From: Joel Sax <jsax@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker
Date: 24 Dec 92 10:22 PST
Subject: Friendly Thoughts No. 2
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1744600059:000:5233
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jsax    Dec 24 10:22:00 1992


From: Joel Sax <jsax>
Subject: Friendly Thoughts No. 2

/* Written  9:02 pm  Dec 23, 1992 by goodwork@igc.apc.org in igc:gen.quaker */
/* ---------- "Friendly Thoughts No. 2" ---------- */
ACTIVE PREPARATION FOR THE CREATIVE NONVIOLENT RESPONSE?

Joel remarks in this Friendly Thoughts that military folks
practice their crafts, and suggests that pacifists or proponents
of nonviolence practice works of relief and benefit to those in
need.

	"The Friend, who has reflected long on this subject, would
   seek to face the moment without violence.  The mark of the
   Friends in these matters is that we do not prepare to be
   violent or to help others to be violent.  I think the most
   honest thing any among us can say is that none of us knows if
   he or she would be violent if attacked:  we would hope not."

May we go farther than saying "we do not prepare to be violent or
to help others to be violent" by calling for active preparation to
be nonviolent (creative, etc.) and to help others be such?
Mightn't those favoring non-violent responses do better if we/they
practice and prepare, as those preparing to make violent responses
practice their ways?

In the following excerpt from his autobiography, Ammon Hennacy
responds to questions having to do with the use of nonviolence in
situations of danger or violence.  Elsewhere in the book he
remarks that nonviolence is not a formula for how to live forever,
and recognizes that it does not always have the effects described
below.

I present this excerpt here mostly because of its clear call to
prepara- tion.  There remains the immense task of applying such
thinking to the situations of mass destruction and warfare such as
we see in the former Yugoslavia, and other situations of group
warfare and persecution!

AMMON HENNACY ON NONVIOLENT PROTECTION

from The Book of Ammon, autobiography, page 402.  In this section
of the book Hennacy presents questions he is commonly asked and
his responses.

"Would you defend someone dear to you who is being attacked?"

	Christ was defended by Peter who cut off the ear of the
attacker.  Christ gave the best answer when He said, "Put up thy
sword; he that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword."

	Pacifism does not mean to stand by and do nothing.  It
means to do something: to use the strongest weapon, spiritual
force, rather than the weaker weapon, violence.  But you can't use
it if you don't have it.  First, you must not be afraid, for even
animals can smell fear.  Second, you must feel that there is good
in your attacker.  Third, you must have the agility of mind to
speak sincerely without preaching in 'very few words' that will
deflect the violence.  This can't be learned in a book.  It has to
flow from a life of integrity, with the minimum of show-off.  If
you invade an army camp you must not expect them to act like
pacifists toward you; you are asking for trouble.

	I hope I would defend those dear to me as I have defended
myself many times, by spiritual understanding rather than by
violence.  But none of us can be sure until the last chapter how
we will actually act in a given circumstance.  My friend Bayard
Rustin was asked this question, and he said that once he acted in
one way and once he acted in another way.  He was in a barricaded
cabin in the deep South with other Negroes where the surrounding
KKK were masked ready to lynch them.  Bayard opened the door and
stood with folded arms, saying, "You came here to lynch us; start
with me."  They went home in shame.  If he had spoken in anger and
called them bastards he would not have won.  Another time he was
in a taxi on the Bowery and saw a Negro being beaten by two white
men.  He jumped out and kicked and hit the white men in the
appropriate places and derw the Negro in the taxi away to safety.
My friend Ned Richards was in the Near East at the time of World
War I.  He was a young man doing missionary work and was the
oldest male among women and children at the time when a crazy
Armenian was standing on a hill nearby and shooting at each one as
they came out of the house.  After a time Ned walked with hand
outstretched, a perfect target, up the hill to the Armenian whose
gun was pointed at him.  The Armenian handed him the gun and
commenced to weep.

	An AP dispatch tells in Bloomington, Illinois in 1936 of
two bandits who held up a small restaurant where a girl and her
father were the owners.  The girl asked them why they held the
place up.  They said they were hungry.  "Sit down and eat," she
said.  "You will call the cops," they replied.  "You are between
me and the phone and the cop went by half an hour ago," was her
answer.  They ate and whispered and returned the money.  If she
had screamed when they came in she would likely have been shot as
well as robbed.  Another time two robbers held up a filling
statuion run by Father Divine's followers in Philadelphia.
"Peace, Brother," said the attendants when told by the robbers,
"Your money or your life."  However the guns were braqndished or
whatever the admonition was to hand over the money, all that the
men said was "Peace, Brother." It was impossible to rob such
people, so the robbers went away.
			   ___________________

Joe Maizlish, Los Angeles