Today I received many emails asking me to write, email, petition or call the President and Congressional representatives not to bomb Syria. I wish these efforts would matter in the decision, but deep down in my heart I know, as many others who wrote or received these appeals, it does not matter.
I wish it would matter.
I wish that voting would matter in government but it does not.
The person with the most money for campaigning seems to always win.
I wish we could stop the President’s indented bombing of Syria but we cannot.
Lobby groups, like AIPAC, the Jewish lobby are putting on a full court press for bombing Syria and they matter.
All the letters, emails, petitions, phone calls to White House or our representatives may make us feel good and like we are doing something,
but if it is in the “interest of the powers that be” it will happen.
How do we work for change in a world where all the votes, emails, phone calls or letters do not matter?
What matters seems to be money that is controlled by 2% of the people.
Looking to history on how people at the bottom made a difference we do not find it was voting, phone calls, emails or petitions that made a difference.
Changes in government, human rights or matters of war and peace were only made by violent and nonviolent actions.
Changes made by violent actions only led to more violence.
Changes made by nonviolent action have led to long lasting change.
I read tonight in Daniel Mcguire’s book “The Horrors We Bless, Rethinking the Just-War Legacy” how three hundred years before Jesus was born “a powerful prince in India, Ashuka, had dominated much of India by military force.” After his last big battle where a hundred thousand men had fallen he walked along the dead and instead of feeling triumph he felt revulsion. He converted to Buddhism and for the next thirty seven years he “pioneered a new mode of true (not fake) compassionate government.” Government officials were trained as peacemakers and his kingdom lasted for two thousand years until the military empire of Britain invaded India.
The way to peace is peace and the way to violence is violence.
With all the people dying from gun violence on our streets, with all the people dying in Syria,
one would think that he would question the causes of such violence.
But no, we are content with more police on the streets and with more missiles aimed at Syria.
Voting, petitioning, letters, phone calls, emails for change may make us feel good but do not make a difference.
Gandhi said “Just as one must learn the art of killing in the training for violence, so one must learn the art of dying in the training for non-violence. (Mind of Mahatma Gandhi p. 126)
Rather than vote, email, petition or call for change, are we ready for the art of dying that is non-violence?
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