Tag: peace

Encountering the Enemy

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encountering the enemy

illustration by Seth T. Hayne for CAPC Magazine

I wrote this piece awhile back, but today my feature article for Christ and Pop Culture Magazine–on nurturing peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through film–has been made available  for free.

At a moment in history where more people around the world have been displaced by violent conflict than ever before, now is the time to ask ourselves hard questions about our role in cultivating conflict or peace. Now is the time to question the narratives we tell ourselves about war, vengeance, “redemptive” violence, and enemies. The same ignorance and fear that generates war in the Middle East and Africa and pushes refugees to the shores of Europe and North America also plays out in our own society as alienation between people of different races or faiths, and as destructive relationships between individual people. Forgiveness of others’ sin, and repentance for our own, are both central to the Christian faith. So for those of us who seek to be shaped by the life of Jesus, enemy love and reconciliation should be central to our understanding of our role in the world.

As a Jew, Reena Lazar has worked towards reconciliation in Israel/Palestine by finding creative ways to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth face-to-face with “the enemy” (each other). Yet the wisdom she has accumulated in the process is applicable far beyond the scope of this particular geopolitical conflict.  Her work has much to teach us about building bridges instead of walls, regardless of the role or the part of the world in which we find ourselves. Head on over to Christ and Pop Culture to read the article.

For my Muslim sisters and brothers in Gaza,                                                             For my Christian sisters and brothers in Iraq and Syria 

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In parts of Syria and Iraq this week, innocent civilians have been raped, murdered, and forced to flee from their homes by a religious fundamentalist group who has issued a chilling ultimatum to this ancient faith community which has resided in the area for centuries: convert, abandon your homes, or die by the sword. Elsewhere in the Middle East, a heavily-armed military continues its merciless bombing of a civilian population, killing hundreds of children in a campaign intended to show that it has no tolerance for agents of “terror” who kill innocent civilians.The first instance of violence has hardly reported in Western media at all, but where the story has gotten out, it has stirred universal condemnation from Americans and especially from Christians. This makes sense, because in the case of Iraq and Syria, the families being murdered in cold blood or fleeing for their lives are Christians, and their attackers are Muslim fundamentalists: a terrorist group known as ISIS. For many American Christians, this seems a clear-cut case of good guys vs. bad guys.In the second instance of families being murdered in cold blood, many Americans and (disturbingly) Christians especially are fully supportive of the state-sponsored violence. This can again be explained in terms of primitive, tribal allegiance: in this case, the civilian casualties are Muslims, and their executioners are members of the Israeli military. Many Christians feel a strong cultural and religious tie to Judaism, and they further extrapolate this kinship with Judaism and Jewish people to extend to the secular political state of Israel. Pretty soon the idea somehow arises that God is on the side of a powerful (although threatened) military state focusing its firepower on what is basically an oversized slum populated with traumatized, displaced people who are being exploited by Hamas. This idea hinges on the implicit assumption that “good guys” and “bad guys” can be separated out along tribal lines: Israelis, good; Palestinians: bad.

God certainly doesn’t take the side of either Israelis or Palestinians, much less Hamas or the Israeli Defense forces!  But God does take sides: He is on the side of the weak against the strong, the oppressed against the oppressor, and grieving, the suffering, and the poor. God takes this side because He cares about the welfare of all people.

It seems to me that most of us have no clarity with which to understand what’s happening in these two arenas of violence or to perceive the connections between them. We lack that clarity because we are still stuck thinking in terms of Muslims vs. Christians or Jews vs. Muslims without noticing that both of these unfolding horror stories are really about human beings using power and violence to control and destroy other human beings. ISIS and Hamas seek to enforce their political agendas through violence and the threat of violence; the Israeli government uses the same strategy (but while claiming the moral high ground): other children must die, for the sake of our children.

