What to do? A rambling reflection inspired by Gandhi

 “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.

Today, we were going to work on the parish’s coffee land, harvesting the last of the coffee – an act of solidarity of the parishioners who work without recompense so that we can provide for some of the parish’s needs. But rain and strong winds moved the pastor to postpone the harvesting until Wednesday. I look forward to being at the side of others, harvesting coffee – that’s a start of the constructive program.

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The initial Gandhi quote can be found in Thomas Merton's Gandhi on Nonviolence.

The image of Gandhi, by Ben Shahn, comes from a War Resisters League poster.

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¿Independence? Day, Honduras, 2012

Today Honduras, with the other Central American republics, celebrates Independence. Fire crackers went off at 5:15 am here in Santa Rosa and parades marked the day in many cities throughout Central America.

I was supposed to participate in a call-in, social analysis program, Dando en el Clavo. on the diocesan Catholic Radio Station on Politics and Catholic Social Thought. But about an hour before the start I got a Facebook message from the radio staff member that he’d like to reschedule the event since he had a cold and could hardly talk. And so we’ll do the program next week.

So I have a day off.

I decided to go see the parade here.

Walking there I encountered a neighbor who teaches in a local high school. As we talked he said that Honduras is not really independent since it is religiously, politically, and economically dependent.  Religiously, he said it’s dependent on the Vatican – or, with the evangelicals, on their leaders. Politically it’s dependent on the United States. Economically it’s dependent on the great powers, especially the US and the European Economic Union. I proceeded to mention the power of the large multinational corporations who often have more economic power than countries like the US.

As I left him I recalled the short conversation I had with another neighbor, who is a candidate for congress in the November primary elections. Somehow he mentioned that he had a visa when the coup happened but hadn’t used it. But he didn’t call it a coup and referred to the events of June 2007. Interesting, but understandable. He belongs to the branch of the Liberal Party whose presidential candidate held a role in the coup government.

 

The parade was mostly local schools with their marching bands [often called bandas de guerra – war bands], kids dressed in traditional dresses or as indios [Indians], floats, and classes walking down the main street in town.

The band of Instituto Poligono

At one point on the parade route members of the Resistance were there with their signs – mostly notably one that said “No to Model Cities,” a proposal that would hand over large sections of Honduran territory for cities to be run by an administration independent of the Honduran government.

No to the Model Cities

Even here the divisions in the country can be seen.

I walked past them and ran into the group of more than 300 students from the Instituto Poligono, founded by a Belgian and retired bishop, Monseñor Luis Alfonse Santos, which provides education to young people from several poor communities. The young people listen to radio programs and study their books and then come to the Institute for a four hour session every weekend to review the material – and to take the necessary exams.

Monseñor Santos

Bishop Santos was there, helping some young women arrange their costumes.

Among the schools, Poligono is the only one that I know that makes a serious commitment to the poor. There is one public  high school, a private Catholic high school, one private Evangelical school, another private school, and two private bilingual schools.

As I stopped on the street to talk to a friend, I heard one of the Resistance members talking about the school that had stopped in front of their banner. He talked about the privatization of education and, even more pointedly, at the “mercantilización” – the  commercialization – of education. Though he may be overstating the situation, he does refer to the fact that good education is at a price here, and the poor usually do not profit from it.

And so the economic divisions in the society continue.

That is how Honduras faces “independence Day” this year – with inequality, violence, and repression.

But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cannot see this. She sent greetings to Honduras, “for the enormous progress” of its people “in the construction of a democratic future,” and assure the country that the United States is “on the side of Honduras while they work to attain a more prosperous and secure future for Honduras.”

Forgive my cynicism but I fear that US economic and political policies are not really helping Honduras, especially as it often turns its eyes away from the human rights violations and as it supports the militarization of security – including sending US Drug Enforcement  (DEA) agents, and insists on the economic policies of CAFTA.

In some ways, then, I have to agree with the high school teacher and the sign of the Resistance members, “What democracy?”

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ADDENDUM: More photos of the event can be found here in a Flickr set.