Peace

Am I a Peace Activist by Rascal, Philly SDS

Violent and nonviolent organizing have been butting heads since the dawn of resistance. A question well worth examining, I find myself continually unsure of how to approach this thought. Being involved in a movement challenging the most violent system in existence, I sometimes wonder if we can ever make it out with less blood shed. Not only is the question of tactics for combating this system constantly in the air, but also handling the task of educating others and ourselves about what violence means is enormous. In my experience organizing with other SDSers, I’ve found the continual propelling away from any sort of stereotype about being a hippie, or connected to the movement of the 1960s/70s in any way. Just as many of us have learned by now, I understand that holding a peace sign at a mass anti-war protest does nothing, and that maintaining the mindset that everything we do to affect change must be peaceful to be productive is a myth. The problem is, we are scared. Even worse, who and what we are scared of are only illusions of power, greed, excess, wealth, and repression. I’m tired of being stereotyped as a peace activist, even if in the end I do want a peaceful world, because I understand that what it takes to build an entirely new society free from oppression from the ground up is a lot more than problem-solving conversations and civil disobedience. However, I am still not willing to fight violence with violence myself. Does this make my support of comrades such as the Zapatistas and Anti-Fascist/Anti-Racist activists all around the world contradictory or invalid? Everything holding me back is fear; fear of being hurt, being penalized, being outnumbered, ineffective, fear of being wrong, but recently I’ve realized that what we fear is only scary because we were taught this reality all our lives. Growing up in a wealthy white neighborhood, with conservative parents, I was always told that the law, the state, the politicians and cops, everything encompassed within such things, are to be respected and feared. If we all let go of these seemingly irrational fears, how much further along would our movement be? I’m still a kid, 19 years old, and already afraid of being shit broke, getting arrested, staying in school, having a place to call home. These fears and pressures we are taught to know and feel like the back of our hands are what keep us in the safe little box of hesitant, nonviolent organizing, even when we see other methods working, and even when many of us know those methods can only do so much. None of this means that I do not some day hope for a world free from all forms of violence, it only means that I don’t even understand the real impact of violence, especially while living in a country at war without having ever even felt the affects of it, while I know millions are dying elsewhere. So, when people ask me, ‘Are you a peace activist?’; all I can say is, I am acting, and I want peace, but how far are we willing to reach to achieve that?