NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON
Sunday, April 13, 2003
10:30 A.M.
Elora Fergus
Unitarian Church Victoria Park Centre,
150 Albert Street West, Fergus N1M 1X6

THEME: Radical Non-violence in Violent Settings

Readings/Background Works

Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A FORCE MORE POWERFUL
David Albert, PEOPLE POWER
Shelly Anderson and Janet Larmore, ed. NONVIOLENT STRUGGLES AND SOCIAL DEFENCE
Peter Brock, A BRIEF HISTORY OF PACIFISM FROM JESUS TO TOLSTOI
Christopher Key Chapple, NONVIOLENT TO ANIMALS, EARTH AND SELF IN ASIAN TRADITIONS
Lanza del Vastro, WARRIORS OF PEACE
Nhat Thich Hanh, LOVE IN ACTION: WRITINGS ON NON-VIOLENT SOCIALCHANGE
Per Herngren, THE PRACTICE OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Brian Martin, CHALLENGING BUREAUCRATIC ELITES NON-VIOLENCE VERSUS CAPITALISM SOCIAL DEFENCE SOCIAL CHANGE
Pam McAllister, YOU CAN'T KILL THE SPIRIT
Caroline Moorehead, TROUBLESOME PEOPLE: ENEMIES OF WAR
Roger Powers and William B. Vogele, eds., PROTEST, POWER AND CHANGE
Aung San Suu Kyi, THE VOICE OF HOPE
Gene Sharp, EXPLORING NONVIOLENT ALTERNATIVES
Walter Wink, THE POWERS THAT BE
Readings/Starting Points DECLARATION OF THE FOUR SACRED THINGS

(Starhawk)

The earth is a living conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water and earth.

Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood and body or the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.

To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, and our laws and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them, forfeits its legitimacy.

All people, all living things, are part of the earth's life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than the other. Only justice can assure balance. Only ecological balance can sustain freedom. On in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.

To honour the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom and beauty can thrive. To honour the sacred is make love possible.

To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.
MATTHEW 5: 38 - 48 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

SERMON PROPER BEGINS I could being in different places and different times. I could begin with today on the streets of Toronto with Homes Not Bombs or in Columbia with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Or I could begin with a pinch of salt from the Indian Ocean or climbing a fence in a ship yard in Gdansk.

Instead, I'm going to begin my reflections about 2,000 years ago in a small occupied land on the fringes of the Roman Empire. I'm going to look at the coyote, the trickster who did not want pie in the sky idealism or the struggle to seize power to interfere with the daily task of revolution.

And as so much of the work for peace and non-violence in the west began in this out of the way place, close attention to what was being said and done in a small way with powerless individuals can still find ways of being lived out in our time.
And it is also important to start where words and meanings began to be distorted---where acts of resistance began interpreted later on as submission.

So let us being where Walter Wink would have us begin---with Jesus giving some practical advice to people of a given time and place on how to start reclaiming their autonomy, their dignity, their power; with a practical Messiah not advocating the seizing of power but the turning of the world upside down.

The passage from Matthew touches on three actions---turning the other cheek, giving up your last garment, and going the extra mile. 2,000 years later these are often seen as justifying taking without complaint the violence and injustice directed at us. But, as Wink tells us in The Powers that Be, for those that heard this advice what they would have understood would have different---it was the advice of a resister suggesting ways of challenging the oppressors directly.

All three actions are based on responding to power being directed against one. In the first, we told to turn the other cheek if struck. This meant something very distinct to those around Jesus. Equals wouldn't strike a cheek; someone with power would strike an inferior in the face with the back of the palm.

Instead of backing away or cringing, the face is turned away. The back of the hand blow is now impossible. Suddenly the person in power, the Roman or slave own, is in the situation that if a second blow is to occur it will have to be done with the palm or a fist---violence among equals. The power to shame, to dehumanise, is taken away from the person with authority. This is a third way, a radical way, of responding to injustice---neither submission or violence.
It is a statement of claiming equality.

The second example continues this view. In a civil court all one's personal goods and belongings, including most of one's clothes, could be seized by someone you owe money to. This was an all-too-common experience in a time of high taxes being paid to a foreign conqueror, high interest rates (25 - 50%), individuals been forced off their lands and other signs of an economy in crisis. So imagine that you are in court and the judgement was that you had to give up everything but your underwear.

