Peace Without Justice Is No Peace At All

The word "peace" has a pleasant ring to it, but it is thrown around much too easily, often without much thought as to what it really means and requires. When we think of peace as a desirable thing, it is not a "peace" floating in space, devoid of any social context or history or social obligations. It is a peace that makes people content to refrain from conflict because their needs have been satisfied to some extent, and because they feel respected and understood by those with whom they have been in conflict or disagreement.

In a couple of situations that have been very much in the news in recent weeks, the Palestinian-Israeli attacks, counter-attacks and ongoing animosity, and the tensions between protesters and police in Ferguson, Missouri following the police slaying of the unarmed, 18 year old young black man, Michael Brown, I note the tendency among many observers, commentators and politicians to plead for "peace," by which they mean an immediate cessation of violence. This make me reflect on how, for many people who do not think very often or very deeply about these matters, there is a very simple solution to such conflict situations: just stop fighting. Palestinians, stop shooting rockets and killing Israelis. African-Americans of Ferguson, stop throwing rocks and flaming bottles at the police. Embrace "peace." Lion and lamb, please come together, and all the surrounding sheep will BAAAAA in agreement!

This kind of quick, easy and empty "peace," a cessation of conflict without any resolution of the underlying grievances and injustices that drove the conflict in the first place, is not only simplistic, short-sighted and disrespectful to those who have risked bodily harm or even sacrificed their lives to voice their grievances in these actions, but often ensures that there will be more conflict and violence in the future, for the simmering grievances will not become less heated over time simply because "peace" has been declared or imposed.

In the two cases cited above, most of our news media and political leaders tend to side with whoever the dominant power in the situation is, and to show much more sympathy for their suffering and losses than those of the other side. So, in the violence between the Palestinians and Israelis, we hear much more about how the Israelis are justified in using force against the Palestinians than we do about why the Palestinians are rising up in the first place. If an Israeli civilian such as a mother or a child is killed by a Hamas rocket, this is lamented and dramatized, but less so when Palestinians are killed or have their homes and communities reduced to rubble by Israeli missiles and soldiers, even though many more Palestinians have been killed by Israelis than the reverse, in this and past conflicts as well. Still, the Palestinians are expected to accept the destruction of their communities, pick up the pieces and move on, and live happy, "peaceful" lives despite their poverty, trauma and despair, which Israeli policy enforces through such measure as the "Separation Wall" that seals off the Palestinian territories, the Israeli military-manned checkpoints that they have to pass through on a daily basis, to their great frustration and humiliation, and the Israeli-imposed economic blockade that strangles their economic life and ensures continuing poverty and desperation. Where is the sympathy and understanding for that? It seems to me that in much of our media and among many of our leaders, it is only the suffering of the Israelis that receives attention.

In Ferguson, though there is sympathy expressed for the death of Michael Brown, the protesters who have turned to violence are seen as unreasonable hooligans, unlike the "good" protestors, who march in the daytime in the streets holding signs and flowers without resorting to any violence. The state's governor, Jay Nixon, and senior senator, Claire McCaskill, have also embraced this narrative of "good" peaceful protestors versus "bad" violent ones who dare to threaten the police. When the state authorities send in National Guard forces and fire tear gas at protestors in the streets, this may be questioned as to whether it might be a bit excessive, but is still seen as understandable because something must be done to keep the protestors from getting out of control. This understanding attitude toward police use of force, coupled with an unwillingness to allow citizens to use force to fight back against the force used against them, overlooks the deeper reality that the violent protestors are not merely responding to the slaying of Michael Brown but expressing their burning resentment over months, years, and even decades of abuse and harassment that African-Americans in Ferguson have endured at the hands of the Ferguson police and other local and state authorities. There is the stubborn reality of decades of white flight, white-dominated government agencies, including the police, and economic disinvestment in the Ferguson area that have made the black community as poor and troubled as it is. So, when the African-American community here or elsewhere explodes in violence, it has to be understood as an explosion that was caused first and foremost by a long and continuing historical experience of injustice and suffering. Where is the sympathy and understanding for that? It is my impression that for many in our media and among many of our leaders, it is only the violence of the angry African-American protestors that is condemned, not the social conditions and police brutality that drove them to this point.

If we could have "peace" of the sort that our media and politicians seem to be calling for in these situations, a cessation of violent actions before there is any resolution of the issues driving the violence, what an empty and horrible thing it would be. It would mean that people in such situations as the Palestinian territories or the African-American community in cities like Ferguson would have to accept a life as a disrespected, disempowered second class of people, with no effective ability to oppose those who oppress, brutalize and disenfranchise them, vulnerable at any moment to violent treatment by state authorities, with no means of redress. This would be similar to the kind of peace that the Nazis were hoping to achieve, a nice peaceful society of clean, orderly, white German people after all the dirty and disorderly Jews and Slavs and others had been done away with. It would indeed have been very peaceful, but not at all very just.

