Response

This is a repsonse that I wrote on Sebi's blog. See the original post at: http://sebtbrown.blogspot.com/2007/02/but-whats-value.html

Sebi, after reading your blog I had one thought. I believe that you are dead on there must be a larger core value for which the group is working. But I believe that the mission must be broken into small achievable pieces and that be the principle area of focus for the movement. You must must have small pieces. If MLK would have said in Alambama we are going to work for Justice, what does that mean? They broke up the movement into small managable pieces that were capabale of being achieved, i.e. the bus boycott. The operationalization of the movement is important in mobilizing the group. In any movement it must be small and managable while being coherent in with the core values. Which can be hard. What would that look like today as we still see large racial and gender inequalities? How do/can we move forward? I hope so. I think we must!

Maybe ignorance is Bliss, pt. 2 but I'd rather not be Ignorant

In continuance of pt. 1, this post deals with a similar failure to look at the whole history of an event. Why look at the whole history when it conflicts with our identity when we can just look at the part that is coherent with our worldview. This post is my attempt to flush out the idea that was mentioned in class: “King has been sterilized to only the ‘I have a dream’ speech.” We don’t want to hear the King that is against war, against poverty, because these don’t fit neatly into the civil rights movement. If we believe that King is dead on with his beliefs, then how do we reconcile his stance against war? We need to bring King’s entire message to the forefront of our consciousness. But his calling against war is something that is deeply antithetical to our national myth. We believe that our freedom—to some the most important fact of America—comes from fighting. Without the revolutionary war, they argue, we would still be British (this ignores the freedom that has been won by Canada, Australia, most of Ireland, India, New Zeeland, and the list goes on). But the message of this myth is that we got our freedom through violence and that is the only way to maintain that. The major fallacy of this argument is the Civil Rights movement—freedom was won and maintained through nonviolence.

I am going to quote two parts of King’s speech. The first deals with the systemic nature of violence and its prevalence in our society.

Read King’s own words in his famous speech and Riverside Church in New York City.

“My third reason [for being against the war] moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”

This quote articulates King’s plan for the future of the world—overcoming violence through love.

“This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

“We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).”

I believe that King is often ignored in terms of war because we’re afraid. We’re afraid that the image that we hold of King as a morally high individual without fault might come into question. We are afraid to deal with the reality of King’s message. It is not one solely of Civil Rights but one of the world. How can we make sense of King’s message in the world? Either the national myth glorifying war is false, or King’s message of the power of love is false. I believe that these are, at their cores, antithetical. Instead of wrestling with the contradiction, we ignore King’s message of love and hope in the world. Which I believe is a mistake. How can we bring King’s message of love to the forefront of our consciousness? Can we reconcile this contradiction? Can we do as John Lennon asked and Imagine a world with out war but one with love?

Ignorance is not Bliss pt. 1

This post is a month overdue but nonetheless it is worth saying. I have been reflecting on the Woman’s suffrage movement that I have been studying in my nonviolence class. We were reading about famous woman suffragettes. We learned about their techniques and hardships. We watched a PBS documentary on it and I was struck by my total ignorance. The hard-line woman suffragettes picketed outside of the White House. The US government responded by arresting the women and proceeded to be very cruel to the suffragettes. The women went on hunger strike. The government responded by force feeding the women and treating them horribly. The prison conditions were appalling. How could something this horrible occur that makes the suffragette movement even more powerful in today’s light and not be part of our national dialogue? How can we be so ignorant of our own history? (This is a question that I found asking myself over and over again while reading A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn) I believe the answer is that this does not fit nicely in our national myth that we always encourage peaceful sharing of ideas. The government shouldn’t respond in violence. I think that is why it is so hard for us to talk about our history—from the Indigenous Americans to the suffrage movement. Americans don’t want to know the horrible things that have happened as a result of American policy. We like to believe that we perpetrate freedom and equality and that’s how it always has been.

I am going to close with a rather long but appropriate quote from British Comedian Eddie Izzard.

“But in America, it was different. The founding fathers landed in 16 ( mumbles ). They set off from Plymouth and landed in Plymouth! How lucky is that? "This is Plymouth? We've just come from Plymouth! We've gone round in a circle. Lads, back on the boats." They finally got there and said, "Ah, this is where our God has brought us to! We can practice our religion here, we can raise a family. There's nobody here! Excuse me… There's nobody here! Yes, a land empty of human existence… Who the fuck are these guys? ( mimes the headdress) What's all this, please? No, we don't want any of your food, thank you very much! Just put some clothes on!"

“Meanwhile, that winter… "Excuse me, do you have any food? (mimes the headdress) I love all this, love the idea! ( chuckles ) Yes, I'm sorry, we were a bit brusque when we first arrived, we didn't realize you owned the entire country! But you have no system of ownership? Mmm, interesting! Maybe that can come in useful later… Food! Thank you very much, very nice... Yes, there're more of us coming but we'll keep our promises." So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naïve, I feel!”

