In response to an urgent Appeal from all the living Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, the General Assembly of the United Nations, on November 1998, unanimously declared the first decade of the twenty-first century to be The Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. While people are naturally concerned about the amount of violence in our world and how it threatens our future, the Nobel Laureates are right to remind us of the potential of nonviolence and our calling to build a culture of peace and nonviolence.
The twentieth century is instructive in the way that the philosophy and practice of nonviolence have begun to flourish and in the way that nonviolent movements have had an exponential growth across the world. Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. are the most famous nonviolent leaders but many have built upon the paths they charted as in country after country, tyrannies and oppressors on every continent have fallen to the concerted efforts of nonviolent movements. One of the most significant of these movements is the 1986 People Power overthrow of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in which masses of unarmed Filipinos rose up to affirm the upset election of Corazon Aquino as president and, in an amazing 77-hour period, nonviolently force from office Ferdinand Marcos.
What are the lessons learned in that People Power movement, lessons that we need to study and apply to current problems in order to help us build the culture of peace and nonviolence to which the United nations has called us?
First, People Power forced us to ask, What is power? Many think of power strictly in a military way. Mao Tse Tung summed it up when he said, “Power grows out of the barrel of a gun”. It is not only Maoists who subscribe to this belief. We see it in those who say, “Prepare for peace by preparing for war”. We see it in the budgets of most nations, rich or poor, religious or secular, where enormous amounts are spent for the military.
People Power taught us a different way of looking at power. Marcos and his powerful army were no match for the nonviolent people who rose up against the regime. If we define power as “the ability to achieve purpose” then we see that a large, well-equipped army may not enable a ruler to provide jobs and highways and schools for a nation. When India exploded a series of nuclear weapons in 1998 to prove itself a great “power”. S.K. Bandopadhaya of the Gandhi Memorial Trust wisely remarked, “While our leaders are talking about nuclear bombs as a deliverance, 350 million of our people remain below the poverty line, nearly fifty percent of our population is illiterate, and 100,000 of our villages don‚t even have safe drinking water. In the villages of Rajasthan, where they detonated those bombs, many women still walk ten to twelve miles a day just to fetch water. This is the real India, the India that Indians already live in. And when all the fuss and shouting dies down, they will realize that nuclear bombs do nothing, absolutely nothing to help them”.
Secondly, People Power showed us the power of Truth. Gandhi defined nonviolence as satyagraha, truth power. God is Truth and that Truth is planted in every human heart. As the Quakers say, “There is that of God in everyone”. Within every person is the hunger for Truth and if that Truth is denied by lies and falsehood, people begin to feel violated. It is natural that all people want to be treated fairly and honestly. When they respond to the claim of Truth and join with others, they begin to express real power, a power that can reach a critical mass that becomes irresistible. Such is what happened in the Philippines in 1986.
This leads us to our third lesson learned: people have power. No matter how humble or poor or lacking in social status, when people rise up against evil, they are powerful. Poll watchers in the Marcos-Aquino contest stood their ground against armed goons. Thirty computer operators risked their lives to tell the world that Marcos was trying to falsify the election results. The world marvelled at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) when tanks and armored personnel carriers were stopped by the prayers and good will of the people.
A related lesson is that everyone can play a part in people power. Military power depends on highly trained, well armed soldiers, especially young strong men. As the Gandhian and Kingian movements showed, people power can draw upon everyone–old and young, rich and poor, abled and disabled. Old people and children did their part at EDSA as part of the “unarmed forces of the Philippines”. Youth standing their ground in front of armed soldiers unnerved them as they gave their fierce foe sandwiches and candies.
Fifth, government rests upon the consent or the acquiescene of the governed. The way that corrupt or tyrannical or incompetent governments rule is through the passive acceptance of the ruled. But if the ruled begin to resist, even tyrants are weakened and can eventually be brought down. Andrei Sakharov, though internally exiled to Gorky, was a force the Soviet Union did not know how to control: one unarmed person speaking out for human rights in the Russian interior could not be stopped. The brutal government of Burma today does not know what to do with Aung San Suu Kyi, a slight, unarmed woman whose voice expresses the longing of the Burmese people for freedom. Benigno Aquino was kept in prison for seven years and still he was a threat to Marcos. Even when he was killed at Manila International Airport, his spirit lived on with power to challenge the seemingly all “powerful” Marcos. When people withdraw their consent to be governed, the government experiences a loss of power. As the resistance grows, the government finds itself increasingly weakened.
