The 3rd Way: Solving Global & Personal Conflict By NOT Choosing A Side (with Mahatma Gandhi & Martin Luther King)
The 3rd Way: Solving Global & Personal Conflict By NOT Choosing A Side (with Mahatma Gandhi & Martin Luther King)
REPAIRING A BROKEN WORLD | FEBRUARY FEATURE III
Which Side Are You On?
Which side am I on in the Israel-Palestine conflict? Neither, I'm on the side of peace and shared humanity.
How about Russia and Ukraine? Neither, I’m on the side of peace and shared humanity.
If faced with a choice of which side to pick in any conflict, I choose neither.
Paradoxically, in making no choice, a third way becomes apparent. This is the way of the peacemaker—the balance point of the scales, the edge of the two-sided coin. It’s always there, available at any time, but it’s seldom discussed or given due consideration.
The Power And Extreme Danger Of Choosing A Side
When we choose a side, it can be like catching a wave when surfing. There’s a sudden alignment and rush of power, especially when we feel that we're on the right side.
We gain some kind of agency over our own lives, we can make a definitive statement about where we stand. This might be perfectly appropriate given the circumstances but there are dangers.
We are tribal creatures at heart, we long for inclusion and fear being outcast. Having chosen a side we run the risk of looking upon those who belong to the other side as foolish at best or evil at worst. Definitely not “one of us”, perhaps not even deserving to be called “human beings”, and their point of view definitely beyond recognition or consideration. We stop listening to any other tune but the one being broadcast by our side.
These unconscious impulses that come with a sense of “belonging”, can creep in if we are not careful and hurtle us headfirst into conflict, even war.
Choosing a side should only ever be a last resort, when all else has failed. So what to do first?
Stopping Conflict Before It Gets Started
It doesn’t matter if we’re the peacemaker, trying to get two parties to see eye to eye or if we find ourselves caught up in conflict with someone else—it always takes much more energy to clean up a mess than it does to make it. Whether it’s a messy bedroom, a betrayal in a marriage, or the ruined battlefields of a war. Better to make a small mess than a big mess, better than a small mess is to never have made a mess in the first place.
So, whether it’s the kids fighting over the use of the television, a couple with relationship problems, or a full scale war, the same principle applies, only the scale of the consequences is different: as soon as it looks like conflict might start up, act to neutralize. The first step should be prevention at all costs.
Wisdom and experience help us see impending conflict but sometimes that’s just not enough. Sometimes, there’s just no getting away from it. Every attempt to disperse the conflict before it starts has failed. We’re in mess-making territory.
Push The Reset Button Fast
There’s a setting on our phones that we can use when nothing else works: “Reset to Factory Settings”
We’ve got to move from conflict to peacemaking as quickly as possible to minimize the damage. Better a small mess than a big mess. So how can we make this transition as quickly as possible?
Here are some practical ideas for you to adopt on a personal level if you’re directly caught up in conflict, or to counsel two sides that can’t see eye to eye:
• Don’t be swept up by strong emotion if you can help it. Make a conscious choice to walk the path of peace and seek compromise.
• Let go of your need to win, to take, to seize, to be right
• Acknowledge the other side has a point of view, even if it is “wrong”
• Remember that retaliation only leads to more retaliation
• Reflecting anger only magnifies it and prevents reconciliation and compromise
• Actively choose love and seek to defeat the negative force that drives conflict.
• As fast as possible, come to a reasoned, just compromise where everyone gets something that allows them to move back onto the road of peace. The longer the conflict runs, the worse the outcome for everyone.
If that fails, and the conflict is going to move from a small mess to a big mess, and there’s no way to get clear of it, then we still have one more option on the path of the third choice.
Make A Sacrifice For Peace, The Power Of Non-Violence
In the first and second world wars, conscientious objectors were men who refused to take up arms and engage in conflict. They were seldom excused from military service on this basis, often vilified by officers and other soldiers and regarded as cowards when they returned home.
Despite refusing violence, some went on to serve as medics and risked their lives to help save the wounded.
Desmond Doss was a conscientious objector who received the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II. Due to his religious convictions as a Seventh-day Adventist, Doss refused to carry a weapon. He initially faced opposition, persecution, and ridicule from his fellow soldiers, but ultimately won their admiration by demonstrating courage and saving many lives as a combat medic.
Genuine conscientious objectors take the hard road of scorn and disapproval to become touchstones of peace. Their protests are a reminder that the third side is always there; peace is waiting.
Here are two famous examples of people who made the third choice work in the most difficult of situations. They brought about the positive change they wanted to see in the world and paid for it with their lives.
Mahatma Gandhi
During the Raj (the British colonial occupation of India) Gandhi’s followers protested the unjust rules brought against the Indian population in order to favor British business interests. His followers were beaten, imprisoned and killed. Ghandi counseled them to neither fight back, nor show feaer when attacked. When British soldiers beat them down with weapons, Ghandi’s followers calmly stood back up, ready to be beaten again. After a few repetitions, the soldiers lost the will to keep meting out punishment.
The true meaning of non-resistance has often been misunderstood or even distorted. It never implies that a nonviolent man should bend before the violence of an aggressor. While not returning the latter's violence by violence, he should refuse to submit to the latter's illegitimate demand even to the point of death. That is the true meaning of nonresistance....
