The possible “success” of the war in Iraq: an indictment of peace activism and the need for a deeper peace activism?

 

Some general points:

 

It has to be broached intelligently and freely. If antiwar activism does nothing but cries “bring them home” and “it is nothing but secretly selfish motives” and the installed government constitutes a real accomplishment, we have some basic possibilities. One is that the model of two wings succeeds, such that the antiwar left simply will have “done its bit” to help to foster the “other side of the argument”, being in place to go further in its protest should things reach a pitch requiring that, but since no nukes were dropped, the left simply fulfills its mission by positing an “evil” of the “other side” and flaps that to exhaustion. For example, as concerns the major thrust of the war, the movement has had no real effect, but has been there to protest Abu Ghraib, excesses in the Patriot act, oil interests and corruption (with what success on that I’m not sure), etc.

 

Or there may be some real “success”, with emphasis on the scarequotes: the “success” (actual installation of a reasonably independent democracy in Iraq, a wedge driven in the monarchical orientation of the Middle East, an effect on terrorism due to this, etc.)  may bear within itself the seeds of violence in various ways; installing “American justice” in the legal system in Iraq, which means a very violent program of extensive, institutional torture, the least of which is the case of obvious abuse. Indeed, the outrage over Abu Ghraib may be a strong indicator of a tolerance for “other” violence’s that are not as dramatic, just as the antiwar outrage may be something of an “indicator” of the degree to which the “other violence’s” of the sanctions went largely unnoticed or were disproproportionately unprotected. The protesters who protest Abu Ghraib may be too willing to tolerate “stiff sentences”, “three strikes” laws (these are not, of course, generally liked by progressive activists, but on the other hand, they are not very actively protested, either), and, much more importantly, may remain blandly tolerant of the very concept of imprisonment and fail to recognize its nature as temporal dismemberment, systematic torture and deprivation, etc. And far beyond such recognition, the “success” may remain utterly blind to the true front running alternatives to imprisonment and retribution: restorative justice and victim offender mediation. But these, in turn, fail to really take hold unless founded properly on a deep ground of philosophically opened nonviolence. Such a philosophical opening is not only wanting, it appears to be pretty strongly foreclosed, by a certain rather deafening lack of interest.

 

A deeper peace action appears to be closed over. It seems to obtain in things like the Nonviolent Peaceforce, but at the same time, we have to stay a bit skeptical about such efforts in part because of their rarity and in part because often as not such efforts can bear within themselves considerable complicity with the dominant principles of violence and retribution. This “deeper peace action” finds some articulation, aside from Gandhi, of course, in comments from someone like Gene Sharp, who has viewed most “antiwar activism” as being a bit selfish in that it tends to want to “express”, not necessarily undertake viable, strategic and genuinely nonviolence-based action of actual liberation and unseating of tyrants, monarchies, and in a general cause of a deep nonviolence.

 

This general cause of a deep nonviolence languishes, in my view, today, and often it does so in the hands precisely of so many peace activists. If one really cares about such things, I believe it is necessary to find appropriate ways to identify a number of basic situations in which, while appearing peaceful, “peace” activism may fail to really open up nonviolence. In this situation, nonviolence remains a largely tactical affair. Some characteristics:

 

·        There is little actual opening of the topic, there are few questions, there are few efforts to explore and understand what nonviolence could be or mean

·        There is little exploration of examples and various hypotheses concerning basic possibilities (what if one hits, what if one doesn’t hit, what if an attacker is coming after you or your mother, etc.), all of which really arise somewhat naturally in the opening of nonviolence

·        There is not adequate question as to the essential nature and character of nonviolence

·        There is a background philosophy and ethic, a number of trends and tendencies, horizons of possible actions, etc., that is simply more crudely suspended; this generally involves the vilification of the other or opponent, the actional correlate of which usually entails a violence possibility that is then simply shut down, while emotion is variously sublimated

·        The general mentality of vilification, positing of evil, caricature, etc., goes unquestioned

·        The act of questioning such vilification may be socially frowned upon, even with some considerable group pressure, threat of shunning, etc.

·        The general modes of conscience of social groups in “peace” activism will remain largely nonviolent given a crude criterion of physical attack, but may tolerate various modes of group coercion, shunning, etc. This tolerance may, in turn, bear a complicity with larger violence’s,.

·        There is little action where there should be action: such as, in the US, on the prisons. The tolerance for prisons appears to issue, at least in part, from an “anger” mentality that, if thought with some honest would appear to indicate pretty severe retribution for wrongdoers. This is, in turn, clipped from admission, but simply clipping such a possibility from admission does not constitute a fundamental change. The discourse and activism tends to have a bit of dishonesty in this regard, and this also seems to lead to an alienation of all personality types that are not suited to this form of psychological orientation: others, who may be a bit more honest, or whose psychology is not able to accomplish the kind of orientation that leads to the proper “party line”, or falling into the genre or texture of concerns, the constellation of “goods and bads”, good guys and bad guys, etc., may be repelled, which shrinks the movement, in any case.

 

Etc.

 

These issues need to be developed further.