[E-rundbrief] Info 76 - John Dear: Revolutionary Nonviolence - USA

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 76 - John Dear: Revolutionary Nonviolence - USA

Bad Ischl, 3.1.2004

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Revolutionary Nonviolence

By John Dear

June, 2003

In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, our relentless pursuit of global 
domination, nuclear brinkmanship, corporate greed and silent oppression of 
the world's poor, I turn again to the great peacemakers of history, from 
Jesus of Nazareth and Francis of Assisi to Dorothy Day and Mohandas Gandhi 
for wisdom to practice revolutionary nonviolence against imperial America.

Our government, the Pentagon, its warmakers and corporate rulers have set 
out with renewed energy to control the planet. The public by and large has 
been terrorized or pacified to accept every new imperial pronouncement with 
passive indifference, whether the loss of civil liberties, the threatened 
use of nuclear weapons, or "regime change."

The empire would have us believe that democracy and peace have been fully 
realized, when instead, we have reached Orwell's permanent war. 
Nonetheless, people of integrity and conscience need to dig deeper into 
that revolutionary nonviolence which sows seeds for a future of peace. This 
revolutionary nonviolence seeks the fall of imperial, nuclear America and 
the birth of a new nonviolent, democratic society dedicated to global 
disarmament, justice for the world's poor, and peace for the whole human 
family.

Our peacemaking ancestors gave their lives for this vision. They did not 
live to see it come about, but that did not stop them from sowing the seeds 
which have blossomed within us. We too have to commit ourselves again to 
that long haul work of sowing the seeds of peace and justice, knowing that 
we can contribute to a harvest somewhere down the road. This work requires 
withdrawing our cooperation from imperial America; resisting imperial 
America through steadfast, nonviolent action; building a new society within 
the shell of the old, through constructive work for racial and economic 
justice; and envisioning a new world of nonviolence beyond imperial America.

Withdrawing cooperation from imperial America

"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good," 
Gandhi said throughout his life. Just as he concluded that non-cooperation 
with imperial Britain was a duty for all Indians, we conclude that 
non-cooperation with imperial America is a duty for us. Somehow we have to 
withdraw our cooperation more and more from the system of war, nuclear 
weapons, economic hegemony, global oppression of the poor, and imperial 
violence. We have to help others realize that we are an occupied people, 
living in the belly of the empire, so they can withdraw their cooperation 
with the system of institutionalized injustice, what Jonathan Schell calls 
"total violence."

Our nonviolent non-cooperation will take simple, concrete steps, from 
canceling subscriptions to the mass media which support imperial war (The 
New York Times, the Washington Post); to boycotting the TV media that 
support war; seeking alternative sources of information; putting away the 
flag; cutting back on fuel consumption; refusing to pay war taxes; no 
longer supporting businesses which endorse America's war; and urging young 
people not to join the military. (This past year, I counseled many young 
people in the desert of New Mexico where I live, to turn down the tempting 
offers from military recruiters who sought to entrap them. Several of these 
young people not only refused to join the military, but joined the peace 
movement instead.)

Resisting imperial America through nonviolent direct action

The nonviolent movement for peace and justice is just beginning. We sow 
seeds that will one day bring a harvest of peace and justice. That means we 
have to spend our lives in steadfast, creative, nonviolent action for 
justice and peace. As martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero said, "None of us 
can do everything, but all of us can do something." We each do what we 
can--vigil, lobby, agitate, write, and speak out for peace. We serve as 
activists and organizers. We stir the pot, disturb the peace and agitate 
for disarmament and justice. More and more cross the line in simple acts of 
nonviolent civil disobedience, to break the laws which legalize war, 
nuclear weapons and imperial America.

But as the late Philip Berrigan said, we have to practice nonviolent 
resistance to imperial America as a way of life. More than any other North 
American I have known, Phil embodied steadfast nonviolent resistance. For 
twenty years, I heard him speak about the imperative of steadfast 
resistance to imperial America as a moral requirement for these times, 
indeed as a spiritual duty of faith in the God of peace and justice. This 
resistance was not just a periodic fling, but day to day hard work.

Phil spent over eleven years of his life in prison for protesting our 
country's wars and nuclear weapons. When he was not in prison, he lived in 
Jonah House, a community of nonviolent resistance in inner-city Baltimore, 
where friends study the issues and the scriptures, serve the neighborhood 
poor, organize vigils and demonstrations, write and speak out for 
disarmament, and storm heaven for the coming of God's reign of nonviolence.

