Although I do not usually like to ascribe labels to anything or anyone, I will make an exception here in order to give you a better idea of what my opinions are about war, peace, violence, and change. I am a supporter of non violent resistance. Think Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Solidarity movement in Poland, Otpor's ousting of then Serbian president Milosevic, etc. My opinion is that in order to create change, violence of any sort should be the last option. I do concede that in many cases where human right violations are being committed, violent means are needed in order to quickly end any such violations or danger, but such cases are few and rare. Nonviolent resistance, while it does usually take a longer amount of time, is more effective and less destructive than violent reactions to a problem.
Now that you have a small background on my views on this topic, I want to revisit a subject that my JUPS class visited multiple times. ROTC and the absence of a peace education equivalent. On this topic, I actually disagree with many of my JUPS colleagues, because I believe that, although ROTC is essentially training students for war, there are many benefits to this type of program, including learning discipline, determination, respect, etc.
But, if there is a program training students to be fighters and soldiers, shouldn't there also be a program teaching these same students how to make and sustain peace? Correct me if I am wrong, because I haven't done tons of research on the topic, but currently there is little to no peace-keeping training provided for ROTC students. In my opinion, this does not make sense, because many times one of the United States' purposes for going to war is to eventually settle the problem and have some sort of peace. Even if this is not a main goal, maintaining a balance between educating a student for war and educating a student for peace seems to be an intrinsically good idea. Maybe if peace education was better integrated into the ROTC curriculum, the military would lose some of its soldiers, but the remaining soldiers would also have been taught about different perspectives toward violence and war.
While I know this idea seems idealistic, I am okay with that, because change has to start somewhere. I am nowhere close to an expert on military affairs or even the life of a soldier so if you are, I apologize for any unintended misrepresentations and would love to discuss this more with you. I greatly respect and support the men and women in the armed forces, even if I do not always agree with their job description.
Until next time, I leave you with that little discussion and this quote from the great Martin Luther King Jr.:
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.~ MLK Jr. 1964
Peace.
MC
1 comment:
This is a very thoughtful post. I like to think that violence is never the answer that a Christ-follower would choose or support, though there may be occasions where pure pacifism becomes tricky. I agree that, at the very least, violence should be a last resort; and by that, I mean really a last resort, not just rhetorically so.
Post a Comment