Turning Fear into Power: How I Confronted the War on Terror (The Bridge Between the Cultures)

In the wake of the 9-11 attacks in 2001, Linda Sartor was dismayed to see her country responding primarily with military action and coercive diplomacy. Rather than isolating and defeating the perpetrators, Linda saw US action punishing the innocents in foreign lands, lending credibility to Al Qaeda's depiction of the US as an imperial state and an enemy of Islam, making enemies, and undercutting decades of effort to win the hearts and minds of people around the world.Linda resolved to do more than complain. For the next decade she engaged in self-styled citizen diplomacy, traveling to six war-torn countries to see for herself, and to do what she could to assist locals in their efforts to attain peace and justice.Linda traveled to Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan, and Bahrain. She traveled with several different Peace and Justice organizations. And part of her story is the work of Americans and internationals to highlight injustice and to make some noise about the need for peace.Linda Sartor takes us behind the headlines, and she also isolates the idealism of activists from the US and other countries. She hopes that her stories will inspire readers to confront fear, to follow their hearts, and to place a bet that individual protest will, ultimately, undermine and reform the harsh imperial and economic systems that are too often accepted as a baseline "reality" when the nations of the world exercise power.

Linda Sartor has always been a peace/justice activist and an educator and has been arrested a number of times protesting atrocities committed by the US in her name with her tax money such as the development and testing of nuclear weapons.

After she saw how the US responded to 9/11, educating and protesting weren t enough any more. First, she joined the International Solidarity Movement in Israel/Palestine in June of 2002, then Iraq Peace Teams in Feb. 2003, then went to Sri Lanka on the pilot team for the Nonviolent Peaceforce 2003-2008, did a Global Exchange citizen diplomacy trip to Iran in Oct. 2008, took her first trip to Afghanistan for two and a half weeks with Voices for Creative Nonviolence in Mar/Apr 2011, and was deported from Bahrain in Feb. 2012.

During her more regular life, Linda lives in an intentional community, teaches research courses in a master s in leadership program at St. Mary s College in Moraga, CA, guides vision quest wilderness trips with a non-profit organization called Rites of Passage, and is the volunteer coordinator for the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County.