Is Peace Possible?

A talk with Melinda Clarke is a Peace Pilgrim, writer and Peace activist.
She has an amazing and inspirational story. She interviewed the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing and did a peace pilgrimage at age of 75 around a sacred island in Japan. She is certainly a person who travels a long distance, making it a journey if not to somewhere, then perhaps in search of some (spiritual) place or knowledge. We discuss key elements of Peace.

Transcript

And this is Talk Story.

Actually it's an anniversary.

I've been doing this show 32 years.

I remember when I came to Maui and I began the show and it was so different when you're new to a place and taking a look at it and then after years and years and years of talking to people.

I have really found all kinds of interesting insights and met some fabulous people over the years.

Today's the International Day of Peace and I wanted to focus on this show,

On this very,

Very important topic and I was,

I guess I was,

I felt a bit of a responsibility after being honored by UNESCO last year as a poet laureate with UNESCO's in the Peace Awards and over the years I've had many,

Many interviews I've done with some fabulous people who are dedicated to peace and it's part of a thing called the Peace Projects.

I decided I'm going to do a book on it and I've written down some of the key elements of peace and of course I've written lots of poems.

But today I wanted to talk to a couple of people who are very dedicated to peace.

My first guest here is a wonderful lady who is so,

So,

So very inspirational to me.

Her name is Melinda Clark and I've had the honor of interviewing Melinda sometimes with her mother,

Deidre,

I think two or three times with Deidre,

Right?

Deidre's not my mother.

I'm her mother.

I'm sorry,

Yes,

I do mean that.

See,

I'm dyslexic and I got that backwards.

No,

No,

No.

Deidre tells everybody that.

Thank you,

Melinda.

And I remember the first time I heard your story,

Melinda,

I was so,

So,

So very impressed with it.

Rather unique story and inspiring,

Inspiring.

And you also over the years have been dedicated to peace and we're going to talk about that journey,

Your journey of understanding and sharing peace.

You wrote the book Waymakers for Peace and that's a lovely,

Lovely book,

Which in the end of it,

You have a quote here,

Which was from the Seville statement on violence.

And you shared it with me before we began the show here.

And the first proposition is,

It is scientifically incorrect to say that we have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors.

Warfare is peculiarly human phenomenon.

Did you know that?

I mean,

It's a peculiarity human phenomenon and it does not occur in other animals.

The fact that warfare has changed so radically over time indicates that it is a product of culture.

There are cultures that have not engaged in war for centuries and there are cultures which have engaged in war frequently.

And you were just telling me before we began how many countries are do not have military now.

22.

I was shocked at that.

I had no idea that there were actually 22 countries that do not have any military.

And there's another country that other countries that have military that haven't been in the war for in a war for over 100 years.

I wasn't aware of that either.

And at the end of this quote here,

It says here,

Just as wars begin in the minds of men,

Peace also begins in our minds.

And that's an amazing,

Amazing quote.

And I do believe that.

And of course,

We know and we have some fabulous quotes on peace we could do,

But we do know that peace begins within.

But in your case,

You've had an amazing journey to really unfold this process through the different journeys you've taken and places you've gone and people you've spoken to,

To have a deep understanding of what war and what peace really mean.

You did some very insightful interviews with the survivors of the bomb at Hiroshima.

Hiroshima is supposed to be flat.

You speak fluent Japanese and I don't.

So I learned I know the wrong way of how to say that.

And you did an amazing piece on that as well.

And I think you even uncovered some video of some of those things that were covered up for years.

I saw a portion of that.

And then you also went on a peace pilgrimage much later.

And I want to talk about that as well.

So let's start with what happened when you and how you got to the point where you decided to go and interview the survivors of that horrific bombing.

Well,

You know,

Looking back on it,

And I often do look back on it.

It's amazing the different things that happened that caused me to take my two children and go to Hiroshima.

I thought I had a call,

Calling from the universe.

I saw this word Hiroshima across the sky so many times that I finally decided to sell the house,

Sell everything except the children.

I decided not to sell them.

Although I had two days.

And anyway,

And I'm sure they would have liked it.

But anyway,

We all went off to Hiroshima.

It took us a while to get there.

