And now I hear that someone started a fire in the Islamic Center mosque in our peaceful little hamlet of Bloomington. It was at night, so no one was hurt, thankfully. The leader of the mosque has gone out of his way to say that he condemns both this firebombing and the recent bombings in London, and that the Islamic community and the Bloomington community at large get along well. I agree with every word. But some fools had to do this anyway, though Bloomington Muslims had about as much to do with London or 9/11 as local Christians had to do with the Crusades or the Inquisition.
Let me reiterate the quote from Asimov: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." You local boys (girls??), you firebombers -- do you know who blew themselves up in London? Ignorant kids just like yourselves, although probably guided by a few more experienced -- yet still ignorant -- folks with more connections to create more impressive devices and orchestrate a media event. They gave you an excuse for more of the same, so now perhaps you've given them an excuse for still more of the same. It was apparent to me as a nine year old, reading a book about ancient Scottish klan wars (no offense to today's Scots!), that this type of eye for an eye behavior was both a continuing horror and an exercise in futility. Then, a couple of decades back, I begin to perceive that the same thing was happening in Israel/Palestine and in Northern Ireland. Then 9/11, followed by Bush's forays into Afghanistan and Iraq. Who do terrorists -- whether "Islamic radicals" or "radical right-wing Republicans" or whoever -- think they're benefitting? They're just digging a deeper hole for everyone, including those they claim to be representing. There are always legitimate issues to be discussed, sometimes very serious ones pertaining to grave injustices, but violence helps no one.
So who are the competent, who do not need to resort to violence? Well, I'm not sure that the fellow in Asimov's Foundation novels who uttered that line is the best role model -- there was a sort of a neo-Machiavellian storyline, as I recall. But the people who do strike me as the epitome of highly competent non-violent activists are Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. Gandhi was instrumental in freeing India from the British raj by harnessing the power of love -- as he himself would have understood his actions. He refused, condemned and sometimes fasted against violence in any form, but took direct and dramatic action to illustrate the will and resolve, as well as the plight, of his people. One can easily get a taste of an understanding of Gandhi through the 1982 movie bearing his name, although more study would be helpful for any serious activists. King was an admirer of Gandhi's methods, and his marches and sit-ins paved the way for anti-discriminatory legislation, while his speeches continue to echo in our hearts to this day.
I personally don't have as solid reference points in the Islamic traditions, but a search on Google for islam and non-violence quickly turned up this excellent article, reminiscent of Gandhi's point of view, near the top of 150,000 hits:
Non-Violence and Islam by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Coincidentally, the website is associated with another "Islamic Centre", located in India.
If one cares about God and Love, as Gandhi and King did, and author Khan does, it is assuredly better to rely on non-violence than violence. We tend to justify violence by saying that there is no other way, that we are dealing with hopelessly bad people (who after being knocked about a bit will, along with their friends, consider us hopelessly bad people). But if we have any kind of faith -- mine is a bit abstract, so I think even more so if you are truly religious in a spiritually connected way -- then it must be true that there is a better way, and that it can and will win. And for those who have no faith left at all, who have turned cynical, a bit Machiavellian perhaps, nevertheless I say that violence is but a blunt club and you are only smashing things when you resort to it. A violent solution to any problem will only disillusion you once again, as it did in Vietnam, as it is doing in Iraq, in Israel, and now across the world, as the world keeps going a little blinder. But there is hope here, as more people grow disillusioned and frustrated with leaders from Osama bin Laden to George W. Bush, as more people stand up for justice (millions of people physically attended Live8, to say nothing of watching in on TV -- we can only hope that there consciousness was raised a little! Mine was!), as more people disown violence on every side and realize that the greater community (on every side) wishes to live in peace with justice, although we must work our way out of a system that is rife with violence and injustice, some intentional and some systemic.
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