After the terrorist bombings
in London that ripped apart a bus and several tube stations and killed more
than 50 people, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared the need to wipe
out the "ideology of evil" that the bombs represented.
Evil is a construct Pagans try to avoid. Our theology, or rather, thealogy,
(Goddess-knowing) teaches us that dark and light, life and death, creation and
destruction exist in balance, and to cut off or condemn one aspect opens us
to the imbalance that leads to cruelty and horror. We might say that the simplistic
formulation, "They are evil; we are good" leads to its corollary,
"We are justified in destroying them by any means whatsoever." And
that is the very ideology that motivates the bombers, as well, and which throughout
human history has led to the worst atrocities.
But if we reject the concept of evil, how do we respond to horrific acts? Is
there a specifically Pagan response to such violence? There is no central Pagan
authority, no Pagan Pope to issue bulls, no Pagan rabbinical authority to say
who does or does not have the right to interpret for us. We have no sacred scriptures
to interpret, anyway. As Pagans, we are each our own spiritual authority, each
with our own connection to the Goddess.
From that authority, I offer one Pagan's response to the bombings. While we
have no Bible, no set of commandments, we do have nature as our teacher, and
a set of rough ethics that value life, balance, and interconnection. We feel
an immediate, intuitive horror at the taking of life, and at the randomness
of this death. To die because I chose to fight in the military, or to take a
particular risk, or even because I incurred a particular enemy, at least has
some sense of cause and meaning.
To die because I happened to stop for a newspaper or to get on the wrong train
seems utterly unfair and senseless.
Yet terror attacks are not senseless, not "mindless violence." They
are part of a thought-out strategy, one often pursued by those who do not have
the numbers or weaponry to mount a direct military assault. They are not unique
to Arabs or Muslims, regardless of what anti-Arab racism would say. In fact
similar tactics have been used by the Irish in their struggle for independence,
the Basques, and the Stern Gang of the Israeli independence movement who blew
up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem back in the 1940s, and by many other groups
throughout history.
If a fighting force cannot outgun the British army or the U.S. military, they
can always strike at the civilian population, and hurt the enemy in that way.
We rightfully reject and condemn those tactics. Death may be a part of life,
but inflicting it on others breaks the fabric of interconnectedness and assaults
the sacred embodied in each one of us.
But when we condemn the willingness to kill others in order to pursue one's
own ends, we also need to acknowledge that willingness is widespread. What "ideology
of evil" motivated Tony Blair to join the United States in pursuing a war
in Iraq that has killed tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians,
guilty only of being born in the wrong country at the wrong time? Could he please
explain to me why, if it is evil to kill civilians on a bus or in the London
tubes, it is okay to kill civilians in bombing raids on major cities? Why acts
that are "evil" when done by small groups of extremists are moral
and good when pursued by governments and armies? The willingness to sacrifice
others for one's own good is not limited to war. It is also part of the context
of endemic violence woven into our current political and economic system. The
UN Commission on Children tells us that six million children a year die from
the policies the International Monetary Fund imposes on third world countries,
that result in lack of access to health care and clean water. In a neighborhood
near mine, young men kill each other in drug and gang wars born of hopelessness
and despair. The very integrity of the earth's climate and life support systems
are in jeopardy from global warming, while efforts to address this crucial life
issue are stymied deliberately by a few defending their own economic interests.
And while this constant killing goes on, we are distracted and desensitized.
Turn on the television any night of the week, and notice how our imaginations
are colonized by violence. Crime shows, jewel thieves, cop shows, war stories,
battle scenes march endlessly across the screen, filling our inner vision with
images of mayhem, broken bodies and blood, as if we can only be entertained
by vicarious pain and endlessly replayed dramas in which someone else dies and
I live.
We should be shocked and horrified at the bombings. Our hearts go out to the
victims and their loved ones with compassion and grief.
But we should also be shocked and horrified at the larger context of violence
in which they take place. What would happen, how would the world change, if
our hearts went out with compassion to the children of Iraq, of Africa, of the
Brazilian favelas, of the inner city of Los Angeles? If we were as quick to
condemn the perpetrators of endemic economic violence as we are to condemn bombers?
If we were as horrified at the oil company executive who suppresses evidence
of global warming as we are at the gunman?
A Pagan response to violence might say there's enough death, enough drama inherent
in nature, in the course of life and the changes of the seasons and the cougar's
pursuit of the deer. Let's not add to it. As human beings, we're put on this
earth to develop those things the cougar does not have: compassion, gratitude,
conscious appreciation and wonder at the beauty and mystery of life. Let's stop
killing each other, and get on with it.
I want to live in a world in which I can safely board a bus, in London or New
York or Tel Aviv, without wondering if the bus will explode. And I want to live
in a world in which a child can safely go to bed in Baghdad or Jenin or Darfur,
without wondering if bombs or tanks or bulldozers will destroy her home by morning,
or if her family will have food the next day.
We are all interconnected. Perhaps that simple, Pagan truth could lead us to
reject murder as a way of resolving our issues with each other, whether the
killing is done by opposition groups or by the state itself or by a ruthless
and unjust economic system. We are all part of the circle of life. That understanding
must lead us to create a world in which the fabric of life is cherished, in
the individual and the whole, and violence is transformed by love.
First published online
at belief.net, July 2005.
Copyright (c) 2005 by Starhawk. All rights reserved.
This copyright protects Starhawk's right to future publication of her work.
Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this essay (forward
it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses.
Please do not change any part of it without permission. Please keep this notice
with it.
Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of The Earth
Path, Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, The Fifth
Sacred Thing and other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality.
She teaches Earth
Activist Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills,
and works with the RANT
trainer’s collective, that offers training and support for mobilizations
around global justice and peace issues.