WUNRN
WILPF USA - Women's International
League for Peace & Freedom
Drones Quilt Project Memorializes Victims, Educates Public
by Leah Bolger, Drones Quilt Project
Coordinator
Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more commonly known as “drones,” are responsible
for the deaths of more than 2,400 people in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, according to the Bureau of Investigative
Journalism, an independent British non-profit organization. Use of Predator or
Reaper drones, which carry 500-pound Hellfire missiles, started with President
Bush in the “Global War on Terror.” They have been used with increased
frequency by the Obama administration to assassinate people in direct violation
of international law. Not only is the US murdering people in countries with
which the US is not at war, the killing is being done by a civilian agency, the
CIA, in complete secrecy with no virtually no accountability. It is difficult
to know the precise number of deaths due to the remote locations of the strikes
and the secrecy surrounding the program. The majority of victims have not been
identified, but include hundreds of women and children.
The
Drones Quilt Project
was created as a way to acknowledge the deaths caused by these drones, and to
memorialize the victims. Participants in the Drones Quilt Project are asked to
make a quilt block, containing the name of a drone victim. Blocks are
also made to remember the unidentified victims through the words “Unnamed
Woman,” “Beloved Grandfather,” “Cherished Daughter,” or something similar. The
blocks are then sewn together and made into a quilt. The quilts are one
component of the Drones Quilt Project exhibit—the other two being large
“information panels” which help educate the viewer, and a two-sided handout
identifying many anti-drones resources as well as a list of 16 action ideas.
The
Drones Quilt Project exhibit debuted at the Veterans For Peace convention in
Madison, WI in August 2012 and has since traveled to Iowa, Oregon, Maine and
Washington DC. In February it will travel to Vassar College, then Boston and
Cleveland.
How
WILPF members can help:
Four
quilts have been completed so far, and the fifth is in the works, but many more blocks are needed
to memorialize all of the victims. You need not have any sewing or quilting
expertise to create a quilt block. The name may be embroidered, painted,
written with a marker, glued buttons, or anything else you can think of. (You
can see photos of all the completed blocks at the Drones Quilt Project website
to get ideas.) Block making can be a great group project for adults and
children. Some of the block makers have been very moved by the act of making a
quilt block.
Here
are the thoughts of one participant:
“For me, to work on this quilt square and think about one twelve-year-old boy’s life being suddenly taken from him and from his family and from this world, by a machine up in the sky, personalized the impact of the drones. It could have been my son. Joseph Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy, and a million is a statistic.” To maintain our humanity, we need to remember that each victim of war was a real person, a beating heart, someone who laughed and loved and had dreams. Working on this piece of fabric was a meditation in our shared humanity.” –Laurie Childers, Corvallis, Oregon
Another
way WILPF members can support the Drones Quilt Project is by hosting the
exhibit in their towns. As more quilts are created, the exhibit will be able to
be shown in more than one place simultaneously. Eventually it is hoped
that the exhibit will travel around the world, educating the public, raising
awareness, and memorializing the victims, through the power of collective art.
Information
about making a quilt block and hosting the exhibit is available on the Drones
Quilt Project website, www.dronesquiltproject.wordpress.com
or by contacting Leah Bolger, the Project Coordinator, directly: leahbolger@comcast.net.
The Drones Quilt Project was featured on the cover of the latest Peace & Freedom
magazine.
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