This might sound romantic or idealistic, but Phil made revolutionary 
nonviolence a day to day spiritual practice. He did not just dream about 
it, speak about it, or write about it. He lived it, suffered through it, 
and died last December resisting imperial America. We can learn from Phil's 
example, and commit ourselves anew to that same tireless, persistent 
resistance.

Building a new society within the shell of the old

As we resist imperial America, we join the local struggle to bring justice 
to the poor, jobs to the unemployed, housing to the homeless, food to the 
hungry, healthcare to the sick, education for our children, positive 
activities for our youth, and clean, safe, healthy environments for all. As 
we work locally for justice, we stand in solidarity with the millions 
around the world who struggle each day to survive, working not just for the 
rights of justice, but the basic necessities of life.

Gandhi insisted that if his people wanted independence, they had to start 
acting like they were free and take responsibility for their own lives, 
their own local communities, and their own local, concrete issues of 
poverty. He would not let his people wait for some glorious independence 
day down the road before they started to reform their nation; he demanded 
that everyone pitch in right now.

Dorothy Day called this constructive program "building a new society within 
the shell of the old." Her Catholic Worker movement today runs over 150 
Houses of Hospitality where the homeless live in their homes, not as 
shelter clients, but as family. They receive both food, loving kindness, 
and the strength to rebuild their lives.

Everyone of us can serve in a local neighborhood, in our region or state to 
bring about positive changes for the poor and disenfranchised, to transform 
our local community even as we seek the global transformation to come. The 
trick is to make the connection between our grassroots work for peace and 
justice and the global movement of transforming, revolutionary nonviolence.

Envisioning a new world of nonviolence beyond imperial America

One of the casualties of a culture of war is the loss of our imagination. 
Our people can no longer even imagine a world without war or violence or 
poverty or nuclear weapons. Few dream of a world of nonviolence.

Dorothy Day called our military leaders and nuclear weapons manufacturers 
"the blindest of the blind." Our blindness has become total, yet we do not 
think we are blind. We think we know what we are doing and what is good for 
others. But we are clueless.

Since our blind leaders are driving us to the brink of destruction, we have 
to take the wheel, point the way out, and lead one another away from the 
brink, beyond imperial America, into a new future of peace with justice. We 
have to envision that new world to come. If we can uphold that vision and 
help one another imagine a world without war or nuclear weapons, we can 
help make that dream a reality. But we cannot expect vision from the 
warmakers or their media spokespeople. Only peacemakers can see the way 
forward toward a world of peace.

To be visionaries of peace we need to be contemplatives of nonviolence, 
people who imagine the God of peace, who let God disarm our hearts, who 
allow the God of peace to show us the way to peace. As visionaries and 
contemplatives of peace, we can then become a prophetic people who not only 
denounce imperial America as ungodly, immoral, and evil, but announce the 
coming of God's reign of nonviolence and justice.

Like the abolitionists who envisioned a world without slavery, we envision 
a world without war, poverty, imperial domination and nuclear weapons. We 
give our lives to that vision, and go forward trusting that one day, it 
will come true.

I think we are all called to this life of revolutionary nonviolence, to be 
sowers of justice and peace, resisters of imperial America, builders of 
justice and peace on the grassroots level and visionaries who point the way 
toward global transformation. We can learn from our ancestors in history's 
struggles for justice and peace not to be discouraged, but to keep at the 
work, keep speaking the truth, keep walking the road to peace.

As Philip Berrigan once said to me, "We are all expected to do good, to 
seek justice and to resist evil. We will have to resist war for the rest of 
our lives. We're called to serve the poor, resist the state and be ignored, 
ostracized and sent to jail because we do that. We all have to take 
responsibility for the Bomb. But this new responsibility will breed all 
sorts of life-giving, salvific benefits in our lives. It will create the 
new human person, the new creation, the just social order."

John Dear is a Catholic Jesuit priest, peace activist, lecturer, and former 
executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His latest books 
include "Mohandas Gandhi" (Orbis) and "Mary of Nazareth, Prophet of Peace" 
(Ave Maria Press).

This and more texts - see: http://www.johndear.org


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Matthias Reichl
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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