Actually,

It took us a year to get there because I ran out of money and we ended up in some very interesting places.

And the children ended up in some very interesting educational systems.

Nobody spoke English.

But their teacher happened to be an undercover hibakusha,

A hibakusha survivor that she wasn't allowed to tell anybody.

But she told us.

Now,

Let's stop you there.

Who would tell her that she's not allowed to tell anybody that?

Oh,

That's interesting.

The whole government,

The group called Mambusho,

Which is like our IRS,

Our Secret Service.

Secret Service is a very good thing.

Explanation for it.

Yes.

Where that nobody was allowed to talk about the A-bombs.

Wow.

Either Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

And if they survived,

They were to be hidden.

And it was against,

Just against the rule.

You were allowed to do it.

And when they came to me around 10 o'clock one night and said,

Let me know what I was doing wrong,

Because I went and told,

Not knowing that they weren't allowed to tell.

And I was told the reason was because the emperor was still living.

So the emperor didn't die until 1988,

The end of 1988.

So until that time,

Nobody was allowed to say anything against the emperor because,

As the Japanese explained it,

They thought the emperor was God.

And anyway,

It's just Japan is Japan.

Nobody spoke against the emperor.

And until he passed away,

They were allowed to speak for about two weeks after that.

That's the end of it.

And we were in the middle of that.

It was very,

Very interesting because we were in a small section in a small island.

And it was very right wing.

It was a shock to all of us,

But it was very interesting.

Yes.

So that's how it started.

Then we eventually went over to Hiroshima and got in with the Quakers that had like an underground for the bomb survivors.

And I was able to interview them.

And my son,

Only four years old,

Went with me on some of these interviews,

Which created nuclear nightmares.

And my daughter was in school.

Your daughter being Deidre.

Yes.

And Deidre was the one that actually made the connections.

The teachers made connections with her.

And then she brought me in.

So in these situations,

Which are extreme situations.

They were extreme.

I think about the most extreme we can imagine unless we compare it to someone who's had a relative killed and the person's in jail still or something such as that.

I mean,

Maybe even worse because we don't have that.

Doesn't really compare it as it does.

One person compared to the entire city,

Entire population in this particular of millions of people being affected.

They had shadows.

There were shadows left on the benches.

If you went there today,

You would see shadows of people who actually were alive at the time.

And the bomb was so hot and burned them like a drop of water on a skillet.

But yet they left their shadow.

I mean,

And people who didn't die that fast,

Their skin peeled off.

And then when it came on again,

It came on a different way.

And it just horrendous what they went through.

How did these people and you interviewed quite a few.

How did they live afterwards and survive this horrific incidents and how did they find peace?

Oh,

I don't think they ever found peace.

In fact,

They believe that the people who died,

Their souls are still whether you want to shut them up or not,

You can't because their souls and their spirit will never have peace until no more war,

Until no more a bomb especially.

No,

They never did find peace.

What they had was gone on where they just kept going because they didn't die.

And they were hidden and never married,

Most of them,

And not allowed out the side for people to see.

They were really,

They were discreet.

It was a shame.

It was a shame to the Emperor.

It was a shame to everybody.

It was a shame to them.

They didn't see themselves.

When the Americans went in,

Government went in,

We took everybody's camera and any photos that they took.

So nobody,

Not the Japanese,

Not the Americans,

Nobody got to see what horrendous,

Horrible thing the A-bomb was until 1984,

It was like the 1980s,

The Sunshine Law came.

And we,

America,

Had all of the photos that people had taken and we had them in storage or red tape.

But when the Sunshine Law came,

Japan said,

Please give us back our photos.

And they said no,

We said no,

But we'll sell them to you.

So Mr.

I had a man that we knew,

Started a campaign,

Here's one person,

Started a campaign.

He put an ad in papers all over Japan and said we want to buy 10 feet of film from the American government.

They sent in 10,

000 yen or whatever it was for,

To buy 10 feet of film.

They eventually were able to buy about 90 feet or 100 feet of film.

And so they made films,

Put them together and they didn't get that until 1984.

And we happened to be there in 1984,

Made it from over from Shikoku to Hiroshima and met him.

He was heading up the YMCA and he knew the Quaker group.

And anyway,

They introduced me and everybody falls in love with my kids.

