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Should Americans of Conscience Go On Strike?
Dreaming of Nonviolent Resistance
by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Paradoxically, this idea—that Jesus is perfect, so we needn’t worry about actually trying to faithfully follow those difficult things he taught—can make Christians less likely than people of other faiths to live according to his precepts. M.K. Gandhi demonstrates the seriousness with which many seekers from other religious traditions take Jesus’ actual teachings and lifestyle:
“What does Jesus mean to me? To me, he was one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever had. To his believers, he was God’s only begotten son. Could the fact that I do or do not accept this belief make Jesus have any more or less influence on my life? Is all the grandeur of his teaching and his doctrine to be forbidden to me? I cannot believe so.” Jesus on Parenting (2004)
This question reflects a sad reality: Nothing we’ve done so far is working, because the rules of the game have changed. Our choice is clear—we can give up and give in, or we can brainstorm to find some new way, in keeping with our values, to resist corruption and help restore true democracy to the world’s (current) superpower, America.
If you read Gandhi’s letters and articles, you’ll see how hard he struggled to come up with a method that could help free the Indian people from the authoritarian leaders who looked down on them. Occasionally he found a sympathetic ear among British occupiers, but sympathy can only go so far in a system founded on injustice.
Reading books voraciously, studying the teachings of Jesus, and communicating with Tolstoy and other influential people, Gandhi developed and refined a daring new method. It was a brilliant idea, though few believed that it could ever work.
But it did.
Gandhi had witnessed and experienced first hand the devastating effects of British occupation on Indians all over the country. Indians and their advocates seemed powerless to create change through protests or fighting, and fared no better when challenging repressive laws through the courts or parliament. (For a quick overview, watch Gandhi.)
Something had to change, and that something was participation in a system that had become corrupt to its very core. Nonparticipation, the nonviolent refusal to stick to their assigned scripts, is what turned the tide for the people of India.
What I Saw at the Beauty Salon
As to my question: Should Americans of conscience go on strike? It came to me at the hair salon, of all places, where I was trying not to think about what’s become of my country and my religion. The nice lady there offered me some coffee and a Mexican wedding cookie, which I accepted with gratitude. I began to relax, and 20 minutes later I happened to look up and see some things I hadn’t noticed before.
Sometimes we don’t really see what’s right in front of us. We’re so distracted by to-do lists, worries and bad news that we get stuck inside our own heads. Then, for some reason, we see. You can’t make it happen, but it’s nice when you stumble upon such a moment. Some call it inspiration. I call it insight. Whatever it is, we all need more of it.
What I saw was not just the busy salon I’d seen when I first sat down. I saw people, complex human beings who aren’t “liberal” or “conservative”, “Republican” or “Democrat”, “Christian” or “agnostic”, “black” or “white’, “gay” or “straight”, “with us” or ‘against us”. What I saw was the world we’re not supposed to see, where we’re individuals, not labels.
My eyes fixed upon a man doing a woman’s hair. On either side were female stylists, talking to their clients as they combed and trimmed. The man was laughing with a middle-aged lady whose hair he was highlighting. A couple of other stylists looked over and giggled from time to time. Facing them were eight roaring hairdryers, under which wet-haired customers couldn’t hear what was going on, but smiled at the happy scene.
Time slows down in dreamy moments such as this; only then can we release ourselves from habits of mind that are no longer effective. Reason without emotion is a paltry thing, quite inadequate to the task of innovation and growth. My mind at peace and my spirits restored, I suddenly saw beneath the surface, beyond labels or divisive categories.
What does this have to do with Gandhi, injustice, or going on strike? Okay, I’ll get to the point.
We’re All In This Together
What I saw at the center styling station wasn’t a homosexual doing a heterosexual’s hair. What I saw at the station to the left wasn’t a liberal doing a conservative’s hair. What I saw at the station to the right wasn’t a Jew doing a Christian’s hair. What I saw was: our community, in action. Yes, our community: All of us together, keeping it going.
This got me thinking about all the nurses, doctors, housekeepers and aides working in the hospital unit where my mother recently spent several months*. Though she’s never smoked a cigarette in her life (it’s against her religion), she and my father were occupationally exposed to asbestos and have had asbestosis for years; now they both have cancer. President Bush is concerned about asbestosis, too, in his predictable way, (*While writing this, I had to call 911 again because she couldn’t breathe; I will think of Mr. Bush’s conservative compassion as she’s coughing up blood.)
