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Issue No.8 Spring 2002
Plea for Non-Violence
By Billy Mitchell
The great challenge facing loyalism today is the challenge to engage in
constructive democratic politics and other forms of non-violent activism.
If the maintenance of the Union is an honourable and valid aspiration – and I
firmly believe that it is – then it must be defended by equally honourable and
valid methods. If it is wrong for republicans to seek to achieve their political
aspirations through acts of violence, then it must also be wrong for loyalists
to use violence as a political weapon. If the strategy of the "Armalite and
the Ballot Box" is wrong for one group of protagonists, it is wrong for all
groups. If the forced expulsion of Protestants from their homes West of the Bann
is morally wrong, then the forced expulsion of Catholics East of the Bann must
also be morally wrong. Two wrongs can never make a right. If our cause is just,
then let us fight it by just and honourable means. Loyalists who are confident
in their own identity and in their own abilities as a political and cultural
community have nothing to fear by embracing the politics of non-violent
activism.
Non-violent activism is not a soft option. It demands much in terms of
commitment, courage, self-control and moral argument. As Martin Luther King
Junior once pointed out, the non-violent activist "is passive or
non-aggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive towards his
opponent. But his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to
persuade the opponent that he is mistaken".
I am committed to non-violence because I am convinced that the power of moral
force and non-violent action will prove superior to physical force in the long
term. The power of non-violent action has the capacity to build stronger, more
resilient and more courageous people. The path of non-violence is tougher and
requires infinitely more courage and moral strength to engage in than does
physical violence. As the Baptist theologian, Dr Ron Sider, has pointed out
"Non-violent resistance ... not for fools or cowards. It demands courage
and daring of the highest order².
Consequently, it is not merely an exercise in peaceful conflict resolution, it
is also an exercise in personal and communal character building. Likewise, the
force of moral argument – the kind of rational argument that informs the minds
of both our opponents and the watching world - has the capacity to achieve
better results than arguments that appeal to raw emotions and violent instincts.
Dialogue and political activism may take some considerable time before real
progress is achieved and it takes strength of character and resilience to stick
with the lengthy and frustrating process of dialogue. There are no short-cuts to
conflict resolution but surely the slow lumbering process of dialogue and
political activism is preferable by far to the slow lumbering processions of
distraught mourners wending their way down city streets and through country
lanes to our cemeteries and churchyards.
It has been said that many of us who now oppose violence have spent too long in
jail - that somehow the prison experience has softened our hearts and broken our
spirits. I have a video recording of a television documentary in which a local
preacher-politician ridicules people like myself as the "hard men who have
gone soft". If "going soft" means rejecting the prejudice and the
bigotry that leads to violence, then perhaps he is right. If "going
soft" means exchanging the weapons of death for the weapons of dialogue,
then perhaps he is right. None of us should have to apologise for that sort of
"softness". Meekness may be used as a synonym for softness. But there
is a vast difference between meekness and weakness. The strong and the confident
have nothing to be afraid of, they can afford to be meek.
Rather than provide a excuse for violence, the lack of credibility that
characterises post-Agreement politics and the alienation felt within working
class unionist communities presents us with fresh political challenges. Violence
will exacerbate, rather than halt, the process of marginalisation and alienation
felt within those communities. The degree of damage inflicted in terms of broken
human relationships, the weakening of community infrastructures and the negation
of democratic principles makes violent responses to the process of political and
social marginalisation of working class communities self-defeating in the long
term. It is something that must be rejected by all who value a citizenship that
is based on peace, stability and respect for diversity. The task is to embrace
policies and programmes of non-violence as a means of addressing the problems
facing our communities.
There is a Biblical proverb that warns, "Where there is no vision, the
people perish" This warning may well be applied to our current situation in
Ulster. Without a vision for a new way of doing politics and a new way of
dealing with our conflict, people will continue to perish. Enough people have
perished. It is time for us bring life to our people.
Gusty Spence summarised that new vision for the future when he read the
following statement at the announcement of the 1994 loyalist cessation: -
"We are on the threshold of a new and exciting beginning with our battles
in the future being political battles, fought on the side of honesty, decency
and democracy against the negativity of mistrust, misunderstanding and
malevolence, so that, together, we can bring forth a wholesome society in which
our children, and their children, will know the meaning of true peace."
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