Rivera Sun's Blog: From the Desk of Rivera Sun, page 2

Take That Nazi Salute Seriously. Last Time, 70 Million People Died.

Image: screenshot from Youtube

If it launched with a Nazi salute … where do you think it ends? 

On Monday, January 20th in the Capitol Rotunda, tech billionaire Elon Musk threw what appeared to be a Nazi salute during the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. In case we missed it (or misinterpreted it), he made the emphatic gesture again. 

The lame explanations offered for it must be roundly rejected. It doesn’t matter if Musk genuinely intended that gesture to have another meaning. Neo-Nazis were swift to celebrate it. And there’s no one on the planet who doesn’t know its symbolism. 

It’s impossible to respond to every offensive comment or gesture that comes out of Musk, Trump, and their cronies. Their relentless offensiveness serves as a convenient smokescreen for their greed-driven, hate-fueled policy changes. From renaming the Gulf of Mexico to threatening to seize Greenland, these headline-grabbing shockers are part of Trump’s narcissistic personality – and have been integrated into the political strategy of his backers.

But that Nazi salute deserves our attention. We fought and died in WWII to halt that symbol and all it stands for. Its appearance during an inauguration (or anywhere) should have sent us pouring into the streets in outrage. Any public figure or government appointee caught making anything that remotely resembles a Nazi salute should be immediately forced to resign and barred from holding a position of power. Musk should not be exempt from this.

In a classic example of the head-spinning surrealism of these times, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) made a bafflingly conciliatory social post on X justifying Musk’s gesture: 

“It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute … all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.”

This is unbelievable from a group of Zionist Jews who are swift to decry even the slightest insinuation of anti-Jewish sentiment. They recently compared the Palestinian keffiyeh to a swastika, for example. For years, they have sought to squelch student protests across the United States that criticize Israel’s brutal occupation and human rights violations toward Palestinians. 

This pandering permissiveness is not only out-of-character for the ferociously defensive ADL, it is a deeply disturbing sign of the pervasive fear, cowardice (or else greed and self-interest) that is causing everyone from business moguls to media outlets to cower before Trump.

As citizens, we do not need to endure another four years of this escalating violence and hatred. There are other options besides waiting for an election cycle to hold this administration accountable. Nixon was impeached and forced to resign for spying on his political opponents. Clinton was impeached for lying about a sex scandal. Trump is a convicted felon guilty of 34 counts related to concealing payouts and bribes. He is a corrupt, self-serving liar. His policies are an offense to decency and a threat to human life. He pardoned 1500 people for violently storming the US Capitol Building in an attempt to seize power after he repeatedly lied about winning the 2020 election. 

If we want to prevent a gesture from becoming a repetition of one of the bleakest periods of human history, the citizens and residents of the United States must take seriously our moral responsibility to oust this regime and its leader. 

Around the world, other nations have faced tyranny, corruption, and abuses from presidents. Last year, both Bangladesh and South Korea ousted authoritarian presidents using mass protests, general strikes, and other largely nonviolent actions. Bangladesh rose up against unfair hiring practices for government jobs. They kicked out their president and replaced her with a Nobel Prize-winning exiled activist.  South Koreans poured into the streets to oppose martial law, helped their parliament members get into the building to overturn it, forced their political leaders to officially impeach the president, and maintained the pressure of popular protests until he was arrested and brought to justice. 

Nonviolent movements like these have stopped coups, ousted dictators and ended authoritarian regimes in Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Belgium, Colombia, Pakistan, Sudan, Thailand, Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Benin, Nepal, East Germany, Mali, the Soviet Union, Malawi, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Serbia, Mongolia, Peru, Georgia, the Philippines, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, and more. 

A gesture is symbolic, but beneath it seethe the ideologies that have led to genocide, repression, world wars, invasion, occupation, war crimes, human rights violations, and more. Last time it appeared at an official state function, it led to a global conflict that killed 70-85 million people. 

