OPEN QUESTIONS: PEACE

I took a negotiations course a few years ago, and sitting in the course, both the book and the instructors made negotiations seem as if it was a type of science that you follow. If you do these 6 steps and remember to emphasise these 3 goals and always look for this one 1 concept, you will almost always be able to reach a successful negotiation that makes both sides happy. So the obvious question arises in me, and someone always inevitably asks,

“If these methods are so good, how come you don’t use it in the Israeli-Arab conflict and bring peace to the Middle East?”

Then the facilitators (and authors of negotiations books) have to dial down expectations and explain that it is not full proof. Rather it increases the likelihood that you will reach an agreement suitable to both parties. But the question still nags at me. How does one bring peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict? How does one bring peace to any recurring conflict between large people-groups and nation-states? Is it possible?

Looking at all of the conflict going on in the world today, I’m still amazed at our human inability to wipe it out from the face of the earth and future history. It always comes back. New people are born, new challenges arise, and new conflicts brew (or old ones reawaken). Peace, though a solution, is still a mysterious quality that is more of a question than a solution these days. I’m reminded of Martin Luther King Jr.’s journey through the possibilities of peace.

When MLK was looking for a method that could wipe out social evil, he “despaired of the power of love to solve social problems. The turn-the-other-cheek and the love-your-enemies philosophies are valid. . . only when individuals are in conflict with other individuals; when racial groups and nations are in conflict, a more realistic approach is necessary.” It was only after studying the life and teachings of Gandhi that he realized the true power of satyagraha—truth-force or love-force. King then saw the ability of love through nonviolence as a potent tool in the struggle for freedom. However that was between groups of people and a government. What about nation to nation?

King realized the need for the method of nonviolence in international relations, but has it ever been done successfully and well? He believed in war as a negative good but then thought that humanity’s powerful technology ruled out war ever being a negative good—the potential destruction is just too great. He thought the choice was between nonviolence or nonexistence. So my question to you today is this: Is it possible to do the turn-the-other-cheek method as one nation to another? How does it work? Would any nation be prepared to take the risk and the hurt?

I do mean risk. Sometimes people think turn-the-other-cheek or love-your-enemies doesn’t involve getting burned. No, love always involves getting vulnerable and sometimes burned. Many people suffered and died during nonviolent resistance movements with Gandhi, King, and Mandela. If you turn your other cheek, it could be slapped. It’s ok if I want to love my enemies as an individual person because I am willing entering myself into a risky situation, but how can a prime minister of a country decide that for an entire country—not just to eschew fighting back but actively love in the face of violence? Is it possible? Is it practical? Is it right?

This question has been on my mind because of Syria’s current plight, the raging civil war there. I tried to consider what would be the equivalent of loving-your-enemies as a nation. What would that look like? I then wondered if it would be something akin to three hundred million Americans flying to Syria and putting themselves on the front lines and saying to the government or the rebels “in order to kill the other, you must kill me.” Of course, this might not stop either side. But after awhile, after killing thousands of Americans to get to the other, you realize what you’ve become. You come face-to-face with what you are doing, and you stop. However, in the process you have lost thousands of people. The hard part about love-your-enemy as a nation, is that you have to have the entire nation “on board,” giving their heart to the cause, just as you. I don’t think it can be forced.

Now it’s a silly example and easily derided by any reader, but the question is what does it look like to do it as a nation? What does it like when your nation has just been attacked by terrorists? What does it look like when your nation has been attacked by domestic terrorists? Is such a nation-wide love possible? Does it exist? Have you seen it work and bring about peace? I don’t know. But I welcome your responses.

CONTEMPLATIVE ACTIVIST

I’m quite underwhelmed by myself and my response to the overwhelming issues facing the world, my country, my province/state/territory, my city, my neighbourhood, my community, my house, my family, my self. I’m overwhelmed sometimes just by the enormity of the problems and the energy required to care for victims of our day and age. And when you relate to all kinds of people you are put in touch with all kinds of problems. In these times, you are criticised often by the activists for being too reclusive or resigning to yourself too much. But then you are criticised by the contemplatives for being too activist and reaching out. When reaching out you’re criticised by those who work to address the systemic roots to the problem so that it never happens again. When you join in that work you’re criticised by those who simply care for the victims and manage the problem but don’t work towards eradication.

