children
of the world. She is going to inherit all of it. I always reassure Rachel about
why I'm in prison and it's not because of her."
Before she was jailed, Naar-Obed said she thought, "How great it
would be if Rachel and I could do a civil disobedience together." But after
watching the pain another protester endured when his son was separated from him
after their arrest for the same Plowshares action, she says "I'm not sure I
could go through that with Rachel."
McAlister experienced the same kind of distress when her son,
Jerry, 22, faced a jail sentence for his participation in the Dec. 28, 1996,
Feast of the Innocents protest at the Pentagon. "It was a lot of anguish, more
than when I was the one to leave," she said. He has since been sentenced to six
months probation.
The overriding factor that led Naar-Obed into her action was what
was happening while she was pregnant. "I was carrying Rachel in 1994 and we
were coming toward the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki," she said. She saw photos of the aftermath of the bombings. One was
of an infant nursing at the breast of a mother. Both of them were burned and
bloodied. She describes the photographs as if she were holding them in front of
her.
"I look at that mother in the picture and I feel it very deeply. I
see that it's me and that baby is mine. For a very brief moment I feel what
that mother must have felt. What I feel is just horrendous pain. And I know
this cannot be right and it cannot happen again."
The jailed activist thinks Americans dehumanize the victims and
desensitize themselves. "It's very easy to forget, but this is the reality of
war. More and more the military has tried to separate us from that by calling
victims like these children 'collateral damage.'"
After 10 months in jail, does she still think it is worth it? When
she was first imprisoned, she talked about after she was released and "when I
go back to prison," not "if." Now she wavers a bit, realizing that "no time can
ever be replaced." Picking up her resolve, she asks, "When is the right time?
Do I do it now when she's a toddler? Do I wait till she's 5, in grade school,
in high school? There is never a good time.
"Whenever I choose to do this, I will always miss a part of her
life and I always think about the women who had no choice."
McAlister, a ground-breaker for mother-activists, said when she
began to participate in demonstrations three decades ago, there were no ground
rules. "We all learned as we went. We had no models for any of this."
She said she would ask any woman contemplating a life as an
activist, "Where is your community, your support system? Be clear about that."
Their experience can be useful, but not a template, she said.
"Everybody has to find what works for them. Measure and pray."
Looking at the effect her activism had on her children, now grown,
McAlister says, "I think the children may have had moments of resentment and
that's okay. They knew we were living to our commitments. They are interesting
human beings. They seem proud of us and they have a reason to be. I don't see
that they were damaged by our choices."
In fact, the three Berrigan children have stayed supportive of
their parents' peace activities. McAlister said there were times they probably
wished their lives were "more normal." According to her, they have the ability
now to look back and say, "We have things from life experiences that others
don't have." In McAlister's words, the children are "doing all right."
As for Naar-Obed, like St. Paul, she is doing a lot of writing
from behind prison walls. Her epistles have appeared in the Nuclear
Register and other activist publications.
The philosophy of Michele Naar-Obed, mother, wife and jailed peace
activist, is embodied in a saying from Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom:
"I've learned not to hold on too tightly to things in this life, because they
hurt too much when God has to pry my fingers away from them. Now I hold on
loosely." And so Naar-Obed holds tightly to principles and loosely to
everything else, even her child.
National Catholic Reporter, September 26,
1997
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