Hope from this Arab Spring – May 1 Service
“Hope from this Arab Spring”, given by Rev. Thea Nietfeld
May 1, 2011
Description: Hope lives when we act on our principles with friends and allies. Consciousness, empathy, and discipline enable us to link principles to nonviolent justice action. Using Gandhian principles, we will consider how the Arab Spring can inspire us to live our best, collaborate creatively, and resist tyranny.
Opening Words:
Cornell West, Princeton African American studies professor and author, in a March 28, 2011, interview with AlJazeera, English:
“Its great to see suffering people straighten their backs and topple a tyrant.
“Our country can learn from Cairo, and also from people who stood up in Madison, WI: organized people power needs to address organized greed on top.
“We are learning about courage, mobilizing, service and sacrifice from Arab activists.”
Reading:
Principles and Vows from Gandhi’s Life and Writings
Closing Words:
Robert Koehler, whose recent book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, is a collection of essays about the quest for inner and outer peace and the urgency of both…
“Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other…We are at a terrifying transition of consciousness, and this transition faces enormous resistance, primarily at the institutional level. If we believe in a society that is more humane, more empathy-driven, than the one we have now, we are on our own and easily marginalized by the powers that be. This is our challenge: to find one another and start building a humane, sustainable future.”
READING
Gandhi’s Principles as shown by his life:
For Gandhi, living a spiritually grounded life was his primary objective; his spiritual practice was public service through nonviolent activism.
Gandhi’s life experience led to nonviolence principles; and his spiritual reading and reflection led to personal vows that influenced his activism.
When he was kicked off the train in South Africa because he refused to move out of first class – which he had paid for – but which were restricted to whites, the unfairness of it caused him to stand up and speak out for himself and others whenever he knew of unfair treatment. A primary nonviolence principle is that individuals and groups should stand up against injustice.
– Throughout his life, Gandhi changed his diet, searching for what would give him the most energy and strength. While he had previously been socially conventional and believed in separating the “untouchable” caste from other Hindus, after he saw such separation by the British while he was in prison, he changed his mind: he promoted equality, beginning with welcoming “untouchables” into Hindu temples. Gandhi’s principle was that Truth is more important than consistency or appearances.
Truth – in thought, speech, and action – was the highest Good to Gandhi.
Gandhi violated many laws when he thought they were immoral; he spent a total of 6 years in jails and prisons in India and nearly a year in jails in South Africa. He expected to take the legal consequences of violating the law: Courage or fearlessness is an essential part of nonviolence. See and saying what is true can take courage.
Gandhi showed respect for British leaders and Britain itself, even volunteering for noncombatant duties in Britain’s wars. His goal for India’s relationship with Britain was “not isolated independence but voluntary interdependence”, which is how it went. He said the law of nature is creative interdependence. A goal of nonviolent engagement is for opponents to become friends; opponents should at least be respected and listened to: opponents always have some piece of the truth and we must have truth to know what to do.
When Gandhi negotiated with Britain over the 17 years of the movement toward Britain leaving India, he was satisfied with a relationship that moved slowly toward equality and had a process for ongoing conversation/change. He had patience and equanimity. He did not seek immediate concrete results. Universal ethical principles were the uncompromising basis of his actions: equality, truth-telling and transparency, treating all with respect and care… Gandhi’s nonviolence principle is that the means are more important than the ends.
Gandhi emphasized democracy and the peoples’ improvement in civic leadership. He thought bad Indian rulers would not be better than British rulers. The people needed to be able to select good leaders democratically/wisely. He said, “the morality of the ruler is more important than the nationality”.
(based on Fischer’s biography)
GANDHI’s PERSONAL VOWS: Gandhi was extremely self-disciplined and also expected his close followers to be disciplined. His primary vows for himself were:
Ahimsa/ Nonviolence: that is : I do not cause harm or disrupt relationships in any way. This stance is a weapon of matchless power; a living and lifegiving force. It is the way of the fearless, ready to face death.
Satya/ Truth: I think, speak, and act truthfully.