Sixth, an indomitable will can bring down an oppressor. The Brazilians call nonviolence firmeze permanente, relentless persistence. The old chant, “The people united can never be defeated” holds great truth. When I was teaching nonviolence to representatives of the South Africa Council of Churches in l988, the government had just declared emergency rule and the anti-apartheid movement was very discouraged. Things had never been worse. Repression was enormous. But one old woman stood up and said, “In Soweto we have a saying, ŒThe dying horse kicks hardest just before it dies.‚ The South African government is coming down harder than ever because our movement is wearing it down. They know if they don‚t stop us, they will collapse”. She was very wise. It was not long before President deKlerk released Nelson Mandela, called for national elections and the apartheid regime was thrown out by the people they had oppressed for so long. In like manner, the Filipino people‚s resistance to dictatorship finally won the day.
Seventh, training is important in preparing a people for nonviolent resistance. In 1984 and 1985 many workshops in nonviolence were held with student, labor and religious activists opposing dictatorship. When the elections were called poll watchers were trained all over the country. During the EDSA resistance, Radio Veritas continually prepared people for the struggle, with such things as readings of Jesus, Gandhi, King and others, along with practical instructions (bring food and water, no weapons, damp clothes and calamunsi in case of tear gas, etc.). We should not rely on spontaneity to bring about a culture of peace and nonviolence. It must be prepared for in our churches and schools and community organizations. Step by step, vision, strategy and tactics need to be developed for hopeful, peace change. Eighth, the People Power movement was only a first step; it is not magic nor does it by-pass the need of careful, wise next steps. Systemic change is an ongoing, organic process that has to deal with all the pillars of oppression in a society. Bringing down an oppressor must be followed by replacing the oppressive structures with structures that are just. This is the role of a real democracy, which is the institutionalization of nonviolent problem-solving in the social order. Education, conflict resolution, the struggle for justice, nonviolent direct action, organizing for special needs, voting on issues, adjudicating differences, framing laws for change and reform: all of these need to be perfected as we seek to build a culture of peace and nonviolence.
Ninth, we need to re-learn history. Too much of what we have learned centers on battles and wars and minimizes the multitude of nonviolent episodes and movements in history. People often scoff at nonviolence as impractical, even impossible, forgetting Gandhi who said “Undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence”. And this has been happening! In the 1980s alone, dictatorial regimes were brought down peacefully across Latin America, the Soviet bloc and parts of Asia and Africa. These have scarcely been studied; the lessons to be learned are massive and need to be appropriated for the struggles of the coming century. And long before the recent past there is a vast, largely unknown or forgotten history of powerful nonviolent efforts (e.g., such as the way Norwegian teachers and judges successfully resisted Nazi efforts to make Norway a corporate state fashioned after Nazi edicts; and the 6,000 women in Berlin during World War II who demonstrated for the release of 1,500 Jewish men and who would not stop until the men were released).
Finally, People Power demonstrates the potential power of religious faith in the building of a just society. Filipinos, driven by faith and determination, discovered courage, forgiveness, compassion and hope, as they risked their lives to save their country. Attending workshops, campaigning for a dictator’s opponent, guarding polling places–all required a courageous willingness to take a stand for freedom. Going to “Tent Cities” to pray and fast and be trained grew out of a determined faith. Ordinary people did extraordinary things as they sang and prayed in facing down armed soldiers. Enlisted men and officers risked arrest and even execution when they disobeyed orders to open fire on the protesters. People of various faiths came together at EDSA in a great ecumenical–nay, interfaith–movement for justice in the tradition of Gandhi and King. Both Gandhi and King were grounded in Jesus‚ teaching to love the enemy and overcome evil with good as they developed the philosophy and practice of nonviolence. King took the methodology of Gandhi and the spirit of Christ to fashion a dynamic, morally grounded, approach to social change that proved to be revolutionary. People Power was another step in humanity’s quest to build a just and free society.
A global civilization is struggling to be born.Technology increasingly brings the world closer together and our interrelationships grow in complexity. We have become more and more interdependent upon people ev erywhere. As Dr. King put it, “We are tied together in a single garment of destiny”.
All people of goodwill, who honor truth, goodness and beauty, are called to work together to fashion a world culture of peace and nonviolence. We have precedents such as the People Power movement in the Philippines to inspire and instruct us.
