Satyagraha

Tonight we had the second meeting of our little book club. I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion and despite the fact that we talked for almost 2 hours, I think we could have talked for so much longer. The book we read was called Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Kurlansky. Now, I did enjoy the book and I thought was good and I would recommend it, but I enjoyed the discussion so much more. I think I might get into some of the topics that we discussed, but I do have several quotes and ideas that Kurlansky brings up which I would like to post here so that you can ponder them as well. (Also, if I put quotation marks around text that means it is from the book and I'll include the page #'s if anyone really wants to take this further)

The first major point is that there is no word for nonviolence. "While every major language has a word for violence, there is no word to express the idea of nonviolence except that it is not another idea, it is not violence. In Sanskrit, the word for violence is himsa, harm, and the negation of himsa, just as nonviolence is the negation of violence, is ahimsa -- not doing harm. But if ahimsa is "not doing harm," what is it doing?" (pg.5)
This leads him to the question: "If we lived in a world that had no word for war other than nonpeace, what kind of world would that be?" (pg.6)
Which then leads him to: "Mohandas Gandhi invented a word for it, satyagraha, from satya, meaning truth. Satyagraha according to Gandhi, literally means 'holding on to truth' or 'truth force.' Interestingly, although Gandhi's teachings and techniques have had a huge impact on political activists around the world, his word for it, satyagraha, has never caught on." (pg.7)
To this I say, then let us take it up again and make it catch on.

Another point Kurlansky makes is that "peoples who got to war tend to become mirror images of their enemy" (pg.43)
What he means by this is that "in war one becomes what the enemy is accused of being." (pg.139) And what he means by this is that both sides become the monsters that the other accuses them of being. Does that make sense? I feel like it might be a bit confusing.

I also really agree with him when he says, "the cause of perpetual war lies not in the nature of man but in the nature of power." (pg.51)

Something else he discusses is the quote unquote founding fathers of the U.S. and the Constitution. He says "But they knew that they and their work were flawed. Jefferson, too, believed in the perfectibility of humans, or at least that they would steadily grow wiser, and wrote that the Constitution should be rewritten in every generation to avoid having society 'remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.'"
I have always thought this and wondered why we hold up the Constitution and its authors as these unquestionable and perfect items. Were they not just like us today? Now I'm not saying the Constitution is terrible and that we should just throw it out, but that like the Bible and the Koran and the Torah, and any other text written by humans, it should be acknowledged that it in fact WAS written by humans and being thus is imperfect.

Now to get back to satyagraha.
He says "Only if the nonviolent side has the discipline to avoid slipping into violence does it 'win'....The moment the nonviolent adversary accepts violence...then it has been conceded that violence is acceptable, and its only a question of who has the greater physical force." (pg.162).
Something that goes along with this and that I think few people truly realize and understand is that satyagraha takes incredible courage and is not an easy pacifist, inactive engagement.

Two examples of active "nonviolence" he gives:
This one is talking about a man named Bayard Rustin who was marching against the Korean War in 1951. "he was attacked with a stick by an angry spectator. Rustin handed him a second stick and asked him if he wanted to use both. The attacker threw both sticks down." (pg.154)
I think that is a powerful statement and takes tremendous courage.
Then, "A.J. Muste, borrowing an idea from Thoreau, refused to pay his taxes starting on January 1, 1948. Each year he sent the IRS a letter explaining why he was neither filing nor paying. The IRS did not even respond for the first 3 years, and did not charge him until 1960, at which point they said he owed $1,165, plus penalties. Finally the court ruled that he could not be charged the penalties as he was following his conscience, though he did owe the taxes. But they had no way of collecting, since Muste owned nothing and did not even have a bank account." (pg.157)
This makes me think a lot.
I don't really want to own anything or have a bank account. What would that be like?

There are many other great examples of big and small movements and instances of people choosing nonviolence, whether individually or as groups, but I will not relate those here. If you want them I can point you to a few, or you can explore them for yourself. I personally find the non-Western and lesser known ones to be the most compelling, but I'll get on with it.
One of the last thing Kurlansky discusses before the end of the book where he gives the "Twenty-Five Lessons" is this:
"Both sides claim that God is on their side, but the god cited is a god of killing not found in the religions of either side. 'The issue,' said Kenneth Kuanda, 'is not whether God is on our side, but if we are on God's side.'"
This, I think, is something very powerful to be considered.

So here are a select few of his Twenty-Five Lessons:
1. There is no proactive word for nonviolence.
(I would argue that satyagraha is that word)
4. Once a state takes over a religion, the religion loses its nonviolent teachings.
5. A rebel can be defanged and co-opted by making him a saint after he is dead.
(Take MLKJ for example.)
12. The state imagines it is impotent without a military because it cannot conceive of power without force.
(What are some other very powerful tools other than force?: Love, compassion, empathy, greed, intelligence, boycott, etc)
25. The hard work of beginning a movement to end war has already begun.


Good Night and Good Luck,
Kate