Gandhi in today's world?

I would like to take this opportunity to discuss Gandhi’s applicability in the world. I believe that there is a distinct difference in Gandhi’s theory and Gandhi’s strategies. I believe that his theories, care for all importance of human beings, ahimsa, satyagraha, et cetera, have definite applicability in the world. I think that it is hard to see the power that nonviolence has in our world today because our culture is centered on war and its uses war and war metaphors in every day speech. While hard to find, nonviolence is still present even in international conflicts. The Christian Peacemaker Teams (http://www.cpt.org) have been influential in putting civilians in high tension places in an attempt to solve conflicts more nonviolently. They received fame last year when a three of them were kidnapped. Their families urged the military to resist the temptation to respond to force, instead they argued for the importance of peace. I believe that this group uses a lot of the theories that Gandhi used in his campaigns: all of the team members must be willing to put themselves into dangerous situations, must undergo rigorous training and must believe that their cause is right. I think Gandhi’s theories can provide us with basic insight when starting a nonviolent campaign.

World Religions Day

Today I participated in a panel discussion of religion and war. There were seven panelists from different religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Baha’i, Catholicism, and Protestantism. I represented my faith perspective as it relates to war. I attend the Church of the Brethren, which is one of the three historic peace churches, along with the Mennonites and the Amish. There is a bumper sticker in the Church of the Brethren that reads, “When Jesus said love your enemies, I think that he probably meant don’t kill them.” For me it is simple, war and violence should never be used as a means to solve conflicts. I believe that it our place in the world to work together and build peace in the world. Whether you take a Christian perspective or a take a evolutionist perspective the answer is still clear to me. If we are only here on this earth for a short period of time then it makes sense, to me at least, that we should work together to build peace because in the end we are only going to survive and overcome global problems through cooperation: vis-à-vis global warming and end of fossil fuels.

The common question that I get asked as universal pacifist is WWII. What would I have done in the early 1940s to end the evil dictator that was Hitler? My answer is two-fold. Number one I believe that WWII could have been avoided if a more equitable peace would have been made at Versailles. Versailles left Germany crippled and starving. If peace would have been more equitable, like it was after WWII, 50-60 million people’s lives could have been saved. Secondly I believe that there were attempts to resist Hitler nonviolently. One notable example is Denmark. The Danish people actively resisted the Jewish roundup by the Germans. Demark successfully saved the lives of countless of Jewish people by refusing to comply with the German demands.

I believe that war is the simple answer but peace is possible through cooperation.

I was encouraged by the continuity of the messages at the panel—all agreed that war should be avoided and we must work for peace. I believe that it can be accomplished through nonviolence.

Vigil

I just wanted to invite you all to come to a candlelight vigil Thursday 6-6:30. We will be standing on the steps of Ellis to recognize and remember the suffering of everyone involved in the Iraq conflict. We will be meeting every Thursday of the semester. All are welcome.

“The suffering isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and neither are we”

For more information join the event Iraq Candle Light Vigil on Facebook or email me: zunkejc3

Thanks. Hope to see you all there for this nonviolent demonstration!

Jon

Gandhi

In preparing for discussion of the Gandhi, I first reflected on my memories of what I have learned about him in my other classes. What amazed me was my lack of memory of detail. I have some initial observations that just struck me when I did these readings. I think that these observations are largely in response to my attempts, through paxo, to organize events.

Firstly, Gandhi seemed masterful at articulating a problem and designing a campaign that not only had a clear message but was effective. His methods at this were refined over the course of his action, they started on a smaller scale in S. Africa but grew in momentum and effectiveness.

Secondly, it amazed me the amount of impact that he had on convincing people to do things or agree with him on his moral grounds. This is exemplified for me in the story of Gandhi convincing the Judge of his moral superiority.

The third item that struck out at me was his respect for the authorities against whom he was fighting.

The fourth interesting remark I wanted to make was the precision with which he organized. He compared his forces to those of the military. It seemed amazing to me the amount of conviction and his total self confidence.

The fifth item I wanted to highlight was his religious convictions. I think that his notion of the divinity of every person is central to his campaigns. Gandhi believed that natural tendency of good was to triumph in the long run. I think that it would be interesting to discuss how Gandhi would view the world, where arguably there is a great deal of evil. I would postulate that Gandhi would still be hopeful about the possibilities of good in the world.

Along this same line of thought, Gandhi was rightly concerned with the role of partition in future relations between India and Palestine; I wonder how Gandhi would view the current situation and how he would suggest to move forward.

Can Gandhian methods of satyagraha be used in any conflict? What are the limitations that it would have? The methods of NV were used later in the civil rights movement with great success but how would NV look on a more international stage? Is that possible?

In a class that I had with Andy Murray he said roughly, “Gandhi accomplished what Hitler could not, the defeat of the British Empire.” I don’t know if that is his quote or another’s but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.