No Knowlege, No Peace

Today I was at our local coffee shop chatting w/ friends, when the subject of Columbus Day came up, since today is the national celebration of CC’s supposed “discovery” of America.  We were lamenting the realities of who this “discoverer” really was as a man, as a conqueror backed by the Spanish, Roman-Catholic, monarchy, while we recalled how the narrative we were taught about “Columbus Day” in school grossly romanticized (and still does) what Columbus accomplished in his pursuit of a trade route to India. 

As Richard Kavesh points out on the Native American Times Web site, both Columbus and the Spanish royal court were all about the money, in addition to “Christianizing” the world in the Roman Catholic faith:  Columbus and his backers in Spain were motivated by what historians refer to as “God, gold, and glory."   

Columbus and his crew, as apparent representatives of Jesus and “The” Church, forced the native peoples in this new land to collect gold for Columbus and Spain, and for their trouble they faced murder, torture, and new diseases.  When Columbus succeeded in killing the natives, he shipped in African slaves to continue the work for himself and the Spanish crown.  As Kavesh puts it, Columbus was therefore directly responsible for introducing both imperialism and slavery to the Americas.

The standard narrative is still, in the 21^st century, “in fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…”—benign at worst, heroic adventure at best, but either way unacceptably one-dimensional.  As we continued to chat, we lamented an American education in which the Columbus narrative is only one of many narratives about who we are and where we came from as a nation that are regularly taught to children without question.

Yet questioning those narratives is essential for peace.  The narratives of American history—from Columbus to the Mayflower landing at Plymouth, to Westward expansion, to the Japanese internment, to the Vietnam War, to our invasion of Iraq—are replete with violence, murder, torture, thievery, domination, and destruction.  Always, of course, in the name of democracy, national security, “national interests,” humanity, and peace.  If we’re honest, our national interests really haven’t changed much since Columbus: God, gold, and glory.

We must be honest about who we have been.  We successors of those who came before us swim in a long-standing national ethical soup in which one of the dominant flavors is brutal violence.  We have to own up to our history, to change our narratives, in order to begin the ongoing and difficult work of transforming our national ethic and identity.  We can never achieve real peace, and be true agents of peace in an increasingly global society, without an honest education.

True knowledge is power, but not the power of violence, domination, or destruction.  It’s a foundational power of peaceful coexistence.  In 1947, Martin Luther King reflected on the role of education in society, concluding with a dire warning: 

Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction…. The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. 

But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals…. If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!

We all must be careful.  We must be deliberate in what we teach, in what we learn, in what we pass on to others, in how we teach future generations to think about their past as members of a diverse nation with a checkered past. 

Columbus Day, along with Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Day, Independence Day are all exquisite teachable moments if we use them well, if we challenge our sanitized and simplistic national tales, if we challenge our heroic narratives, if we examine our national ethos and grow in the process.   And it’s not just our children who need to exploit these teachable moments to the fullest…we all do.  Not just as a nation, but as individuals integrally connected with each other, with all species, with nature, with our past and our future.

http://www.nativetimes.com/archives/22/402-columbus-great-explorer-or-greedy-conqueror

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_470200_000/

Birthday Reflections

Today was chaotic from the moment I woke up late, oversleeping because my iPod was loosened from its mooring in my clock radio by wandering cats.  I didn’t even realize it was September 12^th, my birthday, until I saw well wishes on Facebook between classes later that morning.  There was no time for reflection until I had a chance to finally sit and just be at the end of a long, demanding day.

 

In a rare quiet respite, I unfriended someone on Facebook, a political representative in my area who represents the antithesis of nearly every value I hold.  He had friend requested me; I hadn’t wanted to accept because I’d heard how mean-spirited he was and I wasn’t sure I wanted his “stuff” on my Facebook homepage.  I lasted with him I guess six months or so, challenging some of his postings because I found them to be immoral, uncharitable, factually suspect or incomplete, or downright dangerous.  The feeling was clearly mutual.