Take it seriously. And take seriously our responsibility to remove the politics of hate from positions of power.  

~~~~~~~~~~

Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News, Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence, and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

The post Take That Nazi Salute Seriously. Last Time, 70 Million People Died. appeared first on Rivera Sun.

Remember These Stories

Image by Use at your Ease from Pixabay 

by Rivera Sun

The spirits are speaking to me. Across time. Through history.

Ignore the headlines. Go to the heart.
How many millions of humans have stood where you stand now?

Afraid. Overwhelmed. Despairing. Raging.

The globe spins with their haunting cries from Chile under Pinochet, Liberia under Taylor, Estonia under the Soviets, East Timor under Indonesia, Denmark under the Nazis, India under the British. On and on and on the list goes. Humanity has suffered under many cruel regimes, brutal dictators, violent occupations, war – my heart wrings like a tear-damp washrag, remembering it all.

Remember the end of those stories, the spirits say.

Pinochet ousted.
Taylor gone.
Estonia independent.
East Timor free.
Denmark at peace.
India liberated.

Mohandas K. Gandhi echoes through the whispered recounting of the past. “When I despair,” Gandhi said, “I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”

So, the spirits come to me in a gentle haunting.

Remember me as you are now, they say.
Remember how it was before we won.
Remember how afraid we were.
Remember how bleak it looked.
How invincible our oppressors seemed.

Back then, everyone hissed at us:
it cannot be done
and you’ll only
get yourself
killed
trying.

Remember.

And so I do. I wander off the beaten path of facts and dates, into the corners of the crowds that line the black and white, or grainy-colored photographs. I rewind the clock to before the dictators fled, regimes fell, and the people flooded the streets. Back before success hung from a nail hook in the glowing frame of history.

I think about the people swept up in times of disaster, times of change. The ones whose names we’ll never know, whose stories never make it into the thirty-second commemorative spotlight, whose lives can’t be compressed down to a pithy quote for social media.

They murmur to me across time …

When Pinochet came to power, a Chilean mother says, we could not imagine that our grief would bring him down. As our children disappeared, shoved out of planes into the ocean, we tasted hate. Fear singed our tongues silent. We were as broken as Victor Jara’s fingers, music and hope crushed in the stadium they rounded up the leftists in. No one knew how it would end. Not then. That our mothers’ love would overcome our terror. That our grief would break the silence. That the country would rise to follow those whose hearts were breaking.

When the Nazis invaded, a Danish shipyard worker recollects, grim and jaw-clenched, they took control of everything – the government, industry, radio – everything except the people, that is. They wanted the half-built war ships in our shipyards. But we didn’t let them have them. Not a single one. We turned the bolts in slowly, slowly. Then, as soon as the Nazis looked away, we yanked them out, swiftly, swiftly. I winked at my best friend behind their backs. Damned if we’d let the Nazis have what they desired!

When the second civil war broke out, a Liberian woman tells me, we were plunged into a nightmare. Again. The scars of the first civil war still bled, only the newborns had no memory of the horror that repeated itself. We were terrified; hundreds of thousands were dying, soldiers raped us – it didn’t matter which side they were on, the dictator or the rebels – whoever won, we had already lost. Until one woman had a dream. I was in mosque when she and another woman I knew came to ask us to pray with the Christians for peace. It was mad. Hopeless. But faith is like that. Al-Khidr says jump into the river. Perhaps someone will save you. You jump. Perhaps God saves you. I jumped into the river with the other women. We protested. We prayed. We sat down in front of the doors of the peace negotiations and refused to let the men leave until they made peace. Our actions were the answers to our prayers.

If you listen, the spirits of all who rose up against tyrants and dictators come tiptoeing across the centuries. They will sit down at your side, share a cup of unseen tea, and tell you what it was really like in those days that seem, suddenly, so much like ours.

An Estonian will recall the moment the motorcyclist unfurled and lifted the banned national flag – blue, black, white – at a song festival. It was then I knew that freedom from the Soviets would be ours one day. Because, in our hearts, we were already free.

A Pashtun man will remember the shape of the stones in the wall of his village school in the Northwest Province of what was then India. He will feel the shape of Pashtun on his tongue, on the page as he learned to write. When Badshah Khan called for men to join his ‘nonviolent army’, I was there long before the other 80,000 volunteers. He had built the school with his bare hands. I would build our independence with my bare hands.

An East Timorese woman will tell you of the turning point, the moment she realized the genocide had ended, when she looked around at the ghosts of her beloveds and vowed to live. To live! Each breath was a victory in the wreckage. Each day was a triumph over what we had survived. We were still here … and we would keep going. Always.

History will speak of the rise of tyrants, their violence, wars, extermination campaigns, round-ups and imprisonments, disappearances, repressive laws. It may mention the people who rose up in their millions to overthrow their dictators. But it will not tell you these stories.

The ones we’re longing to hear.

The mothers who broke through fear.
The workers who refused to work for hate.
The women of faith who prayed out loud.
The singers who gathered for change.
The students who built freedom.
The people who kept going.

These are the stories we need to remember. And live.

So the future will remember us.

Pass them on.

____________

Author/Activist Rivera Sun has written numerous books and novels, including The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News and the Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence. Her articles are syndicated by Peace Voice and published in hundreds of journals nationwide. Rivera Sun serves on the board of Backbone Campaign and the advisory board of World BEYOND War. www.riverasun.com

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Stay Human. It’s a Beautiful Thing.

This writing came from Rivera Sun’s newsletter on Nov 24, 2024.
To enjoy more writings like this, join her email list.

You have to stay human. With all your courage, tears, messiness, brilliance, we need to navigate these times as human beings not automatons. What is the point, otherwise? With extinction on one hand and AI replacement on the other, and capitalism’s inhumane treatment of our soft round bodies and rainbow-splendid souls, and the plastic insufficiency of the faux personas of the social media era … being fully human is an act of rebellion, revolution, resistance and evolution. 

Here’s what I mean:

It’s holiday sales season and the launch of my latest book, River Dragon. Ordinarily, I’d be working some press and publicity magic, cheering and celebrating this great novel, rallying the fans to post reviews, setting up my holiday discounts in time for the uber-commercialized weekend coming up.  In other words, I’d be doing what the culture expects, but with my usual heartfelt, good-spirited commitment to peace, justice, and the well-being of all.

Here’s what’s really going on in my world. 

A family crisis. Prayers by the standing stones on our ritual hill. Candles lit on the altar. Post-election support for organizers in panic and grief. Emergency re-strategizing for movements and organizations I work with. A to-do list so long, it fell off the page. A poignant ache that I can’t give Ari Ara what she needs in these first weeks of the book launch. A tender trust that she’ll find her way into the hearts of the readers – young and old – who long to wander into her world. 

I’ve decided to just stay human amidst it all, imperfect and still full of love.

We have to stay human. Ferociously. Truthfully. Messily. Brilliantly. We can’t out-machine the machines. We can’t out-corporate the corporations. We can’t out-influence the algorithmically-aligned influencers. Not if we hope to change our world. Not if we long to save our world. Not if we love our humanness. 

Looking around, many people despair of humanity. They see the cruelty, the destructiveness, the lies and injustice. But that isn’t human. It’s inhumane.

The great task of our lifetimes is to call people back to who we really are. 