Though I regret violence and loss of life of any sort, I do not condemn those in harshly oppressed situations who turn to violence when they reach the desperate conclusion that they have no other way of asserting their needs and concerns. Since the creation of Israel, the grievances of the Palestinians pushed out of their homes and off their land to make way for the nation of Israel have never been fully addressed or resolved. Israeli groups continue to build settlements on land that still, according to international law, belongs to the Palestinians, and so the Palestinians, already disadvantaged by the way in which they were treated during the creation of Israel, see their lands further diminished by these continuing encroachments, while they endure such hardships as the checkpoints and embargoes mentioned above. Who can blame them for exploding into violence, as regrettable as its effects may be? And answer this: would the world pay any attention to the Palestinians, would many people outside Palestine actually know or care about their issues and grievances, if they did not occasionally attack Israel? Do the proponents of empty "peace" expect them to simply suffer and die in silence, so that Israeli communities can flourish in peace and security and never have to worry about the people living right next to them in abominable conditions that they, the Israelis, helped to create and now help to maintain, who live under constant fear of the Israeli police and military? When the Palestinians rise up out of their segregated areas to fire rockets at the Israelis, could this not be compared to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, when the disadvantaged, oppressed Jews decided to fight back courageously against their Nazi oppressors? This is indeed a most painful and horrible irony of the situation of the state of Israel and its troubled co-existence with its Palestinian citizens and neighbors.

And in Ferguson, if there were not violent protestors out in the streets at night throwing Molotov cocktails at the police, would anyone really know or care about the death of Michael Brown and the suffering of the black people of Ferguson? Would the national news media or politicians really pay much attention to quiet, peaceful protests? If the African-Americans there had only protested peacefully, without the drama of violence, would anyone really pay attention or care?

When the long-suffering, oppressed people of any location rise up in violence, it is only because they have been pushed to the brink by authorities that have often preferred to bury them than to care for them. If you want to stop the violence of tomorrow, start thinking about the disadvantaged, underprivileged, and either overtly or subtly oppressed people of today, and start thinking about how we and our institutions and authorities can help those people have a better life today and tomorrow, so that there will be no need for anyone to turn to violence to express the anger, sorrow, humiliation, bitterness and despair that we see in all too many places in our troubled and all too often indifferent world, and don't ask people to respect "law and order" when they have never seen any benefit or justice from that so-called law and so-called order.

Peace without justice is no peace at all. We need peace with justice and caring for the needs of all, not just for certain classes or colors of people, who get to live the good life while others have no life at all.

And to put a Pagan twist on this, I once again reject the narrow tribalism of ethnic division that some Pagans embrace. Just look at Ferguson and all the other communities in America where there is a sharp division between predominantly black and white communities. There are your clearly demarcated tribes, and there you have injustice and hate. Look at Israel and Palestine, and you find the same thing. We need to build bridges, not fences, and break bread together, and look for the good of all humanity, not just one enclave walled off from another and played off against it. Ethnic traditions such as songs, prayers, myths and forms of folk art that come to us from the past are beautiful things, but they are part of the common human heritage and should be respected and enjoyed as such. They should bring us together in moments of sharing and appreciation, and discovery of commonality across the range of diverse expressions of human spirituality and local culture, and not be used to separate us or inflame us against one another.

Right-Wing Extremism in Norway and America and Perceptions Thereof

This Friday just past (July 22nd,2011) certainly cannot be described as a "good-news day." First the continuing drip-drip-drip of Tea Party poison from Washington, with the House Republican leader John Boehner walking out on talks with the President on deficit and debt issues, because of the continuing refusal of the Republicans to consider ANY kind of revenue increase as part of a "grand deal" to reduce the debt and deficit. Then the sad and painful news of a massive bomb explosion in Oslo followed by the gunning down of teenaged Norwegians attending a summer camp sponsored by Norway's Social Democratic party.

Though I have been trying to reduce my exposure to news media to improve my spirits and tame my blood pressure level,I could not help but be transfixed by both of these news stories. Now, with some time to reflect on how these situations have been represented in the news media, I have some thoughts to share, though I fear that further exploring these issues will lead me and perhaps a few of my readers to experience such a precipitous rise in anger-and-frustration-driven blood pressure that our heads may erupt in agonizing showers of blood,something like what happens to a number of characters in the 1983 David Cronenberg film, "Videodrome." It may be wise to put a plastic covering over your computer to shield it from the inevitable, so that your heirs and/or debtors will be able to realize full value from your computer after you are gone. Or maybe not...

What strikes me is how in both cases, certain types of assumptions are privileged, and continue to be maintained, even when there is rather definite evidence to the contrary.

