thoughts in my head: can nonviolence exist without violence?

Allow to me begin by thanking all of my new readers/followers for checking out this blog! I know my last post generated a lot of attention from various people (a special thanks to my friend Mary Day Saou whose photography blog you should definitely check out by clicking here!) and consequently, you’re here! So thanks!

 Since my last post I’ve been toiling away on a paper for the aforementioned Religion 238 class. We were asked to critique and explore an ancient text’s approach to violence/non-violence, for which I selected two passages from the Gospel of Matthew from the Christian Testament[1].  While wrestling with a thesis, it occurred to me that the very word nonviolence itself assumes its existence is contingent on violence. The more I thought on this, the more qualms I had with the very word itself; for me, nonviolence is far more pervasive and powerful than violence- so how could this be justified in a word which prefix and composition suggested the very opposite? And then, BAM, I had a thesis. So I’m going to share a chunk of my first draft here:

It would be easy to say that nonviolence is merely the absence of violence, which, considering the prefix of the word nonviolence itself suggests as much, seems to be a logical conclusion. I contend this statement, but in order to explain, we must first define the parameters and meaning of violence itself. Violence is any idea or action that is rooted in hatred; it can be psychological or physical, internal or external. Violence comes from within the individual and therefore can exist within only one person. Since all humanity is capable of violence it exists in all of us, which enables enormous acts of violence like the war in the Gaza Strip to occur.

Nonviolence, conversely, is an idea or action that comes from Love. This Love is powerful, transcendent, and most crucially it cannot exist in the vacuum of one soul. Love comes from the divine, explored in the Christian faith through the embodiment of God in Jesus Christ, and therefore by its very nature must exist between two souls: that of the divine and of the human. Love, like hate, has capacity in every soul and therefore can transform populations and people, toppling governments and creating unity. Love, unlike hatred, however, does this through the method of nonviolence and active resistance that honors and respects the integrity and precious gift that every human being is. Yet Love and hate are not inverses of each other; they are eternally held in tension with one another, for each emotion contains the same amount of power and capacity for change. Each requires the same vested amount of time and energy to commit fully to the depth of the feeling, leaving apathy as the inverse of both Love and hate.

Furthermore, because Love and hate are held in tension with one another we have the ability to dually love and hate, as though there were a magnetic weight strung on a string between two poles, each pulling the magnet towards themselves. We have the choice within this tension, the choice to either act upon Love or to act upon our own bitterness and hatred. What we choose defines who we are and the entire course of our subsequent lives. The Christian texts call upon us to be perfect and to choose Love, just as Christ chose Love for humanity. This command to act and work in the here and now validates our actions here on earth as profoundly consequential. We are, therefore, compelled to choose wisely.

Nonviolence, which ultimately is a path of Love, is not a passive act but rather a way of life that demands of its followers courage, vigilance, and endurance. To live into what Mahatma Gandhi referred to as our ahimsa means we must undergo the path less trod for the rest of our living days…

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There is another five pages where I explore the duality of Love and hate, so if you want to read more say so in the comments and I’d be happy to share (once I finish editing, of course!).

While writing, I was still pondering Rachel Corrie and her tragic, complex death. Rachel herself was practicing Gandhian nonviolence tactics, but emails with her mother revealed her fundamental doubts about resisting without retaliation:

“I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs … The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world … What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.” (February 27, 2003)

Clearly, Rachel had legitimate reasons to fundamentally question her actions as useful or justified. But while she had these doubts, her death was ultimately an act of nonviolence and Love for the people whose home was about to be destroyed. In the same Von Klemperer article about Dietrich Bonhoeffer(The Terrible Alternative: Christian Martyrdom in the Twentieth Century), Von Klemperer explains that while the situation Bonhoeffer was in was extreme, his actions were also dire. It’s back to that extremity of choice idea: are martyrs so compelling because they are so extreme? In the same email to her mother, Rachel explained that she did not think she was an extremist any longer:

“Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.”

Rachel, unlike Bonhoeffer, was not planning an assassination as a means of ending the “chronic genocide.” But the odds she faced and the dire situation the people of the Gaza Strip were/are in is horrific. While writing to her mother there were explosions going off! I think she is completely justified in her absolute belief that the whole world needs to focus on stopping genocide.

But where?

I’ve been reading a great deal on Libya lately.  The horrific rape of a country and people is overwhelming. Where does it stop? 

I think it’s too late for nonviolent resistance in Libya. Does that mean I don’t believe in the power of nonviolence/Love/Christ/universal ahimsa? Is all that thesis-thinking proved false in the midst of a war with a tyrant like Qaddafi?

Or is it merely too late- too many wrong decisions, too many violent acts turning in on themselves creating an imploding reality bent on destruction because the voices of active, nonviolent resistance were not listened to? What then?

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current jam: "flume" bon iver

best thing in my life right now: bon iver and my mom.

days until departure: 74

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[1] Matthew 5: 38-48 and 10: 16-34

thoughts in my head: rachel corrie

 this is an experiment for my blog, which i have (as you can see just up above) entitled “thoughts in my head.” the genreal idea is whenever i have an idea surrounding something controversial, difficult, or weighty and need to explore my thoughts on the issue i will get it all out here and create a forum for you to respond and help me with the thoughts from your head! my thinking is that it will be a bit of a running series. how’s that for eloquence?

