"Don't get mad, get even!"
Sometimes heard from leaders in civil rights groups in the 1960s and 1970s, this warns against blind emotional reaction to injustice.
"Don't get mad, get smart!"
This goes a step farther. Let your aim be, not a balance of evils, but an effort to find a balance which can serve both sides and reduce or eliminate the conflict. Prepare the way for negotiations.
"Don't get mad, get a relationship!"
This expresses a truer spirit of nonviolence. Sometimes nonviolence means enduring assaults and insults silently. Sometimes it means recognizing the needs and sentiments driving the opponent and opening a conversation in which individuals are known by first names and can develop understanding of the other's situation. But we may need to learn how to make our speech and our very word consistent with nonviolence.
A few examples:
(1) At demonstrations in
Washington, D.C. in the 1970s, a participant at one planning session offered firecrackers to throw at police and military in the next day's demonstration.
Experienced leaders in nonviolence pointed out that this might be misunderstood as gunshots and provoke violence from others not close enough to see what it was. The party with the firecrackers slipped away (probably a paid instigator working against the demonstration).
(2) At the Pentagon a crowd of protesters sat facing a line of military policemen. From the back of the crowd, someone started a chant full of personal insults and slurs on the military, and began throwing debris such as bottles and cans. An experienced nonviolent leader in the front stood up, faced the rear and spoke to the debris-thrower: "If you're going to act that way, come up front with those of us who will face the consequences if you provoke violence. Otherwise keep quiet and let us get the message across." (Question: Was this a paid provocateur or merely some over-emotional and under-trained protester?)
(3) In the early 1950s, one of the first African-American judges was named to a California state court. In one of his early cases, the accused was a white man from an extremely racist background. When the prisoner was brought into the courtroom, he began a bitter, profane rant against African-Americans with personal insults for the judge. The judge could have had him heavily restrained, physically removed, and then jailed for contempt of court. Instead, he let him rant until he was out of breath at one point and said quietly, "Well now, I'm glad you got that out of your system. Now let's look into what is your trouble with the law."
By the way, we all recognize youths throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers as part of the Palestinian Intifada. I once saw the man responsible for organizing those youths for demonstrations on American television. Mr. Barbouti (now in an Israeli prison) pointed at the youths throwing stones in the background and said,"Look, now there's nonviolence in action, Nonviolence!" Was Mr. Barbouti correct, or can we suggest that:
"A rock is a deadly weapon."
Carter Pate, Chattanooga, TN
