See this:

http://bvs-europe.blogspot.com/

and my favourite web-site. It's great for political updates and a electoral map:

www.electoral-vote.com

Long awaited post

Well Hello,

I've been meaning to post on the blog for some time. So here goes.

Last week marked my, and many other's, 7 month celebration of being in N. Ireland. Time, as the old adage goes, sure does fly when you're having fun. So far my BVS time has been great. The conventional BVS wisdom is that the volunteer will learn and change more than the environment in which they are placed. It's true.

What have I done with my time in Northern Ireland? I've been to prison--through work--and heard stories of Ex-British Soldiers and a Republican(Hard-line Catholic) becoming friends and act in a drama together. I've seen Noble Laureate, John Hume, speak and see him walking around town. I saw former IRA-man, turned politician, Martin McGuinness, Deputy First-minister (equivalent of NI deputy prime-minister) speak. I've learned how to spell words correctly that Americans habitually misspell: globalise, neighbourhood, defence and the list goes on. I've seen transformation. I've seen people not wanting to change in the slightest.

What is my favourite thing about NI? With out a doubt, the people. Life is slower. As my boss says, "I work to live. I don't live to work." Life is meant to be enjoyed. Relationships are much more important that productivity (yet it is still crucial that there is a level of getting work done).

I've changed. I've grown. I sure have learned more in this seven months about the world, America and myself than I ever could have imagined. The life of a full-time volunteer is something that I am truly grateful to have experienced. BVS has truly ruined me for life. But I would never go back.

Discrimination or inconvenience?

So this blog represents my last journal entry for my nonviolence class. This post deserves some background before I begin. At Juniata a few weeks ago some students approached the student senate about creating a permanent seat for the LGBT community. We preach diversity and inclusion on campus, so I thought this would be a no brainer. To get a permanent seat the senate needed to approve the proposal and send the issue to the student body for a vote. However, the senate failed to approve the measure because of varying arguments, the first of them being, “well then any minority can request a seat.” How horrible of a day would that be when every minority group on campus would have voice!!! (Sorry for the sarcasm.) I think that it is more a problem of wanting to maintain the status quo more than anything else. People are afraid of change.

The LGBT community could not be silenced. To get another senate vote required the signatures of 100 students. The LGBT community and supporters got over 400! LGBT and friends raised awareness about the issue and started a campus wide discussion. The Senate overturned their previous vote and brought the issue to the student body, where they needed a majority. They designed a campaign to raise the appropriate number of votes to get a seat.

This background brings us to the point of this post. I was eating dinner last week and I got in a discussion about this with on of my friends. He made the argument that I stated earlier, that we can’t do allow them to get a seat because it sets a precedence. He continued, “with this argument, men should have a seat on the senate because they are a minority.” Man, when I heard this, and he was being dead serious, I was floored. How can we have come so far, yet people still do not understand what it means to be a minority. Men are well represented on the student senate. They don’t need to guarantee a permanent seat. Men are not ostracized from society. Men are not in danger of loosing rights and discrimination.

Our conversation progressed to a bathroom in the Physics wing. The men’s restroom was converted to a unisex bathroom to accommodate a transgender physics student. My friend told us that he did not understand why he the bathroom needed to be converted. He said that with the unisex bathroom, he felt compelled to lock the door to prevent anyone from walking in on him. He said, “I don’t understand why I should be inconvenienced.” Inconvenienced? What is the difference between this line of thought and discrimination? To me, when a person wants to be able to do something that would make them equal to everyone else and is unable to do that, it is discrimination. If a person refuses to allow this to happen because of change of the status quo, or inconvenience, that is discrimination. Yes it may inconvenience my friend, but his beliefs represent a form of discrimination. It is these beliefs that I hope can be changed by nonviolence. A recurring them of this blog occurs yet again: it is hard to change these core values. But, change needs to occur slowly and nonviolence is the vehicle for this to occur.

Academic Relevancy

So today was the second Annual Liberal Arts Symposium (LAS). I participated as a presenter and an observer. I presented my math senior research this morning. I took a previous social model (simulated on a computer) that was arguing for the importance of religion by showing that under certain conditions competitive players fared better than nice players. We took this model and tried to apply a social network to this model. We found that the social network is important in determining the effectiveness of various strategies.