Yes.

You know,

I love Deidre and I've seen pictures of your son.

Yes.

Beautiful.

Anyway,

So they adopted us kind of like the Brady Bunch or something.

And no matter what we did wrong,

It was okay.

And anyway,

They gave us three,

Three of the films.

So I was able to take them around the world basically and show the film.

And I forgot what the question was.

Well,

The question actually comes down to,

I mean,

Because this is International Peace Day and you wrote this book,

Waymakers for Peace.

When you see something so horrific and you talk to the people who went through this and lived a life of hell after something like this happens,

I guess it really struck very strongly at home with you that war is hell and the importance of peace.

And you dedicated your life to this to the point of if we jump forward to the amazing story of you having a very dire health situation and yet going on a peace pilgrimage afterwards,

Which I think is a book in itself.

What was when did you actually get you went to you weren't feeling well,

You went to the doctor and you were given a basically a sentence that you were going to not survive,

Right?

Six months to live.

Yes.

What year was that?

That was 2006.

Yes.

I don't think I'll forget it.

And what did they tell you?

You know,

This doctor said I had six months to live and he walked out.

And then last I ever saw him,

He never came back.

Wow.

Yeah.

But we're trying to let go of that kind of thing.

And so I went to another doctor and and he immediately put me in the hospital and started treatment.

And then I was going to die.

That would be my 50th high school reunion.

So I decided to go back to Pennsylvania in the middle of the treatments and continue my treatments there.

And it turned out to be a godsend.

And anyway,

So I survived.

And then I thought I was better.

But then I metastasized in my brain four times.

By this time,

I was in California and found a wonderful surgeon there.

And anyway,

Yes,

That's that's over.

My son keeps saying,

You know,

Let go of it.

So well,

But it's life changing,

Obviously.

Life changing.

And then you decided to do this pilgrimage.

And I hadn't heard except for you about the special island where people did pilgrimages around the island.

What was the name of that island?

The island is Shikoku.

And that's the island that we first met our first A-bomb survivor,

Mrs.

Yamamoto.

And when the funny,

Not funny,

But really fascinating thing is the pilgrimage took me three different trips because my visa was only good for six months or three months anyway.

But I had to come back three different times.

The first time I went back,

I was in Imabati and I tried to find her and everybody said,

No,

No,

You know,

She's she's long gone.

And it was the second trip or the third trip back.

I found her and she was still living in the same house that I have a picture of her yet.

And she had a little bit.

She couldn't remember me so well,

But she,

I think,

Pretended she did.

But we still went out for dinner and had some nice times.

And she was still going around talking about her A-bomb survivor being a hibakusha that she was allowed to talk about when I was with her and went and told that she was telling me and she got in trouble from the school.

But long stories,

Lots of long stories.

But yes,

Again,

I don't know what the question was.

Well,

About how it began,

The peace pilgrimage around this island,

Which I'd never heard of.

She told you about the peace pilgrimage there?

No,

She told me about the hibakusha.

But while I was there,

I used to see pilgrims.

And I learned that people go on the pilgrimage to help with a problem.

Like if your wife is sick,

Then somebody would go on the pilgrimage or somebody died or somebody's having a hard time.

You go on the pilgrimage.

It takes,

It takes some people about two years.

The fastest I ever heard it was done was 45 days.

And I know that fellow who did that.

And he just never stopped to step except to sleep and got up and went.

And he did in 45 days.

And that was really amazing.

Now,

Of course,

A lot of people have heard about the Santiago de Camposta,

The pilgrimage there.

It's famous.

The movie was done in a way.

This one's a little bit bigger.

This is a,

This is a,

This is a 900 mile one.

That's a long pilgrimage.

So you were there the first time.

Do you mind if I ask how old you were the first time you took this on?

I was on the path of going to about number five,

I think,

When I turned 75.

So at 75,

You began this journey.

75.

And I ended it at 75,

Since 77.

So you had,

And that's going back and forth because you had to get the visa to go back.

Right.

And each time I came back.

As I was walking the first time,

I met a man and a wife who gave me a house.

So I would keep going back to the house.

Not every night,

But you know,

Like once a week or so to sleep in the house.

