Reprinted from The Common Good, no 10, Advent 1998
EDITORIAL ‑ Making the Links
Gross violence by the state against its own people is nothing new. Major stories featured in this and the previous edition of The Common Good ‑ the Iraqi sanctions, Parihaka, the Jabiluka Ploughshares action and voluntary poverty ‑ are all linked to a basic moral position on the issue of violence or non‑violence. In each instance a moral choice is required.
The sanctions against Iraq are an act of massive violence by United Nations member countries led by the United States against an unarmed and disempowered civilian population. The medical evidence alone tells us that the Iraqi people have paid a heavy toll for the actions of their renegade leader, for whom they did not vote.
At Parihaka, 118 years ago the military forces of the colonial government moved on an unarmed group of civilians led by the Christian pacifists Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi and arrested and imprisoned them. Two thousand men were taken to prison leaving no able-bodied males behind. This action effectively gutted the village and family life of an entire hapu for a generation or more. Many died in the inhospitable prisons of Otago, Hokitika, Lyttelton and Addington from the cold and malnutrition. This action of the state against its own people came from a desire to punish and control Taranaki Maori and take their land for European settlers. It reflects modern shades of the relationship between Israel and Palestine. The devastation wreaked on the people of Parihaka has only recently been recognised by the government in the Taranaki Report of 1996, published by the Waitangi Tribunal.
The action by the Jabiluka Ploughshares in the Northern Territory of Australia at the uranium mine continues a long line of nonviolent resistance by a minority of Christians against acts of violence by the State or their agents. The building of nuclear weapons starts with the mining of uranium. It is at the start of the death‑chain that Ciaron OÕReilly and Treena Lenthall made their act of resistance by hammering on the earth-moving excavator, pouring their own blood as an act of expiation and as a sign of the death that nuclear weaponry brings. They prayed for peace and justice in the world and an end to the manufacture of nuclear weaponry.
Taking such non‑violent action against injustice taps a rich vein of Christian tradition dating back to ancient Hebrew times, epitomised by the prophets of the Scriptures and practised to the point of death by Jesus.
The link of such actions to evangelical poverty is a crucial one. State violence is so often linked to the maintenance of the power of the ruling elite, determined to maintain control over the available resources and wealth of a country. Almost invariably those who practise non‑violent resistance to this are either poor themselves or have voluntarily chosen to let go of the hold material possessions and wealth have over them. They are free people.
Saddam Hussein, the colonial government in New Zealand, and the mining companies and arms manufacturers in Australia, are dominated by an insatiable desire for power and control over people and resources so that they can enjoy the benefits of the wealth this brings. A golden calf by any other name is still an idol. Voluntary poverty is the spiritual base from which non‑violent resistance flows. Those international groupings who today are breaking the sanctions by smuggling medicines and food to Iraqi civilians, the followers of Te Whiti and Tohu who in the last century stood their ground, and the Ploughshares and Catholic Worker Christians of modern times who stand up to this type of violence, do so in the name of God, through the power of the Risen Christ, in the spirit of Jesus, born of Mary at Christmas, 2000 years ago.
They stand in our name.