Self-Discipline and control of the palate: I control all of the senses all of the time. I am satisfied with foods that are necessary for physical health.
Non-possession and non-stealing: I do not hoard anything I don’t need today. The less I possess, the less I want, and the better I am available to enjoy giving service.
Labor: Everyone needs to do some useful labor in service of others.
Fearlessness: I am free of fear of death, injury, hunger, insults, public humiliation, ghosts and evil spirits, and of anyone’s anger. Fearlessness gives peace of mind.
Equality of Religions: religions compliment one another . Each religion is necessary to the people to whom it was revealed. Religions should be treated as equals.
Use locally made goods: We should serve our immediate neighbors before others; this helps us serve humanity to our best capacity. I must not serve my distant neighbor at the expense of the nearest. I refuse to buy from anyone anything that interferes with my growth or injures nature..
(edited, from Mani Bhavan Museum and research center in Mumbai)
SERMON:
I went to India in 2005 to learn about Gandhi and nonviolence by walking the same 230-mile march that started the final stage of the nonviolent break between India and its colonizer, Britain…usually called the Salt March. When I returned, I was desperate to learn more and took a training course with Pace e Bene nonviolence service to become a nonviolence trainer.
Early in the course, we were shown the seemingly simple “spectrum of violence ” exercise – in which we placed ourselves on the spectrum between “violent and nonviolent” poles when we were given an example:
“A person does nothing as a man on a nearby street repeatedly slaps the woman with him. Is the onlooker violent or nonviolent?
“A junior high teacher shows a tape of the beheading of a person in Iraq to his class” Is this violent or nonviolent?
After discussion, we learned a broad definition of violence – in effect, anything that causes harm or disrupts relationships…and we came to realize that our culture is so immersed in violence that violence is difficult to recognize. These two examples would be on the “violence” side of the spectrum - even though causing harm or disrupting relationships was probably not the conscious intent.
Having a broad definition of violence and starting to recognize it everywhere could lead to moral despair
… or recognizing violence in one’s self and throughout one’s culture could lead a broader consciousness, enhanced empathy, and lead to patient preparation for envisioning and turning the world toward nonviolence.
As we follow the amazing events of the Arab Spring – especially efforts toward change initiated by citizens since January – supporters of nonviolent change want to be clear what is violent and what is not. Disorder and confusion and even chaos in large crowds can be creative rather than violent. When there is violence, its important for us to know who is being violent and whether our government and therefore we are complicit in that violence.
Nonviolence advocates put energies on the side of life: At the end of the video “Bringing Down a Dictator” about the 2000 Yugoslavian resistance movement, the young Otpor organizer says “we succeeded because we love life more than they did.” The strategies and slogans that were used in that resistance movement were full of humor, told the truth, and were morally pure and clear. Even though their main symbol was a clenched fist and they crowded into the streets and were beaten, killed, and imprisoned…the movement was intentionally and solidly nonviolent.
I have learned to call people who want to change their societies nonviolently “resisters” because they are resisting the violence of rulers’ oppression.
Gandhi’s principles and vows, as in the reading, are a helpful tool in analyzing the violence and nonviolent strategies of what’s happening. I’m glad for your observation of links and insights – since this project is ongoing and so creative that our past understandings of how change happens is challenged. So I look forward to hearing your views…and perhaps updates of situations.
How did it begin?
In Tunisia, a street vender set himself on fire on December 17, 2010. Mohamed Bouazzi became a fruit vender when he was 10 years old and supported his mother and brothers and sisters by honest and generous hard work. He was bullied by the police every day, including a demand for a permit fee which would have cost 2 months’ wages.
On Dec. 17, Mohamed was beaten by police after refusing to give up his scales and his fruit was taken. He went to the municipal building to talk with an official but no one would talk with him and so he set himself on fire. The Bouazzi family said it was disrespect and humiliation that led to Mohamed’s despair. Other Tunisians empathized with Mohamed –
By Jan. 4 when he died of his burns, protests had spread across Tunisia. (from Al Jazeera).