And you are in a society with both a nudity taboo and sanctions against those that cause someone to be exposed. The court has ruled that everything you have belongs to a landlord or a tax agent of the Roman Emperor. You can act out impotent rage or leave quietly in your shame. Or you can do something unexpected and renounce the last of your possessions and leave. People are going to know that you were in court, people are going to want to know what happened. Your goods may be taken, but you still have the freedom to act---and in this case in an action that will shame the oppressor more than the victim.

The first two were specific responses to a unique culture and time---that of the Judea about 2,000 years ago and speak to resistance as being a reclaiming of equality, of refusing to be shamed. The third example is of a different nature---from a different time, but certainly an act of resistance that we can perhaps more easily grasp. It is an example of a reverse strike---of doing more than is expected of you---but in such a way that it undermines the structures one is responding to. During the Roman occupation, there was a rule that soldiers could require civilians to carry their packs for them for a mile (1,000 paces). It was a breach of the rules for someone to be forced to carry a pack further. So what happens if one is carrying a pack of a soldier for three miles and this becomes known to an officer? Suddenly there is uncertainty. Would carrying a pack the extra mile be a voluntary act? Highly unlikely. This are a range of potential disciplinary actions that might be taken against a soldier involved with the breaking of the rules of occupation. Dynamics change. Power relationships change.

In situations where there are forms of resistance that challenge power relationships, that do not accept shame and humiliation and create opportunities for the powerless to be treated as equals by those in power, the situation is one true social change is possible, where defiance of violence by those in power is possible and where the tragic romanticism of violent resistance for a future utopia can be challenged by successful transformation in the here and now.

And it also helps to create the climate where resistance is acceptable---not something that a minority is involved with, but an aspect of daily life.

Expecting equality includes treating others as equals; refusing to be dehumanised includes the responsibility to accept the humanness of the other. The rituals of non-violent resistance can be woven together to help create an inclusive, caring and egalitarian community in the here and now---an ever expanding circle of revolution. 2,000 years ago, under military occupation roots of resistance were put down. There were practical expressions---feeding all who were hungry, treating everyone with dignity---that could be practised until so routine that it seemed effortless. Alternatively, resistance could be practised until it became so ingrained that even in the harshest times, resistance would be possible.

It is at this level, the personal, the most local, that the revolutionary potential of non-violence must begin. It is at this level that we confront racism, that we confront sexism. It is at this level that we embrace the refugee, that we provide the casserole for the neighbour we've never met before as a way of showing compassion during a time of grief. If we are to build a better world, the work begins at the dinner table, in our daily lives, as we experiment with finding ways to not harm one another, to not accept being treated as less than an equal. By the time we need to go to the barricades, we have the alternative already firmly in place.
Apartheid was doomed to fail with women across the colour barrier started meeting in each other's kitchens.

And in modern times the possibility of non-violent resistance has been tested under severe situations. Whether on a small scale, such as the killing of Dudley George by members of the Ontario Provincial Police, to massacres in East Timor to the holocaust of Nazi Germany, violence by the state and violence by opponents of specific states has been at times overwhelming. Indirectly, through my tax dollars, I am subsidising the production of weapons of mass destruction and helping to pay for a Canadian military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

And to address this modern reality, having begun so long ago, looking at advice for individual resistance under oppressive conditions, I want to touch on non-violent resistance to the Nazis and the actions of the Women of May Square and then make some suggestions on potentials for non-violent resistance to war and other violence at this time in history.

Argentina, in 1977, was a country under brutal repression. Tens of thousands of people had been arrested, tortured and executed. An unknown number of people had simply disappeared. Trade unions were shattered; the liberation stream within the Catholic church was silenced. Organs of civil society, of social solidarity, with fragmented. But on April 30th, 1977 a group of 14 middle aged women publicly challenged the state and everything started to change. They were mothers with a simple demand---please tell us what happened to our children. They initiated a weekly presence in the Plaza de Mayo---May Square---in the heart of Buenos Aires. They knitted and walked and held conversations. They piled up baby shoes. The wore diapers as scarves.

At times ignored, at times attacked with truncheons and dogs, none-the-less they kept up their pressure. They were peaceful, polite and persistent. By 1983 the junta was overturned and a more liberal democratic structure of government was in place. They did not stop their efforts, but changed their focus to seek both information on the 10,000s of thousands that disappeared and that those responsible be held accountable for their actions.

Denmark was one of many countries occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany.

