THE FINAL SOLUTION

by Lenore Norrgard

I don't often buy a daily paper, but yesterday I was in the mood. Until I saw the headline screaming in huge letters from the front page: SADDAM EXECUTED. It may as well have read, HALLELUJAH, WE GOT 'IM! WE WON!!! Sweet revenge.

I felt sick to my stomach, and I didn't buy the paper. I'm no fan of Saddam, and that is first and foremost because of his casual, callous and massive taking of innocent life. But killing him in retaliation solves nothing. Any celebration of death, of killing, ought to raise red flags for all of us. The grisly, gleeful execution of Hussein only uses the most base of human impulses--revenge--to hide the fascism of our current regime.

As stated so adroitly by Robert Scheer, "The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime."

I'll leave it to Scheer and others to track the criminal machinations of the fascist Neo-con cabal. What I want to address is the question of killing as a final solution--to anything.

In the one hundred years since Mohandas Gandhi founded Satyagraha, the movement of nonviolent rebellion in service of justice, we have seen the power of this approach to bring colonial regimes and other oppressors to their knees. "A wily lawyer who understood the nature of power and how to use it, Gandhi was no pacifist. He was a fighter whose aim was to transform his opponents, not merely defeat them."

When we undertake the political, psychological and spiritual discipline of Satyagraha to transform our opponents, we transform ourselves as well. "A Satyagrahi does not seek to end or destroy the relationship with the antagonist, but instead seeks to transform or 'purify' it to a higher level." This is our task as human beings at this moment in history: to turn away from our programming to avenge and revenge, and bring about a transformation that liberates everyone, including our opposition.

Readers of this blog probably agree that the Bush regime's war on Iraq and neighboring countries is not about terrorism, but rather fans fears of terrorism to cover a war of agression for access to oil; grasps to maintain control of the global economy; and continues an arc of the US government and those who control it enriching themselves at the expense of dark-skinned people at 'home' and abroad.

There are many ways we can respond to this war supposedly being fought on behalf of US citizens and innocents everywhere: Outrage. Organizing. Writing. Resisting. Praying. Demonstrating. Whatever ways we choose, it is critical that we integrate the principles of Satyagraha, and take a stand against violence as a solution. Violence, whether by the state or the individual, always begets more violence:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A hundred years is not a long time to change a longstanding human impulse to violence born out of a will to gain power and private property at the expense of others. It is clear, however, that only rooting out this impulse and strengthening the native impulses of humility, kindness and generosity will save ourselves and our planet. Just as hate begets hate, so love begets love, justice begets justice, gentleness and sharing beget gentleness and sharing.

We have a choice. We have many choices, every day. In the choices we make consciously and intentionally, and with conscience, lie our power. We constantly must ask ourselves, What world am I creating? What forces do I feed?

This is not just a personal journey, it also is a social, a collective one. We must take responsibility for all choices that we make, and support one another in making better ones. A just and sustainable world based in love is within our reach.

Cultivating the courage to practice Satyagraha, and thus transform our opponents, and in the process transform ourselves, is the final solution of our times.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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