There is a scene in my all-time favourite action movie,
"Gandhi", showing a scene from Gandhi's early activism, in South Africa. The British have passed a law allowing the sanctity of Indian homes - and people - to be violated, and Gandhi is advocating strong action when, as one of a sequence of strong statements, one of the predominantly Indian audience says he would rather kill than allow his home or wife to be treated with indignity. Gandhi's response, after noting that he admires the fierce courage shown in many of the statements, and that he, too, needs such courage, is to say there is
NO cause for which he is prepared to kill.
It is an important introduction to the concept of
Ahimsa which Gandhi - and others - followed, but the epic story telling of that film does not permit a discussion of the why's and wherefore's of the concept: I'll make a brief comment about that shortly, but let me now move to the main reason I am writing this article: the
violence shown by some anti-discrimination
("anti-Fascist") protestors a few days ago.
That violence was wrong, and unhelpful, but I haven't come across anyone discussing the reasons it was wrong, so I'll have a go - briefly:
- firstly, on a mundane level, it took away from the message that there is possibly a larger number of people in Australia who are welcoming of Muslims than those who are not. There were, according to the article, hundreds more on the welcoming side than those protesting against Islam and Muslims, but what does the headline luridly scream? That the side supposedly "welcoming" and supporting Muslims resorted to violence ...
Those who indulged in the violence were probably thinking along the lines that they were being more forceful, and were therefore "more right" or "better" in some way, but that sort of behaviour is, broadly, the sort of thing controversial US General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan was thinking of when he wrote, in his orders, “We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories – but suffering
strategic defeats – by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus
alienating the people” - which the sort of understanding that, with its continuation by equally controversial US general David Petraeus, has changed the behaviour of US troops recently to the extent that some people have commented on the fact that the US troops were not responding with force even when they were fired on by members of a crowd.
That example, and the problem of escalation of violence (e.g., in Northern Ireland after "Bloody Sunday") is the sort of example that MIGHT get through to these people, but there is a risk that they are so besotted by physical contests of strength that further description is necessary. I have known people who believed in the equivalent of the mediaeval concept of trial by combat: if they had a physical fight with someone and won, they would accept that result - and those people were somewhat stunned when I pointed out that such contests determined only issues of physical strength and fighting skills, and NOT the truth or otherwise of the issue concerned: the problem was, no-one had thought to say the obvious! Perhaps people who could have said this were so bemused or stunned that
perhaps they thought the people concerned weren't serious - which is a
fatal flaw on their part, so the point is: if someone is missing an
obvious point, say so - calmly, non-judgementally (as the AUDIENCE
considers to be non-judgemental, NOT the speaker). Otherwise, you are equally as stupid as the people you are judging ... ;
- the next issue is exactly as mentioned in the previous one: violence prevents consideration of the issues involved. Violence - not just physical violence, but also verbal violence (i.e., shouting people down, interrupting), intellectual violence (e.g., propaganda, group think and social engineering of the neochristians and others, the rules of formal debates, refusing to listen), emotional violence (ridiculing others - which is why a few of my former female friends from a couple of decades ago are former) and so on, are forms of control - the violent one is attempting to force compliance upon someone else.
In the context of the current debate, I happen to also consider that the anti-Islamic side is attempting to force Muslim people to comply with non-Muslim views - and it may be that those on the anti-Islamic side do not realise just how neochristian their stances are, but it is there: I see this behaviour as an example of forced conversions - and an issue that is totally SEPARATE to that of the actual / perceived flaws in any religion (and all religions have flaws).
This issue is, for me personally, the greatest problem of violence: that it is, in effect, slowing or even stopping growth.
- I would like to elaborate on that last point. I know that some people have, in effect, chosen - over many lifetimes - to learn "the hard way", and thus must experience the harm they are causing others until they comprehend that THEY are DIRECTLY responsible for that suffering, but that is far rarer than people think. In any case, if the world was a nicer place, some form of relative suffering could still be used by the Universe to get a lesson across.
What I am saying here is that, just as a school functions best when it is peaceful and well-resourced and has insightful, perceptive and capable teachers and a mature (not necessarily politically correct ... ) culture and systems, so to is this world a better place for everyone to grow to their full potential - personally, spiritually, and in every other way ... and I see problems such as world poverty, hunger and thirst as forms of violence.
