“The best preparation for and even the expression of nonviolence," wrote Gandhi, "lies in the determined pursuit of the constructive program. …He who has no belief in the constructive program has, in my opinion, no concrete feeling for the starved millions. He who is devoid of that feeling cannot fight non-violently. In actual practice the expansion of my non-violence has kept exact pace with that of my identification with starved humanity.”
Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Gandhi in
1948 by a Hindu fanatic. It seems a good day to pass on some random thoughts in
the face of what is going on in the world, especially in the United States.
There have been a series of large, often decentralized,
protests in the US. I find myself agreeing – in part – with each of them: the
Women’s March, the March for Life, and the spontaneous demonstrations at
airports and other places against a restrictive immigration policy. I also find
myself on the outskirts of each of them – not only because I don’t live in the US,
but mostly because I see them as incomplete, not just in their goals, but also
in their vision of resistance.
In the face of a president who claims to be pro-life but who
is in favor of torture, who wants to find security in a wall and seems willing
to ostracize members of a religion, who wants to increase the size of the US
military, whose policies have kept real refugees and people with visas from
entering the US, and more – what does one do?
Get together and care for the little ones!
Yes, I am amazed at the demonstrations at the airports and
the efforts of lawyers and others to reverse what I see as a poorly
thought-through executive order. I sort of miss not being there to participate.
I was involved in protests against the Viet Nam war in
college and after. I’ve demonstrated against nuclear weapons and against the
imprisonment of dissidents in the Soviet Union. I’ve spoken and written for the
rights of refugees from Central America and against US military policies in
favor of oppressive regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala – and other countries.
I’ve demonstrated against the war against Iraq. I’ve attended pro-life
demonstrations and organized a series of vigils after the killing of the
Jesuits and two women in El Salvador.
I’ve accompanied a parish in San Salvador for two months in
1987 during the war. I worked for several months after the cease fire in El
Salvador in the parish of Suchitoto, a region devastated by the war. I live and
work in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Many years ago, reflecting on my anti-Vietnam war work with
a friend, I said that I thought we failed because we did not follow Gandhi’s
advice. We had no constructive program.
The genius of Gandhi was not just his bringing people
together in nonviolent civil disobedience in South Africa and India. His genius
was recognizing that nonviolence is not a tactic, nor is it just a personal
life-style. His genius, for me, is recognizing that the constructive program is
central.
As Norman Finkelstein explains in What Gandhi Says:
In any exposition of satyagraha, it must also be remembered that Gandhi did not conceive nonviolent resistance as the heart of his doctrine. He situated satyagraha in a matrix of daily activities, what he called the “constructive program,” that formed the “foundation for civil disobedience.” Its planks included expunging from Hinduism the “blot” of untouchability, fostering Hindu-Muslim unity, and promoting use on a mass scale of the spinning wheel (tcharka) and handspun cloth (khadi).
Satyagraha, a term that Gandhi often used in place of
nonviolence, means “holding on to truth,” or “the power of truth.” It think it
is related to what Peter Maruin, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker once
proposed: “Building a new society in the shell of the old.”
This means going beyond political parties – most of which
collaborate with evil to one degree or another. I am not against politics and
political campaigns and I applaud people of integrity in politics, but all too
often people look on politics as salvific. It isn’t and it can’t be – partly
because it’s often based on power and domination and partly because it’s often
given to unholy compromises. Compromise is good – but there are compromises in
which one risks one’s soul, Recall the example of Saint Thomas More - politician who was willing to compromise – up
to a point.
What the constructive program means in the US I don’t know –
but it has to start with being with the poor and the marginalized, sharing
their lives. It’s what Pope Francis calls the culture of encounter.
For me, the constructive program means continuing to live
here in Honduras, to work with catechists and young people, to encourage an association
of small coffee farmers, to promote a culture of solidarity, and more. It means
learning to love and share with others.
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