This semester I am enrolled in one of the most profound classes I will have taken. You may or may not know this, but I take my education very, very seriously, and as such have taken a wide scope of classes over the years. Each held their own special lessons for me and I treasure everything my wonderful teachers gave me from elementary school right on up to my first-rate women’s college. I know some of you read this, so let this be my public thank-you. Uganda would not have been happening for me without your support.

This particular class, though, is very special to me, because it is a Religion class exploring the dichotomy/tension between violence and non-violence through sacred and secular texts. As someone who advocates for and very much believes in non-violence, this has been a very challenging and powerful class for me. I love everything about the class: my professor, who is brilliant and jumps up and down when he really wants to make a point; the texts we have read so far; the fact that I am in the class with one of me dearest friends, Hattie; and most of all how pertinent I feel the class is to how I think about and perceive the world I live in.

And while I could blog to my heart’s content about the Bhagavad Gita and Thomas Merton, today I want to tell you about the thoughts in my head about one particular case study of non-violence. This is, of course, the story of Rachel Corrie.

For those of you who do not know who Rachel Corrie was, this website goes pretty in-depth about her life. But for the purposes of now, here is a little backstory: Rachel was a 23-year-old senior at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington. She had taken a semester off to work for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to promote peace in Palestine. She was bulldozed alive on March 16 while she stood in front of a house as an act of non-violent protest against the IAF (Israeli Armed Forces) crushing the home that belonged to a family living on the Gaza Strip. She died within the hour.

I have no pretenses here; I know very little about the Israel/Palestine conflict and therefore am not saying anything derogatory towards the people of Israel. I do feel that there is an enormous web of confusion, deceit, and unfulfilled promises surrounding Israel, but that blame cannot be assigned to one singular person. Clearly, this is a hot topic. Rachel’s death has been disputed by the Israeli government as a tragic accident, despite photographic evidence and a number of eyewitness all proclaiming the bulldozer driver had plain view of her and deliberately crushed her alive.  In the interest of fairness, this is a website that serves as a voice counter to pro-ISM organizations, should you care to have a look by clicking here.

Nevertheless, the reason why I want to write about Rachel has very little to do with the politics of the situation under which she was killed. Rachel Corrie strikes a very deep chord with me for a number of reasons, but most importantly because there are quite a number of similarities between her and I. She loved to glue things to her wall (have you seen the background in my vlogs?), she loved Pat Benetar, she went to a small liberal arts college, and most importantly, she forsook almost everything to devote herself to fighting for what she believed to be a just cause.

In my class we read a number of articles on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a minister involved with the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler). In one article by Klemperer, Bonhoeffer is described as a martyr; neither justified in his hanging nor wholly to be pitied and thought of as a saint. Klemperer goes on to say that “martyrs rarely are easy.” This made me think a great deal about what it means to be a martyr. Why are we so fascinated by them? Is it in the complete and total devotion to a cause that defines you to be an extremist, and therefore completely un-relatable but totally admirable?

To me, Rachel Corrie is a martyr. She was murdered, but the debate surrounding her death rages on. The US government refused to allow her body to be brought back to the states for a funeral and there was very minimal media coverage surrounding her in America.* This harkens a sense of mystery around her; the shushed-up, put-in-a-corner cause becomes far more important because those who know about it are compelled to give their voice to that which has been silenced.

Rachel herself was a voice like that. She did not believe she could speak for the Palestinian people- only they could speak for themselves. In her own words, from an email to her family on February 20, 2003 (about a month before she died):

“Many people want their voices to be heard, and I think we need to use some of our privilege as internationals to get those voices heard directly in the US, rather than through the filter of well-meaning internationals such as myself. I am just beginning to learn, from what I expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the ability of people to organize against all odds, and to resist against all odds.”

Everything about that particular quote resonates with me. While I was having a blast in Canada last week with two of my best friends in the world, the whole time I kept thinking about how different my next international adventure is going to be. Having traveled and done non-profit work in developing African nations previously, I do have a decent idea of what my life will be like, but to be honest, I do not know how living in Uganda is going to impact me. I am so blessed to have some amazing friends in my life who are going to support me in transitioning between the continents (hello, Gann!) but the more I read of Rachel’s emails home from Palestine, the more I am pondering this transition. On February 27^th, 2003, she wrote:

“When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into more work. Coming here is one of the better things I've ever done.”

Of course, she never returned. And furthermore, I will not be in the midst of a “genocide” (her words) like she was. But the sentiment and the idea are practically essential. Living abroad is going to be incredible, difficult, and one of the most important things I can do. Not important because of what I will be doing for the various schools and NGOs, but important to me for my own satygraha and achieving my own ahimsa. But it also is going to be really, really difficult to transition back into college life.

I am up for the challenge, though. Willing and waiting.

What do you think of Rachel/martyrdom/Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

*Conversely, Britain reported on her for nearly two weeks, and Alan Rickman worked with Katherine Viner to produce a one-woman show surrounding Rachel’s written work, entitled My Name is Rachel Corrie. This play is in fact how I came to learn about her and her life story. You can have a look here.

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current jam: “like a rolling stone” bob dylan

best thing in my life right now: rehearsal this afternoon for ‘moustache guys’!

days until departure: 75