The problem here is not Christianity, Judaism, or Islam as religions, but rather fundamentalist justifications of violence within each faith. If we are only willing to recognize the destructive effects of fundamentalism and violence in another religion—say, in Islam— and not in our own, then we merely strengthen our own dark side by ignoring it. We become blind to our own violence and capacity for evil, and that blindness (or state of denial) makes us more dangerous. We have only to take a sidelong glance back into Church history to see the destructive results of such blindness: burning heretics at the stake, conquering and subjugating non-Christian peoples, forcing conversion on threat of death. Sadly, Christians’ unquestioned dependence on violence has led them to act as aggressors and persecutors as often as they have been persecuted victims or peacemakers, all the while presuming to have God’s stamp of approval.

I am not pro-Palestinian. I am not pro-Israel. I don’t believe that the actions of the Israeli government represent all Jewish people any more than I believe that ISIS represents all Muslims, or that Hamas represents all Palestinians. I don’t believe that the dehumanizing, fear-based, reactionary violence of ISIS or Hamas or the Israeli military is worthy of any human being. And I do believe that Jesus is equally represented in the suffering of persecuted Christians, traumatized Palestinians, and kidnapped Israeli teenagers. The labels of race, religion, and nationality are not useful in helping us to see a way forward in these crises, because that is exactly the kind of “us vs. them” thinking that began these messes in the first place.

I am pro-life. And this is my appeal for other Christians to take a pro-life stance in this situation as well, by rejecting the political, religious, and pragmatic justifications for violence that are being made on all sides.

There is much more to talk about concerning the history and specifics of the complex situation in Israel/Palestine, and a detailed examination would only further demonstrate that nobody’s hands are clean; no group can be painted as completely innocent or completely at fault. I haven’t gone into the various documented human rights abuses of either Hamas or the Israeli military here because I believe that the root issue will not be resolved in a meticulous weighing up of one group’s sins against the other, but in a commitment to stop viewing the conflict through a tribal lens that requires taking sides in the first place. Every time that either Israelis or Palestinians have sought to resolve the situation with violence, it has only perpetuated the bloody cycle of killing by creating more fear and hatred. Why go on pursuing this dead-end strategy for “security” or “peace”?

 

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When we landed in Delhi, we noticed the usual things first: the crowds, the grime, the thick smoke hanging in the air from the little fires everyone burns this time of year to keep warm in the mornings and evenings. The area around the train station isn’t necessarily a fair representation of the country, because parts of India are beautiful, peaceful, and clean, but this was the gritty neighborhood where we took a small, dingy hotel room to await the departure of our train a day and a half after we flew in. The train was of course delayed, but this time we had bunks to ourselves and the car wasn’t nearly as crowded as the one that had taken us to Delhi two months before. I was feeling irritated by the delay and by the grimy railway station platform where we had waited before even boarding the train. I was also irritated that someone had stolen A.’s shoes on the train while we were sleeping, so that on arrival he walked off the train barefoot like an Indian holy man. But as we left the train station I felt my spirits lifting in spite of myself. It was sunny and cool, and as we sped along in the autorickshaw, I had to smile at the familiar scenes of street life that we breezed past: chai stands, laborers waiting for work, goats, cows, rickshaws, and pedestrians everywhere—chaotic and pulsing with life, the way that all of India is, with an energy that makes you excited and makes you want to be part of it all. It was less crowded and more laid-back than in Delhi. And the sky was actually blue.

Then back into our community: smiles, laughter, holding new babies that were born while we were gone, and somberly receiving news about the old men who died in our absence. People are happy, people are sad; some are healthy and some are sick. People have engagements and sorrows and secrets to tell us about, and we are part of it all, again. Everyone is telling us how much they missed us and how glad they are that we’re back. Our landlord’s two-year-old son started talking since we left and one of the few words he knows is my husband’s name, which he apparently began calling out at our door while we were gone and which he now happily yells up the stairwell when we are sitting in our room with the door open. I feel a sense of belonging that I have missed without realizing it; that I had been searching for without realizing it was here. I make roti in my simple kitchen, looking at the happy colors of the fresh green peppers and orange dal and red and yellow spices sitting in glass jars on my counter. I savor the familiar sound of the call to prayer, I rediscover the taste of chai with salt, I get my tongue around those strange d’s and r’s again and remember what things are called in Hindi. I wonder how we ever slept through all the night noises, but then I do. I feel a sense of peace and gratitude that I haven’t felt for a very long time, even before we left for the States.

