Last week I attended a lecture by the Jesuit priest peace activist Reverend John Dear. I hesitate to use the word "radical" to describe him, because the word is so often used pejoratively, but there is no other way for me to characterize him. If he hadn't been a member of the Catholic Jesuit order I would have brushed him off as a pot-smoking, guitar strumming hippie. He certainly has the credentials: 75 arrests, months spent behind bars, death threats... I suppose that's what happens when you walk into a military air base and start wailing on their fighter jets with a hammer (which he did, and that's only the tip of the iceberg).
His message of peace was one of extremes: do no violence unto another or the planet, ever. He takes the old Christian approach of "turn the other cheek," believing in quiet suffering under oppression. Never lash out against your fellow man. Nonviolent noncompliance is the way to peace, the way to change the world. To demonstrate his utmost belief in peace, consider this: he said that even people like Hitler and Osama bin Laden do not deserve to be killed, but are able to be reformed. He really has faith in that faint glimmer of compassion that all humans supposedly have, no matter how dark their souls.
Of course, as a priest, his message had strong religious undertones. He called God the "God of Peace" and criticized modern Christianity as being hypocritical, violent, and not conducive to peace. His ultimate motivation to be peaceful is that God (or Jesus) is, so all humans should try to emulate that.
Rev. Dear is a student of Martin Luther King (whom he claims was killed by the US government) and Mohandas Gandhi. He fiercely opposes nuclear proliferation and militarism. In fact, he moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, in order to be closer to the nuclear weapons factories there- to be better able to protest against them.
My response to the radical pacifism of Rev. Dear was mixed. Of course I'd like a more peaceful world. But Rev. Dear clearly has more faith in humanity than I do. Does nonviolence actually work? In large part, it drove the Civil Rights Movement, and was a major factor of India's independence. But I feel that it doesn't work as well anymore. No large scale movements exist currently, so how can one person being peaceful make a difference?
Also, peace is a two way street. We can't be peaceful with, say, al-Qaeda unless they decide to be peaceful with us. Rev. Dear implies that we should not retaliate against those who would try to kill us. Rather, it is better to be killed than kill. I find that unrealistic in today's world.
I did like his criticisms of modern Christianity, and it was refreshing that they came from a priest. Christians forget that Jesus himself was very much like a hippie peace activist (even down to that hair and those sandals). He ministered to the lepers and prostitutes, which would today be equivalent to hanging out with, and loving, AIDS patients and gays. I don't think too many Christians do that. They need to learn that you don't need to agree with someone to love them and be at peace with them.
So, thanks to Father Dear, I will try to be a more peaceful person. I have always wanted to join the Peace Corps one day, and I think he's solidified that aspiration of mine. I'll keep his message of nonviolent noncompliance in mind, and who knows- maybe someday I'll put it into action. I also once considered joining the ROTC at my school, and thanks to him, I'm reconsidering that.
I can only hope that his optimistic pacifism does not turn into empty naïveté. Perhaps that's part of the problem with peace- not many people really, genuinely believe in it. It's become an empty, pretty (and petty) conceit.
The road to peace is the only road which will save our race and our planet. Rev. Dear opened- and then closed- his lecture with an MLK quote: "It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence." They were among his last words. Moments later, he was shot dead.
he may be a radical,but I certainly perfer his form of Christianity to that preached by the likes of Pat Robertson.
"How can we win where fools can be kings" Muse
Definitely agree with Father Dear's ideas. But it is interesting to think how we would deal with terrorism with nonviolence? we would have to be willing to die for that cause. i guess that is why the terrorist have an upper hand on us. they are willing to die for it.
I do think you underestimate the power of one person, and the power of nonviolence. Martin Luther King Jr. changed America forever. Of course violence still exists, but it is not tolerated and condoned the way it was.
What nonviolent noncompliance does is bring attention to the animalistic nature of violence. If someone is beating a person, especially in public, for doing nothing, and the person doesn't react, it makes evident the insanity of the attacker. Ghandi changed history for India. Passive resistance does work. The challenge is to not sink to the inhumane level of your persecutors. The reward is righteousness and the support of the onlooking world around you who sees the injustice.
Violence begets violence. Wars never end. In regards to Al-Qaeda, the world does not have to tolerate their violent activities. That doesn't mean that by occupying other countries, especially Iraq, we are doing anything to stop them. Iran, not Iraq, is a Muslim theocracy. When western forces disbanded the Taliban in Afghanistan, they succeeded in dispersing them, possibly making them stronger. If you read my blog, Expansion of Islam, you will have a clearer understanding of how Islam only thrives when it is taken over in any particular region.
The core of the Taliban came from students in the Deobandi schools in Pakistan. It makes no sense that we have chosen Iraq over Pakistan. Yes we did help Iraq by removing Saddam Hussein from power, but we should have stopped there. We would be actually helping them if we decided to facilitate discussions about democracy in their country, but we are not doing anything to help them now.
We have not eradicated the ideology of the Taliban. We have only reinforced it by using violence as our weapon of choice. We give them reason and justification to continue in their efforts to create a pure Islamic state governed by the strictest interpretation of the Qur'an, which translated into law means public executions for adultery, women are not allowed to work or learn, etc.
I do think we need to stop terrorists, but we are so far from the root of it that it is becoming ridiculous, and scary. The longer we pretend that we are helping, the stronger Taliban ideology becomes. We are fueling a potential global disaster.
If we encouraged nonviolence as a response to totalitarian or terroristic forces, we make a stand as a human race against violence. We are better able to isolate and find the source, and then imprison that person forever. If the only people committing violence were the terrorists, they would have nowhere to hide. We can make it an international crime, and join forces with other countries in effort to find and capture these people.
I like the idea of you joining the Peace Corps! That's awesome. I think you have a lot to offer. The only weakness I see in you, through your writing, is that you underestimate your own power. You can change the world.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
first of all sorry for late ,( i was dieing) , but to come late better than to not come,
thanks for your reply on my imaginations , honestly you give me a small light in this darkness that US people think in way that we can understand -as middle eastern young-
if we tried, but this is not meaning that i neglected the whole darkness, your government made a lot of mistakes which made our moms crying on our dads who were fighting to save our lives ,they tried to make us gays and lesbians , they export all kinds of bad technology ,on the other hand they import all good thing in our country, i don't mean oil because i think our oil is our biggest problem and i pray to Allah to make it ran out ,but what i want to say they took our simple life our virgin our honest our freedom ,Briefly they made us slaves in our home, slave to the car ,mobile,TV, negative net , but not slave to whom who worth to be slave for - Allah-
if you are able to read my words please keep my ideas in your mind ,don't resist my being local thinking person ,think only think about it
your truly