In the twilight hours of January 16, 1991, local and world media outlets began blaring the news that the United States had begun its threatened bombing of Iraq under the Pentagon designated name of “Operation Desert Storm.”  Reporters around the world declared that President George H. Bush, Commander and Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, ordered the bombing barrage in retaliation for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the neighboring country of Kuwait.

But Pax Christi members along with all people of peace knew the dreaded bombing meant more than the U.S. coming to rescue the Kuwaiti people. They knew that Saddam Hussein’s arrogance and military miscalculation gave President H. Walker Bush the huge loophole needed to signal the start of U.S. hegemony-building in the Middle East, with the hope of having eventual control of the lucrative Iraqi oil fields. Despite how many were being killed or buried alive in the desert, the Bush Administration had hoodwinked the world into believing this war was necessary and solely to free Kuwait from the Iraqis. So, sadly, much of the world began to watch in silence.

In response Pax Christi USA initiated a national “We Shall Not Be Silent” Campaign, inviting all members to protest the U.S. led “Desert Storm” incursion into Iraq. In an emergency meeting the Pax Christi Michigan State Council decided to call on its nearly 1000 members to join the campaign, mailing each member a tiny bell tied with a purple ribbon along with the PCUSA Campaign Declaration. Members were urged to host local prayer services, protests and vigils, symbolically ringing their purple-ribboned bells to signify Pax Christi Michigan’s outrage over the Bush Administration’s blood-for-oil invasion of Iraq. PCM members statewide networked with other anti-war organizations, held teach-ins, wrote letters of protest to editors as well as to the Bush Administration and to Congress. When this 100-days war of terror ended, much of Iraq and its infrastructure were destroyed.  Hospitals were left with inadequate staffing and no potable water or electrical source to treat the thousands of seriously wounded men, women and children.  And hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops were bombed or buried alive in the desert, while the U.S. brazenly declared victory over Saddam Hussein in forcing his troops back to Iraq.

During the height of the war, the PCM State Council decided to start publicly honoring its own peacemakers in their lifetime by establishing the Annual Purple Ribbon for Peace Award – in direct contrast to the U.S. practice of naming heroes and heroines killed in battle. PCM has used the PRFP Award as a further declaration that we, members of Pax Christi Michigan, “Shall Not Be Silent.”

The first PRFP was awarded in 1991 to Fr. George Zabelka, a priest from the Lansing Diocese, who served as chaplain to the World War II Enola Gay troops which bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Years later, In accepting his award, George admitted that he spent the next 25 years convincing himself that he did the right thing in blessing the U.S. troops – wrestling with himself to justify the killing, maiming and exposure of countless Japanese citizens to radiation poisoning in what was later revealed to be essentially the first hydrogen bomb “experiment.” His own personal conversion to nonviolence came through the Theology and Spirituality of Nonviolence teachings of Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy of Boston, one of the earliest prophetic voices to rouse the Peace Community out of its own apathy and self-deception regarding the politics of violence and reclaim what it means to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Purple Ribbon for Peace Awards have become a highlight of the Annual Pax Christi Michigan State Conferences, held each spring in various Michigan cities. Awardees have included a bishop, several nuns and priests as well as lay men and lay women who humbly wear the mantle of nonviolent peacemaking in an effort to bring others to the Peace of Christ, Pax Christi.