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Peace does not happen through eliminating one's enemies. This creates fear of reprisals amongst a specific group but it does not create peace. Eliminating one's enemies is a political/military strategy that has been practiced from time immemorial, but it is only a strategy, a temporary expedient, it is not the foundation for peace. Peace can only be created when the kernel of truth that lies in the 'enemy's' oppositional stance can be understood and brought to light. It may be only a kernel of truth, but it is there in all circumstances in which peace among warring factions is being sought. If this kernel of truth is not understood and brought to light, then military/political reprisals against an enemy will only temporarily damage the undercurrents - the motivational sources - which originally gave rise to the 'enemy' in the first place. It will not prevent the uprising of others to take the place of those who have been eliminated by war, death, imprisonment, or other form of action. Peace cannot be created by means which are violent. An effective military strategy can wipe out the problem of the moment, but it cannot effectively wipe out the underpinnings or motives that create war and enmity among peoples. Peace cannot be created by terrorizing one's terrorists. We have seen this abundantly in the Middle-East where attack and counter-attack are and have been a way of life for decades. This form of "an eye-for-an-eye" combat appeases the human need for justice, but it does not create peace. And in most cases, it does not really appease the need for justice because the battle goes on in any case. Only a temporary relief of pain has been bought - but at what cost? The desire for revenge does not create peace. Peace can only arrive when the interests of all parties engaged in a war are taken into consideration. It can only be arrived at by the "harmonization of opposites." This may seem unduly idealistic for circumstances that exist presently on the geo-political stage we inhabit, but broken down into its component parts, this ideal involves, at the very least, understanding the source of enmity among one's enemies, and having respect for the emotions that gave rise to their distress, even if one does not respect or condone in any way the actions taken as a result of these emotions. The use of religious language to justify war does not create peace. It creates a verbal cover for violence which does much to confuse the terrain in which real peace might be sought. Words like 'holy war', 'crusade', 'devil', and any other words which suggest that one's own course of violence is being guided by God and is therefore justified, endanger the substructure of morality that most people have at their center. It confuses them into having to take an either-or position, that is: "you are either with us and for God, or you are against us and against God." The use of religious language for this purpose undermines the natural sensitivity that people might have to want to explore all other means of creating peace that exist prior to war or violence. It catalyzes the movement into deliberate action by reducing the possibility of anyone standing against it. This becomes harder as the verbal rhetoric suggests that to be against a particular course of action is to be against God, justice, or America. Furthermore, the sentiment which states: "If you are not with us, you are against us," undermines the possibility for creating real peace as it undermines democracy itself. Just as there are underlying reasons for which one's enemies became one's enemies, there are also many reasons why individuals, groups, or nations, would have difficulty choosing between two warring sides. Again, the situation in the Middle-East gives us a good illustration of this problem. There are many in the Middle-East and elsewhere who vehemently side with one side or another, but there are also many who see the legitimacy of complaints on both sides, and who therefore could not, despite the death toll and pain that may have accrued, take a stand of being "with" one side and "against" the other side. This kind of polarization into black and white, into:"You are with us or against us," creates an unreal world which, as in the case of religious language, compels people to have to side more solidly than they might feel with a course of action that some part of them might rather not take. Polarizing a nation in this way or polarizing world opinion in this way by a similar statement, is dangerous, because it eliminates the possibility of discussion, modification, or negotiation of the diverse views that make up a nation or that make up the world. It eliminates the freedom to have one's own point of view - the very freedom that proposed military action claims to defend. This kind of polarization is antithetical to democracy. It is not what democracy is about. At a time of national tragedy, whether here or abroad, at a time in which real people suffer the loss of real human lives, sometimes on a large scale, it is important to hold in heart and in mind the understanding that the end does not justify the means. As a spiritual principle it must be said that the nature of an outcome is always influenced by the process at which it was arrived at. The actions that we take as individuals or as a nation must be consistent with the principles we hold most deeply. Freedom cannot be created for the nation or for the world by means which diminish that freedom. Democracy cannot be safeguarded by means which eliminate an individual's or a nation's right to choose. And peace cannot be found by means that do not respect the fundamental truth that all men are created equal in their souls, and that therefore we must seek the kernel of truth in the views of all people - that kernel which gives rise to those who are our enemies in the first place. |
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