 

I’ve grown curmudgeonly in my old age, and I’m not the most patient of crones, so I can be quite direct…perhaps I must confess to my own brand of uncharitable tone or attitude, particularly when addressing those with whom I passionately disagree.  I allow these individuals to get under my skin and disrupt my own quest for personal peace.  There are times when I am probably not the best person to be writing a “peace” blog, tho’ I hold tightly to the peace trace deep within (perhaps often a bit too deep to be of any good to anyone including myself!!).

I’d become troubled yesterday when there seemed to be a Facebook feeding frenzy of patriotic fervor in response to news of a “Million Muslim March” in Washington DC, on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.   The walk for “civil rights, indefinite detention and countering inaccurate depictions of Islam and Muslims” (Huffington Post) ended up being much more of a whisper than a shout—the participants numbered closer to the tens or hundreds than the millions.  But people on Facebook seemed outraged by their March, as if the 19 guilty extremists who flew planes filled w/ people into buildings were themselves inciting the walk.  

And the glee surrounding a report that a counter-“march” of millions of “patriotic bikers was heading to Washington in response was troubling to me…as if Muslim-Americans weren’t allowed to speak out simply because they’re Muslim.   Perhaps in fact 9/11 is the most appropriate day on the entire calendar for their march because of what the day represents.  The intolerance on such a day of national lamentation was disturbing, as my Facebook page was inundated with the story of these seemingly heroic bikers going to put the audacious Muslims in their rightful place on 9/11.

I posted my concerns in response to the various postings I saw.  And one of my Facebook friends got downright nasty.  His words waved like a red cape before a bull to me.  I tried so hard to be civil, to be respectful, to explain my concerns and articulate my own protest well. I must have failed, because this “friend” was relentless in his unkindness.  The final blow came early this morning, on my birthday, with a snide, sneering comment, that I really wanted to respond to with both barrels blazing.

But I stopped myself.  

In what was a brief moment of birthday reflection, I thought about what spirit I wanted to foster not only within myself—hot-tempered crone that I am—and what spirit I wanted to present to the others in my life, whether those others are face-to-face familiars or digital acquaintances.  Standing up for what I believe to be truth, to be moral, decent, compassionate, life-affirming doesn’t require mean-spiritedness in the name of self-righteous indignation…yet too often reactionary meanness is my drug of choice.  

So…“does anyone ‘win’ in this particular friendship?” I asked myself…“am I really getting anything out of this mutually disrespectful digital  interaction?” I firmly believe the biblical proverb that “iron sharpens iron”; we learn and grow best when we are willing to listen to others, especially to those who think, live, and believe differently from ourselves.  So I had been reluctant to hit the “unfriend” button.  Yet this relationship seemed to be growing more snarky as time went on…without much learning or growth occurring. I quickly concluded that it might be in everyone’s best interest for me to quietly unfriend, so I did.  

If we’re going to live peaceably in the world, we MUST learn to co-exist respectfully with those who do not share our own views or values, both at the individual and greater corporate levels.  Then must we tolerate oppression, violence, drone or chemical weapon strikes that kill innocent children, environmental destruction, abuse, exploitation from those whose moral values and socio-political ethics support such life-destroying policies and practices?  Of course not.  

But we don’t have to respond with violence, disrespect, or hate in our own words, voices and hearts. And on this birthday, I realize that far too often that’s exactly what’s hiding within, just below the surface, ready to overflow at a moment’s provocation.

So on this birthday, my take-away reflection is that peace in the world really does begin with me: my thoughts, my words, my silences, my action, my inaction…with my voice, in print, digitally, in my actions in and on the world, when people’re watching, and when they’re not.  How can I be a channel of peace or even an advocate of peace with turmoil and unkindness in my heart, on my mind, on my tongue?

I’d love to hear what’s in your own hearts and minds these days, what lessons you’re learning from your own birthday and every day reflections.

The Rocket’s Red Glare Chemical Weapons, Airstrikes, Drones…and Guns Next Door

Here we go again it seems…images of unspeakable horror as innocent civilians in Syria—store owners, trash collectors, computer wizards, farmers, grandparents, newlyweds, moms, dads, teenagers, babies—are poisoned seemingly by their country’s leadership with chemical weapons. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/syria-worst-chemical-weapons-attack_n_3790755.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nearly-1500-killed-in-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-us-says/2013/08/30/b2864662-1196-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html

The people have been resisting a brutal, strong-fisted dictatorship, and they are paying the price for their quest for freedom, while factions of all sorts exploit their resistance and desire for peace.

