Speech by Michael Berg1

(delivered at a rally in Philadelphia on October 27, 2007)

Three years, five months and twenty days ago, my son Nick, was murdered in Iraq. He was an independent contractor who never got a contract. I held and still do hold George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales most responsible for his death. Nick was killed, it was reported on the videotape of his brutal murder posted on the internet, in retaliation for the atrocities, the rapes, murders and tortures which took place at the Abu Graib Prison. These three men encouraged, defined into legality, and sent down the chain of command with the wink and the nod, the permission for these acts to occur. In addition, Nick had been held in Iraq by the FBI and US Military Police for no reason at all, illegally for thirteen days over which time these atrocities were revealed to the public and so enraged the Iraqi people that a grassroots resistance to the American invasion was born.

A few days after learning of my son’s death, I said in front of the cameras and microphones of every major news network: “Nick Berg died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.” Instantly I became a spokesperson for the antiwar movement and I traveled around the world speaking out against the war. At the same time I became the recipient of much hate mail, e-mail, phone calls and personal confrontations.

I raged peace with an R; I didn’t wage it with a W. I spoke true words which I still stand behind today, but I spoke them from a place of hatred within. I preached peace, but I practiced war against anyone who was not against the war. Eventually I realized something was wrong with what I was doing.

Then I took a course on forgiveness. I learned that to forgive is not to condone. I learned that revenge, which I had surely been taking with every poisoned word I spoke, is counter productive, steals from one, one’s identity, that revenge justifies revenge, and that it is a never ending escalating cycle of getting even -er.

It took much introspection, but eventually I started on a journey over the geography of the heart. I’m still on that journey. I have found forgiveness, and lost it again. I have searched again and found it, but I will be on this journey every day of my life.

Last month I was coming out of a store in the rural part of Delaware when a man offended by my bumper stickers: Impeach Bush, War Isn’t Working, Practice Peace and about a dozen others, got up in my face and declared: “You and all of this are full of hate!” I snarled back at him “I don’t hate anyone!” And there I was again proving to him that what he said was true.

Immediately I went down by the riverside. I talked again to the Prince of Peace, and I did not come back until I had laid down the sword of my tongue and the shield of my defensiveness, and I regained my internal peace.

I speak to you today in peace, and I invite you to the riverside, wherever you may find it, to recommit yourself to seeking peace with peace and in peace from the inside out. And if you mess up as I did last month and get tempted back into hatred, don’t give up. Try again and again to regain the peace to which you invite others. Try to regain it when you are confronted by counter protesters, when you are arrested for following your heart, when you view the news slanted and askew, and when you hear your politicians and the other ones (not yours) spewing their hatred. That’s the time to redouble your efforts to remain at peace. Remember that humanity is common to us all. Our job is to bring it out in others, and we can do this only with our own example of Peace and Love! Thank you!

Michael Berg is a peace activist and a member of Pacem in Terris who now resides in Norfolk, VA. His son, Nicholas Berg, was murdered in Iraq in May, 2005.

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