We often make terrible mistakes by copying bad examples.

"We often make terrible mistakes by copying bad examples.”
–Gandhi (Young India, February 16, 1921)
 
There, he said it and I’m glad.

People, especially if they’re new to activism, have a tendency to copy tactics that they see others have used, but it’s harder to look beneath those tactics to the strategy they are enacting. Why is that? Unfortunately, this inability to understand strategy, is due, quite often, to a lack of one. In place of clear long-term, nonviolent strategies, people in a rush to stop the latest atrocity find themselves just imitating tactics. Whenever we act without a strategy, we might be doing a disservice to our goals and weakening other movements who would try to copy our actions in turn. ‘See a problem? Protest!’ Is that what the situation calls for? How do you know?

The Occupy Movement did not have an overarching strategy. Occupying public spaces is a tactic. Even general assemblies (GAs), even People’s Mics — these were not strategies, but tools. That didn’t last. I’m not saying that Occupy didn’t accomplish anything; not at all. But imitation can’t keep a movement going for long, as we saw. Only a strategy can do that, and might I add, a strategy that is based in principled action where one never sacrifices one’s values or the well-being of others to secure one’s own. That formula pulls at the heartstrings, in a good way.

Let’s look at an extreme, but unfortunately very real example: self-immolation. I mean, not in Gandhi’s sense of immolating one’s self-will, but the death of the body. Unfortunately, it can often be a tactic to draw extreme attention to a specific cause. Without context and strategy, the brave person who sacrifices him or herself in this way sometimes merely commits public suicide. It might draw attention to a cause, or the frustration one feels in a seemingly hopeless situation, but it often draws attention to the spectacular tactic itself and not the issue.

Same goes with public fasting.

Instead of copying tactics, we can take the time to learn, really learn from other movements, whether successful or not. We can ask ourselves: What could they have done with a clearly articulated strategy? If they did have a strategy in place, when did they escalate? What was the signal to change tactics? Armed with a strategy, educate your coworkers about it: This is what we are doing, and this is how we are doing it. These are our principles. This is our Plan B. And Plan C. Even Plan D. Spell it out. Don’t be shy. Invite them to join you, and make that part of your strategy, too: give people a way to opt-in and maintain nonviolent discipline when they do.

It’s time for more good strategies in for nonviolence, is it not?

Experiment in Nonviolence:
Articulate the difference between a strategy and a tactic.

Courtesy: www.mettacenter.org

Thought For The Day ( PRAYER )

A question of life and death

“I know that death is inevitable, no matter what precautions man deludes himself with.”

–Gandhi (Young India, July 2, 1931)

There is a story from the Middle East about a man who runs right into Death in the marketplace, and Death backs away from him, clearly startled. The man doesn’t take the time to say ‘excuse me’, instead, takes off running, and decides to move away to another village, miles and miles away. Death is there waiting for him. I thought I left you in the other town! he cries out, and Death replies, Oh yes. I was quite startled to see you there because I had an appointment with you here! A short parable to highlight that we cannot hide or run away from death.

Nonviolence is a scary idea to the so-called powerful, and they sometimes will not stop short of murder to stop it. When Gandhi began talking about nonviolence, people tried to scare him with the threat of death at every turn. Life was not so precious that it meant sacrificing his ideals to survive. The purpose of life, for him, was to perfect those ideals. If Death came for him, he would not hide, but greet it with reverence, courage and even grace. He proved this on many occasions.

That said, he did not invite death without extreme discrimination. We have to remember the tools of nonviolent conflict intervention: precisely because our lives are a trust, we do not offer them lightly, e.g. at too early a stage in a conflict, nor would we offer our lives because we hate life, or we hate people, or certainly not because we feel that our lives — or those of anyone — don’t matter. That has nothing to do with nonviolence. Anything done for nonviolence is done out of a deep and great love — this endures. You’ve probably seen the cartoon in which Gandhi and King are talking and one says to the other, “the funny thing is, they think they’ve killed you.”

This is the power of self-sacrifice carried to the extreme: renouncing that which you hold most dear, including life itself.

Experiment in Nonviolence:
Can you see in your own experience a proportion between your ability to sacrifice something and the power you gain by doing so?

Thought For The Day ( PERFECTION )

Gandhi’s ideal political system?

“If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary.”

–Gandhi (Young India, July 2, 1931)

Gandhi’s ideal political system? Two words: Enlightened anarchy. (If you are like me, you will need a minute to take that in. But hold on to your seat, because it gets better…) It really shouldn’t be too big of a surprise to us, though, if you think about his insistence upon swaraj, or freedom. When he talked about it, he was talking about more than just freedom from the British Raj through self-sufficiency and economic independence; he was talking about a society where each person had enough discrimination, nonviolent discipline and self-restraint to be able to look as deeply inward at themselves as they look out to the world in which they wish to live. He puts it this way: “In such a state, every one is his or her own ruler,” and then he goes on to say, “In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there is no State.” This is getting good. And then he adds, just to whet our appetites even more, that in such a state where “the power is generated from within” there wouldn’t be any need for police and military. I’m in. But then he comes back to Earth a bit and reminds us that this kind of a state is an ideal, like perfect ahimsa. As with ideals, all we can do is strive toward them and that struggle is worth every ounce of energy we give it. The way forward then? Develop the mindset of personal swaraj; in other words, develop these qualities within ourselves. As we often say around the Metta Center, nonviolence or “the revolution” is not about putting the right kind of person in power, it’s about awakening the right kind of power in people. Like you and me.

Experiment in Nonviolence:
What is your most ideal vision of the State? How does it overlap with Gandhi’s vision?

Courtesy: www.mettacenter.org

Thought For The Day ( HUMAN NATURE )