And when I was sleeping there,

I had people come and they wanted to study English.

So I had a little bit of money coming in.

That's nice.

Yes.

It was wonderful and met people.

And the fact that you spoke Japanese really changed the entire journey as well.

Yes,

It did for me.

But a lot of people don't,

You know,

Because you just walk and yeah.

So okay,

So now people have a little bit of an understanding of what you've done with just that.

Now I have to take it to the next step.

From all of these experiences,

Which are amazing,

Amazing adventures that most people don't ever get a chance to experience.

What have you discovered about peace?

Well,

Very interesting.

How many minutes do I have?

Ten minutes.

No,

Well,

I'll just say that it was while I was walking and doing the pilgrimage that I understood that my purpose and my connection from way back when I was after the three minute nuclear accident and I first went to Japan,

That it's all connected.

And I realized that my connection to life and I realized that,

You know,

Each of us have something in mind is the violence and the peace and breaking the circle of violence that I was born around and in a culture of violence.

I mean,

You know,

I mean,

Let's face it,

Violence isn't a bad thing in America,

At least not on the East Coast.

So anyway,

And so what I found out about peace is that we don't know what it is.

Now we know what war is and I can tell you what war is and we are taught war from step one of going into ROTC and showing our boys how to stand and how to hold a rifle.

And then we eventually show them who they're supposed to hate,

Who's supposed to be angry with.

And but we don't know how to teach peace.

Now we a lot of other countries have done a very good job with that.

What,

Just off the top of your mind,

Which ones come to you as far as the other countries that have done a good job?

Well,

Maybe not on the full thing,

But let's take Japan,

For instance.

You can go to Japan,

You can walk down any time a night,

Day or night,

Be safe in the country.

You can drop your wallet with all your money in it.

Somebody can pick up your wallet and they'll take it to this little what's called a koban where there's a policeman sitting there.

Give it to him.

And he knows every foreigner,

Everybody in the town.

And he this happened to us and he brought my money.

What I didn't know is that I was supposed to take my money back and say,

Thank you so much.

Give 10 percent to the lady who turned it in.

Instead,

I just said,

Oh,

Thank you very much.

I gave it back to Gavin and sent him to the store.

But they have they have things worked out for peace to get along with each other.

Look at us.

We can't get along.

At least little thing froze us.

Well,

I'm afraid now it's even more intensified with everything with covid.

It's gotten even aloha is under is in peril.

I would say in peril with what I'm seeing people do and say.

Now I had a question actually was Deidre asked me this question a while back.

She said people think other people are overreacting to the coronavirus.

Wouldn't it be something if we overreacted like that to violence?

And when a man's beating his wife,

Put him in isolation for 14 days.

That's a very interesting concept.

Well,

That's a very interesting concept.

Yeah.

Get upset about something.

Don't put him in jail.

You know,

You don't know.

Punish him.

But you put him someplace to work with him and realizing that the violence is a disease.

So violence is our disease.

We've we have accepted and lived with and fostered violence,

I think,

Created part of my life was partial responsible for my cancer.

Anger,

Anger,

Anger,

Yeah,

Violence.

Yeah.

Pain.

And we're seeing anger right now in our culture and what's going on.

We're seeing a lot of people getting their buttons,

Frustrated patients,

Definitely some pain about what's going on.

And it's not a typical war,

But in a way it is.

And I can't compare it to what World War Two was.

But there is this amount,

Huge amounts of death and sorrow and suffering,

Many people passing away.

I mean,

Millions,

We're talking millions and millions of people who have passed away.

And yet,

Again,

I'll go back to what you said,

Teaching our culture peace.

Now,

You and I know,

And I have this in our Elements of Peace list that I've made,

That aloha is supposed to be one of the things that helps to solve that.

And,

And again,

Aloha has been in crisis.

So we go back to some of the elements behind aloha here,

Which include,

You know,

Things that you experienced probably on your walk,

Some time for less stress by meditation,

By being silent,

Right?

By finding something within where you can find a way to go into what is causing those elements of anger and violence within someone,

You know,

It's not an easy process.

Oh,

It's not an easy process at all.

Because as part of you,

And it's accepted by the society,

It's accepted by the school,

It's accepted by the media,

It's accepted by everybody around you,

Violence is accepted.