Khaled Said, a small businessman in the historic Egyptian city of Alexandria, was dragged from an Internet café by police and beaten to death in the street last summer. Said wasn’t known as a political type. But according to human-rights groups, the attack was retaliation for the decision to post a video of cops divvying up drugs from a bust on his personal blog.
Shortly after the murder, a Facebook page appeared under the name “We Are All Khaled Said.” It started with posts about Said’s case. But the page quickly spiraled into an all-out campaign against police brutality and rights abuses in Egypt—becoming a clearinghouse for information, posting often-graphic photo and video, and publishing the names of allegedly abusive cops. Some say the page turned police brutality into a popular debate…which led hundreds of thousands of people to think about violence and whether it was right that it be so pervasive. (Daily Beast blog)
In Syria, teenagers who wrote anti-government grafitti on walls were dealt with too harshly for their offense; and the people of Deraa stood up in resistance to such violence. (Associated Press) The resistance has spread; now exiles are saying that soldiers who refuse to shoot resisters are tortured and killed. Resisters are clear they would like international support, but not weapons or military support.
These publicized deaths and harm to children became symbols of pervasive violence in their societies. The time had come for everyone to be treated humanely. The time had come to stand up against injustice.
Those who were willing to stand up and speak out needed to be ready for a violent response; they needed to be fearless in taking the consequences of their actions:
Wael Ghonim, the Google Marketing Executive who initiated the “We are All Khaled Said” Facebook page, disappeared on January 27; he was detained blindfolded and unable to hear for 12 days…until international pressure got him released. In an interview immediately after his release, he broke down crying when he heard how many people had died in the Tahrir Square protests while he was detained. He said that those who were in jail and who had been killed had done nothing wrong; they were following their consciences.(NY Times) By the time Mubarak’s administration had ended, 800 resisters had been killed.
Other young demonstrators identified with Wael because of his age and his emotional vulnerability.
Nonviolent resisters want leaders who have empathy, moral purpose…who have the courage of their convictions, and who love life.
Protests in Yemen began when Tawakkol Karman brought some friends together to celebrate the Tunisian Revolution. Karman didn’t know that the celebration would become mass demonstrations.
She was just trying to follow the moral leaders who inspire her and whose framed photos stand in a place of honor in her home: Gandhi, King, Mandela, and Hillary Clinton. (New Yorker)
Now, Karman is surprised and thrilled at the enthusiastic support of women for the opposition. As the protests grew, Yemen’s Islamic opposition party increasingly welcomed women as leaders and their families are accepting of this new role. (BBC, April 21) As resisters are opening to a new vision of government, they are also enlarging their vision or consciousness regarding the place of women in society.
One truth disclosed by the shifts in power in Yemen is the entanglement of US government and President Saleh’s government: Saleh had been promoting AlQueda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen in order to receive aid for weapons from the US – $150 million last year. There are known to be about 100 members of AlQueda in Yemen.
In exchange, when US drones destroyed the village of Al Majalah in 2009 – 14 fighters and 41 civilians, including 23 children killed – Pres. Saleh did not blame the United States. However, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, journalist Abdulelah Hider Shaea showed the US link with the killings; Recently, Shaea was sentenced to five years on trumped up charges ; Yemen had been asked by the Obama administration to keep the journalist in prison.
As U.S. citizens, we must not turn away when our government seeks to hide truth to protect itself. Our consciousness needs to be big enough to see truth even when we wish wasn’t so, and to find opportunities to hold our government accountable and turn all of us away from violence, including the violence of deception.
We can see another nonviolence principle at work in Yemen – violence causing loss of a ruler’s moral authority: On Feb. 13, 20 protestors were killed by the government; 13 of Saleh’s parliament members resigned . Tribal leaders who had been satisfied with being paid off started to rebel. On March 18, government snipers killed at least 50 protesters and this massacre was universally condemned.
A government can not maintain moral authority when it is killing its own citizens, so soon - There were military defectors; the internal opposition which had been trying to get something for itself joined the protestors; the army came to defend protestors… a recently, all tribal leaders withdrew support for the ruler.
(Letter from YEMEN Letter from, by New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins, published in April 11 New Yorker.)
