Moving Toward the One

Always, we begin again toward the One…

At this morning’s Friends Meeting in Rochester, MN, one woman felt inspired to share these words. Its truth could not have more evident after a week which saw Minnesota sadly moving toward division and disunity.

The Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul this past week. George Bush, leader of the GOP and the nation, was noticeably absent from the Xcel Center, the first time in 40 years that the incumbent President was not present at his party’s convention (Von Drehle, David). An entire country looked to the capital of Minnesota to witness the celebration and inauguration of the Presidential race in earnest. After a graceful Democratic convention the previous week, everyone’s eyes were tuned to see how newly chosen Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin would compare to Obama’s running mate Joe Biden. The United States looked calculatingly toward St. Paul to see how the Republicans would celebrate their past successes, apologize for their past missteps, and prepare for a hotly contested Presidential campaign.

What the nation got was the worst kind of rhetoric. To watch Palin’s first speech as a Vice-Presidential running mate was to watch a vicious personal attack (New York Times). In a night that should have been full of celebrating, Wednesday’s speeches were concerned primarily with jabs and uppercuts. Rather than tout her party’s successes or laud John McCain’s many admirable qualities, she instead focused on demonizing Obama and Biden and the entire Democratic party. Her speech was less about accepting her nomination and more about rejecting commonality and unity. It saddened Republicans and Democrats and Independents alike to see an entire speech devoid of civil discourse, brimming with violence and overflowing with disunity.

While John McCain’s speech was graceful and stately, it was overshadowed for many by the speech Palin gave the night before. In stark contrast to the Democratic Convention the week before, the Republican speakers rarely used the words proud, together, thanks, and grateful. Whereas Hillary Clinton used her speech to bridge gaps and convert opposition into unity, Palin’s speech, and Giuliani’s before hers, widened differences, infused hate into the rhetoric, and filled the public sphere with negativity. It was sad to see a race which had been surprisingly cordial and civil take a decided turn for the worse.

Always we begin again toward the One…

Sadly, the protests of the Republican National Convention ended little better. While most demonstrators were peaceful, the presence of many physically and verbally violent protestors drained its potentially positive impact. Nonviolence is not simply the absence of violence but rather the presence of something positive. These protests, then, failed to live up to the high standard of nonviolence. Few were edified by the anarchists’ riots of Monday, and Martin Luther King, Jr. would not have recognized the Poor People’s March on Wednesday. Signs reading “Eat the Rich, Feed the Poor” and chants calling for the National Guard troops on downtown buildings to “Jump, Jump, Jump” would have horrified Gandhi or John Lewis (Minnesota Independent).

As Dr. King and all nonviolence philosophy holds, we are caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore, violence towards some is violence towards all. And as Gandhi reiterated throughout his life’s work, the end is necessarily preexistent in the means. If we strive for peace, we must do it in peaceful ways. If we yearn for unity, we must seek reconciliation with those who oppose us. The protests of this past week were ineffective toward that end. When anti-war protests are verbally abusive or physically violent, then they can only help to create a more disunified world of violence.

So begins a new week. Hopefully this week Minnesota and the entire nation can begin to move away from the “us versus them” mentality. Perhaps we can abandon the idea of the “other,” a philosophy which has produced slavery, imperialism, colonialism, nativism, xenophobia, and war in all its guises. Always we begin again Toward the One…