By Andrew Birnbaum
A fascinating Star Trek episode features Joan Collins as Edith Keeler, a beautiful peace advocate who runs a 1930s soup kitchen. Captain Kirk knows Edith is destined to die in a car accident, but is tempted to save her life after they fall in love. Ultimately, Kirk must let Edith die because, as Spock explains, her effective activism would delay the United States' entry into World War Two long enough for Hitler to triumph.
However you interpret the episode (Edith was ahead of her time and/or had to die to restore the future), its message still rings true today. Mainstream society sees peace loving humans as idealistic, perhaps admirable, but highly impractical. They fear following our lofty ideals will allow faceless evildoers to destroy "our way of life." And why wouldn't they believe this message? Millions of dollars are spent each year to convince people of exactly this conclusion. Sadly, the cynical war PR-machine is extremely effective. And so, our well-meaning peace movement suffers from a fatal weakness. The mainstream public is afraid to take our message seriously.
The fact we are idealistic does not mean we cannot also be public relations geniuses. History is very much on our side. The story of war is one of misery, sadism, and inexplicable suffering, while the story of active nonviolence is one of inspiration, compassion, and most importantly, success. If people want to win, they should use a strategy that has worked in the past. This is not war. See, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. It is active nonviolence. See, India, Poland, United States Civil Rights movement.
Conflict is inevitable. It can also be beneficial, leading to deeper understanding and intimacy in relationships. Peace is not the absence of conflict; it is the absence of violence. And active nonviolence provides a framework for peace-loving people to resolve our most challenging conflicts. Together, peace and active nonviolence provide a mechanism for transforming conflict into opportunity.
I see active nonviolence as a brand. An awesome, desirable brand that merits more goodwill than its competitor products, violence and war. Since the war brand has a seemingly unlimited advertising budget, and miles of misleading display space, we must be very thoughtful in how we attract goodwill to the active nonviolence brand.
A key method is to educate people about historical facts. It is easy to argue with theories or ideologies, but harder to argue with results. We must change the conversation from a theoretical discussion of war and peace to an analysis of the proven practicality of nonviolence as a strategy for addressing conflicts. And I am not talking about debating historical views and interpretations. I am talking about recounting actual facts. And those facts are numerous and in our favor.
We can educate people about the many successes achieved through active nonviolence. These include the liberation of India in the last century, the American civil rights movement, and the Poles' triumph over a communist dictatorship. And these are hardly the only examples. People doubt the efficacy of active nonviolence because they have been miseducated to believe some conflicts can only be resolved through violence. So we must educate ourselves to the point we can educate our friends, neighbors, and other community members. As a matter of proven fact, the experiments with active nonviolence have been tremendously successful and must be replicated.
Skeptics sometimes argue nonviolent theory benefits oppressive governments by dissuading people from armed revolt. I believe the reverse argument makes more sense, that violent acts strengthen oppressive governments by providing cover for harsh crackdowns. When there is an act of great violence, do our freedoms increase or decrease?
When people claim wars are sometimes necessary to resolve conflicts, we might remind them the Iraqi and Afghan wars are ongoing, with no resolution in sight. That millions of people died in the last century's many wars. That no sooner do we "resolve" one war or violent conflict, then another crops up, often involving the same parties. As a matter of cold, hard fact, violence is a losing strategy, and it is the worst way to lose. I say this with great respect to the soldiers who sacrifice for their countries. The problem is with the leaders who fail to properly utilize the soldiers' many gifts and talents to best serve humanity.
If there is a group of people trapped in an ideological morass, it is the proponents of war and violence, forever unable to reconcile disappointing real world results with their inaccurate theories of human behavior. Thus, an updated version of the Star Trek episode might feature Joan Collins as Edith W. Keeler, a thoroughly impractical President intent on leading her country into war at any cost. This revised character might have honorable motives, but her fatal naivete would cause her to favor brute violence over more effective options. Such a President would not be ahead of her time, but behind it.
My fellow peace advocates, we have the more persuasive factual arguments. Peace, and where appropriate, active nonviolence, have worked in the past and can work in the future. As a matter of strategy, we must educate a skeptical public by recounting these past successes in factual detail. Because it is never the wrong time for peace, and no situation is too challenging to be resolved peacefully. We must convey this message, moment by moment, person by person. It is truth and we are its honored and blessed messengers. Its extremely practical and pragmatic, honored and blessed messengers.
Andrew Birnbaum @ shenluk.blogspot.com
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