Well,

They figure one in four women have experienced domestic violence.

And I have to say,

I've thought about this a lot since I went through it myself.

I went through some major domestic violence.

But I have to say as more and more people,

And when I did a CD on it called A Rise Above Abuse,

Then I started talking to more people.

And what I found from that was that many women were ashamed just the same as the people you saw that experienced the horrific,

Awful war and the atomic bombs.

People who had experienced domestic violence were ashamed because they felt their own guilt or some shame that they had had gone through that,

Or they were forced into feeling they should be ashamed.

That is starting to change,

I think.

I think in that element,

If we were just talking about that element of violence,

Talking about some of these things brings them into the light and talking about you've done many,

Many talks about what you've experienced.

And you must have had more people start to really think about this as you communicated it.

You went all around.

Didn't you even do a talk?

You did some major talks on the subject,

Didn't you,

About peace?

Yes,

I did,

At least on Hiroshima.

And I mean,

I spoke a lot of places.

I even spoke with the World Bank,

The Breakfast Club,

And the World Bank in DC,

And the different universities and wherever I could.

Yes.

But I was going to say something,

And I think one of our major problems is some of the words that we have.

And I'm redoing this book and I'm putting a section where I'm looking at words.

And you say the book means way makers for peace,

Which you wrote.

Oh,

That's right.

This is all right.

So anyway,

But like judgment.

We have so much judgment about what's right or what's wrong.

Who's guilty in that.

Whereas some societies,

And I will,

Some societies observation and so many of the gentle societies,

You know,

I mean,

They might have problems,

But you take certain cultures and they're gentle people.

I'm not saying,

India,

You know,

Whenever I was there meeting people,

They're very gentle people.

Gandhi,

I mean,

It's a gentleness.

Anyway,

There's no judgment.

Get rid of the judgment.

You get rid of the judgment.

And because when you have judgment,

You have to have punishment.

But if you get rid of judgment and punishment,

Then you have observation and help.

That's not,

I'm going to focus on that because that's a beautiful thing.

And can add it to my book,

Non-judgment,

Because again,

When you have judgments,

You're putting in right and wrong.

And when you have right and wrong,

You're going to have people disagreeing and fighting because you think I'm right.

The other person thinks they're right.

And unless there's some common ground and then you brought in that beautiful element,

I'm going to bring in observation into my elements of peace.

Because once you bring in the element of observation,

You're stepping back from the ego again.

You're stepping back from that ego and pride wanting to say I'm right.

And as soon as you step back from that,

Something happens,

Doesn't it?

And you observe it like it's a TV show.

You get up and kick the screen out of your TV show when somebody does something,

Like you watch it.

And you see what works and what happens and that guy's such a jerk.

Look what happened because he did this or that.

But it's an observation.

And we have to learn to observe.

In the Bible,

It says,

Resist not less G.

And I forget what it is.

But the thing is,

You don't fight something.

Because if you fight it,

It was Star Wars.

Don't pick up the sword.

Because if you do,

You become part of the problem.

So you're not,

Resist not evil.

You don't resist it.

What you do is you don't go against the war.

You build the peace.

So I can use this in a relatable situation when people are upset on Facebook or social media about something that they hear that gets them upset.

I mean,

I'll use,

For example,

The march that happened,

That was the demonstration that happened over the weekend.

A lot of people were very,

Very angry.

And when you post something like that,

You have all these people coming together and saying,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

This is wrong.

I can't believe that they're so stupid.

And then all of a sudden you're building this thing up.

So even if it's wrong or whatever,

If you took a step back and didn't even do that,

But you observed it,

Then you're not building this anger and this frustration up.

Right.

And if you don't like that,

Well,

Rather than going and fighting against it,

Then build,

If you don't like that,

Rather than fighting against it,

Then you build what you want.

You build the peace.

And that's something we don't do.

We don't make peace an action.

We're peace is an action.

We don't know what to do.

We know what to do with war.

We know how to knock somebody's head in,

But we don't know how to develop the peaceful side.

Well,

You know,

I love the fact that you talk about teaching peace.

And there are,

I know UNESCO has some beautiful beings that are doing this in some schools around the world.

