the disconnect

Aurora, Irag, Anywhere

Originally posted on the Pax Christi USA Bread for the Journey blog on July 28, 2012, here.

In the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado, mass murder, gun control has become a hot topic once more. Few, if any, comments point out that the violence in Aurora is related to the violence we inflict on people in other countries overseas and on our poorest and most oppressed citizens.

This is not simply a figure of speech or literary device: The suspected killer in the Aurora shootings used, among other weapons, an AR-15, which was developed for the U.S. military and a version of which became the M-16 rifle. The Glock handgun he also used was initially developed for the Austrian military and has become a standard sidearm for NATO; it has also become a popular firearm used by, among others, the FBI, the New York City Police and the Baltimore Police.

Add the explosive booby traps the suspected killer installed in his apartment; at least one explosive ordinance expert observed that the complexity and sophistication of the devices was comparable to what U.S. and NATO forces encounter in Iraq and Afghanistan. So here we have, at a superhero action movie screening, the melding of our idolization of violence in all its forms and our contemporary preference for military solutions to any difficulties we encounter.

The political tug of war over the Pentagon budget comes into play here as well, of course, and that has been reported and commented on in the mainstream media as a competition between national security and domestic needs, but has any pundit anywhere discussed the militarization of domestic police forces thanks to grants from the Department of Homeland Security? Or its root in the fear which drives so many Americans to purchase and carry firearms?

That sense of insecurity and fear could be the loose end from which to unravel our Gordian knot of militarism. We who espouse nonviolence and justice must actively teach nonviolence and live as nonviolently and fearlessly as we can. It is not easy to live nonviolently in America today but it can be done, witness Catholic Worker communities across the nation. If we truly begin to live nonviolently, we will begin to form communities of peace, not only with friends who share our commitment to peace and justice, but with people who are different from our friends and us. We can reach out even to the people we feel most threatened by, although that would not be the first but the final steps in living out and teaching nonviolence.

Pax Christi USA and JustFaith Ministries have recently published a 12 week module on Just Peacemaking, a good place to begin but only one of many. Let's vow not only to live nonviolently but to teach others how to live nonviolently, or at least to invite them to join us to learn how to live out our faith.

 

War and Forgiveness

Note: Last week, I participated in the 3rd Asia Inter-Religious Conference on Article 9 of the Japanese Peace Constitution. For two days before the conference, most of the 220 participants also experienced an exposure tour highlighting Okinawa's past, present and future. This is the second of three posts.

In the U.S., we learn that Okinawa was where the Japanese military fought long and hard, contesting every inch of ground. We know it was a bloody battle that lasted months and one in which both sides suffered tremendous casualties. What I just learned during my visit to Okinawa was the toll in Okinawan civilian lives, which was greater than the losses of the Japanese military force. The civilians who died included infants, small children, older children, adults in the prime of life, and the aged.

There is, for example, a museum and memorial to female high school students pressed into service as a nursing corps for the Japanese military. The girls worked in kerosene-lit caves that were used as field hospitals during the prolonged fighting. They sometimes had to physically restrain wounded soldiers because there were not enough anesthesia medications for all the wounded who needed surgery. In the end, almost all of these young women died, many of them choosing suicide because they were sure the invading Americans would rape and torture them.

 Many civilians were killed by “forced mass suicides” ordered by Japanese military officers. In the case of ethnic minorities, thousands were executed because the Japanese military feared they would become informers and spies for the American forces. The island is dotted with memorial stones to the over 100,000 civilians who died there in 1945. In museums, memorials and firsthand testimony by survivors of the battle of Okinawa, I learned over and over of atrocities, cruelty, and extreme suffering. Photos, grave sites, memorials, relics of the fighting, even areas where unexploded shells are still lodged and bullet-pocked walls preserved to show the ferocity of the fighting, are everywhere.

 Most astoundingly, even the survivors I encountered showed only compassion and forgiveness toward the combatants on both sides. One elderly gentleman told how, as a 14 year old boy, he was given two grenades, one to kill U.S. soldiers and one for himself. Both were duds. Not knowing what to do, he and his older brother watched a neighbor kill his family with a rock. The two boys returned to their family and did the same, then walked toward the battle to die themselves. On the way, they encountered a Japanese soldier who told them to flee and save themselves. At that moment, said the Okinawan, he realized what he had done and how he had been duped into committing murder. As he matured, he came to understand that God forgave him. He feels that he has survived to teach forgiveness by telling his story.