Nonviolence Intro
My first post on this blog will deal with an issue very close to my heart. It will not be the last on this issue either, so for the purposes of this and future posts, I will give a brief explanation of nonviolent resistance which will be elucidated by further explanation in coming posts.Nonviolence is a difficult concept. It’s a negative term, almost like an absence of action. It is not violent resistance; so many people assume it must therefore be nonresistance. It might be better described by Martin Luther King, who called it soul force. Mahatma Gandhi called it Satyagraha. Jesus didn’t coin a pithy phrase for it, but talked about it frequently. Later, I will make a case for Jesus’ death and resurrection as proof of nonviolence’s efficacy from a religious perspective, just as I will make a case for it on social grounds. Jesus’ words and example will prove useful on both counts.
Walter Wink described it as Jesus’ "third way". When confronted with injustice, we tend to think of only two responses, programmed into us by countless millennia of evolution: fight or flight. We strike back in kind, or we try to escape. In both, we concede. There is a third, less obvious way, one which calls beyond our natural instincts, to our better nature, to that which makes us more fully human. Which will make oppressed and oppressor alike more fully human.
“I tell you, don’t react violently against the one who is evil: when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well.” Never have there been words so tragically misunderstood! Imagine if the billions of Christians all over the world knew what these words mean, and acted them out in their daily lives! This quote comes from the Gospel of Jesus, a product of the Jesus Seminar. Its counterpart in the synoptic gospels reads a little different, saying not to resist one who is evil. I drew from the Seminar's translation because the distinction is key: Jesus never advocated nonresistance. With these words, he was telling his followers how to resist nonviolently. A mere crash course, but a good example nonetheless. In turning the other cheek, the oppressed make a mockery of the aggressor’s attempt to demean.
In this example, the aggressor does
not strike for the sheer joy of it. This is an effort to assert
superiority. Especially those of Jesus’ time, Rome-governed Palestine,
would have been very familiar with such blows from Roman soldiers.
Without knowledge of Jesus’ third way, their only recourse is to strike back or
accept inferiority. To turn the other cheek, to consciously provide the
aggressor another opportunity to strike is to throw his first blow back in his
face. It is to say that the first attack was useless; it did not
demean. So try again. Maybe this time your “power”, such as it is,
will make me run home crying, like you wanted. You can try again, but
you’ll fail. You’ll fail to make me submit to you, and you’ll fail to make me
sink to your level. You’ll fail to make me resort to violence like an animal,
like you. Nonviolence is not a way to spite one's opponent, however; this all must be done in love: for oneself and one's enemy.
It’s a way to restore the dignity--the humanity--of those who have been conditioned to forget it. In this way those whose lives are battered by outside forces can exert their own power over their lives once again, but in such a way as not to resort to the same brutality used by their cruel overlords. Simply refusing to submit, even if it results in physical punishment, will bring about emotional and spiritual healing. It’s resistance without violence, which is a concept that does not come naturally to us. It’s very alien to love one’s enemy. But to love one’s enemy is exactly what Satyagraha demands.
Nonviolent resistance means being open to torture, pain, and even death; it goes against our nature for this very reason. We fear death. We don’t like pain. Well, most people don’t like pain. But what is love if not willingness to be exposed to pain? To be willing to let someone physically bludgeon you and not to respond in kind--either by attack in kind or even to hate in your heart--would take a powerful kind of love. To what end?
Martin Luther King famously declared to the southern white government that he and his followers would wear them down: their capacity to hate with King’s to love, their ability to inflict pain with King’s to endure it, their desire to preserve the ugly truth of systemic racism with King’s to destroy it. To win, then, would be a double victory: freedom for both sides. King and the rest of the southern black community would win their freedom from discrimination and dehumanization, and the southern white community, freedom from the “powers and principalities”, the fear and hate, that drove them to such deplorable means to maintain their power. Through it all, through all the pain, the beatings, the murders, the intimidation, King’s followers continued to demonstrate, to march, to expose the sinful fallacies of white supremacy. But they did so to end the suffering for both sides, so that they could begin to live and work together, instead of entrenching themselves in hateful self-righteousness for generations.There is a great deal more to write on nonviolence, and I will do so (among other topics). But I’ll leave it here for now. To summarize, nonviolence is a form of resistance born of love for one’s enemies, seeking their redemption instead of destruction. It dignifies and uplifts the just and the unjust alike, making brothers where violence makes corpses.
--Gord
two comments:
Welcome to the blog Gord!
Albert Cirrus - 06 09 08 - 00:07
and yet, this particular blog has some of the most hateful messages that I’ve ever seen. Peace and love brother, peace and love…
Anon () - 14 10 08 - 16:08
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