Month: December 2013

A peace message for all seasons

by dcortright, posted in Uncategorized

How remarkable that in our secular age the ‘person of the year’ is Pope Francis. Rarely in history has a leader of the Church enjoyed such broad popular support, or offered so much hope and inspiration. And not just to Catholics.

In the traditional Vatican Christmas prayer this week, Pope Francis departed from his prepared script to appeal to atheists and people of other faiths. “I invite even nonbelievers to desire peace,” he said. He called for all people of conscience to unite in the mission of building peace.

Pope Francis made a similar appeal earlier this year in his homily before a huge crowd at the Vatican Prayer Vigil for Peace in September. As he did this week the Pope offered his message of peace not just for Christians but also for “our brothers and sisters of other religions, and every man and woman of good will.” He called upon all people to cry out forcefully against violence and war. “Leave behind the self-interest that hardens your heart … and open yourself to dialogue and reconciliation.” Francis also repeated the famous words of Pope Paul VI: “War … is always a defeat for humanity.” He reminded us that peace is not separate from the demands of justice but is rooted in personal sacrifice, clemency, mercy and love.

In appealing for peace and reaching out beyond the Church, Pope Francis continues the tradition of Pope John XXIII, whose famous encyclopedia, Pacem in Terris, was published 50 years ago. In that historic document Pope John expressed a new spirit of universality, directing his message not just to Catholics but all people of good will. Pope John defined peace as an ordered society based on moral principles and rooted in human rights, including the right to “a worthy standard of living.”

Pope John described peacemaking as “an imperative of duty; it is a requirement of love.” We are called to be “magnanimous” in serving as a “spark of light,” he declared, to be a “vivifying leaven” to help bring about the beloved community of peace based on the love of God.

Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of Pope John in upholding an important but often ignored teaching of Christianity. Peacemaking is not an optional commitment. It is a requirement of faith.

It is more than that, though, as Pope Francis reminds us. It is a mission to which all people are called, believers and non-believers alike. It is a message not just for Christmas but for all seasons, an appeal to overcome hatred with love and work for a more just and peaceful future. 

Homage to Mandela, and to the millions who supported him

by dcortright, posted in Nonviolence

Many words of praise have been spoken and written about Nelson Mandela in recent days. Rightly so. He was one of the most transformational figures in modern history. A people’s hero who embodied the worldwide resistance to apartheid and a national leader who demonstrated the power of reconciliation.

When we honor Mandela we honor the anti-apartheid movement he led and are reminded again of the power of nonviolent resistance. It is ironic that Mandela went to jail in the 1960s refusing to condemn the armed struggle against apartheid, because his release from prison decades later and the success of the South African freedom struggle resulted almost entirely from nonviolent action.

The armed actions of the African National Congress’s military wing did not have a major impact in weakening the apartheid system. It was the intensifying civil resistance of the people that ultimately brought down the regime.

In the 1980s the United Democratic Front of anti-apartheid groups organized a massive campaign of noncooperation and political defiance that made the country ungovernable. People all over the country participated in rent boycotts, student strikes, consumer boycotts and worker ‘stayaways.’ By 1986 fifty-four townships and some half a million households were participating in rent boycotts. In 1988 the Congress of South African Trade Unions organized the most successful general strike in the country’s history. An estimated 70 per cent of the workforce participated in the three-day strike. During those years the regime faced a constant onslaught of political resistance and civil noncooperation that undermined its ability to maintain public order.[i]

Meanwhile the worldwide antiapartheid movement mounted a massive campaign for sanctions and economic divestment that undermined the financial viability of the regime. As South Africa became more turbulent and political pressures increased in many countries against support for the apartheid system, corporate investment began to dry up, and banks slowed and eventually stopped lending money to the regime. In the United States by the early 1990s an estimated 28 states and 92 cities had adopted divestment resolutions urging companies not to do business with firms linked to the apartheid system.[ii] In 1986 the U.S. Congress adopted the Comprehensive Apartheid Act, overriding a veto by President Reagan.

These external pressures combined with widespread domestic resistance to force the regime to release Mandela and opened the door to the creation of a nonracial democracy.

So as we offer homage to Mandela, let us also pay tribute to the many millions of people in South Africa and all over the world who participated with him in the historic campaign to end apartheid.

[i] See Robert M. Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa (Oxford University Press, 1991); and Jeremy Seekings, The UDF: A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-1991 (Ohio University press, 2000).

[ii] See Jennifer Davis, “Sanctions and Apartheid:  The Economic Challenge to Discrimination,” in Economic Sanctions: Panacea or Peacebuilding in a Post-Cold War World?, eds. David Cortright and George A. Lopez (Westview Press, 1995); and Richard Knight, State & Municipal Governments Take Aim at Apartheid (American Committee on Africa, 1991).