A human being is a beautiful thing, a tangle of dreams, visions, imagination, emotions, love, heartache, hope, creativity, inventiveness, ingenuity, humor, mischievous rebellion, stubborn determination, plucky courage, ridiculous folly, startling clarity, surprising wisdom, and unbounded surprises. 

People love my books because it’s all there on the page. Every iota of this humanness. Writing them helps me stay human. Reading them helps us stay human. Sharing them invites others to stay human, too. It’s an act of resistance to inhumanity, a rebellion against extinction, a revolution of the heart, and an evolutionary leap in the crossroads of these times.

Stay human. Our world needs us.
Rivera Sun

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We Have a Sacred Duty – All of Us

Image by Peter H from Pixabay

by Rivera Sun for Peace Voice

On Election Night in my small town, I sat around a folding table with four election clerks, sworn in by the election warden and doing my civic duty to count every vote. The polls had closed. Darkness pressed heavy against the windows, as it does this time of year in Northern Maine. Rain hushed down on the empty parking lot, the playground, and the bandstand.

It was sacred. Secular, yes, but sacred. It is through the ballot, not the bullet, that we choose our leaders. We came so close to losing our right to democratic transitions four years ago; the threat still looms over us today, each side claiming a different concern about the elections and aftermath.

My fellow election clerks and I came from different political perspectives, but we shared a common respect for the democratic process. We checked our opinions at the door that night; they had no place in the room. We were there to serve our country in a role that should be as honored as our soldiers and veterans. We had been entrusted to count with absolute fairness and unfaltering accuracy – and that’s what we did. The head of one of the political parties bore witness, silently sitting to the side as we recorded the results of each candidate, write-ins, and referendum choices.

I counted with profound care, not rushing even as the night wore on. I held in my hands the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of my community. There are fewer than 500 people in our small town; 231 of them came out to vote. People cared deeply about this election and what it meant for them, their families, and our nation.

Their vote for Trump broke my heart.

When the majority vote for Trump and all the other results were tallied and recorded, I took a deep breath, bid goodnight to the other clerks, and walked out into the somber darkness of that rainy night. No longer bound by my sworn oath or my sense of duty to uphold nonpartisanship, I wept in shuddering breaths. As a citizen, as a human, as a woman, the choice of my neighbors to vote for this man shattered my trust in them.

It is difficult to admit this. My neighbors are good people, decent people. I’ve known them since I was a teenager. Our small town is noteworthy for the way it cares for people and community life. We hold senior lunches once a week in the old elementary school. When a young farmer was in a car accident or our local carpenter had a heart attack, we packed the cafeteria for pasta fundraisers to help with medical costs. We hold bonfires at the ballpark, a bottle drive for 4th of July fireworks, and organize welcome wagons for new residents. It’s a place where you’ll never hear a swear word in public and people of all genders hold the door for elders at the post office.

How can such decent people vote for a sexist, women-groping, threat-making, hate-spewing person like Trump? He hinted at not leaving office when his term ends. He threatened journalists. He is guilty of 34 felonies for paying hush money to his sex worker. He incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol Building. This is not merely my opinion. It is fact. It is documented. It is inexcusable.

His behavior reflects poorly on my neighbors. As does their choice to condone it with a vote.

I want to say to my community: I look at you differently. Your reputation for decency no longer holds in my eyes. I look at your faces and see bigotry behind your smile. When we chat about the weather at the post office, I hear your leader’s abject denialism of the climate crisis. When I walk past you, I know you supported a man who routinely demeans and disrespects women. When I see your yard signs for Trump, I add you to my mental map of places where minorities and marginalized groups are no longer safe.  

Your reputation is crumbling because of Trump’s actions … and it will continue to do so for four years, for each day that you silently or actively support this man. When you nod along at his discriminatory policies, when you look away from the way he dismantles the institutions that serve this country, when you do nothing as he flouts the law and breaks the rules and undermines democracy at every turn, when you fail to apply critical thinking to the lies and stereotypes he churns out so fast we can cover city blocks with them … you erode the respect with which you hope others see you.

You cannot claim to be good, decent people and continue to support Trump. You cannot have both. Your values of respect, caring, and decency are not represented in him. And you should not let his actions represent you.

If you voted for Trump ‘for economic reasons’ but do not support his discriminatory behaviors or policies, you need to take a public, visible, and tangible stand against them. Many of us, left and right, spend an election year making excuses for certain behaviors and policies, promising ourselves that we will push our candidate to change once they’re in office. It is time to do so. Now, not on Jan 6, 2025. Now, before the politics of hate become emblematic of how people perceive you.

Your stand for common decency and basic respect needs to be loud and visible. Simply making statements in the comfort of your home is not enough. When your hunting buddy repeats jokes about assaulting women, you need to tell him to stop it, not laugh awkwardly along. When someone rolls their eyes about youth questioning sexuality or gender, you need to say you love your niece/nephew/cousin however they are … and that you’re okay with all the people like them. Even better, put a Pride flag in your front yard and tell our community that you don’t hold with cruel and heartless discrimination. If you see the Border Patrol harassing the ‘nice farmworkers from Jamaica’ who live across the street, go out and stand alongside those ‘nice’ people. When Trump says he won’t leave office at the end of his term, tell your local party to condemn that statement as hints of dictatorship. (That’s what it is, in case you’re wondering.)

If you want to reclaim your reputation, you need to take these kinds of actions – and many more. Contribute to the movements protecting vulnerable people. Join your fellow party members who are brave enough to criticize Trump. Denounce the ways your party treats women. Make a clean break away from racism, discrimination, threats, harassment, hate crimes, and all the documented actions that have caused concern for nearly a decade.

Right now, 66 million Americans are mourning what you have become, what this nation has become, and what you just voted for. When I spoke with people across the country on November 6th, many people wept like I did. We were not weeping simply because Kamala Harris lost. We wept because your choices made our country lose something sacred: the vision and aspiration that we could one day become a place where everyone is welcome, where everyone is treated with respect, where everyone is worthy, where everyone is treated with decency.

On Election Night, I did my civic duty and held it sacred. Now, I’m asking you to do your civic duty and hold it sacred. Stand up for your fellow citizens and human beings. Reject the politics of hate and policies of discrimination. Join us in reclaiming that profound and sacred aspiration of being a country of respect and decency. It’s not just the fate of our nation at stake. Your reputation is also on the line.

Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News, Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence, and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

The post We Have a Sacred Duty – All of Us appeared first on Rivera Sun.

We Need Political Nonviolence Now More Than Ever

FNVW Walk for Peace and Justice 2023. (Photo by Friends for a Nonviolent World.)

Originally published on Waging Nonviolence

After the shooting at former President Trump’s campaign rally, many people rushed to say that “political violence has no place in our democracy.” 

Let’s go even further and boldly say: political nonviolence is essential for democracy. 

