The Violence of Peace

If you follow me on Facebook, you’re probably cognizant of the fact that I’ve been avoiding writing this problematic piece since the title first flashed across my brain some weeks ago.  (I’m much happier writing about the inner world, than the outer.)

Just now, browsing the internet, I came across an essay by George Orwell called “Pacifism and the War“.  The issue I had been avoiding smacked me in the face.  Below is an excerpt.

“Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

I am not interested in pacifism as a ‘moral phenomenon’. If Mr Savage and others imagine that one can somehow ‘overcome’ the German army by lying on one’s back, let them go on imagining it, but let them also wonder occasionally whether this is not an illusion due to security, too much money and a simple ignorance of the way in which things actually happen.”

…and there you go.  Mr. Orwell not only said it better than I could have possibly, he also relieved me of the task.

Please take a moment to look at our current situation through his eyes.  What would George think?  Apply the common sense of this essay to what is happening all around us today, then extrapolate…do the math.  Frightening.

Gandhi is the example that is always bandied about.  Yes, passive resistance worked in that case, but not alone, and not without the loss of many Indian lives.  Indians who were willing to “lay down” for their cause, willing to get shot.  Are you?  …and while it may have eventually sickened the English to fire on unarmed peaceful civilians, if you think for one moment that those who would behead children, and shoot women in soccer fields, are the same sort of enemy, there is no essay written that can help you understand what I mean when I say there is violence inherent in peace.

S. Conde