As part of my obligation to the LAS I needed to stay to listen to the rest of the presentations in my group. I was in the natural science group. I was struck by the presentations by the lack of applicability to these problems to seemingly global problems, such as clean water, food, shelter, and other things that make for peace. I am not trying to bash Chemistry, because the students and professors can do things, and say words that I don’t even begin to comprehend. But my problem is that if a student can synthesize a new molecule, so what? Is the world better? Is the world better because of my research? Probably not. We have all of this intellectual brain power in college, what are we doing with it? I have done so many mindless projects that don’t get read by anyone other than the professor. Yes I have learned a great deal. I think the best thing that I have learned, is I have learned how to learn. I can research a topic in no time. But so what? How does me writing a paper about Islamic Scripture make the world a better place? How does me studying classical music make the world a better place? I know more. But would college be better if we would work on real world problems? Why don’t we in class we spend half of the class learning about historic roots of problems and the other half applying ideas to today to make the world better? I know that we must understand the world to make a difference. But can we ever achieve knowledge? I am a senior and for the first time I am applying what I am learning, by organizing the candle light vigil. I apply what I learn about peace to conflicts of today. But mostly, that is on my own time. I wonder what we could accomplish, academia that is, if we would work to apply more of our time to the problems of today. How can we achieve academic relevancy? Even if we could make chemistry problems, for example, less esoteric, personal endeavors, but made them relevant to today would be great. I hope we can figure out a way.

What's the point?

Sometimes, lots of times, when I think about all of the problems of the world, I feel despondent. In the end, we, as Americans—and believe me I am just as guilty as everyone else—only care about ourselves. We are concerned with happiness and gratification now. If our actions mean that a person in some other part of the world can’t eat, or can’t survive, it doesn’t matter because we don’t see the effects. We are willing to spend countless amounts of money on entertainment—movies, clothes, alcohol, going out to eat, (include your favorite material passion here)—but how many of us college students give money to charities? What could be done if we used 10, 20 or 50% of the money we would have used on entrainment and used it on the helping people have clean drinking water? What would that world look like? How do we make us aware of our actions to the point of caring about the world? Most of the conversations in which I engage, or I hear, revolve not about working on major global problems but about the trivialities in our lives. Does it matter, in the end, if we talk about the upcoming storm? Does it matter who is wearing what? We are incredibly fortunate! Why do we need to buy? Because we can! As Vroom, a band that I quite enjoy, sings,

I don't believe that you've got nothing to wear
I've seen your closet, decadence resides there

We buy not because we need, but because we need to feel special. However, to be special is to exist! Purchasing destroys our uniqueness. We consume to feel important but by consuming we become just like everyone else.

What’s the point? “The world’s so big and I’m so small,” a Juniata Peace Studies professor once sang. Does “One person at a time do it all?” I hope, but there is no incentive to change. We know the world is strained, through global warming, through increased oil demand, through over 1/6 of the world’s population, ONE BILLION PEOPLE, living on less than one dollar a day! 2.7 BILLION people live on less than $2 a day (World Bank’s website see link at the end). All of these troubles in the world and our actions show that we really don’t care! It breaks my heart. It makes me despondent. I try to talk to people to raise awareness about the problems of the world. But when at the end of the day, we all would rather have fun than worry about Global problems. How do we change this? How do we make people realize the consequences of actions? How do we show people the causality: if you drive everywhere, you are harming yourself and the world? The structures in place have been there for a long time. The structures of violence are so big. How do we change them? I hope that we are able to realize the causality of actions. We must. The world is such pain right now, it is not sustainable. We must find solutions. I hope that nonviolence is the way. It should be the way. It must be the way!

