“Civil Existence”–Daily Metta

September 30:

“It should be obvious that civil resistance cannot flourish in an atmosphere of violence.”

–Gandhi (Harijan, March 18, 1939)

Civil resistance is not the full picture of nonviolence in the least. Gandhi knew this, and he maintained that people needed at times to find ways other than disobedience; for example, if you are in the midst of a full-scale war, or another “atmosphere of violence.” The dynamic often shifts in these scenarios, where just going forward with daily life becomes the resistance itself. I’m thinking of Syria. The nonviolent movement having been forced mostly underground (or online, as we would say in more contemporary language), there are still heroic and certainly nonviolent acts taking place that do not include protests and direct confrontation. For instance, Syrian bus drivers are still working their routes, taking people to work and home, driving in the line of fire, but continuing their routine, their daily work, in spite of the violence around them. Or parents still managing to have meals together, or to be able to offer tea to a neighbor who comes by. It’s a mixture of grace and duty, dignity and power and it is available to all of us all of the time, but it shines brightest when we access it in the midst of extreme strife. There’s something, in other words, very human about it. We might call it “civil existence,” living for others even when we are afraid and uncertain.

Nonviolence requires that we think things through, not follow a list of tactical “to-dos” without questioning how they would be received in the situation we’re facing. This is the essence of strategic thinking in the real sense of the term.