The ties between nonviolence and democracy run deep. We know from the groundbreaking research of Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan that even if a nonviolent movement fails to achieve its primary goals, it often leaves a more democratic society in its wake. On the other hand, violence swiftly destroys democracies, shoving them toward authoritarianism and “politics at the barrel of a gun.” 

Political violence has a terrible track record. It has spent centuries delivering and defending injustice, abuse, discrimination and destruction. 

So, what should we do instead? Boldly and with vision, we should be building a culture of active nonviolence, including defining and implementing new standards of political nonviolence. 

For 11 years, Campaign Nonviolence has been working to mainstream nonviolence and build a culture that implements nonviolent values, solutions, worldview and approaches. We have persevered in this work even as political violence has heightened — because we already know that more violence and continued inaction will not get us out of this mess. We need a profoundly different approach. 

If we want to have a politics where every voice feels safe and respected, where each citizen has a right to participate, and where no one will be harmed for their political beliefs, nonviolence needs to be both a state and an individual policy.

Amidst the George Floyd Protests in 2020, Vox editor Ezra Klein wrote an essay, “Imagining the nonviolent state,” asking the thought-provoking question: “What if nonviolence wasn’t an inhuman standard demanded of the powerless, but an ethic upon which we reimagined the state?” He goes on to explore new standards of policing, restorative justice and responding to protest movements.

In a world of political nonviolence, we’d see these kinds of changes: 

Nonviolent protesters are allowed to exercise freedom of speech and assembly without fear of police repression. The use of nonviolent action as a tool for social, political, cultura, and economic power is fully protected for all people.Police are not allowed to use violent repression against unarmed protesters.Political events are weapons-free for all participants. Polling places are protected by peace teams. Every citizen trains in violence de-escalation and anti-harassment skills. No one makes threats of violence or intimidation over political views. Political campaigns are legally required to refrain from hate speech, discrimination and violent rhetoric.Debate, discourse, voting and democratic process is held as sacred by all. Each community trains to defend democracy with nonviolent action, learning how to thwart coups, attempts to steal elections and unjust policies that undermine fair participation in the political process. 

What can you do to make this vision a reality? 

Start talking about political nonviolence and the specific ways we uphold it. Reach out to public officials, policy makers, police and activist groups with these ideas.

Work with groups like Meta Peace Teams, DC Peace Team and Joy To the Polls on election safety and keeping the polls safe for all voters.  

Engage with your fellow citizens about this by fact-checking, fostering civic discourse and working to build understanding rather than fear and division. Join efforts like Braver Angels that help people rehumanize one another in times of extreme polarization.  

Learn how nonviolent action defends democracy. Check out how Choose Democracy and Hold The Line protected the 2020 elections, and consider how these strategies can be adapted to help us now.

The long-term work of building a culture of active nonviolence can start right here in addressing the political violence that is threatening our country. The United States is not alone in dealing with these issues. Around the world, many nations are grappling with authoritarianism, extreme politics, politically-motivated violence and increased repression of protests. 

We need political nonviolence more than ever. It’s a vision of democracy worth striving for. 

________

Rivera Sun is the editor of Nonviolence News, the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and other novels, and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements. www.riverasun.com

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Banning Sadako Won’t Keep Kids Safe from Nuclear War

Paper cranes folded to protest nuclear weapons, 2015. Used with permission.

Every child has that book. The one that breaks your heart wide open. Bridge To Terabithia. The Velveteen Rabbit. Charlotte’s Web. The Hate U Give. 

For me, it was Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, it tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima as a toddler, but later died of leukemia, or as it was called at the time ‘atom bomb disease’. Drawing from a traditional belief in Japan, she starts to fold 1,000 origami cranes in hopes that her wish for survival will be granted. When she does not succeed, her friends and family finish making the paper cranes after her death. 

As a young reader, this was the story that broke my heart and taught me that not all stories have a happy ending. The good guys (or girls) don’t always win. It presented a view of WWII that no other movie or book offered. It didn’t glorify the mushroom cloud or show the shocking horror of an obliterated city. No, Sadako’s story simply showed the reality of war from the eyes of a child. 

It turned me into a lifelong peace activist. Perhaps that’s why Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is banned in Florida. 

More than 100 books have been banned or put under review by school and public libraries in Florida. The titles include classics like The Bluest Eye and Beloved by Toni Morrison, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr., and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The list has a decidedly anti-diversity slant, overwhelmingly trying to eliminate stories about racial justice, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Rights, women’s rights, transgender health, queer love, migrants, horrors of war, and refugees, and so forth.

Each one removes another piece of history, reality, and humanity from the shelf. But children need these stories. And we need the next generation of adults to know them. 

These books aren’t just introducing children to tough topics. In many cases, they’re also affirming the realities these children already live. Migrant and refugee children deserve to have their experiences acknowledged just as much as Anne of Green Gables. Queer, trans, gay, and lesbian children deserve to have their sexualities affirmed just as much as Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Black and Brown readers deserve to see heroes of color as powerful and compelling as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. 

Young people are surviving gun violence, school shootings, poverty, migration, war, climate disaster, and other dangerous realities. These children aren’t sheltered by the exclusion of their stories. They are abandoned twice over as we render them unseen and unacknowledged.

When we ban books, we do not protect any of our children, no matter their life experiences. Ignorance won’t keep anyone safe, not in the short or long term. Many of the groups and individuals behind the Florida book bans seem to be suppressing history in order to control the future. But when you remove the narratives of resistance and diversity, what is left is the same violent, militarized, racist, sexist, discriminatory, and exploitative world that got us into this mess in the first place. 

What remains in the gutted wreckage of literature left behind by these book bans is the same worldview that killed Sadako Sasaki and thousands more like her; the world that murdered Black children like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice; the world that has gunned down hundreds of schoolchildren in mass shootings; the world that separates thousands of children from their parents as they cross borders hoping for safety; the world that beat and bullied transgender teen Nex Benedict until they committed suicide; the world that has threatened the existence of all future generations through ecological collapse. 

The banned books list isn’t about protecting children. It’s about protecting this empire of abuse. 

And worse, the book bans target stories of resistance that could help young people change the injustices they face. Here are a few other books on the banned list: The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country, by Amanda Gorman; The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas; Hiawatha and the Peacemaker, by Robbie Robertson; Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, by Ari Folman; Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi. 

Books like these give young readers courage to rise up for a better world. I know this personally … 30 years after reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes as a schoolchild, I folded thousands of paper cranes to protest nuclear weapons at the birthplace of the bomb: Los Alamos.