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTPA/0,,contentMDK:20153855~menuPK:435040~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:430367,00.html

A must read is Thom Hartman’s Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, (2004) http://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/103-0919875-4079043?ie=UTF8&qid=1176621270&sr=1-1

Easter part 2

Just as I finished my post I was looking at the BBC and found this article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6536773.stm

It is story covering the Pope’s comments about Iraq. He said, “Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees.” I was pleased to see world religious leaders coming out and denouncing the war. I wonder if the Pope’s message is similar to messages of international religious leaders and that American religious leaders are taking a markedly more American approach to politics. I think that we need to increase the dialogue between people around the world especially with religious undertones of conflict in the Middle East. Hopefully with dialogue we can bridge conflicts and misunderstanding.

Happy Easter: Did Jesus give our government a blank check for violence?

Last night I was watching a CNN Easter special about Jesus and the host was asking a range of theologians about what would Jesus do in today’s world, especially with regards to politics? I was shocked to hear more than one theologian say that God was a God of war and that Jesus would condone the Iraq war. One Theologian said, “There are some things worth dying for […] freedom is one of those things.” I began to question how someone could say that. I was reminded of Wink’s concept of Jesus as trying to use active nonviolence to work for justice. How could people’s understanding of Jesus be so different? For me, I cannot fathom how people can use Jesus to justify any wars. When Jesus said “Love your Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself,” I think that it’s pretty clear—love everyone. He also said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” How can you say yes I love my neighbor so much, I want to kill him? I cant fathom Jesus coming to earth and leading us to war. Maybe I am wrong, but I believe that we are all one. We all are children of God. As Tony Campolo once asked can you imagine Jesus dropping a bomb on another Jesus? I can’t imagine Jesus ever resorting to violence. The Prince of Peace came to bring peace and preach love. How can we have missed this message so much?

Denmark: Model of possibility of nonviolence

I am always amazed by the story of Denmark. Denmark did what other allies could not do: save their country from destruction with out the loss of life. Denmark was able to rescue their Jews, their country and their citizens. The Denmark situation is unique insofar as Germany did not focus on Denmark until well into the war. Nevertheless, Denmark is a shining example of the power of NV. There is an old adage, “Any discussion of morality always comes back to Hitler.” Denmark is important, because even in the face of Hitler and the Holocaust, they were able to resist and keep most of their Jews safe through NV. It is interesting to discuss whether destruction of trains, infrastructure or other material objects, is violence? That will be the subject of a post in the future. But for now, suffice to say, nonviolence has great potential, even in a circumstance that most people say could only be responded to with violence. It is often assumed that countries could only respond to Hitler with violence. What would it like to have all of Europe respond to Hitler with nonviolence? Maybe nonviolence could have been used to prevent the war all together. If countries would be more concerned with human life and being will to use nonviolence, maybe the peace at Versailles would have been more equitable? We won’t know but it would be interesting to see how nonviolence would look on an international stage between many countries.

Hopeless or Hopeful Idealism?

Tonight I got in a conversation with a friend about the community of sustainability. I feel a bit unable to make a difference about the world. I’ve been thinking lately about how hard it is to change people’s actions. It is easier to get people to agree with an idea but it is hard to change people’s actions. Let’s look at Juniata’s campus wide program of sustainability. I think that most of the people on campus agree with sustainability as an idea. I think you would be hard pressed to find many students who said they were against saving the environment for their children. But when it comes to putting these actions in to place, it’s harder. I know that there are lots of students on campus who drive their cars across campus: drive from East to classes. How can we talk about a community of sustainability when students are willing to get in their car instead of walking five minutes? We can convince people that they in theory should live sustainably, but it is just so easy to drive there are no visible consequences for taking a five minute drive. How do we bring awareness to little behaviors? How do we make it easy for people to live sustainably? Do we need to make actions easy for people to do them? Will people do things because it is the right or best thing to do? I hope that people will do things because it is the right thing. I think that it is important to make all actions seem important. If we could every action important, or seem important, maybe then behavior would change. But it is hard link the small actions of one player with a large concept such as global warming. I think JC is going about it the right way: trying to make it a community effort. I think we need to work on continually showing the importance of every action.

A way towards ahimsa?

