Green Beret Turned Peace Activist Publishes Anti-War Book 
by Daniela Rommel
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 14, 2006



 

Special Forces veteran and award-winning author has published a new book opposing the war on terrorism. 

William T. Hathaway's Summer Snow is a peace novel set in Central Asia as an American warrior falls in love with a Sufi Muslim and learns from her an alternative to the military mentality.

Hathaway's first anti-war novel, A World of Hurt, won a Rinehart Foundation Award. Both it and Summer Snow explore the attraction that war has for men and how they can be healed of the pathology of patriarchal machismo. 

"Many men are psychologically draw to the military because of blocked libido and the need for paternal approval," says the ex-Green Beret. "In my writing I'm trying to uncover these inner roots of war, the forces that so persistently drive us to slaughter. Our culture has degraded masculinity into a deadly toxin. It's poisoned us all. Men have to confront this part of themselves before men and women together can heal it. I was lucky to have found a partner skilled at this. 

 "Understanding the effects that our culturally imposed gender roles have on us is crucial to understanding why we make war. One attraction of war is that it is a substitute for eroticism; it is the ultimate sexual perversion. It also reduces our ability to love. 

"In addition to psychology, my new book, Summer Snow, focuses on spirituality. I think that to prevent war we need to raise human consciousness. A look at the history of revolutions shows that switching economic and political systems isn't enough. The same aggressive personality types take over and start another army. We have to change the basic unit, the individual. 

"I've found Eastern meditation to be the most effective way to change people. Unlike psychotherapy or prayer, it works on the physiological level, altering the brain waves and metabolism. It refines the nervous system and expands the awareness so that the unity of all human beings becomes a living reality, not just an idealistic concept. 

"After a while of meditation people stop wanting to consume things that increase aggression, such as meat, alcohol, and violent entertainment. They become more peaceful. 

"I think it's very true that peace begins within you. As Gandhi said, ‘We have to become the change we want to see in the world.'" 

Summer Snow approaches peace from this meditative perspective. The book's wisdom figure is an aged Sufi woman, the warrior's lover's teacher, who has survived by outsmarting male dominated political and religious hierarchies. "This bin Laden, this Bush, all these leading men, they have hijacked us all with their violence," she states. "They have turned the whole world into their suicide airplane. These men are too primitive to have such power. Too ignorant of the underlying reality. We must stop them. We must take the boys' toys away from them... these terrible weapons." 

How she does that becomes the climax of the novel. Its theme is that higher consciousness is more effective than violence and that women may be more able than men to lead us there. 

In writing Summer Snow, Hathaway drew on his experiences during a year and a half in Central Asia. 

Hathaway now supports counter-recruitment work to persuade young people not to join the military. He is active in a group encouraging soldiers to refuse service in Iraq and Afghanistan. For those who want to desert, they have a sanctuary network that helps them build new lives. "Refusing or deserting the military takes great courage, and I’m full of admiration for the people who do it. If convicted, they’re punished viciously because they’re such a threat to the government’s power. They’re the real heroes," the combat-decorated Special Forces veteran states. 

Hathaway also wrote the introduction to America Speaks Out: Collected Essays from Dissident Writers and has published numerous articles. His writing won him a Fulbright professorship at universities in Germany, where he currently lives. 

The first chapter of Summer Snow is on the publisher's website, and a selection of his writing is available at: www.peacewriter.org. 

Daniela Rommel has taught English, French, and German at colleges in Iowa, Florida, and Germany.

HOME