A 'Hope' for peace

Alarmed by America's response to the terrorist attacks, two sisters send a message with a free publication: Consider the alternatives.

By LANE DeGREGORY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 6, 2001

SARASOTA -- There had to be another answer. Diane Mason and her sister were sure of it.

War couldn't possibly be the only response to the World Trade Center attacks, they kept telling each other, over and over. Bombing Afghanistan couldn't possibly wipe out terrorism. It could only claim more lives.

Night after night, in phone calls and e-mails, the sisters despaired about the destruction -- and about America's reaction.

"From the very first, it was clear what we were going to do. What everyone in power said we had to do: war!" Mason said. "That was so distressing. We weren't hearing any voices for alternatives. No one was even considering peaceful responses."

For a week or so in early September, Mason and her sister believed they were the only ones in America who didn't want war. They searched the airwaves and the Internet, hoping to hear similar sentiments. They didn't find any -- at least not in the mainstream media.

Then they started talking to friends, getting e-mails from folks they knew around the country. In hushed conversations and messages that often came with disclaimers, they learned others also were wishing for peaceful solutions.

"That's when we realized we had to do something," Mason said. "We had to try to help those other voices be heard. Not something antiwar, really -- more like pro-peace."

They published a magazine: Hope. Over the weekend, 30,000 copies were distributed at 800 locations in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties. It's free.

"CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY . . . " say words running across the top of the cover. Underneath, a drawing of the New York City skyline depicts rubble of the World Trade Center towers falling into a peace sign. On the back, a photo of the Earth is surrounded by another saying: You can't take sides when you know the earth is round.

Opening minds

Mason is 55, a journalist, Buddhist and mother of two grown children. She lives in a sunlit house in Sarasota, filled with candles and crystals and glass wind chimes. She has produced television documentaries about women's issues; written for publications including Parents Magazine, Environmental Action and Racquetball Today; written four books (on parenting, breast-feeding and surviving Medicare); and recently completed a novel about an oppressed woman in Saudi Arabia. Mason was a reporter and columnist for the St. Petersburg Times for seven years, from 1985 until 1992. Then she and her sister, Susan Danner Fernandez, founded a monthly women's magazine called Hers.

"The magazine folded a few years ago, and I've been freelancing," Mason said from the sofa in her breezy living room. "I told my sister, 'This is when I really wish we still had our newspaper.' I really missed being a part of the coverage. I wanted to be able to represent other voices.

"Then I realized: We know how to do this. We could do this. We should."

Fernandez agreed. "We wanted to try to get new information out, other ways of thinking about things, so that maybe it might open people's minds -- if not change them," she said. "We felt like we had some sort of responsibility to let other peaceful people know they weren't alone out there."

Fernandez is 59, the acquisitions editor for the University Press of Florida in Gainesville. She chooses new manuscripts and sees them through publication into books. She lives in Bradenton and has an office in St. Petersburg.

"We just started calling colleagues, friends, writers we knew, and telling them about our idea," Fernandez said. "Everyone was enthusiastic about it right away. Everyone agreed to help however they could."

It took them five weeks, working 50 hours a week, to edit and produce the magazine. Hope has 13 articles, a handful of photographs, no ads. Mason, Fernandez and some anonymous donors footed the $3,000 printing and distribution costs. The authors, illustrators and a graphic designer donated their work.

"It just sort of snowballed," Mason said. "We ended up getting more submissions than we could handle. It really turned into a collective of voices, all sharing a thread, which is: to find an alternative to war."

The Buddhist and the atheist

Kathleen Singh, who lives in Sarasota and is a consultant on psychospiritual growth, wrote in Hope about how, unless human nature is transformed, the world will be in constant conflict. Janet Thomas, an author from Washington state, described how nature and war and peace are all connected. A former Dunedin resident who lives in New York City sent e-mails contemplating the future from ground zero.

A Vietnamese Buddhist monk who runs a monastery in France wrote an essay that is published next to one by an atheist. There's a poem called Alchemy urging people to spend more time sitting; an article about Tampa Bay area peace movements; a drawing of a pea plant urging, "Give Peas a Chance." Quotes from Maya Angelou, Sylvia Browne and novelist Barbara Kingsolver appear on one page. On another is a small story about a Sarasota ballet teacher who is making pins representing Afghan burqas stained with blood.

There's even a message from U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the only person in Congress who voted against authorizing the president to use force against Afghanistan.

"We're going to mail a copy of our magazine to Rep. Lee, and to President Bush, of course," Mason said. "It's just a small thing, a very, very small gesture. It's about patriotism, really, as much as peace, about feeling I had to somehow do my part."

The magazine is provocative, thoughtful, sad and hopeful, esoteric and spiritual. It doesn't offer solutions so much as additional things to think about. A tiny symbol of two fingers forming the peace sign ends each article.

Mason and her sister expect negative responses. In their message from the editors, on Page 2, they predict people will challenge their stance: Well, if you don't want to fight back, what do you want to do?

Their answer: Consider the possibility. . . . Before we can create a new plan, a nonviolent solution, we first must believe it is possible.

"I don't have any grandiose illusions about our magazine changing the world," Mason said. "But I did feel better once I got started. Like I was at least doing something toward the effort, to back what I believe.

"If there are enough peaceful voices out there, I hope maybe our leaders will listen."

-- To contact the editors of Hope, e-mail them at womensmedia@aol.com.

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