This post is a continuation of my post called, “The loss of a way to practice ahimsa.” In that post I raised numerous questions about the use of nonviolence on larger structures of violence, vis-à-vis global warming, etc. I think that it is hard to practice self suffering on these larger structures because they are so ingrained in our culture. If I had to design a campaign on a larger structure such as global warming, I would begin with education. I think that it is important to work on making the invisible visible. To that end, I believe that the first step is education by showing movies like An Inconvenient Truth. We must destroy the myth that Global Warming doesn’t exist. We must expose the truth about global warming and appeal to people’s desire to care about the world in which we live. After education we must make it easy to work for a better environment, similarly to the way the Selma bus boycott made it easier for people to not use the bus. But this time we should try to make people use busses. Make public transportation cheaper. But it must not only be cheaper we need to try to make it culturally unacceptable to: take short trips in our cars; to not recycle; to drive suvs; etc. We need to make it culturally unacceptable to engage in un-green actions. It is hard but I believe it could be done one step at a time. It needs to start small. Raising gas prices with green taxes, i.e. taxes for the development of green technologies. By slowly change attitudes actions will hopefully change as well.

Role of people not directly receiving the suffering?

As a white male American I have not had to deal with being a minority. The closest I came was in Los Angeles. I was born and lived in LA until I was 10. In school, whites were the minority in terms of numbers but I did not have to deal with any of the issues associated with being a minority. I have lived a very privileged life. I have never had to worry about a roof over my head, having clean drinking water, or having enough to eat. I have been fortunate enough to go to college and be able to travel around the world. No matter how much I read, learn, or try to understand what it’s like to not have these, I can’t truly understand. As much as I want to help bring human rights across the world, what is my role? How do I reconcile Gandhi’s idea that the movement must be carried out by, in this case, Indians. Does that mean, when I see injustice in sweat shops, migrant rights, international human rights, et cetera, should I just ignore them because I am not the direct recipient of the injustice (or in some cases I help perpetrate injustice, by not purchasing clothes that are sweat shop free)? I say no. I like King’s approach to non-blacks engaging in the movement—he welcomed them. I believe and hope that I even though I am not the direct recipient of the violence, I can have an impact. I think that my actions can be effective in two different ways. 1) I believe I can use my ability as a person of privilege to help work for human’s rights through my purchasing of products, trying to influence congress, et cetera; 2) Join a movement and help stand up with the people who are the victims of injustice.

However, does the movement need to be organized by the people who are oppressed? I don’t know. Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine the civil rights movement being led by whites. I think that a movement like this would not help work towards equality. It would be still be characterized by the dominant group telling the minority group what would be best for the minority group. Whether the changes would be good or not is irrelevant. I believe that the majority group can assist with the movement but leadership must at least originate with minority group. It must begin there and then assistance can be given.

Insulated from suffering

We live in a world where the suffering of others is virtually absent from our awareness of the world. It is easy for us to live our lives totally unaware of the impacts of our choices. If one desires, one can buy and consume without considering how it is we are able to live the way we can. We have grown so accustomed to being able to go to the grocery store and get produce year round. We have no concept of what it means for us to be able to buy bananas year round for dirt cheap. How do we get this produce? Who picks it? I think that it is so interesting to hear people on the news talk about migrant workers are taking jobs and hurting our economy. Since the push to crack down on migrant farm workers coming from Mexico there have been literally fields of crops that go unpicked. The argument that has been made that Americans should do these jobs since there are Americans out of work. But for this to become a reality, we need to confront the current condition that the migrant farm workers have.

Two summers ago I volunteered in Oregon at a church camp. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to engage in a 5 day march from Salem to Portland. I participated for three days of the march. We marched around 12 miles a day. It was really powerful. There were three main points of the march: the Iraq war, education, and migrant farm worker rights. The march wanted to point to the connection between the Iraq war and education. Oregon had its national guard in Iraq and was spending money to fund their national guard. Meanwhile, a large proportion of the school system did not have enough money to have school five days a week. A large percentage of the schools were only having four days a week. The third focus of migrants rights was very interesting for me. At night we heard speeches by various people. One memorable night we attended a rally where farm workers told of the horrible conditions where they worked. But there is not a real choice for them. They’re here so what are their options? They told of not being able to have bathroom breaks; being forced to work for long hours for illegally low pay. The rally concluded with the small church where we were meeting erupting in cheers of “la raza unida jamás será vencida”, which means “the people united will never be defeated.” Through are marching and our rallying we rose awareness about these issues. People from many different walks of life came for different reasons. But we were united in our message. We raised awareness about these issues through our actions. What saddens me is that the invisible has not yet been made visible on a national scale. We are unaware of the injustices that have been perpetrated for the sake of cheap produce.

