March 20, 2011
“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God”
I have been thinking a lot these past weeks because events in North Africa and the Middle East about peace. I wish to thank Paul Fitch and Stefan for reminding us about reminding us to strive to be a peace church. We need such reminders because today peacebuilding is under constant attack and is rendered more difficult day by day. Even now the drums are beating again urging to go to war, even as two long wars are still going on.
It took me a long time to start learning the lessons of working for peace; it does not come naturally to humans. When I finished college ad set out of the seminary for the real world it was like going out of a crystal palace to the dirty streets of a slum area. I was assigned to a town in one of the most depressed areas of the Philippines, my home province, a very rural island in the Central Philippines, where about 80% were poor farmers. Here poverty struck you and with it violence. To deaden the pain and desperation of their lives, people usually drank quantities of cheap coconut palm wine. Such a mixture was explosive. Luckily guns were beyond the means of most; a common weapon was the fighting knife. It was effective and deadly, nonetheless.
I was called many times to be at the side of people dying from horrible wounds. I realized that we were living in a culture of violence we were breathing in it; it affected all human relations.
Then Mr. Marcos declared martial law and with it more violence came. Civil war erupted in a few months. I opposed the dictatorship and joined a movement against it. An issue that we discussed for years and eventually split the movement was whether to use violent methods and armed struggle; it was a life and death question for us. I held the position that when the balance of power was unequal and violence used against the weak, they had the right to use all m3ans to defend themselves. I suffered for my stand and I saw many pay the price. To everyone’s surprise, the dictatorship finally collapsed when millions of Filipinos faced Marcos’ tanks in the people power revolution of 1986.
I am learning the lessons. I used to think that nonviolence is a stand that the weak who have no other recourse take. But I now know that it takes tremendous strength not to fight back and retaliate. It is a weapon of the strong and carries a force all its own.
Today I am convinced that the future of the human community and the continued existence of our planet belong to those who work for peace We need to be reminded in 8th Day that peacebuilding is part of our mission. After all, our various efforts for social justice and community building all lead to peace in the end. We need to be constantly reminded of peace building because we live in the heart of the Empire.
I wise to summarize my thoughts by quoting Archbishop Romero. He lived through a civil war and much violence in El Salvador; He took the stand for nonviolence, dying in the end while preaching against violence.
“Peace is not the product of terror and fear. Peace is not the silence of the cemetery. Peace is not the product of violence and repression. True Peace is only achieved through justice by sharing fairly the richness of our country among all Salvadoran men and women.”