On the other hand, social violence can be a prelude to the imposition of things exactly like that which the violent people I am talking about claim to be objecting to: fascism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Have a peruse of history, particularly Europe in the late 1700s, early 1900s, and the 1920s and 1930s, the more recent information about the CONTAGIOUSNESS of violence (if you do not know anyone who gets angry when they see such scenes, I'll hazard a guess that you may not know many people ...), and then consider what could happen when the audience these protestors SHOULD be targetting - i.e., the people NOT present - get scared at what they perceive as violence and chaos - not passion (I can relate to this because of the fear I felt, as a pre-school child, when an anti-Vietnam war protest passed us in the 60s) - and then develop a strong desire for someone to sort out the "problem" that they perceive as being necessary to address, and then have a think ... ;
- I'd like to go back to the issue of a spiritual perspective.
I'm not going to discuss karma here, as karma is (a) personal, (b) would not be a discouragement if people are firmly committed to what they consider to be their principles, and (c) irrelevant to the line of argument I am using. (There is also the point that karma applies to good things as well, which is usually ignored in such discussions.)
This where the example I started this post with applies: the concept of Ahimsa. In that concept, because of the ultimate interconnection of life, doing violence to another is, in effect, doing violence to oneself. It is an appealing concept, and one that enables many people to hold strongly to non-violent principles, but I consider it to be a little simplistic, as it (1) fails to look at the reasons the physical exists, (2) isn't always implemented with a proper awareness of the issue of us teaching people how to teach us (i.e., the importance of being assertive, rather than aggressive), and (3) doesn't consider the issue of short term vs. long term gain - e.g., that it may be, overall, best for a police officer to kill someone who is committing violence than for that police officer to be non-violent.
For me, the problem of violence is that it does not ever SOLVE anything - in the case of the police officer justifiably shooting someone who is, or is trying, to commit a mass murder, because of the continuous existence of the soul, I know that the flaws and mistaken thinking of the person who committed MUST, at some stage, be addressed - in a way that THAT PERSON can comprehend - but, if the attempted mass murder had been allowed to proceed, then MANY people who have been in need of help on many issues, including the fundamental sense of helplessness that is behind both sides of the current protests.
For me, my pragmatist view, based in part on my recall of many lives, in part on the insight I gained by being a rescue medium for hundreds of people (and thus granted the gift of insight into those people's lives), and my life (including the thinking I've done - and the BPM * Guidance I've received), is that violence is wrong because it is generally far more harmful than helpful, although there are circumstances (such as the police officer stopping a mass murder) where it is justifiable, but will leave consequences that need to be addressed.
As a final point, in terms of the current protests, how much more effective would it be if those who are in favour of a mature, inclusive society were peacefully singing and chanting about love and inclusivity, behaving civilly towards police, and calmly debating their reasons? There is much people here have to learn from some of the responses to
Ferguson - situations where black people were making heart shapes with their hands as they separated their hot heads from police.
May such maturity come to be seen here.
* I've realised that what sums up my philosophy is "Balanced Positivity - Spiritual Maturity": I'll avoid the obvious acronym for that as it (i) is too similar to another acronym :) , and (ii) three letter acronyms roll off the tongue easier. Thus, I will start transitioning from the BPLF acronym towards BPM.
[1] BPLF =
Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.
[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is
no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted
changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately
after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this
site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue
(see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me
for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are,
to meditate-clear for peace), and here
for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend
learning how to flame, ground
and shield, do alternate
nostril breathing, work
with colour, and see also here and be
flexible.
The real dividing line is not between
Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who
believe in coexistence, and those who don’t.
- If your “gut” (your
instinct/intuition) is telling you something is wrong, but logic and the
available evidence is saying otherwise, the proper conclusion to draw
is that you need better, more personally credible evidence. Your “gut”
could be wrong, right, or missing the nuances / “shades of grey” . So
could the available evidence.
- All
of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context,
perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Tags: Ahimsa, anger, Balanced Positivity, communication, discrimination, disempowerment, frustration, growth, guidance, helplessness, nonviolence, perspective, power, society, Spiritual Maturity, spirituality, violence,
First published: Manadagr, 14th December, 2015
Last edited
(excluding fixing typo's
and other minor matters): Monday, 14
th December, 2015
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