The level of resistance was phenomenally successful. Massive efforts to prevent the round-up of Jews, for example, resulted in 7,220 Danish Jews being able to escape to Sweden, compared to 472 that were rounded up. While there were pockets of violent resistance---the call for this form of resistance, advocated by a small minority, was put aside because of the massive support for resistance from the King of Denmark (first person in Denmark to put on the Star of David) to what provided to be the most successful form resistance, general strikes. From walking away from trains that were taking Danes to Germany to going home in the thousands to plant gardens when reprisals were threatened against the community, workers who had learned their power during successful labour struggles applied their creativity and experience to ensuring that non a single wheel would spin without their consent.

To me, though, the high point of resistance to the Nazis occurred in 1943 in Berlin.

On February 27th the Gestapo began seizing the Jews of Berlin who had been married to non-Jews, some 1,700. Most were interned at Rosentrasse 2-4. 35 had been sent on to Auschwitz. Into the streets over Berlin came women---at the height it was estimated that 1,000 women were sitting in the square outside the Gestapo headquarters. Facing SS soldiers were people of unexpected resilience. By May 21st all these men were released---including the 25 who had been sent to Auschwitz, their survival gained by non-violent women dissenters occupying a public space who would not back down.

Non-violent resistance is the weapon of the non-elite, those practised in surviving with dignity in hard times. It is a statement that one is not willing to accept either harm to one's self or harm to others---very revolutionary demands. And it does carry an underlying demand for public witness of this ideal---think back to the person leaving the last of his clothes in a courtroom in rejection of an economic system that impoverished him.

And so it 2003. Wars are being fought with dollars even if not technically in our name. From Columbia to Iraq, U.S. supported or lead forces are engaged in violent confrontations. There are civil wars in Nepal and ongoing resistance struggles in Tibet and Burma. Our media provides us with images from some wars that are deemed worthy of attention, while in others there are people dying in silence. In our country we have been very fortunate that only Dudley George, an unarmed, non-violent aboriginal activist, has been killed in recent times by police. Of course, in cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, police have been absolved of murder because their target has been poor, primarily non-white, and often suffering from a mental illness. So how do we start building the world we want---one without violence, one without suffering, one where all can live in dignity. I'm going to suggest that we can nurture seeds that will help lead towards the world I describe.

At the very basic level, we need to encourage the building of the alternative networks that live out an alternative vision of social organisation in the here and now.

At the most institutional, this includes co-operatives, but at the most local it is the informal carrying networks that have supplanted the extended family and are already much more inclusive than families traditionally have been. The dominate social view is one of isolation and fear of the other. Every time we have a potluck with strangers we are claiming that the dominant view is wrong and can be challenged.

We need to provide support for one another in the difficult work of stating actions or words are wrong. Every violent work unchallenged in a work place, every child crying in frustration because of inability to figure out how to deal with a bully, is a place to start.. The many violence's of daily life are where resistance begins. It is here that we practice turning the other cheek in a manner that demands being seen and treated as an equal.

And we need to find creative ways of taking a message of alternatives into the public arena. Finding ways to ensure that alternative visions are presented is essential for individuals to learn that a different way is possible.

It is not enough to state that we are opposed to something---we need to state what we are for, what alternatives are possible and worth struggling to achieve. This public resistance can take many forms---but it is essential if violence is to cease to be seen as a legitimate way of addressing conflict---either on a personal level or on a community level.

This can be taken to the next step of global solidarity and resistance---which is what efforts such as Peace Brigades International, Christian Peacemaker Teams, the International Solidarity Movement and other radical witnesses to both non-violence and radical justice do. They go to places of conflict and work to find ways of effectively challenging the use of violence, to find ways to work for justice that is based in the communities and arises from styles of resistance that the community can sustain.

But for the work of this global solidarity to work, there has to be local support.

There has to be a community that can assist in the efforts to experiment with non-violence in a real and dedicated fashion. This global work for peaceful revolution is only as strong as the local communities that experiment with non-violence in the ebb and flow of daily lives.

So what about the reference to our friend the coyote? Like the coyote, resistance must be creative, challenging and unpredictable. It must challenge assumptions. It must be able to survive under the most difficult situations. And it must be real and solid and definite and tenacious. With such resistance, violence is not ultimately successful in being the defining reality of a society. We can not merely put an end to wars, we can do the real work of putting an end to approaches to life and relationships that brings violence into the most intimate of relationships.