Editorial

‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ (Grant Us Peace)
—An International Anthem

Our editorial this week is in the words of a leader of The LaRouche Organization in Boston, Massachusetts, William Ferguson, in a discussion Dec. 3 about why he had begun vigils singing the well-known round, “Dona Nobis Pacem,” against the growing threat of world war.

“When Diane Sare, who was the candidate in New York for Senate was not allowed to participate in the debate in New York with Schumer and company, one of our members had brought up the idea of a candlelight vigil to protest her exclusion....

We were engaged in a series of interventions where we confronted our Congressmen, who, by their support for billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine, were marching us toward nuclear war…. We had candle lights and signs outside the Kennedy School of Government. We got into some discussions with passersby and students at the school. Some were very receptive, but I was particularly struck by a discussion that became increasingly hostile, although not violent, that I engaged in with a couple of Eastern European apparent students—one of them from Ukraine. We couldn’t get past this back and forth about who was right or wrong, Ukraine or Russia. Why should there be a negotiation, as opposed to war and continued war? …

“So … I proposed the idea that we begin a campaign to establish the round Dona Nobis Pacem—grant us peace—as an international anthem for a movement to stop the march toward nuclear war.

“When you talk about peace, for example, what does peace mean? In 1967, Pope Paul VI wrote Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples), where he stated that development is the new name for peace; that was the theme of the encyclical.

“I remembered a passage from Schiller’s On the Sublime, ‘Nothing is so beneath the dignity of human beings as to suffer violence or destroy the individual’s humanity.’ Mahatma Gandhi had stated that ‘Poverty is the worst form of violence.’ If you think of violence in the general sense of that which destroys the humanity of an individual, then you see that there is really no lasting sense of peace that doesn’t include the idea of eliminating poverty—or rather, in the positive sense, development. As Mrs. LaRouche states in the 10th principle for the new architecture, she says, ‘The basic assumption for the New Paradigm is that man is fundamentally good, and capable to infinitely perfect the creativity of his mind and the beauty of his soul, and being the most advanced geological force in the universe...’

“So, if you want to talk peace, rather than just say peace is the opposite of war; you think of peace as that which ensures the possibility of the infinite perfectibility and creativity of the human mind. And every person of a nation on the globe would have the opportunity and the right to pursue that. I think that’s totally coherent with the idea in the Declaration of Independence of ‘the inalienable right of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ …

“It’s pretty clear that this is a very efficient way to get this idea across to as many people as possible as quickly as possible in a way that they don’t just observe it and agree or disagree, but they directly participate in it. One of the fastest ways of getting across something that is not so efficiently communicated just through words or discussion or just verbal language itself, is the demonstration of the principle through competent performance which conforms to the principles of beauty. Or, as Keats put it, ‘Beauty is truth; truth, beauty. That’s all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know’.”