Daniel Berrigan: A Lifetime of Peace Activism
by Deena Guzder, commondreams.org
May 9th 2011
Jingoistic crowds erupted with frat-boy glee shortly after President Barack
Obama announced the extrajudicial assassination of Osama Bin Laden earlier this
month. After all, America’s public enemy Numero Uno -- our own veritable Darth
Vadar – had lost what the mainstream media depicts as a Manichean battle ten
years in the making. The lone voices in the wilderness that dared to point out
the covert operation violated elementary norms of international law were
quickly dismissed as “fanatics”.
According to prevailing wisdom in the United States today, the best way to
eradicate the world of a hateful ideology is by deploying 80 commandos on the
home of an unarmed suspect and murdering him on the spot. Yet, we already see
the entirely predictable consequences of the Osama bin Laden raid. In
Portland, Maine, a mosque was defaced just hours after the news broke of bin
Laden’s death. The graffiti read, "Osama Today, Islam tomorow" [sic]. Less
than a week later, any misconception that the so-called Global War on Terror
was winding down was dispelled when a drone attack killed at least eight people
in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. Meanwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
disingenuously conflated al-Qaeda with the Taliban and, with bellicose bravado,
declared the U.S. would continue its war in Afghanistan. And, in Pakistan,
hundreds of Jamaat-ud-Dawa activists prayed in Karachi for their new martyr:
Osama bin Laden.
Many great minds have questioned the logic of retributive violence, but
perhaps none as persistently and unwaveringly as Father Daniel Berrigan. Today,
the lifelong social justice activist and renegade Jesuit priest turns 90 years
old. At a time when self-proclaimed Christian politicians espouse a Tea
Party-inspired theology of xenophobia and vengeance, Berrigan is a rare soul
that continues tirelessly opposing violence in its many forms. Along with his
late brother Phillip, he has publicly opposed aid to alleged anti-Communist
forces in Southeast Asia, the use of American forces in Grenada, the
installation of Pershing missiles in West Germany, aid to the Contras in
Nicaragua, intervention in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, the Cold
War, and the Gulf War. Berrigan also vocally opposed the U.S. wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.[1] For Berrigan, Christianity is a counter-cultural
practice directly at odds with the prevailing national culture of retributive
justice. Arrested more times than he can count -- but “fewer than I should have
been,” Berrigan says -- he has spent over half a century digging mock graves on
the Pentagon’s front lawn, pouring vials of his own blood on Capitol Hill,
vandalizing army airplanes, hammering on nuclear nosecones, turning his back on
judges during his sentencing hearings, staging hunger strikes in prisons,
undergoing strip searches for educating his fellow inmates, and standing in
court on charges ranging from “criminal mischief” to “destruction of government
property” to, most egregiously, “failure to quit.” [2] Berrigan fears moral
suicide over physical death and regards moral autonomy as more liberating than
physical freedom.
Last year, after badgering members of the Catholic Worker community across the
country, I tracked down America’s most famous living priest. When I arrived at
Berrigan’s Lower West Side friary in Manhattan, I half expected to find a
Bible-toting warrior, but on that clement morning, I walked into the friary’s
cozy hallway to find a slightly hunched elderly man with a meek smile and skin
crinkled like aluminum foil. Greeting me with the softest, gentlest “hello”
that I’ve heard since my first day at Montessori school, Father Berrigan
clasped my hand and led me into his tastefully decorated office. The walls of
his office showcased posters of freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi, a
child’s drawing of a circus clown, and framed quilts of butterflies. Among his
impressive collection of books are volumes by his longtime heroes: Dorothy Day,
Martin Luther King Jr., and Thomas Merton. Just shy of his ninetieth birthday,
Berrigan spoke with me for an hour and a half, patiently answering my many
questions and stopping only twice or so to cough.
Berrigan told me of surviving a Depression-era boyhood, an abusive father,
and countless wars to emerge with a startlingly simple message: stop the
violence. If Berrigan had lived during slavery, he would have fought with the
abolitionists, but he would not have joined John Brown in leading violent slave
insurrections. Even at the height of his Vietnam antiwar activism--or, as his
detractors would say, the height of his arrogance--Berrigan never condoned
violence. A tape-recorded message to the Weatherman Underground, attributed to
Berrigan in 1971, pleads with the militant group to return to nonviolence,
warning,: “No principle is worth the sacrifice of a single human being.”
In a world still wracked by violence, Berrigan’s peace testimony remains
largely unheard and his pacifist views are too often dismissed as naïve. As we
celebrate his lifelong commitment to social justice activism on his birthday,
may we remember his startlingly clear message that violence is not the answer
even when it’s seems most tempting and most justified. As Berrigan and so many
others have noted, our convictions matter most when they’re tested on the
crucible of life -- not when they are easy, safe, and fashionable. If we
believe in a world in which international law triumphs over unilateral action;
mercy triumphs over vengeance; and clemency over sacrifice then Berrigan’s
lifelong testimony teaches us that there are no exceptions.
Original Page: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/09
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