December 2001/
January 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Speak Truth to Power

Editor's note: Susan Furry, a member of Smithfield (RI) Friends Meeting, reminded us of the endurance and currency of this powerful American Friends Service Committee document, prepared in 1955 by a committee of 13 people and subtitled "A Quaker Study of International Conflict." At our request, she selected some excerpts. Susan observes, "It is remarkable how much of this study is relevant today, though it was published in 1955 to respond to the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Substitute 'terrorism' for 'communism' and it seems very contemporary, except for the use of male terms and pronouns for all humanity and for God. If AFSC were to republish this small book, those usages would surely be changed."

Most Americans accept without question the assumption that winning the peace depends upon a simultaneous reliance upon military strength and long-range programs of a positive and constructive character. They accept also that totalitarian communism is the greatest evil that now threatens men and that this evil can be met only by violence, or at least by the threat of violence. We believe these assumptions cannot be sustained, and therefore that the policies based on them are built upon sand. We have here attempted to suggest another and less widely considered alternative built on a different assumption, namely, that military power in today's world is incompatible with freedom, incapable of providing security, and ineffective in dealing with evil.

Our title, Speak Truth to Power, taken from a charge given to Eighteenth Century Friends, suggests the effort that is made to speak from the deepest insight of the Quaker faith. We speak to power in three senses:

To those who hold high places in our national life and bear the terrible responsibility of making decisions for war or peace.

To the American people who are the final reservoir of power in this country.

To the idea of Power itself, and its impact on Twentieth Century life.

Our truth is an ancient one; that love endures and overcomes; that hatred destroys; that what is obtained by love is retained, but what is obtained by hatred proves a burden. This truth, fundamental to the position which rejects reliance on the method of war, is ultimately a religious perception, a belief that stands outside of history.

Facing Evil

What is this nonviolent method that we suggest offers new hope? Its simplest and most obvious statement is found in the religious literature of many faiths, most familiarly to Christians in the Sermon on the Mount. At its heart, it is the effort to maintain unity among men. It seeks to knit the break in the sense of community whose fracture is both a cause and a result of human conflict. It relies upon love rather than hate, and though it involves a willingness to accept rather than inflict suffering, it is neither passive nor cowardly. It offers a way of meeting evil without relying on the ability to cause pain to the human being through whom evil is expressed. It seeks to change the attitude of the opponent rather than to force his submission through violence. It is in short, the practical effort to overcome evil with good.

The Insights of Nonviolence

Today an increasing amount of research is focused on the problem of individual and group conflict, and nonviolent insights are being established as valid for the successful treatment of specific situations. What are these insights?

a. The oneness of man. An essential component of the nonviolent philosophy, and indeed of most religious traditions, is the belief that in the sight of God, all men are one. Without this sense of oneness, real community is not possible.

b. The sacredness of human personality. This is the religious perception from which springs the belief in the innate worth and dignity of every human being. It sustains also the insistence on loving treatment of all men that is a second element of the nonviolent philosophy.

c. The creative nature of love. If belief in man's divine quality has been the foundation of much religious witness, faith in the positive power of love has been its dynamic. Indeed, the whole public case of the nonviolent method of resolving conflict rests ultimately on demonstrating the power of love. Unless love proves itself by overcoming fear and vanquishing evil, it will be rejected, for men are bound to resist evil.

d. The necessity for self-examination. Still another insight inherent in every religious tradition and integral to the non-violent method is the importance of honest and candid self-examination whenever conflict arises. Unless each party to a dispute is prepared to search himself first to discover his own measure of responsibility, the chance of peaceful resolution will be diminished.

Reason and Right

The American Friends Service Committee is deeply rooted in the faith that there is that of God in every man which gives him inalienable worth and dignity. He may not therefore be exploited or expended by any man for any purpose. We have been and we continue to be opposed to all wars, but we are not among those who deny the reality of evil, or assume that peace is merely the absence of war.

We have tried to face the hard facts; to put the case for nonviolence in terms of common sense. Yet, we are aware that the man who chooses in these terms alone cannot sustain himself against the mass pressures of an age of violence. If ever truth reaches power, if ever it speaks to the individual citizen, it will not be the argument that convinces. Rather it will be his own inner sense of integrity that impels him to say, "Here I stand. Regardless of relevance or consequence, I can do no other."

This is not "reasonable": the politics of eternity is not ruled by reason alone, but by reason ennobled by right. Reason alone may dictate destroying an enemy who would destroy liberty, but conscience balks. We do not end violence by compounding violence, nor conquer evil by destroying the evildoer. Evil cannot overcome evil, and the end does not justify the means. Rather, we are convinced that evil means corrupt good ends; and we know with a terrible certainty demonstrated by two world wars in our time, that when we undertake to overcome evil with evil, we ourselves tend to become the evil that we seek to overcome.

We Must Turn About

Community is built on trust and confidence, which some say is not possible now because the communist cannot be trusted. The politics of eternity do not require that we trust him. They require us to love him and to trust God. We call for no calculated risk on behalf of national interest or preservation; rather for an uncalculated risk in living by the claims of the Kingdom, on behalf of the whole family of man conceived as a divine-human society.

The politics of eternity work not by might but by spirit; a Spirit whose redemptive power is released among men through suffering endured on behalf of the evildoers, and in obedience to the divine command to love all men. Such love is worlds apart from the expedient of loving those who love us, of doing good to those who have done good to us. It is the essence of such love that it does not require an advance guarantee that it will succeed, will prove easy or cheap, or that it will be met with swift answering love.

To act on such a faith, the politics of eternity demand of us, first, repentance. As individuals and as a nation we must literally turn about. We must turn from our self-righteousness and arrogance, and confess that we do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord. We must turn from the substitution of material for spiritual values; we must turn not only from our use of mass violence but from what is worse, our readiness to use this violence whenever it suits our purpose, regardless of the pain it inflicts on others. We must turn about.

The race is on; it may be almost run. The weak are impotent, the strong dictate. Claims of national interest or group loyalty are made to justify the crushing of human personality. There is an arrogance that identifies self-interest with virtue, and deafens men to the needs and voices of others outside their own group or nation. Men strive for security in a world where security cannot exist. The more we cling to security the less secure we feel; the more we cling to armaments and economic privilege the more frightened we become. How shall man be released from his besetting fears, and from his prevailing sense of futility?

To risk all may be to gain all. We do not fear death, but we want to live and we want our children to live and fulfill their lives. There can hardly be a greater cause than the release of man from the terror and hate that now enslave him. Each man has the source of freedom within himself. He can say "No" to the war machine and to immoral claims of power wherever they exist and whatever the consequences may be. We call on all men to say "Yes" to courageous nonviolence, which alone can overcome injustice, persecution, and tyranny.

The early Friends realized only too clearly that the Kingdom of God had not come, but they had an inward sense that it would never come until somebody believed in its principles enough to try them in actual operation. They resolved to go forward then, and make the experimental trial, and take the consequences.

So we believe and so we advise.

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