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was asked to help organize a protest at Los Alamos. Hundreds of people gathered at this remote spot in the high desert of New Mexico. 

The rally took place at Ashley Pond – the eerily bucolic city park where the original laboratory stood – and 70,000 paper cranes fluttered from the rafters of the bandstand. They had been folded by people around the world as a message of peace and disarmament from Japan, Bolivia, Mexico, Greece, France, Iran, and beyond. 

Since the publication of Sadako’s story, the paper cranes have become an international symbol of humanity’s desire for a world without nuclear weapons. It was a profound sight to see these cranes hung at the exact location where Sadako’s death was engineered.

If Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is removed from library shelves, there will be more atomic bombings and more children like Sadako. Put the book back on the shelf. Let it break our children’s hearts, our hearts. Then let us work across the generations to make sure Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and all the other injustices of our world – never happen again. 

_______

Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News, Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence, and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

The post Banning Sadako Won’t Keep Kids Safe from Nuclear War appeared first on Rivera Sun.

Stand Tall in Your Child’s Eyes: Speak Out For Peace

A father stands tall in their child’s eyes. Mine towered. He was a 6’6”, red-headed giant of a man, a farmer who loved rock ‘n roll and corny jokes. He taught me to stand up for the underdogs, fight the good fight, and stick it to the Man. 

He also taught me to speak out for peace. 

My father was a conscientious objector and an anti-war organizer during the Vietnam War. In his 20s, he blockaded naval maneuvers off the coast of Maine and helped drafted young men get to Canada. His life inspires my own peace activism. Because of his example, I have the courage to stand up for peace and take risks to oppose war. He showed me that a life of courage and service can be found in stopping war, not fighting in it. Today, I know that by raising my voice for peace, I make my father proud.

Fathers who speak out against war come from many walks of life. Veterans, active-duty military, peace activists, refugees from war zones, civilians who lived through its horrors. When they speak truthfully about their experiences, they raise children who know the value of peace. In the circle of PeaceVoice writers I work with, many of us had a story about how our father’s example led us to lift our pens for peace today. 

Kary Love, a lawyer who defends anti-nuke activists, spoke about the veterans in his family: My father-in-law, Tom, was an island hopper combat vet in WWII in the Pacific (he did “D-Days” every couple of weeks). Bart was my father, a combat vet in Korea. Both were decorated combat vets. Bart did not know I used to sit on the stairs at night in our small home and listen to him talk to guys who showed up to talk to ‘Sarge’ – mostly about their problems with booze and domestic turmoil and what I recognized later was their PTSD from going to hell. So, I knew more than he thought I knew. To truly honor the ‘memory’ of their sacrifice demands we honestly confront that war is hell. Both Tom and Bart were combat vets, not desk jockeys or rear echelon commanders. Neither spoke of the hell they lived through, preferring to protect their kids from its degenerate reality. But Bart threw all his medals in the sea while sailing back from Korea saying, “I never want anything to do with that again.”

The horror of war is a powerful recruiter for the peace movement. Editor Tom Hastings shared how his father went from Navy sailor to peace accomplice.

My Dad and his buddy George joined the Navy as soon as they graduated from high school during World War II. They spent it in the Philippines ‘for the duration’ plus a year. They both came back hating war. As a boy I heard no approval of the ‘Indochina’ war, just scoffing at the elaborate justifications such as the ‘domino theory’. Amidst the Vietnam War, my Dad and I became activists at the same time. He made a peace sign on a piece of canvas and flew it where he had formerly flown the American flag, much to the irritation of the neighbors. He made it easy for me to register as a Conscientious Objector, kept supporting me in that, and even drove the getaway car from one of my nuclear weapons disarmament Plowshares resistance actions. (To be clear, when my Dad drove the getaway car, it was to get the car away, not me or my resistance partner. We turned ourselves in, but my Dad — at age 70 –drove the car to safety.) Thanks, Dad. I miss you.

Fathers who actively participate in peace movements model how men can embody the spirit of protection, defense, sacrifice and service by working for peace. Labor and democracy writer Andrew Moss’ father was a powerful role model in this. 

Andrew Moss writes, My dad modeled for me the possibility of making profound changes mid-life, even beyond. After serving in North Africa in World War II, he worked in various retail and construction jobs to support our family in the 50’s and 60’s. Then, as the Vietnam War raged, something spurred him to take the position of business manager with Another Mother for Peace, a peace advocacy organization known for their logo, War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things. My dad loved that job, and when the war ended a few years later, he felt confident to take on a new position as manager of a sheltered workshop for adults with developmental disabilities. Though his health permitted him only a few years in that latter position, he showed me how later life could hold possibilities for deeply gratifying work in peace and human services.

Our culture often lauds military men for their sacrifice and service. But numerous professions and avocations show how protection, defense of human life, and service can be found elsewhere. Fathers who dedicate themselves to nonviolent and life-affirming work for the wellbeing of others are seen as heroes in their own right.

Wim Laven, a professor of conflict studies, shared this: The greatest compliment I know is being told, ‘you remind me of your father,’ or ‘your father would be proud.’ He was a doctor, but he was also an ambassador of happiness. I benefitted from a childhood where he taught by example. I went with him to homeless shelters, where I saw him help those who needed it the most. He treated everyone with dignity because it was the right thing to do. He passed along the wisdom that the purpose in life is not to do great things, but to do small things with great love. This commitment has accompanied me to work in conflicts and humanitarian disasters on four continents. It all started at home and I am endlessly grateful for the lessons on service to others.

On this Father’s Day, tell the stories of your father’s opposition to war and longing for peace. Our children need to hear them. From Ukraine to Gaza to the Democratic Republic of Congo and beyond, wars are hell on earth. Countless children and fathers are suffering in them. 

If we want our children to live in a more peaceful world, we need these stories. A father serves as a role model for the next generation who will bring humanity one step closer to ending war. 

Stand tall in your child’s eyes. Speak out for peace. 

_______

Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News, Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence, and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

The post Stand Tall in Your Child’s Eyes: Speak Out For Peace appeared first on Rivera Sun.

Local News Is Vital: Can We Survive the Climate Crisis Without It?

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Local news has its finger on the pulse of our communities. When city council acts (or acts up), when disaster strikes, when corruption or scandal needs to be scrutinized, local news steps up. From our kids’ sporting events to small town heroes, road construction detours to storm preparedness, they cover stories of interest and importance to our daily lives – stories that large media overlooks. 

Amidst the climate crisis, these stories could save our lives. 

Heat waves. Super-storms. Forest fires. Floods. Reporting on climate events, disasters, and preparedness is essential, obviously. But local news has a bigger role to play in helping us apply climate solutions that make sense to the unique places that we live. 

In the beautiful valley where I live, nestled on the border of Canada in Northern Maine, agriculture, forestry, and snowmobiling are the three big industries. Last week, I stood in the cool shade of a potato barn talking to the farmer who also works as a trucking broker, getting local pallets of vegetables and other goods onto shared trucks headed to market. 

