All of us are endowed with consciences that often define how we respond to the world around us. We might even say that our value systems, our principles, might be derived from the conscience, or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. More than likely it is a recursive process. In any event, it’s one thing to have our consciences influence our lives (almost reactively); it’s another thing to act out of conscience; to actually use our consciences to actively “create” our lives. Those who do so are often referred to as “people of conscience.” One such person is Charlie Clements.
After devoting a good part of his formative years to living out a life directed by military principles and values, Dr. Clements had something of an epiphany during the Vietnam War. His decision to stop flying combat missions (he’s a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy) came after much soul-searching. After wrestling with his military obligations and responsibilities, he became a Quaker and then a medical doctor and then a “missionary” of sorts as he worked with Salvadoran peasants rebelling against the repressive and brutal regime that controlled their country in the 1980s. As a nonviolent activist, Dr. Clements chose to go, unarmed, into a war zone to give medical assistance to those who needed it, regardless of their political affiliation. As a Quaker, he was drawn to the poor who were suffering under the yoke of a government deaf to their basic needs. As a person of conscience, he chose to become one of the suffering (Daniel Berrigan tells us that “peace will not be won without the moral equivalent of the loss and suffering and separation that the war itself is exacting” from “Sermon from the Underground”).
Dr. Clements has devoted most of his life to the cause of peace. Currently, as Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, he has chosen to carry his conscience into the realm of higher education. What does taking up this cause really mean? How can one use nonviolence in a world fraught with violence to actually make meaningful changes? In a word, how can love prevail as a social force? Come to the Thomas Auditorium on UMF’s campus this Wednesday evening, March 16 at 6:30pm to find out.
We’ll start with the short Academy Award winning documentary “Witness to War” about Dr. Clements’s work in El Salvador and then we’ll turn the podium over to Dr. Clements. The presentation is sponsored by the student group Peace Activists in Training (PAinT). The evening is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Doug Rawlings at 778-7292 or rawlings@maine.edu.
Doug Rawlings
Farmington