He is not to return violence by violence, but neutralize it by withholding one's hand and, at the same time, refusing to submit to the demand. This is the only civilized way of going on in the world. Any other course can only lead to a race for armaments interspersed by periods of peace which is by necessity and brought about by exhaustion, when preparations would be going on for violence of a superior order. Peace through superior violence inevitably leads to the atom bomb and all that it stands for. It is the completes negation of nonviolence and of democracy which is not possible without the former. (H, 30-3-1947, pp85-86)
Ghandi called this method of non-violent action Satyāgraha
Satyāgraha (Sanskrit: सत्याग्रह; satya: "truth", āgraha: "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth", or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone who practises satyagraha is a satyagrahi.
The term satyagraha was coined and developed by Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), who practised satyagraha in the Indian independence movement and also during his earlier struggles in South Africa for Indian rights. Satyagraha theory influenced Martin Luther King Jr.'s and James Bevel's campaigns during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, as well as Nelson Mandela's struggle against apartheid in South Africa and many other social justice and similar movements.
Ghandi identified this same principle in the teachings of Jesus Christ when he first read the bible and had some interesting insights to share. A misinterpretation of Jesus’ teaching, he believed, had caused a great deal of suffering in the West:
Resistance both forms [passive resistance and non violent resistance] are, but you have to pay a very heavy price when your resistance is passive, in the sense of the weakness of the resister. Europe mistook the bold and brave resistance, full of wisdom, by Jesus of Nazareth for passive resistance, as if it was of the weak. As I read the New Testament for the first time, I detected no passivity, no weakness about Jesus as depicted in the four gospels, and the meaning became clearer to me when I read Tolstoy's Harmony of the Gospels and his other kindred writings. Has not the West paid heavily in regarding Jesus as a Passive Resister? Christendom has been responsible for the wars which put to shame even those described in the Old Testament and other records, historical or semi-historical. I know that I speak under correction, for I can but claim very superficial knowledge of history-modern or ancient. (H, 7-12-1947, p453)
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King was a Christian minister and civil rights leader who was inspired by Ghandi and his interpretation of Jesus’ teaching.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Six Principles of Nonviolence are:
Principle 1: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil. It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
Principle 2: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. The result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation. The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
Principle 3: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people. Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people. The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil, not people.
Principle 4: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform. Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation. Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
Principle 5: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body. Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish and creative.
Principle 6: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win. Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.
Martin Luther King discusses Gandhi and non violence in the short interview below. My sense of the discussion taking place is that the interviewer has either misquoted Gandhi or quoted him out of context and Martin Luther King is attempting to correct him and re-contextualise the quote within Ghandi's greater teaching and inspiration to the path of peaceful activism.
Gandhi sought a united India where everyone, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, could live in harmony. On January 29, 1948 a Hindu religious fanatic shot the 78-year-old Gandhi three times at point blank range. Gandhi raised his hands in front of his face in the conventional Hindu gesture of greeting, almost if he was welcoming his murderer, and slumped to the ground, mortally wounded.
Martin Luther King wanted a peaceful American where dignity and equal rights were the birthright of every citizen regardless of racial background. He was shot dead outside his hotel room on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
What a sad indictment on humanity that they were killed for advocating peace and harmony and yet how much positive change did they bring about by refusing to shy away from their chosen commitment to peace?
Godlike Responsibility To Manage Godlike Power
The stakes of any conflict are greater now than at any other time in history.
With nuclear and biological weapons to destroy our physical world and powerful virtual environments and networks with the potential to destroy and control our inner world, humanity has never had such godlike power at hand.
With that level of power we need a godlike level of responsibility. There is no localized war anymore. In a global environment, where we are more interconnected than ever, all conflict spills out onto a global stage.
We all understand that the war between Ukraine and Russia directly effects the cost and availability of food around the world and is a factor driving inflation, but are we also aware that our social media posts, throwaway comments, impassioned arguments and the content we see are all being curated to not only help shape our opinions, but also to antagonize those with a position different to our own?
We all have the experience of being fed mostly posts and comments by people we agree with, as the algorithm works behind the scenes to serve us what it thinks we like, only to have an odd post or comment from someone who thinks completely differently creep in through the net.
It can be shocking, as we’ve become so used to seeing our own ideas reflected back at us in an echo chamber. A powerful emotional response not only engages us more, but gives us a feeling of righteous empowerment, the very dopamine burst the online platform knows will keep us coming back for more.
Dangerous times.
But we have more power than we think. We can bring the above strategies into play and because of the interconnectivity of the world we can start making a peaceful impact through the smallest personal choices and actions. We can reclaim power by refusing to enter into conflict. Leave an empty space, a blank comment box, invest in loss.
Parents To A Global World
Every parent encourages their children to behave towards others in the community with kindness and charity. We counsel our children against greed and anger and try to lead them into a place of confidence so they don’t live in fear. When they fight we negotiate fair outcomes tempered by reason. We are peacemakers in our own homes.
So why stop with the family? Why not extend this goodwill to the community, why not the nation? Why not all nations? If we can put our shared humanity first, see what we have that brings us together as opposed to the differences which separate us, then we can put the above strategies to use and be peacemakers, travelers of the third way.
Remember, the third way is the balance point of the scales of justice.
Peace.
Bonus Content: Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech
Below is a transcript of his celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.
And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
