Podur
“Certainly a soldier, myself included, is an absurd and irrational man, because
he has the ability to resort to arms in order to convince. In the end, that’s
what a soldier does when he gives an order: convince by force of arms. That’s
why we say the military must never govern, and that includes us. Because whoever
has had to resort to arms to make his ideas felt is pretty short on ideas…
that’s why we say that armed movements, however revolutionary they may be, are
basically arbitrary movements. In any case, what an armed movement has to do is
raise the problem and step aside.” March 11, 2001.
Anyone recognize the speaker? How about this: “those of us who are military are
not intelligent, if we were we would not be military”, in April 1999.
These
are words of the EZLN, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the first in
an interview in Mexico City and the second in a letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal. Play
this name that quote game one more time with me for this: “who is the true
warrior—he who walks always with death at his side or he who controls the death
of others?” That’s Gandhi.
What’s the point of this quoting game? I’ve heard the violence/nonviolence in
social movements framed too many times in terms of the EZLN versus Gandhi. The
EZLN is supposed to exemplify armed struggle. Gandhi is supposed to exemplify
weakness or a reluctance to take a punch. The truth is that Gandhi said,
correctly, that courage was in facing punches and not in doling them out. And
the truth is that the EZLN is very clear about how unhappy they are to be an
armed movement. In March, when they went to Mexico City, they made a big show of
leaving their weapons at home. Of accepting that the only protection they had
was the political protection of hundreds of thousands of (equally unarmed)
Mexicans who would take care of them.
Pitting the EZLN against the Indian Nationalist Movement as if approving of one
means disapproving of the other is an odd and unfair thing to do. Does
supporting the EZLN mean I like violence? Does thinking highly of Gandhi’s
strategies mean I’m a pacifist? Or does being impressed by both mean something
else entirely? Maybe it means that I support understanding one’s own situation
and context and trying to act appropriately, which is what characterizes both
movements. Maybe it means I support building alternatives at the same time as
resistance, taking care of one’s own people, communicating with them, making the
opposition look ridiculous, and trying to choose appropriate actions for the
situation.
In
1995, when the Mexican Government attacked with the intention of arresting the
Zapatista command, the command didn’t stand and fight. They retreated. They knew
that if they fought, the Government would have every excuse to execute terrible
reprisals against their people. This year, they left their weapons in Chiapas
and went to Mexico City, and the government—who would have loved to arrest
them– was helpless.
Advocates of armed struggle say that the only reason the government doesn’t
repress a movement out of existence is because the movement is ineffective. So
how does that work with the unarmed Zapatista caravan? Was it ineffective? Is
that why the government didn’t attack it or round up the leaders? Or is there
such a thing as political protection against repression? Do governments, in
spite of having all the guns, still rely on the obedience of people to
govern—and do they not fear losing that obedience?
I
heard an Indian military analyst once criticize Indian militarists who thought
India should gear up to try to resist or deter a US intervention. The trouble
with their argument, he said, was that there is just no way India, or any 3rd
world country, can militarily deter the US. Such protections as there are, are
political. I believe the same is true for social movements.
The
opposition would like nothing better than to turn a social struggle into a
military one. That’s one they can win. But as the EZLN said, even violence is
nothing more than a way to convince. The purpose of an assassination or a
massacre isn’t usually to kill the people assassinated or massacred. It’s to
convince the people who aren’t killed. The question for social movements is,
given the potentials on both sides, is it worth using that method to convince?
Note
that this isn’t a moral argument. I believe that self defense on the part of an
oppressed people is a moral act. I think Malcolm X was right to be unmoved by
white liberals trying to teach black folks nonviolence—go teach the Klan
nonviolence, he said, and then we’ll talk. I think that superior morality isn’t
in self-defense or in pacifism, but in doing whatever is necessary to end the
oppression in the least costly way possible. If I thought that meant violence,
I’d be blowing something up right now. Since I don’t, I’m not.
Both
the EZLN and the Indian nationalists found symbols that communicated with
people. The EZLN uses ski masks, rubber boots, and guns. Gandhi used loincloths
and spinning wheels. The point isn’t to use their symbols but to find ones that
are appropriate to our own time and place.
I
have high hopes for the movement against capitalist globalization in the first
world. I hope that it expands to realize the importance of colonization of
native people, the oppression of african americans everywhere but especially in
the justice system, the exploitation of immigrants, the abuse and inequality
suffered by women, the destructiveness of the drug war, class exploitation and
poverty at home. But I am worried that we are being drawn into an arms race with
the opposition. That’s something both our friends in ski masks and our friends
in loincloths refused to do.