Nonviolence, We Need You Now!

Ellen Murphy learned the specifics of nonviolent direct action through her involvement with war resistance priest Daniel Berrigan, S.J. in 1970s Ithaca, NY, and has practiced it ever since, having been arrested at the Ithaca draft board, the Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site, Offutt Air Base STRATCOM, Spokane Federal Building and Congressman Rick Larsen’s Bellingham office.

Editor’s Note: Last month, a gunman opened fire in Tucson, killing six people including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. US Representative Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured in the shooting and is recovering. Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old suspect, faces federal charges.

But what is nonviolence, and how can we recognize a philosophy and methodology that defines itself in the negative, rather than as what it is? To begin to answer that question, we look to the Sanskrit word used by Gandhi for his freedom campaign: ahimsa (“a” meaning “not,” and “himsa,” meaning “violent,” thus “no-harm”). This word too, by defining itself as that which is not violent, opens us to all that remains when violence is removed.

For example, if we were to be able to get rid of violence from our thoughts, words and actions, the great spaciousness of whatever else we are, would be revealed. The tendency or susceptibility to repeat behaviors done to us, and the generational habituation to violence would be unmasked as that which has “to be taught, carefully taught,”1 because our genetic and spiritual heritage inclines us far more toward helping, sharing, and mutual support.2  Yes, we are fundamentally free, autonomous individuals, supporting each other for the common good.

The word “violence” stems from the Latin vis for “force” meaning armed, or harmful force. Nonviolence has been called a force as well, especially since the 1999 PBS documentary film, “A Force More Powerful,” on nonviolent resistance movements around the world. Nonviolence is shown to be a disarmed force, one that because it seeks no harm and seeks to relieve the pain of its opponent as well as its own, is more powerful than armed, or hurtful force so often based in fear, dominance and ego.

What is nonviolent force? What is left when the violence isn’t there? If “armed” force is such behavior as pushing, grabbing, hitting, shooting, raping, torturing, bombing, not to mention threatening, twisting words and facts, manipulating, blaming, and other behaviors and attitudes of illegitimate or misused power, then disarmed force (nonviolence/ahimsa), must be breathing, honoring, listening, discerning, risk-taking, helping, and much more, including truth-telling and noncooperation with injustice.

Perhaps by defining itself by what it is not, nonviolence takes a profoundly positive stance toward life by believing that what we are really made of is peace, and if we abandon that which is violent, (including the violence of cutting funds for mental illness and raising them for war), all that will remain will be that which we really are, navigators of love, continually getting back on course.

When, as in mathematics, the negative (violence) is subtracted, a positive is added, (see accompanying image). A debt is removed. The positive that is added is that great spaciousness of who we are, which is love: ever-reconciling, liberating, justice-harboring, shame-reducing, balance-bringing, life-affirming, love.

It is very hard, nonviolence, for us humans to allow you, our true nature, to be revealed, but we need to. We must. Nonviolence, we need you now! u

1. From the musical “South Pacific,” the anti-racist song: “We Have To Be Taught.”

2. Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist and zoologist whose research showed mutual support to be the strongest indicator in human survival.