Awakening in the News:
The News-Leader writes about our Bible Belt alternative...
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by Phil Snider

In the film The Motorcycle Diaries, the soon-to-be revolutionary leader Che Guevara wonders whether or not a successful revolution can be forged without the use of violence.  He responds with one simple word:  “Impossible.”

Impossible is certainly the response we’ve been taught.  Whether it be through “norms” like ruthless video games, nationalistic myths, or certain religious traditions (recall the best-selling Left Behind series of books in which the Christian God “sets things right” through a violent bloodbath), our culture has repeatedly baptized the use of violence.  Instead of viewing it as a last resort (as in just war theory), it becomes a first resort.  As Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams once said, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

So as Buddhist monks peacefully protest the oppressive government of Myanmar, we are inclined to think that such actions may be nice gestures and all—indeed, very noble ones—but really, a revolution without violence?  Impossible.  Idealistic.  Doomed to failure.

Or is it?  While looking at Jesus’s creative use of non-violent resistance (what Gandhi and King called “soulforce” or “life force;” not to be confused for passivity), biblical scholar Walter Wink shares some striking statistics:  Britain’s Indian colony, which comprised approximately 300 million people, was liberated non-violently at a cost of about 8,000 lives (the British didn’t suffer a single casualty).  Granted, it took 27 years.  By contrast, France’s Algerian colony of about 10 million was liberated in just seven years by violence…but it cost nearly 1 million lives.

Over a period of roughly ten years, the people of Poland stood up to their oppressive government and lost about 300 lives.  Around the same time in Argentina, in a violent but fruitless effort to take the Falkland Islands, 1,000 lives were lost in just two weeks of fighting.

The Hungarians were crushed by the Soviets at a cost of roughly 5,500 lives, with 40,000 or more tortured or detained.  In Czechoslovakia, a spontaneous non-violent movement gained momentum with only 70 people dying—and the prisoners were freed!

While these are rough comparisons drawn from 20^th-century history, Wink notes that the staggering difference in lives lost can’t be ignored.  Certainly these kinds of non-violent movements of resistance require more patience and creativity (recall the Civil Rights movement here in the States), and they are by no means guaranteed success.  But we are foolish to assume they are doomed to failure.  As one Jewish rabbi remarked: “People may say that the way of non-violent resistance is unrealistic and hopelessly naïve, but really, is it any less realistic than the fantasy that one more war will put an end to all wars and eradicate evil once and for all?”

I must confess that I have always admired the convictions held by pacifists, but the thought of the Holocaust and World War II keep me from holding that conviction myself.  But I do believe Rev. Bill Coffin’s words:  “While violence may at times be necessary, what is wrong—always wrong—is the desire to use it.  If we ever have to, may we do so only as a last resort and with a lump in our throat.”

In the face of injustice, Gandhi believed that if cowardice was the only alternative to violence, then it was better to fight.  But he said this convinced that creative non-violent options were always possible, if only we commit ourselves to them as much as we commit ourselves to military might.

In that spirit, may we offer our thoughts and/or prayers on behalf of the people of Myanmar.  May they find creative ways to respond.  And may we join them in the imaginative process.