Saudi Arabia, along with other Arab nations, brokered an arrangement for Pres. Saleh to leave Yemen in the coming month. (April 24)
When powerful countries near a smaller country negotiate a resolution to conflict, its important for allies of democracy to support real change, not merely change for short-term stability…As Gandhi pointed out, it is no help to exchange one tyrant for another. This is something to watch for in Yemen.
Another small country dominated by the U.S. , global energy corporations, and powerful neighbors is Bahrain:
Bahrain is home to the 5th US Navy fleet, oil and gas companies.
To show its alliance with the government, the Saudi Arabian Army crossed into Bahrain, and since March 15, there has been martial law there – no protests or dissent allowed. Security forces tore down the main plaza so people couldn’t gather there, as in Egypt. They shut down the one free newspaper.
There are police checkpoints on highways, tanks around shopping malls. ( At least 27 people had been killed as of early April.)
One effort to divide the people is that rulers in Bahrain and their allies are calling the protests sectarian violence: one religion or denomination against another ; but religious leaders are promoting nonviolence and protests generally have been nonviolent. By mid-April, women had organized themselves to remind each other that they had always gotten along across religious differences and that they still had love and family concerns in common and that they had a common desire for more freedom. (4/23) The truth of their commonalities and awareness of Gandhi’s principle that religions are equal is empowering.
One thing I noticed in the early days of the Arab Spring…the US government was concerned with what to say because of how it would look to the world.
An“appearance” rather than truthful relationship between the US and Libya, or especially with Libya’s Ghadafi administration, has a history:
Mahmoud Jibril is managing the Libyan Interim National Council and acting as foreign minister – he successfully promoted the rebels’ request for a no-fly zone. Jibril was educated in the U.S. : His 1985 doctoral dissertation, from the University of Pittsburgh, details the U.S. response to the revolution that initially empowered Col. Gadhafi’.
Jibril’s dissertation focused on how U.S. policy makers viewed and dealt with a new, unknown group of Libyan leaders with an uncertain agenda that threatened U.S. interests in the region.
The conclusion? U.S. views of Libya were overwhelmingly colored not so much by what the new Gadhafi regime actually did, but rather by how its rhetoric/ its public political assertions… fit with America’s shifting concerns, from Soviet expansion to the rise of international terrorism.
As long as Libya took a fiercely anti-Soviet line or as long as the public spokesperson said Libya opposed terrorism, it enjoyed US support…The Economist. (April 2, 2011) Appearance and public statements were more important than truth-telling.
The reason this kind of deception is violent is that deception destroys transparency, which is necessary in a democracy so citizens can make good decisions. Just as in Yemen, when rulers collude to deceive their citizens, the citizens in both countries become allies in resisting deception and promoting truth-telling. I’m grateful to the journalists who take the risks to uncover deception with hope that truthful action will result.
*
Libya is not a glowing example of nonviolent change: More preparation by Libyan change advocates would have led to awareness of differences from other countries making change: In Libya, revenues for rulers come from resources other than taxes so there is not a financial link between the people and the state…the government is not dependent on the people. Strategically, Libyan protestors should might use oil company strikes or some of the hundreds of other nonviolent strategies that have developed or even have not yet been imagined.. (Truthout)
What is hopeful in Libya is that young people who until recently found nothing worth doing as citizens, are now taking responsibility for their communities and their country – finding a rebirth of purpose.
Young people are organizing themselves and offering voluntary service for planning and implementing a new kind of government…a government without a strong president, with a Bill of Rights, and with Turkey’s model of blended secularism with Islamic influence. (National Public Radio, 4/23/11)
Gandhi taught that major power change takes time and patience. It takes a change of heart not only from those in power but also a disciplined empowerment of the people who have lived under oppression. When young people move into activist citizenship, willing to invest energy and passion in the common future, life is colored with hope:
In Egypt, beginning in 2005, internet and interactive nonviolence training, followed by practice in focused campaigns for change, prepared civil resisters so they could model nonviolence at crucial moments in the Tahrir Square:
Three Egyptian expatriates living in London were inspired by Otpor, the Serbian group that had brought down Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The expats established “The Academy of Change,” in Qatar.