In the case of the breakdown of debt-ceiling/deficit/budget negotiations, an assumption of many in the news media is that this is a problem of "partisan politics," the failure of both sides to compromise. WHOA! Wait a minute there. This is a kind of fake structural, phony neutral analysis that pretends to achieve some kind of objectivity by simply blaming everyone involved without analyzing their roles and objectives in any meaningful way, also without considering the situation in any kind of historical perspective. This is NOT just a game of who's up and who's down, who will attain advantage in the next election, who will please Wall Street investors and who will not. This is NOT just a situation of two parties with points of view of quite equal value and justification asserting themselves and reaching an unfortunate deadlock.

There is ONE party, that of the Democrats,that is asking Congress to do a simple thing that it has done many times before as a routine matter, to raise the debt ceiling so that all hell does not break loose in our country from senior citizens not receiving their monthly checks to veterans not getting theirs to private companies that rely on government contracts being thrown into chaos and the international investment funds losing confidence in the USA and triggering a massive rise in interest rates and perhaps another 2008 stock market collapse. The Democrats are also refusing to accede to massive cuts in government programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that generations of poor, moderate-income and elderly Americans have depended on and need now, more than ever, in the face of the grueling, lingering recession that has driven so many out of their jobs and homes. That's right, that's what those crazy fucking Democrats are up to, those sick, unreasonable, America-hating fiends. Why oh why are they taking such an extreme, radical, dangerous, future-threatening stand? Why are they so stubborn? I'll tell you why. They are standing up not only to protect our economy but also to protect our form of government and way of life from some truly extreme, radical, dangerous and future-threatening folk, the Tea Party Republicans.

Yes, the Tea Party Republicans. Those god-fearing, flag-loving, super-duper-hyper-ultra patriotic-to-the-max American Tea Party Republicans (TPRs). They have used the debt ceiling issue to hold the country hostage, demanding incredibly massive cuts in government programs, cuts that have never been seen before and whose effects are agreed by most analysts to be potentially catastrophic for Americans who are not insulated by wealth and privilege. They insist that these cuts be done in the size, scale and way that they want, OR GRANNY* GETS IT! (Note: for *Granny, you may substitute any other vulnerable member of society and even the entire society in general.)That's right: their position on budget negotiations is AT LEAST 4 TRILLION BUCKS CUT WITH A CHAIN SAW OUT OF THE BIG EVIL GOVERNMENT BUDGET, OR ELSE! (Obama offered 3 trillion in cuts coupled with 1 trillion in new revenues; they said HELL NO!)

Now, to be fair, I don't begrudge these persons the right to advocate their views or advance them in negotiations. What is REALLY DIFFERENT about what they are doing is that they are (a) seeking EXTREME cuts like have never been seen before, cuts which are sure to cause major damage to many across the country) and(b) they are using the debt ceiling issue, an unrelated issue, to hold Obama and the Democrats hostage and force them to agree to the foresaid extreme and destructive budget cuts, which are far beyond anything previously discussed at a serious level in Washington.

What makes it all even crazier is that the TPRs claim to care deeply about the budget deficit, but refuse to acknowledge the obvious point that there are two (2) ways of dealing with such a deficit: (1) cutting spending, (2) raising revenues through increased taxes, closing of tax loopholes, or other such measures. If someone loses their job and is trying to raise a family, they can either seek new sources of income, such as finding a new job, or they can reduce their spending by such means as switching from three meals a day to one and learning to live without heat and electricity. The TPRs would rather see the American government become the equivalent of the family trying to exist on one meal a day and without heat or power than raise ANY revenues in ANY way. If they can't get this, 100% of an extreme demand, they are willing to let all hell break loose, even though a financial collapse will do nothing to resolve long-term budget and debt issues, which they CLAIM to really care about. I think they only care about those issues as a way of getting at their real goal: reducing government programs that they dislike out of ideological distaste for the public sector, as they tend to believe that most things in society are better handled by businessmen than government.

The Democrats in Congress, and even moreso Obama, have indicated willingness to agree to a "balanced approach" of some budget cuts and program alterations along with some increases in revenue. Opinion polls show most Americans agree with such an approach in principle.

So WHY then do many in the news media keep insisting that the problem is "partisan politics" and stubbornness on both sides? There is one side that is being reasonable, trying to be fair-minded and accept the other party's proposals to some extent, and one side which is both extreme in its demands and unwilling to negotiate.

The American public, reading, hearing and watching media blather about "partisan deadlock," is not being educated about the deeper issues at stake and the extreme right-wing,anti-government tilt that the Republican party has undergone with the rise of its now-dominant Tea Party faction. That is to say, the media is cooperating in concealing the extremeness of the right-wing movement in America, and as a result, the right-wing gains more and more power.