We spoke about how the hot, wet summer led to poor harvests for potato farmers. He mentioned that they stopped shipping spuds to market a month early. The rain and heat this summer led to too much rot in the barns.  

Across the street from his office, there’s a lumber mill that stood idle through our unseasonably warm winter. Without snow, the loggers couldn’t get their heavy equipment into the woods. Forestry hit a standstill – as did the lumber mills. Even if you live far away, you’ll likely see this reflected in the price of paper goods and two-by-fours and construction costs in the coming months. 

Just down the road from the potato barn is a bed-and-breakfast on the lake. Usually, it’s booked from November through April as downstate and out-of-state snowmobilers come on vacation. Not this year. With scanty snow, mass cancellations put the hospitality industry – hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, etc. – into such a dire downturn that they applied for state relief funds. 

My community needs to see how climate change is already impacting us. It’s here. It’s hurting us. It’s changing everything in this valley’s way of life. We can either suffer and collapse from it, or we can understand what’s happening and learn how to adapt. Local news can help us do it. 

A local newspaper has an intimate understanding of what our neighbors and local businesses need to know about the problems and the possibilities. For example, our local newspaper could do us a great service by translating the bewildering maze of subsidies, grant programs, relief funds, and rebates that already exist into plain speak. They could announce when the grant cycles open and close. They could help homeowners, woodlot owners, and local businesses know what funding and options are available to us. We need that help. 

A local newspaper can draw on its knowledge of how we live to help us with the steep learning curve that we face. Fox, MSN, and NPR can’t be that specific – but what Florida needs to know is different from what Northern Maine needs to learn. With rising temperatures in the summer, our traditionally temperate valley faces increased cases of heat strokes. No one has air conditioning. We’ve never needed it before. But with heat hovering at 90-100° F for weeks now, our elders and families need to learn the signs of heat stroke … and the ways that we can prepare for this. 

A local newspaper can report on climate solutions that make sense for the unique ecologies and social fabrics that exist in our areas. Our valley has three solutions to rising summer temperatures, each of which is hyper-specific to our community’s sense of itself. A local newspaper could help homeowners find the rebates that make heat pumps affordable, reminding them that the fuel savings we love on these machines come with a built-in emergency air conditioning potential. The paper could also report on the concept of centralized emergency cooling centers that could be organized in our community buildings, library, schools, or church basements – locations that either have natural cooling capacities or are putting in air conditioning. 

Here’s a heat solution that is utterly unique to our area, one that would make readers of our local newspaper sit up and smile. One of the world’s best, most energy-efficient cooling systems has been used in this farming community for centuries: the potato barn. 

As I stood in that chilly barn talking with a farmer, I wore a sweater, coat, and ski cap. It was over 70° F outside, a brilliantly sunny spring day. But a potato barn is dug into the earth. It taps into the ground’s year-round 50° F temperature to warm it in the winter and keep it cool in the spring and summer. It’s one of the key features of the renowned, highly sustainable Earthship Biotecture in the high desert of New Mexico. This historically French-Acadian farming community has known about this for hundreds of years. How can we adapt this technology to help us survive hotter summers?

Our local newspaper could research and report on that.  

What a local newspaper covers on climate is a matter of survival for us all. We need the intimate knowledge that they have of the places that we live. Your local community is special and distinct from my local community. Your local news is perfectly poised to deliver the stories, strategies, and solutions you need. Local news is an endangered species, threatened by corporate buyouts and mega-mergers. If we lose our local news, we lose the nuances, specificity, and responsiveness that only a local news outlet can deliver. And amidst the climate crisis, this kind of information is of vital importance to our daily lives … and to our future. 

_______

Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of Nonviolence News and the Program Coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

The post Local News Is Vital: Can We Survive the Climate Crisis Without It?  appeared first on Rivera Sun.

Dreams of War, Dreams of Peace – an Excerpt From River Dragon

“Dreams of War, Dreams of Peace” – an excerpt from River Dragon

___________

This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign.

Since the official trial would not start until the next morning, the Twins of the Sisterlands and the Abbess led Ari Ara on a tour of the Gateway Abbey’s workshops and libraries, sleeping quarters and offices. Ari Ara asked many questions – or as many as she dared. A potential queen was not nosy, after all. She watched the twelve-year-old girls learning soap making, sewing, candle dipping, and thought how fortunate she had been that Shulen took her under his wing and trained her in the Way Between.

All through the city streets, up the steep staircases, over the jumble of walkways and through the verdant rooftop gardens, Ari Ara could sense the hard glare of the Warrior Sister drilling into the spot between her shoulders where the Mark of Peace was inked, indelibly, onto her skin. The Mother Sister offered a friendly counterpoint, falling into step beside her, showing her interesting statues or sharing tidbits of the city’s history. Ari Ara never forgot that this could be a test. She held the door into the workshops, gesturing for the Twins to precede her. She marveled appreciatively at the book-lined walls of the study halls. She spoke kindly to the young orphans in the sleeping halls, asking where they had been born.

A queen cares for her people.
A queen takes interest in the workings of her nation.
A queen listens attentively.

She spoke with girls her own age who were nearing the completion of their apprenticeships. Shyly or boldly, they shared their dreams for their futures, responding to her interest in what they wanted to do when they got a little older.

“I’m going to marry a warrior,” said one with a small giggle as she batted her black lashes flirtatiously at Emir Miresh, ignoring the reproving cough of the Abbess. Roka Maro, the Warrior Sister, nodded approvingly.

“Those who marry warriors end up widows,” Ari Ara muttered under her breath, quoting from Alaren’s book of stories on waging peace.

The Great Lady Brinelle coughed and elbowed her. Then she distracted the group by asking the next girl about her future plans.

“I’m going to be a battlefield healer,” the youth answered with a determined set of her chin. “I’ll save and heal our nation’s greatest defenders.”

Ari Ara almost made a face, but didn’t. There were plenty of people to heal without a war. She held her tongue, though, and simply replied with a careful compliment on her dedication to the healer’s profession. She admired the vibrancy of the herbal salves the girl was making and told her she’d make a welcome addition to any healer’s hall.

“I am training in records so I can serve our army,” said a third girl when they visited the abbey’s thousand-year-old records hall. “I will make sure the warriors receive their pay, food, equipment, and so forth. You can depend on me to keep your army functioning!”

Ari Ara didn’t quite know what to say to that, so she said nothing, swallowing her unease. Every aspect of life at the Gateway Abbey seemed to circle – subtly or obviously – around war and warriors. The girls weren’t fighting the enemy with swords, but they were part of the vast machinery of industry that kept the warriors fighting. From the workshops to the kitchens, Ari Ara heard the same things: the girls’ dreams revolved around war, battle, and warriors.

Lifting a wriggling orphaned boy onto her hip, a girl scarcely older than Ari Ara cooed to the toddler that he’d grow up to be a great warrior. Ari Ara held the child for a moment and silently prayed that he’d grow up to be whatever he wanted – a dancer, a scholar, a follower of the Way Between, a farmer – in a time of peace. In the smithy, the muscular, red-faced girls at the forge brought out their knives, swords, and helmets for the Lost Heir to admire. Ari Ara asked if they’d made any farm implements or jewelry and they started blankly at her, wondering why they’d waste time and steel on such things. They crafted weapons, not rakes or plows.

