Can Marquette Ignore This?
Going from a rural area up north and attending church there this morning to my urban home in Milwaukee and participating in a ‘die in’ in front of the church on campus this afternoon to to close the officer training School of the Army at Marquette University, was like moving nonviolently from behind the lines of a war to the front lines. As the sign says the “The War is at Home, and in the heart of the city at a military base training school the war is more intensive.”
In the ‘die in’ outside and after the student mass on the church on campus we were difficult to ignore. Some wore death masks and blood stained clothes, some held signs To Teach War No More and some passed out flyers. Yet despite the dramatics of street theater some tried to ignore us, even refusing to take a flyer. Although we broke the silence of Marquette’s, a Catholic Jesuit University’s, cooperation with the militarism of the government, some still did not want to hear or see us. However, as I told my friends, “Being ignored never felt so good”.
As a friend reminded me today, groups that proclaim peace and justice have always had internal conflicts and divisions which have stood in their way of accomplishing goals, be it to close the School of Army at a Catholic University or to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, what is new now is that there is some that proclaim the same values but “do not want to hear about it”, do not believe in any conflict, even though it be creative and civil, and just choose to ignore the message and the messengers. Marquette security, just like the administration and many students and faculty, just ignored our nonviolent action. But some did take the flyer, saw visually that teaching war kills human beings and heard the wailing.
Perhaps this “hit and stay” tactics is the way to capture the attention of a few. Even if one person hears and acts on our message today it will spread, even though it is ignored by many. And besides, being ignored never felt so good.
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