To the Editor,
The Nanaimo Chapter of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom voted last week to fully endorse Occupy Nanaimo.
This movement clearly articulates the choice we have to change our direction or lose control over the resources on which our lives depend.
It seeks to ensure that our children and grandchildren inherit clean water, pure air, a community that is diverse and interdependent. It expects that our citizens will have homes, beds to sleep in and food on the table.
It aims to take back our education system, our health care, our public space.
In much of Nanaimo we have lost our commons – the public space to which people in villages, towns and cities throughout the world gravitate to meet and build ties, to exchange ideas, to dance.
Here in Nanaimo, much of our commons has been lost to private space owned by shopping malls. With great foresight, our council built Diana Krall Plaza.
We commend them and encourage them to find ways to support the young people who are camping there in an affirmation of the commons.
As seniors who have been long involved in the search for peace and justice, we are very moved by the intelligence, compassion and awareness that motivates these young people.
Please allow them the freedom to develop their ideas without the focus being a threat of eviction.
Dyane Brown
WILPF