Nonviolence

Nonviolence- how often in the news or everyday life do you hear that word? How often do you hear “another killing in a late night fight” or “person seriously injured over a dispute”? How often can you say you hear about someone doing something nonviolently?

I have tried to answer these questions myself lately, and to be completely honest, out of the three questions, the only one I can answer with a big number is the second one. That is so sad to me. Why is it that our world is so overcome with violence? Why is it that people seem to respond and be so interested in someone killing someone rather than someone having a nonviolent protest for a good cause?

I am taking a Peace and Justice Class this semester and I am so amazed by how many nonviolent movements have been made and have been SUCCESSFUL!! Why can’t we hear about them on the news? Why are we not taught more about them in school? No, we are taught about war, and killing each other. We are taught that violence is the only way to get something done.

Yet I sit here and think back to Martin Luther King Jr. I think back to the Civil Rights Movement, and how so many of those activities were done nonviolently in the African American community; how they never gave up and though it may have taken years to get to where we are today, it was nonviolent and successful!

And yet everyday, people are losing their lives in war. When we hear the word war here in the U.S. I know that most of us think of the war’s our country has fought or is fighting. But to me war is not only that, war is going on in our everyday lives. I believe it is war when we see the hate towards each other, whether it is someone hating a person who chooses to love the same sex or someone hating someone because of how they look; the color of their skin or the religion they are. How is it that we do not see each other as human beings? How is it that we can judge someone without even having the slightest clue who they are or what they are or have gone through in their lives? How is it that when we see two females together or two males together so many people have hate in their heart for them, “they are disgusting” or “they don’t deserve to have the same rights as a man and woman.” “They are a disgrace.” How is it that our hearts are so full of hate we can’t see love for what it is, LOVE.

Is it that we are too afraid of change? Too afraid to open our minds and our hearts? Too afraid of what someone else will think of us?

It is sad to me that in our world today we are much more comfortable with killing, guns, bullying than we are with two people who are in love. To me nonviolence does not just mean not killing or harming another person, it also means not to hate another person, not bullying someone, or judging someone for what makes them happy in their life. It means to love and stick up for what is right in our world that has so much wrong.  As human beings, as a country, we should stick by each other and help one another when we are in need.

I would like to end this with a quote from the man who is my vision of nonviolence “You must be the change you wish to see in the world,” Mahatma Gandhi.

Andrea Wicks, Guest Blogger