"Those people" can't change

Can the situation in the Middle East ever change? Or in Nigeria? Or in Darfour?

I've tended to look at cycles of violence with a fatalistic acceptance that it will always be that way "until Jesus comes back."

That's the attitude that was fostered in the faith environment that I've known best. But I'm being challenged by some disciples who believed things could change if someone dared to take Christ at his word. They saw a situation where hatred ruled and decided to invade that place with love and faith.

Many thought they were crazy. They were risking to take on terrorists with a simple belief that the Way of Christ is one of love and peace and forgiveness. Everyone knew that the terrorists were waiting for someone to take hostage or kill in order to make a statement. That these terrorists were committed to their cause and would never change.

But if it were just the terrorists, a few extremists, everyone might have had some hope. But since even the mainstream refused to denounce the terrorists, and perhaps even condoned their hatred, how could things ever change?

Why would people venture into such a situation just to die?

But some people did. And their critics were right. They just died. ... And their critics were also wrong. They didn't JUST die.

ANOTHER TIME, SAME STORY

It was 1965. And the terrorists were not bombing mosques in Bagdad or synagogues in Jerusalem. They were bombing churches in Birmingham and Selma. They were not taking Western journalists and clergy into captivity in Iraq, but they were killing black people who dared register to vote, and making an example of white people who came to support the movement for justice in the U.S.

People like Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian (picture here in Selma) who came to help people in Lowndes Country, Alabama, finally register to vote. He was murdered by shotgun after being released from the county jail on Aug. 20, 1965.

This was almost exactly one month after I was born.

A few months before, James Reeb had been killed in plain sight of many witnesses after a freedom march. The assailant didn't even feel the need to hide his face. Viola Liuzzo of Detroit while driving black marchers in her car in Lowndes County.

Her attackers, who killed her in a drive-by shooting and continued on, were accompanied by an FBI informant, by the way. He didn't bother to stop the proceedings, and the FBI covered up his involvement.

After her death, a poll showed that the majority of Americans thought that she should have stayed home in Detroit with her husband and children rather than getting involved in such things. (kinda like saying, it's not good what happened to her, but what did she expect?!)

These were just a couple of the deaths -- many more were killed and beaten and intimidated while the public as a whole accepted these things.

But yet, change did come. Not complete change, but change. The movement, fueled and led by Christ's principles of loving our enemies instead of killing them, changed America. Not just the laws changed, but people changed. They began to see -- if still incompletely -- the shame of their ways.

They began to repent and to make changes.

But people like Martin Luther King, James Reeb, Viola Liuzzo and many, many nameless African-Americans and others had to be willing to sacrifice and risk something in order for this to happen.

One could have said that America was hopeless. That nothing could ever change the racism and hatred that was deep in the country's soul. But something happened when Christ was followed and trusted.

When people were willing to die for what was right, for the Kingdom as it should be.

MISGUIDED HOPE, OR MISGUIDED METHODS?

Many are criticizing the current American regime for its belief that things can change in the Middle East. They are called naïve and silly. ... I think in that criticism there is a hidden sense of superiority in many Americans. That these Arabs (and Jews) will never get it together. They are too ruled by hatred, etc. They are too ignorant.

But just a little look at America's past -- just a FEW years ago -- should remind us of how very like us "those people" are. That if we stand today in a very different country and WORLD from the one that existed in 1965, it is a testimony to the fact that things CAN change.

Instead of criticizing the belief that things can change, perhaps we need to look at the how. Will it be by force, or by love? By self-protective destruction, intimidation and manipulation, or by the moral authority and courage of non-violence, forgiveness and love?

Comments

[Jacob]

Thanks for the timely reminder of the civil rights movement. That subject has has been haughtingly absent in recent conversations (online) I have been having about "the war," and the Mid-East, and violence.

Keep it going, you're the man Todd.

[Blue Gal]

Excellent post, I'll be linking it. The thought that will bring peace and stability to the Middle East is the SAME thought that brought justice to the American South: The worth and dignity of EVERY individual, regardless of race or creed. There are no "chosen" people; there are no "dominant" people; there are no "majority" people. We must do what James Reeb did and work for the dignity and worth of all.