Knitting for peace

Citizen's diplomacy
It may seem that a small company like Peace Fleece could not have had much impact on the Cold War, but consider that, at the time, it was part of a movement in which American and Soviet citizens reached out to each other to discover a mutual hope for peace that built important bridges between the two nations. Once, while travelling in the farthest corners of the Soviet Union to meet with farmers, Peter discovered a group of Idahoans in an obscure Central Asian hotel. "They said, 'We just decided to meet the folks over here. We decided to sit down with them and have a meal, maybe go for a walk.' It was just that kind of citizen's diplomacy that clicked the destruction meter slightly away from total annihilation," says Peter.

"That's what's so wonderful about knitting," he continues. "All these knitters used to go with us to Russia, and they'd sit in the middle of a square, and they'd just start knitting. Russian women would sit down next to them, and they'd start knitting, and they'd hang out all afternoon, laughing. Nobody was translating. It transcended any kind of nationalistic or language limitation, and I think that's what really allowed us to survive that terribly difficult time."

Expansion to the Middle East
Having moved past the Cold War, Peace Fleece expanded its reach into other countries in conflict. During the Gulf War in 1991, Peter travelled to Israel in an effort to create something similar to Peace Fleece there, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian farmers through wool. The program didn't take off quite the way the Russian endeavor did, as the dangers of interacting with each other became too great for farmers on both sides. Still, the weaving yarn offered by Peace Fleece is spun from Israeli and Palestinian wool, and all the proceeds of a particular colour of Peace Fleece yarn -- Baghdad Blue -- help support Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, a village in Israel established jointly by peace-seeking Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

The personal relationships Peter and Marty formed with farmers, businesspeople, and exporters in Russia count as some of the most rewarding aspects of Peace Fleece. "Our Russian office is in the home of the woman who's been our director for the last eleven years," Peter says. "And in that time, we've gone through everything together. We've shared their grief over the loss of a child and the joy of their children getting married." Understanding their lives shed light on the chaos and despair in which the Russians live. Obstacles like crime and threats to personal safety often interfered with the business. "In the beginning," says Peter, "the degree of dysfuntionalism in Russia was unbelievable. Nothing worked. I finally understood why things wouldn't get done. If a partner had to choose between making a deadline and making sure his child got home from school without harm, he would err on the side of the child. You couldn't argue with their choices. But it's a very difficult way to run a business."

In the last five years or so, much of that has changed. A partnership with a freight forwarding company in Yaroslavl has ensured that importing and exporting happen smoothly and efficiently. And while Russian wool is more and more difficult to come by due to a resurgence in Russia's domestic wool market that keeps most of it within its borders, new sources are being found in Romania.

Beauty and healing
Marty, with her artist's eye, sees improvement in another way. "I went to Russia in 1990," she says, "and I was just in shock. The roads were torn apart, there were no flowers, and people looked miserable. But when I went back two years ago, it was obvious to me that the spirit was lifting. You can see the health of a country by its art," she says. "If people create beauty, then you know they're feeling beautiful on the inside, and a society is in good shape."

Beauty and healing are reflected in all the products Peace Fleece offers, whether it's wool from Eastern European countries regaining their footing after opression, or wool from Middle Eastern countries currently at war, or cheerful knitting needles and buttons hand-painted by Russian artisans. These products all illustrate the different ways knitting and peace are inextricably entwined. "It's all part of a human healing process," Peter says of knitting. Marty, too, believes that when people work with their hands, they open themselves to inner solutions for peace. "If everyone is more peaceful themselves," she says, "they have more tolerance to accept others and work out their own relationships. The back-and-forth process of people trusting each other, being patient with each other, listening to each other, following through -- that's peace to me." It's this relationship-building process, besides the simple act of knitting for another, that she hopes true knitters-for-peace will engage in.

Supporting Peace Fleece
For more information on Peace Fleece, or to purchase Peace Fleece yarn and other products, contact:

Peace Fleece
475 Porterfield Road
Porter, ME 04068
www.peacefleece.com

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Excerpted from Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen, with photos by Kiriko Shirobayashi. Excerpted by permission of Stewart, Tabori & Chang. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.