It’s taken me a long time to get to this point. In fact, while we waited in limbo for our visas I had gone back and forth many times in my mind over whether or not I could really survive in India, or whether or not I even wanted to—you can survive a lot more than you would like to, sometimes.  These were questions I was afraid to even ask, feeling paralyzed in both directions if I were actually to make a decision. Or be told what to decide. If God asked me to stay, then I would feel trapped; if He asked me to leave, I felt I would be a failure. To my surprise (and initial horror), God turned the question back around on me and asked me what I wanted. After it became quite clear that He had no intention of making the decision for me, that there could be good and fruitful outcomes no matter what, and that I had complete freedom to do as I pleased, I initially felt more confusion than relief. But this realization then launched me into several weeks of contemplating the future without guilt or fear to drive the process.

I eventually found that in spite of my stressful experiences in India thus far, my uncertainty about what the future would hold, and my doubts about how much I can handle, I really wanted to go back to my community in India– not out of duty or guilt or fear or anything else, but out of love. I want to see some of my hopes for this place realized. I want to be there for people over time. I want to press on, for the first time in my life, past the restlessness and boredom and difficulty and frustration that so often tempt me to distract myself with something new and exciting. I do enjoy all of the great food, comforts, conveniences, and familiar cultural experiences that India does NOT have to offer, but I want to experience the deeper joy that comes from committing to a particular place and to particular people past the point where it’s just fun and convenient. I want to stick around long enough for me to actually change, instead of just opting for a change of scenery. That’s not easy when I have friends scattered around the world and can travel between nearly any two points on the globe in 24 hours. All that mobility and connectedness gives me the sense that I could go almost anywhere and do nearly anything (all the while comparing my situation side-by-side with others’ on social media), but I believe that committing to throw in our lot with a particular community—limiting ourselves to one choice among all the hypothetical possibilities that remain—is a universal challenge we all must face. In my own life, I am convinced that my spiritual growth depends on it.

So we’re back in our “village” again, and this time it feels like a gift. That has made all the difference. The air is thick with possibilities, and yet the present moment itself is full.

Advent

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          Two years ago, we were waiting to move to India for the first time. This advent season, we are waiting for visas to be processed so that we can return to India. There are certainly times that seem more clearly marked than others by uncertainty or waiting, but the truth is that Advent speaks to our perpetual life experience of living in the present and waiting for the future to unfold. No matter what season of life we are in, we harbor hopes, fears, and expectations in our hearts; we turn excitement, possibilities, or dread over and over in our minds. And advent speaks to that tension of suspended possibilities; of hoping and preparing but not knowing how it all will turn out.

I used to think it was a bit artificial to go through the motions of supposedly waiting in suspense for something that we all knew was coming in a predictable form on a predictable schedule. After all, Advent culminates in Christmas every year. No surprises there. But Advent is not just the season of counting down to Christmas day—it’s also the long vigil for God’s arrival. We are waiting for God to be born in our world, to grow in our lives, to proclaim peace in every painful situation of conflict and confusion that we find ourselves tangled up in. And the truth is that while we may have our own ideas of what that will mean, we don’t know exactly what it will look like when it happens.

Advent, a wise priest told me last week, is the spiritual art of waiting for the unexpected: preparing ourselves for what we know while remaining open to the unknown. If we aren’t on the lookout for Jesus, we’ll be caught off guard by his arrival in our lives. But if all of our careful planning fools us into believing that we can predict and control the future, then that rigorous preparation may actually prevent us from embracing him when he comes! Our assumptions may prevent us from accepting the surprising ways that Christ chooses to incarnate in our lives and in our world. It’s a delicate balance of planning and not planning; preparation and spontaneity.