“What if we have peace?” Ari Ara finally asked the girls. “What will you make then?”

“Peace is but an eye in the storm of war,” recited one. “It is a lull in which to prepare for the next battle.”

The Warrior Sister nodded approvingly at that response.

“My mother maintained peace for a decade,” Ari Ara pointed out.

“And look what happened to her – ” the girl blurted out thoughtlessly.

“Mind your tongue!” the Mother Sister scolded.

The girl blushed and stammered out an apology. The Twins hustled Ari Ara onward, leading her through the Shrine of Fallen Warriors, the Armory of Unusual Weapons, and a healer’s research hall – the pride of the Gateway Abbey, funded by the nobles of the Westlands whose son had died of an untreatable wound during the War of Retribution.

Ari Ara was dismayed by how much of the abbey’s focus was oriented toward war. She’d expected it at Monk’s Hand Monastery – they were famous for training warriors – but she’d assumed the Sisterlands would be different. Of course, the Warrior Sister ran the training grounds at the Citadel, but Ari Ara thought the Mother Sister’s work with the orphans would stand in sharp contrast with her twin’s.

Instead, the pair worked in tandem, two sides of the same bloody coin.

“It was so strange to hear those girls,” Ari Ara complained to her friends Finn and Minli later, stretching like a cat on the woven rug by the hearth in her quarters. Moonlight pressed against the windows. She should go to bed – the first test of the ordeal would start at dawn – but she was too wound up to sleep. Snippets of conversation twanged like taut bowstrings through her memory. The words of the young girls kept snapping back into her thoughts.

“It was as if they couldn’t dream beyond war,” she went on, “as if the rest of the world of possibilities didn’t exist.”

Minli nodded in agreement, rubbing his stomach and sipping mint tea after the rich and sumptuous feast held in their honor. Ari Ara had been so busy minding her manners that she hadn’t eaten more than two bites. She had been insistently warned not to spill sauce on the soft gold of her layered robes. Sitting stiff as a stone statue, she had stayed on her best behavior while the feast dragged long into the night. She’d been patient with the orphans, attentive to the Sisters, generous with her smile and careful with her words. When she finally shut the door to her sleeping quarters behind her, she flopped onto the bed with an exhausted groan. She’d endured hours of sweat-dripping drills that were easier than this!

And the official trial wouldn’t even begin until tomorrow.

She had been glad when Minli knocked on the door and let her vent her pent-up steam with a long-winded tirade. By the time Finn showed up with some bread and cheese he’d charmed out of the kitchen girls, she had changed into her favorite set of patched-up practice clothes and was in a much better mood. The three sat on the mats and cushions next to the hearth. The furnishings were finely-made, but sparse; until she passed her ordeal, she was an aspirant, not a royal leader. Minli and Finn’s room was larger than hers. Brinelle’s was an entire house. Ari Ara didn’t mind – she slept better on a simple cot in her Fanten cloak than on a springy mattress buried under featherdown.

“If we’d grown up here,” Ari Ara mused, nudging Minli, “do you think we would have wanted to serve war and warriors, too?”

“I grew up at Monk’s Hand Monastery,” Minli reminded her, “and yeah, I might not have known I could have a different future if you hadn’t come along.”

“That’s your task though, isn’t it?” Finn told Ari Ara as she munched on the bread he’d brought. “To make space for other dreams?”

“It’s our task,” Ari Ara countered, gesturing to him and Minli. “All of us who follow the Way Between.”

Since ancient times, against unspeakable odds, amidst bloodshed and terror, these dreams had refused to surrender: a time of peace, a world beyond war, a generation who could do more than survive. In Alaren’s time, a world without battles dwelled within living memory. Their parents and grandparents remembered it, clung to it, and worked with Alaren to restore it. One brutal battle after another, this hope faded from humanity’s memory. But the dream never vanished, not entirely. The longing for peace wove into the language of myth and the beauty of vision. And some people continued to work for it. Even when Alaren’s followers had been hunted down, imprisoned, and executed, the warmongers could never rid the world of those who still kindled the dreams of peace. Blood cannot wash off blood, after all.

Every person who sees the light fade in a wounded friend’s eyes will one day long for an end to violence. Every child who loses their parents will wish for a world where peace could have kept them alive. Every terror-struck youth on the eve of battle, every war-weary fighter soldiering on, every haunted veteran wracked by the past yearns for peace to come sooner, last longer, and hold faster. Under their heartache, despair, fear, and bitterness lies the hunger for what could have been: lives beyond the sharp edges of violence, loved ones growing to old age; vocations of healing, building, and creating; communities that can live and rejoice.

“Imagine,” Ari Ara murmured, her eyes distant with the stories of both ancient times and future hopes, “if our world had known peace since the beginning of time.”

Thousands of years. Millions of lives. Libraries of stories.

By the crackle of the hearth, they murmured out glimpses of how the world might have been – still could be – without the vast nightmare of war. The muscular strength of warriors poured into dance, or barn-raising, or stone carving. The steel of swords forged into crafts halls and tools. The marching armies transformed into people working for peace in every village, town, and city. Historians and storytellers spinning epics of how war was averted, how conflicts were solved, how peace was won for a little while longer.

Who might they be in a world such as this?

How many bright futures had been lost to war?

If their societies – Marianan and Harraken – stopped wasting even a single breath, droplet of sweat, or moment of time longer on preparing to kill each other . . . what sort of lives could they live?

Even a day of this possibility loomed unfathomable. It quickened Ari Ara’s pulse. It shone in Minli’s eyes. It caught Finn’s breath in his chest. And a year of such a world would change everything. A century of peace stretched beyond even a lifetime of wild imagination. A thousand years entered the star stuff of legends.

Still, they could dream. If ever the dreams of peace had a chance to take root in the fertile ground of reality . . . this was it. It started with them, with three friends committed to change. With the resurgence of the Way Between. With the Mark of Peace printed on their tunics and inked between Ari Ara’s shoulders. With the potential of the heir to two thrones, coming closer to wearing the crown.

___________

This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign.

The post Dreams of War, Dreams of Peace – an Excerpt From River Dragon appeared first on Rivera Sun.

The Ordeal of Queens

“The Ordeal of Queens” – an excerpt from River Dragon

___________

This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series. You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign.

The lanterns and lit windows of Mariana Capital gleamed like a low constellation of stars. Ari Ara, Brinelle, and the others gathered abovedeck. Each stood quietly, holding their churning emotions close to their chest, no two reactions the same. The river bore the vessel swiftly, inexorably, toward the looming threshold of change. Ari Ara wavered between eagerly leaning into the downstream charge of the ship and nervously bracing her heels into the wooden deck as if that could halt their rushing pace.

In the moonlight, the city loomed like a crouched beast wallowing in the shallows. On the north end of the river island, a wide levy formed a wall against the spring floodwaters. A landing dock sat at its feet. A flight of stairs zigzagged up its thickness. The ship pivoted slowly, carefully, and the river’s pull drew it snugly up against the wooden buffers hooked to the stone pier. The crew threw heavy ropes over the pilings.

Thud-Thud.

A heavy, low drum beat sounded. The sound banged against the thick north wall, lifted from an unseen force in the warriors’ training yards next to the House of Marin. Brinelle paled, recognizing the sound of the percussion of thousands of warriors slamming the hilts of their swords against the steel-studded wood of their shields. Were the warriors raising an alarm?

Brinelle’s eyes widened at a sudden thought. Then, her gaze narrowed, furious.

It couldn’t be . . .