The same criticism applies to the President. He began to lose his temper in his press conference yesterday and to show his exasperation with the Republicans' unwillingness to budge from their extreme demands, but he still was not willing to call a spade a spade and say,"the Republicans are in the grip of an extreme right-wing ideology which I reject." He just can't do it. Instead, he said things like "both parties need to do their best..." This is like witnessing a crime on the street where a man with a knife takes out a knife and starts slashing people at random, and then telling the police, "We all need to be more concerned about violence on our streets and to consider sensible restrictions on how many people a knife-wielding gentleman is allowed to murder in one day," instead of telling who did what in plain terms, who is being harmed, and who is responsible.

The moral: one must NEVER EVER criticize right-wing, Tea Party Republicans or characterize them as right-wing or extreme. One must always be polite and obsequious to them. Obama makes snide, mocking references to progressives who criticize him for his rightward tilt on many matters, but he is always unfailingly respectful to the very right-wingers who are trying in every way to destroy him.

I see similar bias in the media coverage of the Norway attacks. How quick the media was to assume that this was the work of Al-Qaeda or similar Islamic terrorists,and how reluctant many media pundits were to let go of the Muslim boogie man and come to terms with the fact that the person responsible for this awful orgy of violence was a white, Christian, Norwegian farmer. Even when the news media began learning that this man was the prime suspect and was being questioned by police, they still kept muttering nonsense about possible Islamic connections. Just can't let go of it, can you? Because you know it FEELS SO GOOD to be SCARED of Muslims and to HATE them. Oh Yes, Baby, yes! Mmmmm!! More Muslim-bashing, PLEASE! More fear-mongering, PLEASE! I love being scared out of my wits about these demonic beings from the planet Allah! I love being a soldier in the "War on Muslims," I mean the "War on Terror!" Huh? What's that? A WHITECHRISTIANNORWEGIANFARMERDIDIT? No, that can't be right. Has to be a Muslim, got to be a Muslim, I wants me an evil dirty bearded Muslim, one just like Mamma used to hate, one that I can hate and fear and go to war against and kill Kill KILL with whoops of joy.

So now what? We have proof that the attacks were carried out by a white Christian Norwegian farmer. Do we now have a "War on Farmers?" a "War on Christianity?" a "War on White Norwegians?" Of course not. This Anders Behring Breivik guy was a one-in-a-million nut case, just a bad apple, just a crazy kook to be put away, so we can all go back to our lives without thinking. That's all there is to it, whew....!

Wait a minute, now you're telling me he may have either been influenced by or been associated with an extreme, anti-Muslim, right-wing, fundamentalist Christian movement? IMPOSSIBLE! Does not compute. Let me tell you a thing or two about terrorism, which I have learned from the media since 9/11 (blessings be upon that sacred date,and may all blasphemers be punished.). The term "terrorist" does not apply to white people, Christians, or right-wingers. If they engage in violence, it is nothing to get worked up about. Nothing to go to war about. Just a bad apple....like that Timothy McVeigh fellow.

Again, the media goes very soft and easy on right-wing misdeeds. Imagine if the killer had been a Muslim or an Arab or an African. What a shit-storm you would see!

Let's hope there will be some thoughtful discussion in our media about the dangers of right-wing extremism and Christian fundamentalism. Back in 2009, the FBI put out a report warning that the greatest terrorist threat would come from right-wing extremism, Timothy McVeigh-esque individuals and organizations. Since that time, with the rise to dominance of the right-wing Republicans in Washington and Obama's inexplicable eagerness to accommodate them, the FBI and Congress have backed away from taking any action on this threat. Maybe after what happened in Norway, they should get back on the case....if the American right-wingers will let them.

Wake up, America (and Norway, and Hungary, and...) Today's right-wing movements are extreme and dangerous, and also,sorry to say, often very effective in bullying their way to power. They will take hostages. They will resort to violence. Let's stop empowering them by offering them excuses and compromises. I truly believe that the right-wing tide can be turned back by exposing its extremeness and ugliness. It thrives on ignorance and cowardice.

Pagans have a role to play, too. Pagan religions can be twisted into justifications for racism and militarism, as the Nazis showed. If you see this happening, even to a small extent, speak up or get out. Reach out to others and you will find that there are indeed those who share your concerns and values. Don't let yourself be intimidated by racist thugs. Don't let your spirituality and traditions be hijacked by right-wing extremism.

Considering the quick move to scapegoat Muslims in light of the Oslo bombing, I also suggest that everyone who reads this try to be extra nice to Muslims that they know or meet, and if you hear someone spouting off with anti-Muslim rhetoric, remind them that Muslims are people, too. Trite as it may seem, reminding others that "we're all brothers and sisters" is a powerful message that is at the heart of every progressive movement for the last two thousand or more years and still has the power to cut through a lot of racist bullshit. Try it and see!