HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

To celebrate, but also reflect on certain important issues on such a day, watch the following video included in the site mothersdayforpeace.com. These are the words accompanying the 2007 video on You Tube:

This year, Brave New Foundation is remembering and honoring the origins of Mother's Day in this short online video. Through the power of compassion and womanhood, we hope to work towards peace.

The History of Mother's Day
(taken from codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=4864)

In 1870, social activist, slavery abolitionist, and poet Julia Ward Howe, best known for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, was distraught by the carnage of the American Civil War and the break out of the Franco-Prussian War. In response, she wrote a Mother’s Day Proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace. And in 1872 she began promoting the idea of a Mother’s Day for Peace.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day, as a day for Americans to show the flag in honor of those mothers who had lost their sons in war.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Proclamation found on: codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=217

Having watched the video and read the Proclamation, explain what the origin of Mother's Day is and how that makes you feel about war and its repercussions.