The world’s witnesses argue about what to do to protect the innocents from further deadly action by their leaders: invade or not invade; strike or not strike w/ strategically targeted missiles; wait for others to join “us,” or don’t wait; talk or the time for talking is over.  “No ‘boots on the ground’” the U.S. President assures his citizenry, so no American lives at stake.  

Of course w/ missile strikes, there will be “casualties”—more innocent lives taken who simply happened to be or live in the wrong place at the wrong time.  No problem, though, the U.S. has had plenty of practice living w/ its “casualites” in its ongoing drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen.  We crow about the number of terrorists killed, while the civilian casualties are rendered non-existent in the cable and online news.

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/us-drone-kills-4-al-qaeda-terrorists-in-yemen/2013/08/06/

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/the-case-against-drone-strikes-on-people-who-only-act-like-terrorists/278744/

Here in the U.S., I don’t know how many people even know where Yemen is or are even aware that the U.S. is spending taxpayer dollars send-ing multi-million dollar war machines to strike “targets” in small countries with whom we are not at war.  Instead, the concerns of many Americans center on their own, personal weapons of individual-mass destruction.  

On my Facebook page recently, a brief debate arose about guns after I posted the words of President Bill Clinton, “A great democracy shouldn’t make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon.”  One gun rights advocate echoed the common argument by gun activists that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” insisting that a gun is not "designed to harm someone. It is designed to protect its user.”  This sentiment is one-dimensional at best and historically inaccurate.  But it’s not surprising.

We Americans are so diligent in our defense of our individual and corporate development and use of our deadly devices.  We Americans deny our own personal or national underwriting of or collusion with violence, yet cast quick judgment on the actions of others and then seek to condemn then, placing them in our sights and pulling the trigger without considering less lethal options.

We refine our bio-chemical toxins, our weapons delivery technolo-gies, our guns and ammunition, all for greater killing power.  We glory in our weaponry.  In the 2013 video, A Girl and A Gun, women delighted in their person firearms for their beauty; the technicians building the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki signed messages to the Japanese emperor and named their deadly metal craft “Fat man” and Little Boy.”  

In the Old Testament of The Bible, the leader of the Hebrew nomads, Moses, went off up a mountain to converse with God.  He didn’t return to the people according to their time frame, so they took matters with God into their own hands, collaboratively deciding to build an icon to God in the form of a golden calf, created by pooling their valuables and melting them down.  The God of the Old Testament was an angry sort and He did not take kindly to the “graven image”; in the image of us judgmental and deadly humans, He set out on a celestial first strike of his own against all the people.  Fortunately Moses intervened and the people were spared. 

A few thousand years later, we seem to have new graven images in the various shapes and sizes of our shiny metallic weaponry.  What will be the consequences to us if we continue our worship of our own devices, in our case devices of destruction?  Will there be anyone to intervene on our behalf?

I don’t have a point here.  I certainly don’t have any answers.  I haven’t even been able to post a blog of late because I’ve been without words.  Living in the wake of ongoing gun violence, accidental shooting deaths, “successful” drone strikes, 1,400 innocent civilians poisoned in a chemical attack, divisive and hateful rhetoric…what can I possibly say that will have any meaning? 

 I juxtapose our current deadly exploits as humans against Jesus prohibiting Peter a pre-emptory first sword strike at the ear of the Roman sent to arrest Jesus.  Against Jesus’ response to the question, “who is my neighbor”…turns out the neighbor is the one who steps to the plate and actively serves whomever crosses her path.  Against the message and lives of peace of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, both of whom were assassinated w/ firearms.  Violence has seemed to want to hear nothing from peace.

Surely humanity cannot stand by and watch a brutal dictator gas his own people with deadly toxins.  But who are we in America to judge and act against others when we are ourselves guilty of indefensible atrocities?  Is more violence the solution?  Or is it really true that violence only begets more violence.

http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/3/v/3/Answer-to-Gun-Violence.jpg



   

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