Greenfield Shops for Peace

Photo Credit: Paul Franz/Greenfield Recorder. Used with permission.

by Pat Hynes
WILPF US At-large Member

March 2023

If you walk around downtown Greenfield in Western Massachusetts, you will see signs abounding in the shop windows. Among them: PEACE, ART NOT WAR, FOOD FOR ALL NOT WAR, SOLAR NOT WAR, MAKE TEA NOT WAR.

Why have so many shop owners and institutions, including the Greenfield Library and Greenfield Community Television, agreed to offer their store windows and inside spaces for these signs?

“Because there’s nothing better than peace, John Lennon had it right,” said Mindy Vincent, owner of the consignment shop boutique, Hens and Chickens. Kelly Archer, proprietor of Lucky Bird Thrift, which sells “good quality, pre-loved items,” explained that “love of peace brings about a positive vibration, which carries forward, and Jeromy, owner of Laptop and Computer Repair, said succinctly, “I believe in peace.”

The inspiration for this project was the Turkish-American tailor, Mr. Hamdi, who asked me if he could put my sign, “Health Not War,” which I hold at a weekly peace vigil with 12-15 others on the Greenfield Common, in his Tailoring & Tuxedo shop. A week later when I asked him how his customers responded to the sign prominently displayed in his front window, he exclaimed - “They love it!” And thus started my trek down Main Street to other shops to find that 26 out of 30 shop owners welcomed a Peace sign in their window or inside wall.

I then worked with Greenfield’s copy and print shop, choosing a script lettering style in either blue or green and the sign size generally 8” or 9” by 12”, or smaller if needed, and materials that were waterproof. Store owners chose the color and size, and often just used Peace or created a clever message, such as “BREW BEER NOT WAR!”

My Op-Ed "Greenfield Shops for Peace" and reporter Mary Byrne’s article "Greenfield storefornt signs 'a natural way to start peace literacy'" featuring a photo collage and interviews with the shop owners were published the same day (January 30) in the Greenfield Recorder. Then, the Greenfield PTA asked a gifted peace educator of youth who is also on the Board of the Traprock Center for Peace & Justice to work with the Middle School youth on peace education.

Peace Literacy

Studies have found that “norms, rituals and values that favor peace joined with peace literacy taught to each new generation are most important for creating a peaceful society,” a society which resolves conflicts without resorting to violence. Our Greenfield Shops for Peace is one such value-laden public gesture.

Peaceful societies have always existed and exist now – they just don’t make the news. There are thousands of daily acts of social kindness and peaceful resolution of disputes among groups of people and countries, but none is as newsworthy as a mugging or murder or war.

For some, this may create the impression that aggression is natural for humans, especially males, given the statistics. Recently, we have been reminded that President John F. Kennedy, at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, did not think so as he spoke at the American University commencement on June 10, 1963, saying:

I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war…. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control…. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man… No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

Creating a Culture of Peace

In his recent book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Lt. Col. David Grossman describes the methods for training our military and police and the evidence from WW II to the present of increased PTSD and suicide in soldiers from the moral injury of killing fellow human beings. He also emphasizes how war, killing, and violence are glorified in Hollywood films, video games, and TV, and amplified now in social media, thus “normalizing” them as accepted solutions.

So, what can we do to counter the power of military culture? My hope is that these signs will speak with a communal voice and inspire other expressions of norms and values such as in local music, films offered, art exhibits, drama, local library book exhibits and programs exemplified by the annual Jane Addams Children's Book Award that foreground peace and justice, and especially with the Greenfield schools offering peace education in creative ways.

Peace literacy—including the arts of listening, asking questions to achieve clarity and understanding, cultivating empathy and mutual communication; the skills of disciplined resolution of conflict and recognizing verbal and advertising manipulation; the history of successful non-violent revolutions—is as crucial as reading, writing and mathematics.  As Gandhi avowed, “If peace schooling were taken as seriously as military schooling, our world would be a much different place.”

Imagine – with peace education in grades K-12 of Greenfield schools, isn’t it likely that disciplinary incidents, among them disruptive behavior, fighting, bullying and skipping school would continue their downward trend, as reported in the January 14 Greenfield Recorder. Would that not be one of the most useful education skills for life that we could give students? Good for them and good for the society they inhabit and will impact.

Two other stellar peace initiatives to explore:

Young Peacemakers for youth grades 8-12 in Franklin County (western MA). Last year’s event was covered by our county newspaper. Most youth Peacemakers are recommended by teachers and other teen mentors for the annual event. The Traprock Center has applications that are sent to schools and model award diplomas, and other materials that any town or large city neighborhood could use. In fact, since the 2018 WILPF International Congress in Ghana that I attended, I have been working with WILPF Cameroon and they’ve used materials I sent to set up their annual Young Peacemakers program for February 2023.

Active Bystanders is a program offered by Quabbin Mediation that explains the values and skills that youth and others are trained in to become Active Bystanders in their schools and elsewhere. I think that Quabbin Mediation is open to being contacted by others across the country for sharing knowledge and possibly for a Zoom meeting.

Pat Hynes lives in Greenfield and is the former director of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice. Continuing on the Board, she is helping build Traprock as an educational center in peacemaking. Pat is an at-large member of WILPF.