This march reminded me in lots of ways of Gandhi’s salt march. The people immediately affected by the injustice standing up for their rights. However, this march was not illegal. It did not raise as much awareness as the salt march did because it was not as widely covered and it wasn’t as much of a national issue as the salt. It was great to stand up and engage in a long march in the name of rights. I would love to see the US become more active in our marching and the people taking to the streets, peacefully, in the name of wanting justice and peace.

The loss of a way to practice ahimsa.

How is it possible in our modern world to make the invisible, visible? There are many campaigns that would benefit greatly from Thoreau’s civil disobedience: Wal-Mart, sweat shops, global warming, the list goes on. But how do we develop campaigns that practice suffering? The reason that Gandhi and King were so effective is that their campaigns used their suffering as a catalyst for change. But how do you develop a campaign around such large issues as Global Warming. Especially, since most of the problems of today are not questions of legality, but a question of changing attitudes. I think this is was a problem that the civil rights movement was running into at the end of it. How do you change larger frameworks? How do you change structural or cultural violence? It is so ingrained in our mind and built into the structure of our society how do we change it? These are questions that I don’t know. I think that ahimsa could work but how do we practice self suffering on a idea? What would civil disobedience look like? Especially when it’s not against the law. Marching in DC is not illegal. If it was, would it be more meaningful? I think so.

Wal-Mart: corporate evil or champion of the lower middle class?

Over break I read a book called The Wal-Mart Effect: How the world’s most powerful company really works—and how it’s transforming the American economy, by Charles Fishman. The book does an interesting job at showing the benefits that Wal-Mart has on families by offering cheaper prices than other stores. In a given year a given family could save hundreds of dollars by buying their groceries at Wal-Mart. However, the book chronicles how Wal-Mart is able to provide these low prices: forcing suppliers to reduce costs by whatever means necessary (streamline shipping, reducing wages of employers, sending factories overseas, et cetera). It is interesting to note that we are so concerned with prices that we are willing to sacrifice traditional “American” values like worker rights, five day work week, and a 40 hour work week. Why is price such an important factor in our everyday lives?

One might ask how does this relate to Nonviolence? Every Sunday I participate in a radio show. It’s a mix of talk radio and music. We were talking about wal-mart and one of my radio cohorts talked about Wake Up Wal-Mart. He said that their strategy was to encourage people to shop at Wal-Mart as usual, but occasionally the group would call for a campaign to shop at Wal-Mart. For example, the group would send out a release not to buy anything for Mother’s Day at Wal-Mart. The point of this campaign is to show Wal-Mart that there are numerous shoppers who don’t agree with their practices and that Wal-Mart should change their policies. As a result of this Wal-Mart has launched a major PR campaign designed to boost their image as an employer and that they promote workers rights.

When my friend told about their strategy I became very uncomfortable. This tacit might be successful but I have a hard time supporting a company that is perpetrating Human Rights violations (sweat shops, factory workers rights, employee rights, et cetera) and using this as leverage. When reflecting on how Gandhi would have dealt with this situation I believe that he would have not advocated supporting Wal-Mart when they are not in a campaign. If the company is not behaving justly, then you should not support it. Gandhi didn’t say eat UK salt after the march. He continued not to inflict harm but because of the injustice. I believe that Wake Up Wal-Mart’s tactics accentuate the effects that they can have on Wal-Mart but I think the effects would be more meaningful if they were not limited but widespread. When it comes down to it a week or two of hurt business is not going to greatly impact this multi-billion dollar company. I believe that we need to take actions not only be successful but because they are right. We need to practice actions because they are true.

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