a peace speech for september 11th

On September 11th, a Robert Jensen speech at Dissident Voice reminds me how far we have to go for social justice. It requires much more than a policy change or a choice between administrations:

* Drop the arrogance and face a painful truth: The troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are not fighting for our freedom or for justice. Whatever the individuals who serve in the military believe or do — and I realize that many believe they are defending us, and I know that many regularly act in compassionate and humane ways in the field — the U.S. military is not a defensive force or a humanitarian institution. It is an offensive force that destroys vulnerable people in other societies to entrench the power of a small U.S. elite and deliver the short-term material benefits that come to middle- and working-class people in the empire.

* Reject the ignorance and face a disturbing truth: The institutions that claim to help us understand the world (schools, universities, and the corporate commercial media) are key components of a propaganda system that encourages ignorance on these vital matters. Whatever the individuals in these institutions believe or do — and I realize that many believe they are part of a noble tradition, and I know many do challenge the conventional wisdom — these institutions are not fundamentally educational in nature. They are ideological factories that the elite use to undermine critical thinking about how power operates.

* Find the courage to resist and face some obvious truths: The crises we face in this country and the world — economic, political, cultural, ecological — will not be fixed by electing a new president, nor will the culture be turned around by traditional progressive political strategies. I will vote, and I will continue organizing. But I do not believe that the oppressive systems that structure our world can be dismantled through those methods. We need to think creatively, and we need to come to terms with the likelihood that until those in power believe that those of us who want to challenge power are willing to take serious risks, the machine will continue grinding. (Robert Jensen)

I like this analysis, and find some sense of the overwhelming feeling all those seeking social justice probably feel at one time or another. It’s not a few bad men, but the system.

I don’t think social justice or peace is something any guru and his/her movement can bring to our culture, because anyone with the power to influence followers is part of a system that breathes hierarchy, celebrity, and the means to create “insiders” and “outsiders”, thereby becoming part of the problem but under a different name. As Rene Girard and those who follow his anthropology of religion so clearly show, creating a morally-superior group — no matter what the issue — creates the conditions for escalating violence. The humble beginnings of doing the morally better thing are what lead, afterall, to things like murder and genocide, where “patriots” or “saints” sacrifice themselves to stop “enemies” and “evil” men in order to save the thing of value to the movement. Think of the insanity of pro-lifers who murdered doctors in the 1990’s.

Perfect justice will not come through groups but individuals, each person choosing the self-interest of peace over plenty. That can happen only as we evolve, because very few of us today would agree that peace is more valuable than, say, food and comfort and the security of having more in reserve.

I don’t think it’s merely a matter of culture that the Romans laughed at men torn apart by lions and that medieval French theater-goers delighted at cats that were burned alive. I think human nature has evolved (in a small way, at least) from what it was 2000 years ago. We’re more aware of our own responsibility in making victims and we’re more compassionate for those victims. Perhaps 2000 years from now, our descendants will see our phrase “collateral damage” as a barbaric euphemism and they will know, as we do not, that an enemy is defined not by some Other and what he does to us but by how we define ourselves.

And by “enemy,” I mean not just the Islamic Jihadists as seen by neocons, but also the neocons as seen by the peace movement. 

These problems we face are not the result of an idiosyncratic moment in history or of one particularly thuggish group of politicians in power at that moment. We are dealing with the predictable consequences of a world shaped by patriarchy, white supremacy, nationalism, and capitalism — systems of coercion and control that are at odds with goals of justice and sustainability. That’s not easy to face, but it can help us break out of the insular self-indulgence that is so tempting when one lives in the most affluent society in the history of the world. (Robert Jensen)