And I don't know if it's been done here in this country.

And I think it's something that I absolutely agree with you on this,

That this is something that I would love to see taught.

You know,

On so many levels,

You know,

Everything from domestic violence to interactions and how we put to work what we say and how we deal with these things.

Because until we start to control this,

This energy that we're creating from the anger and what we're seeing right now,

Which is just eating at us,

I mean,

Literally you talk about the anger.

I mean,

I think that is like a disease that does eat at you.

And we know that aloha,

This is supposed to be our island of aloha,

The state of aloha.

And yet we're seeing so much that is not aloha because of this right and wrong.

You know,

You're wrong to do this.

You know,

You're right.

You're imposing your will on my will.

I don't like that.

You know,

Your freedom.

And it goes really,

It doesn't.

You know what the frustrating part is?

All of this is not changing.

It's not changing people.

You know,

Just because you start getting angry at people,

Very rarely can you change someone by making,

By being angry and getting in a fight with them,

Right?

Yes.

And we see this on a much bigger scale when you look at the major wars or what happened.

I mean,

You know,

If we could have some understanding again of what happened in these major wars and we thought we were doing the right thing because we wanted to end the war against Japan.

So someone convinced someone that if you did this,

It will save more people's lives because it'll stop the war.

And it's like,

Okay,

How do you make that right?

You know,

You make a decision like that.

Someone talks someone into doing something because they think it's going to do a greater good.

Right.

And then we see the consequences.

Right.

So,

So somehow that discussion,

You know,

If there was something to fall back on a moment to really observe,

What are you doing?

What are you doing dropping this bomb that's going to wipe out an entire city?

You know,

So but,

You know,

In the defense,

They didn't know what it was going to do,

But they were warned.

They know now.

Yeah.

They know now.

We know now.

Was it Oppenheimer that said that it opened the gates of the gates of hell?

Yeah,

I think.

Yeah.

Because he worked on the Manhattan Project,

I think.

Yes.

But still,

They weren't sure.

Yeah.

But by the time they came to Nagasaki,

They were pretty darn sure.

But it was a different type bomb.

But the point is,

That was 70 something years ago.

And now we are still today building smaller bombs because they're easier to handle.

You know,

I know what we have to stand up now.

Ralph Nader said,

If only 1 percent of the people stood up,

It would break.

That's all it would need to break through the powers.

We're closer to peace than we know,

Because we have what,

Five hundred and thirty five people in Congress.

But we're millions.

And if just 1 percent of us stand up and stop the nuclear arms race and that type of thing,

Then we can go ahead and in the meantime,

Build what we want.

Well,

And a lot of people are not aware of what the UNESCO and UN people are doing.

I wish they had better publicity on some of the work they are doing to further peace.

There is actually a lot of work being done on this.

And we don't hear enough about that.

The papers are putting it out.

No,

I wish that people knew that there are so many people who are peacemakers around the world that are learning and are working and trying to do this,

You know,

And and there is hope with this.

And there's people like you.

You've dedicated most of your life on this one one topic,

You know,

Which is a huge,

Huge thing.

And I do hope and pray that you get to,

You know,

Maybe,

You know,

Get a school class or I know at one point you were thinking,

Weren't you,

Of trying to have some kind of class on peace?

Actually,

It's scheduled for the first part of next year.

We have a peace curriculum that I'm working on and that we're going to be going into schools.

And if I can't go into schools,

I'll go into any place that will let me come in and get started on it.

And Deidre and I are going to be going over to Japan.

Maybe we'll be doing next March.

Are you going to Japan?

We're going to be going in February.

Oh,

Wonderful.

Yeah.

How wonderful.

How exciting.

I know you were trying to do it a year ago.

Yes,

I know.

Well,

You know,

You truly are an inspiration.

And I've known you for years.

And whenever I talk to you,

I do get inspired.

And I really would love to see that curriculum happen if there's anything I can do to help that.

Thank you.

I'd love to be involved in.

I learned a couple of new elements I want to add to the key elements on peace on this International Peace Day.

So thank you so much,

My friend.

I appreciate you so much.

Thank you for allowing me.

It's my pleasure.

And next,

I'm going to be talking to a friend of mine named Valerie Romanoff about peace.