God bless medical professionals—I don’t know how they do it. One nurse lifted my mother’s spirits when they were at rock bottom, praying with her in the dead of night and exchanging devotionals. But she’s a black single mother of children “by different fathers”, as the religious right likes to emphasize, and in Bush’s America I’m supposed to disapprove of her because she’s not married and has no interest in subservience to men.
The doctor who saved my mother’s life one terrifying night is a gay man, but I’m not supposed to approve of him either, according to the Bush/Falwell/Dobson/Robertson doctrine. I’m supposed to hate this doctor (exclaiming, of course, that what I hate is merely his “sin”, his “choices” or his “homosexual lifestyle”). I’m supposed to make sure he doesn’t have the same civil rights I have.
As my stylist called me over for my shampoo, I thought of all the different people who keep America going and wondered, “What would happen if they all went on strike?”
If Rush Limbaugh’s Favorite Restaurant Shut Down…
Imagine the scene. Ladies from coast to coast would arrive at their salons only to be told, “Sorry, your stylist is on strike today, protesting the president’s policies that support torture, war, theocracy and discrimination.”
People of all ages would have to reschedule their check-ups after reading the sign on the office door, “All Routine Visits Cancelled Today: Doctor and Nurses on Strike”. Hungry shoppers, employees, and politicians would find their favorite restaurants closed, and all the kids would have a day off from school.
Single mothers wouldn’t go to work that day at the hotel, and guests would scream at the concierge because trash was piling up and Room Service didn’t answer the phone. People who care about the trees and the skies and the animals, about the air we breathe and the water we drink, wouldn’t go to the office, bringing federal and state governments to a screeching halt.
The busses wouldn’t run, and neither would the subways. Only a few cab drivers would be available, with a wait of three hours. Professors across the nation, exhausted from the rising tide of right-wing censorship, would stay home and watch the universities shut down with much-deserved satisfaction.
“Without a vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18
There’s just one problem with daring ideas—they require boldness and a corny-sounding thing called “moral fiber”. Many who oppose the brutal policies of the Bush administration make the mistake of retreating when hit with magic words like “faith-based” this or that. This response is precisely what Bush’s strategists were hoping for.
The aggressive political and religious leaders in and around the Bush administration certainly don’t conform to Jesus’ teachings, as even a cursory glance at their words and persecutory campaigns readily illustrate. What they do instead is boast that Bush supporters are churchgoers. I’ve known plenty of people who go to church every time the doors are open, with no discernable effect on their racism, hostility or general nastiness.
In fact, regular churchgoing has been found by research to be associated with judgmental, hostile and authoritarian attitudes; for many, its a weekly cleansing ritual that frees them to go out and sin some more, confident that all will be forgiven by Sunday afternoon.
It’s a new year: time to come out of mourning and go back to the blackboard. The stakes for America are too high for us to keep spinning our wheels, doing what we’ve done before—things that used to work, but are futile in this kind of regime.
What we need now is innovative thinking. People of all faiths should study nonviolent resistance and take cram courses on Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who’ve fought against evil and injustice. Christians of conscience should heed the rarely-mentioned directive that Jesus gave his followers: “I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:17)
The opposite of democracy is a ruling elite that refuses to listen to the voice of the people. From the very beginning, Americans of conscience have railed against the aggressive, persecutory, violent policies of this administration.
Yet no matter whom we’ve emailed or how loudly we’ve protested, Bush, Rumsfeld, and others respond by repackaging our concerns as nothing more than heartwarming evidence of our freedom of speech: This is like responding to a slave’s complaints of maltreatment by reminding him how lucky he is to be allowed to complain.
Would Mr. Bush find it so easy to dismiss the concerns of moral people by saying smart-alecky things like, “I love free speech” if one fine day millions of Americans stayed home from work? Just 24 hours of nonparticipation would give Bush and his supporters a taste of what America would be like without the “liberals” they so despise. It may be just a dream instead of a brilliant idea, but it’s a start.
”Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten,
but they may start a winning game.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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