On Sunday, August 6, we were still in Stockholm. It was the day after the day that M&M became husband and wife. It was also the anniversary of the atomic bombing by the United States Army Air Forces of Hiroshima.
It is estimated that 140,000 people died from that attack alone.
Had I been in Santa Cruz instead of Sweden that day, I would have been participating in rememberance and resistance activities with the SCWIT.
I have written about my activities with SCWIT here before and our early morning protests at Lockheed Martin where we gently ask the folks who work there, "What exactly are you doing in there?"
Of course, I was a long way from Santa Cruz, so I figured that I was just going to participate vicariously through the various activities that the SCWITsters had planned for that day.
Imagine my surprise when DearSweetDave and I walked out of the Nobel Peace Museum and smack into these women who were staging their very own Hiroshima remembrance peace demonstration? I went right up to them and introduced myself and told them all about our group in Santa Cruz and that I really appreciated what they were doing since I couldn't be in Santa Cruz that day to participate in their activities.
Though the women demonstrators spoke very little English and I, of course, spoke no Swedish (with the exception of Hell and Gore!), we still managed to find our common language of Peace. They gifted me with a silver lapel pin of a dove carrying an ankh in it's beak, their own international symbol of peace. And they also gave me a poster showing the history of the women's peace movement in Europe.
I was very touched. And felt like I had found my comrades. I may have been thousands of miles away from Santa Cruz, but I was very much at home. Right at home, indeed.