After one of them came to Cairo to give a 3-day training to a civil change group, the spreading of nonviolence ideas began…
first the strategies were applied in a large textile factory… then, a set of activists established a Facebook group. There were additional campaigns and efforts that were ineffective or became violent from lack of preparation and discipline…activists learned from these.
When Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace prize winner, came back to Egypt in February, 2010, a Facebook page was established backing him as the country’s next president…
“The Academy of Change” helped groups in different parts of the country think through how to maximize power for a full-scale movement for change . They learned that as long as the nonviolent strategies remained disciplined, the regime’s power could be progressively weakened if it responded with violence. They expected the consequences of their nonviolent activism and were prepared to be fearless.
They learned to be creative: “Flash mobs” was a new nonviolent strategy in which people dressed in black arrived at specific locations to do something unusual in unison for a short time and then disperse. Everyone involved was trained in nonviolent techniques – both online and on the ground. Security forces did not know how to handle it.
Strategically increasing the movement’s visibility and participation, a mass action protest was planned to demand the dissolution of parliament and the disbanding of the state security agency…
Then, when Tunisia’s uprising happened… the purpose of the demonstration was changed to “the fall of the regime”.
By now, many people understood at least a few of the tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience and these showed the way. Trained activists and youth from the Muslim brotherhood – who were accustomed to working within disciplined ranks – formed security teams to keep violence out of Tahrir square. Resisters intentionally worked to win over those in uniform – by conversation and food – as they had prepared to do. The life-affirming nature of nonviolent activism became evident as people came out when they felt safe.
The most visible violent response from the Mubarak regime was the “Battle of the Camel”- on Feb 2 , when men on camels beat and whipped protesters; there was some stone-throwing in response, but discipline soon returned. As you may have heard on news reports, those who were trained shouted “peaceful, peaceful” to restrain some of their colleagues… The preparation and discipline brought about the resignation of Mubarak in a couple of weeks. (Reuters, from www.daily star.com. 4/14/2011; by Marwa Awad, Hugo Dixon)
A current choice facing Egyptian resisters involves what to do with Mubarak, especially related to the 800 resisters killed during the changes. Gandhi’s principles regarding respecting the opponent and the means being more important than the ends…suggest being merciful to Mubarak. Distinguishing between vengeance and justice is an important issue for clarity on the violence and nonviolence spectrum.
*
When we see these resistance movements through nonviolence frames, we see :
People with a vision of a better world; the internet has given access to alternatives.
We see fearless people; young people who have never stood up or spoken out before leading their elders;
all of them defying oppressive rules, gathering despite threats…fearless of violent responses…
we see military and security people disobeying authorities and rules, in order to support or at least not harm fellow citizens.
Women are involved and are being respected by their families and their religion for their involvement.
In view of his principles and vows, Gandhi might offer some critiques:
-using force of any kind, including seeking weapon support from other countries. He would say that resisters lose moral power when they become violent
-failure to negotiate at all stages. Respecting the opponent requires ongoing perservering effort to negotiate, but without giving in on principles
-Gandhi would counsel patience; Many previous civil movements have taken decades for full change to happen…
-Gandhi would be concerned with giving too much attention to punishing former rulers – Truth needs to be told and then energy ought to be directed away from blame and vengeance and toward creative collaboration for new civil societies.
Conclusions: What is Hopeful for us here?
Those of us in Kansas can be inspired by the vision, fearlessness, moral choices and expanding equality of the empowered people who are promoting life in this Arab spring .
When power relations are changed, more truth is revealed: we need truths about our government’s and thereby our own complicity with greed and tyranny.
We need the big picture/broad consciousness, and also personal empathy with the commitment to freedom and the courage of civil resisters.
Finally, we can have hope when we encourage each other to face reality, recognize and name violence wherever it is, and to be inspired to do our own parts in a disciplined way to turn our lives and our world toward nonviolent life.
Stay Updated With Us