Michele Darr keeps vigil 
on the capitol steps.
Photo by Michael Heggen.

An Interview with Michele Darr

19 March 2003
by Michael Heggen

ON THE CAPITOL STEPS, Salem, OR -- Michele Darr, 33, has spent most of her life in the Salem area. She has been active in peace and social justice issues since she was in high school. She says she has felt called to her work since she was a teenager. 

She married young and moved to the Middle East with her husband. She lived in Kuwait from June 1990 to October 1990, during which time Iraq invaded Kuwait. Michele and her family were airlifted out of Kuwait without physical harm.  

She is now divorced from her husband, who lives in Amman, Jordan with their two sons. Michele lives in Keizer now with her seven-year-old daughter, and is happy to be back in the Willamette Valley. She firmly believes, as she has since high school, that there can be "no peace without justice." She is a full-time volunteer activist now.

I asked Michele what motivated her to fast for peace. She answered immediately and without hesitation, "I want to stand in solidarity with mothers throughout the world. I am fasting to bear witness." She said things are going pretty well so far, but that her fasting sometimes causes her to lose her train of thought.  

During her fast on the capitol steps, she has made it a point to talk with people coming and going through the main entrance to the capitol. In the first three days of her fasting, Michele says she has talked with more than one hundred people at all hours of the day and night. 

She says she has spent at least as much time listening as she has talking. Many people have shared their life stories with Michele, even though they are complete strangers. One of the people who touched her the most was a homeless man who is fighting his way back from addition knelt down in the midst of the candles Michele has burning and prayed. He prayed for himself and his own struggles, and he prayed for the world and its struggles. He visited with her a little bit and then moved on into the night.

Several people brought their own candles to place, such as the woman whose younger brother is currently serving in the military. The woman told Michele that she was very concerned about her brother, whom she viewed more like a son than a brother due to their age difference. Like many of the biological mothers who have talked with Michele, this woman was experiencing a great deal of pain, she said. Michele also marveled that many of these same women are also very hopeful that all shall be well, somehow.

One common thread that Michele has observed in talking with war supporters this week is that they are "full of fear". They are afraid of what Saddam Hussein might do. They are afraid of what weapons he might have. They are afraid that their standard of living is threatened. And some are simply afraid. 

Michele was saddened as she explained that a lot of the people she has spoken with, both pro-war and anti-war, have been devoid of hope. "Don't give up hope," she says. "We're not alone."

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