What I’ve learned is that a true life of contemplation leads to a true life of activism. And a true life of activism fuels a true life of contemplation. Is it not when a person truly contemplates the state of the world, the state of the environment, the poverty & equity crisis (the occupy movement), the annihilation precipice and security crisis, and the prosperity crisis that one is moved to action? They seemed to go hand-in-hand. In fact, this is what we find in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.


I recently finished “Strength to Love” by MLK which included one essay about his contemplative translation into action. According to MLK, he first read all the theological liberalism he could and he thoroughly enjoyed it. But then he felt it was too overly optimistic about human nature and didn’t see how we could be darkened by wrongdoing or sin. He didn’t enjoy neo-orthodoxy (what was called neo-orthodoxy back then in the 50’s) because it was too pessimistic about human nature, stressing too much a hidden, wholly other, unknown God with a narrow, uncritical Biblicism.

Later, looking for some synthesis of the two, he began to read existential philosophers. He read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre. What amazes me is that some of these men are famous “atheists,” and also read by one of my favorite contemporary activist, story-telling philosophers, Peter Rollins. After MLK did serious study of the 20th-century thinker Paul Tillich, he became convinced that regardless of its fashionableness, existentialism had grasped some important truths about the human condition including the concept of “finite freedom” and the various anxieties and conflicts man must navigate in life and our structure of existence. These anxieties threaten meaninglessness.

After starting in systematic theology and philosophy, MLK was more and more interested in social ethics. After experiencing segregation on the back of the bus or the segregated car on a train behind a curtain, the problem of racial injustice deeply concerned him. He saw it as morally unjustifiable and rationally inexplicable. He saw how the system exploited both blacks and poor whites (there are systems today that still do this).

As he continued to ponder these things, he entered theological seminary beginning a quest to find a method that would eliminate social evil. A huge influence upon him is a book by Walter Rauschenbusch whose great grandson is a colleague of mine. The book is called “Christianity and the Social Crisis.” This book is the book that gave rise to the social gospel movement or the involvement of Christians in a more systemic and organized way in social issues in the States. The anti-child labor movement and the worker rights movement are examples of two movements that came out of it. Through Rauschenbusch, MLK learned or became more convinced of the fact that the gospel deals with the whole man and not just his spiritual well-being. Any religion that professes a concern for a man’s spirit but doesn’t care about the slums that damn him, the economic conditions that cripple him, and the social conditions that harm him is an emasculated religion.

He then went on to study seriously social and ethical theories from philosophy. He saw love (turn-the-other-cheek and love-your-enemy) as a valid philosophy for individual contact but holding no power for group interactions. It wasn’t until MLK read the works of Gandhi that he saw the power of nonviolent love in group interactions. MLK became fascinated with the Gandhian concept of satyagraha [truth/love (satya) graha (force)]. He thought the Christian concept of love working through the Gandhian concept of non-violence could work to bring about change.

But it wasn’t until he was involved in the bus boycott of 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama that he had a situation in which nonviolent resistance could be applicable. Up till then he had only given nonviolent resistance intellectual assent. After being voted the spokesperson of the group and living through the days of the boycott, this idea to which he agreed became a committed way of life for him. Many of the intellectual issues which had not been cleared up for him were cleared up through the sphere of practical action. (At that time he saw love as practical for group relations, but still didn’t realize it could be used for international relations until later.)

Do you see how the contemplation and action wove together in his life? Moreover do you see how the contemplation of those he studied affected him? I often talk about the 4 M’s, but it’s quite important here because without Gandhi there really is no MLK. But without Jesus there is no Gandhi because Gandhi read the words of Jesus and studied his action. Gandhi was another contemplative. And Jesus, whom Gandhi studied, was another contemplative. But from the one called the Messiah to the one called the Mahatma to the one calk MLK, we move to another, a 4th contemplative, Mandela. From South Africa, Mandela studied the example and words of MLK in the States and appropriated such nonviolent resistance and love to help shape a new South Africa birthed from the struggling labour during apartheid.

I don’t know one major leader who doesn’t read, study, contemplate. Even more, the contemplative practice is more than just thinking and reading but truly sitting with a concept and thought, wrestling with what is good for people, and meditating upon these thoughts in silence, stillness, time away from others, time away from the daily grind.

It really isn’t either/or. It’s both.