“Shulen,” she murmured.

“Look,” he answered, pointing to the dock.

Two figures slid out from the pooling shadows of the stairwell. Black cloaks fell from their shoulders. White robes captured the gleam of moonlight. A swish of fabric swept the stone dock, whispering to the murmuring current. One woman moved with the soft grace of light, gentle in demeanor. The second woman’s strong limbs cut through the night in sword-slashes of firm gestures. Ari Ara recognized them both.

“What are the Twins of the Sisterlands doing here?” Ari Ara asked, her high young voice suddenly loud.

Brinelle hushed her. The pair led the women’s order; the Warrior Sister overseeing the training of fighters, the Mother Sister tending the orphans.

“Ari Ara of the High Mountains.”

The Twins spoke together, one voice steely and hard, the other soft as thistledown.

“The ancestor spirits call your name.”

“No!” Brinelle’s sharp intake of breath punctuated the ritual invocation. She gripped Ari Ara’s shoulder as if the gesture could halt the Twins’ next words.

“The fate of nations follows in your footsteps.”

Shulen stiffened with disbelief.

“The time has come to weigh your character.”

Ari Ara cast a wild, confused glance at her aunt, hoping for a hint. Nothing.

“And see if it balances on the scales of power.”

A spark hissed in the silver light.

“We call you to the Ordeal of Queens.”

A second spark crackled and died. The third caught. Twin balls of flame swung from long chains, back and forth, mesmerizing, once, twice, thrice. Then the flames leapt, growling and hissing into the air, arcing in a wide circle around the Twins. The spinning fires kept the heir and her companions from disembarking from the ship. The sisters had blocked the staircase and denied them access to the House of Marin and the city beyond.

“You will come south to the Sisterlands. This city is barred against you until you pass through the trials of the ancestor spirits.”

“I order you to stand aside,” the Great Lady of Mariana commanded. “This is neither the time nor the place for this foolishness.”

“You dare question the will of the ancestors?” the Warrior Sister challenged her in a voice that rasped like steel over steel.

“They have called Ari Ara, not us,” the Mother Sister intoned with the ringing resonance of a bell.

“You conniving – ”

“Watch your words, Brinelle de Marin!” the Warrior Sister barked, her voice severe with disapproval. “The ancestors are listening.”

“So?” Brinelle shot back, undaunted. “Let them bear witness to your false invocation of their names. Stand aside or I shall have you removed.”

“By whom, exactly?”

There was no mistaking the triumphant gleam in the Warrior Sister’s eyes. On the heights of the stone wall, a roar of flame sounded. Sisters in blue robes so pale they seemed like pools of fallen moonlight rose from their hidden crouches, casting off the mask of black cloaks. They spun their chains of fire round, circle upon circle blazing bright in the moonlight.

Thud-Thud. Thud-Thud.

Thousands of warriors struck sword against shield, summoned by the Twins of the Sisterlands. They drummed with ferocity and strength, compelled by a sense of righteousness, responding to the ancestor spirits’ call to initiate the heir.

Brinelle went white. She was the head of the Marianan army, but they were beyond her command now.

“This . . . this is mutiny,” she spluttered, clearly unnerved.

“No, Great Lady,” the Warrior Sister corrected her, “this is tradition. Your warriors stand by the ancestors. Not even you can stand against them.”

The Great Lady gaped at them in shocked fury. She slammed her fist down on the ship’s rail. This insubordination of the Sisterhood would not – could not – be tolerated! They had barred the city against the girl! It was a slap in the face of the Great Lady – everyone knew she intended to return to Mariana Capital with the girl. In her fifteen years ruling, Brinelle had never been so close to losing her iron grip on power. How had she not anticipated this scheme? She could kick herself for not seeing this move coming.

Despite everyone else’s dismay, a thrilled tingle ran through Ari Ara. Whatever was happening was certainly more interesting than stuffy tutors and protocol lessons.

She edged over to where Finn and Minli stood huddled together near the prow.

“So,” Ari Ara asked, clearing her throat, “what’s this ordeal thingy?”

Minli and Finn stared at her with matching looks of disbelief.

“How can you not know about the Ordeal of Queens?” Finn asked. Even he knew about the spiritual test of an aspiring monarch.

Ari Ara shrugged impatiently. She could recite the reasons for the gaps in her education. People had certainly mentioned them often enough: she’d grown up unschooled in the High Mountains, raised by the Fanten, and sent out to tend sheep until she was eleven. The list of things she should know – but didn’t – could fill volumes. That’s why she had Minli. Didn’t everyone need a friend who had memorized half the library?

“Are you going to tell me or not?” she asked Minli.

“It’s a series of challenges you’ll have to do before you’re allowed to ascend the throne,” he explained. “They prove – or disprove – your worthiness in the eyes of the ancestors. The Sisters conduct them in their territory to the south. The spirits are somehow involved.”

“And?” she prompted when he fell silent.

Minli shrugged.

“That’s all I know – the whole thing is shrouded in mystery and secrecy.”

“So, that’s it? A test? Why is my aunt so upset?” she asked, gesturing to the hushed argument raging between Brinelle and Shulen. What was all the fuss about if she had to do this ordeal at some point, anyway?

“You’re only fifteen,” Minli said.

“And woefully unprepared,” the Great Lady said, striding over and charging into the conversation. “Heirs have failed – or worse, died. The Sisters should not have invoked the Ordeal of Queens so soon, and certainly not without consulting me.”

Then there was the question of timing. Why now? What were they playing at? Roka and Sorra Maro, twins by birth as well as position, had ruled the Sisterhood for decades. In all that time, they had rarely contradicted the will of the House of Marin. Brinelle sighed the weary sigh of a warrior who has battled for days and must somehow rise to another. It had not been easy to repeal Ari Ara’s exile and gain the nobles’ confirmation of her claim to the throne. The vote had passed by the slimmest of margins. The Warrior Sister had flipped her vote in support of the girl . . . and now Brinelle knew why. Roka Maro simply wished to discredit Ari Ara through the guise of the ancestor spirits. Undoubtedly, she planned to sabotage the ordeal every step of the way. By calling the ceremony so soon, they could ensure that Ari Ara would fail.

“Take our ship to the south docks,” the Great Lady hissed to the captain. “It’s the Twins that will leave this city, not us.”

The captain drew breath to give the order, but Shulen spoke.

“Wait. Don’t do that.”

The Great Lady spun on him, livid.

“You dare question my orders?”

“You cannot possibly challenge the Sisters. Not over this,” Shulen told her quietly.

“I will throw them out of the capital by their robes.”

“Oh?” Shulen asked her sharply. “You and what army? Pull yourself together, Brinelle.”

“I could say the same to you, Nshoka Shulen.”

Their use of first names shocked Ari Ara almost as much as the thudding drumbeats of the swords and shields. She had never heard anyone call Shulen by his childhood name. Nor would the duty-bound man ordinarily abandon the Great Lady’s titles and honorifics. The night had turned inside out. The structures of the world had upended.

“They are forcing our hand,” Brinelle grumbled, glaring at the Twins. The Sisters waited, impassive and opaque with mystery, fire whirling, expressions masked by the swirl of smoke and shadow. It was a clever trap. Brinelle could see no way out, not with the warriors participating in the invocation of the sacred ritual.

“Then they will regret it,” Shulen said quietly. He had faith in Ari Ara. If she passed the ordeal, it would silence her detractors and grant her an unquestionable right to rule.

Thud-Thud. Thud-Thud.

Ari Ara’s heart boomed louder than the thousand swords of Mariana’s warriors. The whirl of the fire dizzied her. The acrid smoke stung her eyes. Everyone argued around her.

“It is too soon.”

“We can prepare her.”

“It is dangerous.”

“She will have us by her side.”

“What if she fails?”

“What if she succeeds?”

Ari Ara cut into the endless spiral of words.

“I have to do it, right?”

Both Shulen and Brinelle nodded.

“Then there’s really just one question,” Ari Ara pointed out. She lifted her chin and set her hands on her hips, defiant. A spark of excitement gleamed in her stinging eyes. Her hair blazed in the firelight.

“What are we waiting for?”

___________

This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign.

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