In Honor of MLK, A Young Woman's Reflection on Nonviolence

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is upon us once again. In light of the Iraq war, the United States' continued presence in Afghanistan, the carnage in the Darfur region of Sudan and the long, seemingly permanent pall cast by 9/11, let us reconsider Dr. King's most important tool: nonviolence. Today, the very idea of employing nonviolence as a political end to resolve conflict has been delegitimized and defiled. Nonviolence is dismissed as antiquated and effete, its proponents naïve and anti-intellectual. However, nonviolence and its twin, nonparticipation, are still powerful.

In launching an ill-conceived war, President George W. Bush refused to allow diplomatic discourse to be diplomatic. Instead, the bluster and hubris that have hallmarked his administration browbeat the coalition of the so-called willing into joining the United States in a preemptive war. The drumbeat to war was amplified by vengeance paraded in jingoistic rhetoric. To meet out exceptional violence to our enemy was endorsed by our president and substantiated by our country's short, bloody history. War and the rumors of war were the only articulations allowed to emerge on the political and social landscapes. Fear of being labeled unpatriotic silenced politicians, clergy, media and individuals. In such an atmosphere, to espouse nonviolence would be to commit political, social and professional suicide.

Four and a half years into the Iraq debacle, the country is no longer divided, but solidly opposed to the war; and its critics have been unleashed. Now, as President Bush stumps among conservatives for support for his newly unveiled escalation plan, those in the public eye who support withdrawal from Iraq must be careful to introduce their ideas with the caveat that they have no wish "to cut and run." To lay down arms in the face of violence is decried as cowardly. The untenable situation in Iraq has the U.S. in what my Aunt Ruth would call a trick-bag: We have fallen easily into a simple contraption but cannot find our way out. The answer, according to our president, is to ratchet-up our military presence in order to combat increasing Iraqi violence. In short, violence begets violence.

How then is the bloody cycle to be broken? If we are to learn and somehow heal from our national experience in Iraq, there must be those of us who, in times of national crisis, do not fail to offer the legitimate nonviolent examples of the Gandhi-led British resistance movement in India, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and yes, the United States during the oppressive days of the civil rights movement. If we find it too burdensome to research history, we may look to the more recent demonstration of people power in the Orange Revolution that took the Ukraine by storm. We must reintroduce nonviolence as a legitimate, practical concept. We must divest our commercial and personal interests, thereby denying fodder to the war machine. Most important, we must love our neighbor regardless of any divisional constructs. There can be no violence in love.

--Suzette K. Shipp