The precarious road
Rosenthal, Peggy
NONVIOLENCE IN THE...
...In fact the army did split, and "Marcos did give nation...
...Let us now break this lence," because of the deeply entrenched violence on both bread that we have in our hand, and bring one part of the sides: host to those with whom we have not yet spoken in our We felt it was late, but we felt on the other hand that seminar...
...But you must energetic leadership of Father Blanco and a staff that soon make up your mind, and if you do, you must prepare grew to nine, AKKAPKA set right to work on building base yourself for nonviolent resistance...
...And I think one thing that made us decide to peasants...
...Deats, a because ever since this visit I am unable to sleep...
...come back to the group to whom emphasize this enough: that in this whole process, there you really belong...
...Under the influence of degard rejoices in what the Filipino church and people were Claver's group, the Bishops' Conference of the Philippines able to do together through "the transforming power of nonissued increasingly strong statements against government op- violence," her initial concerns remain...
...Although she enjoys this picture of conversion from the bottom up, Hildegard Goss-Mayr also sees its serious implications...
...Aquino, priests in turnover, and what happened was that a twenty-year reign of a all the churches reading from the pulpit the bishops' call for dictator was ended...
...But this developworked...
...If you want to have seminars of Then when Marcos, at the end of 1985, unexpectedly anpreparation, let us know, and we are willing to come nounced the "snap" election for February 7, 1986, AKback...
...Then a great deal of bloodshed could power, who wanted to make herself the first person in the be foreseen...
...Out of the combat against an unjust system like that of Marcos...
...And in the celebrations of the campaign speeches for reconciliation instead of revenge...
...And Father Blanco said, "Now, this 1984...
...And just as behind the taneously being communicated by the Catholic radio station, nonviolent people's power lay AKKAPKA's preparatory Radio Veritas, which played an indispensable role in the work, behind both Mrs...
...from that occasion...
...ing tanks, soldiers accepting flowers from nuns, military and It was because of their Latin American experience that the church leaders urging soldiers to refuse orders to shoot their Goss-Mayrs were invited to the Philippines in 1984 to help fellow citizens...
...And he said to Jean and myself: "A few responsibility...
...Nonviolence is not communities and on giving in-depth seminars on active nonsomething that you do spontaneously and without prepa- violence to key groups of people around the country...
...This love "that it was very late to come into the situation with nonvio- of His - how do we live up to it...
...training located in ten highly populated areas...
...Make nars, an American, Richard Deats, Interfaith Director of the up your mind.' " And then he said, "You see it is Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), went to the Philippines to providential that you have come just at this point of time, lead three more weeks of nonviolent training sessions...
...But how did it work...
...The violence in society and the violence in our own hearts The Tent Cities operated from mid-January until the end of cannot, the Goss-Mayrs insist, be separated...
...I opposition, a dictator was forced from power and the popularly was priviliged to hear her talk and to interview her last April at elected choice became president...
...And we saw leaders from the labor unions with accept this challenge was when, on the last day that we 400,000 members breaking down in tears, because they spent on this first visit, the brother of Ninoy Aquino said, "So far we have only been educating the workers came to see us...
...the election crisis, so Hildegard Goss-Mayr was able to obAn incident at one of the seminars shows the dynamics of serve them when she returned to the Philippines at the beginspiritual conversion at work in political reconciliation...
...With their arms and to become one of the democratic parties in a laugh she adds, "I think it is the people who converted the the country...
...After traveling around the country, they concluded host is bread...
...Her assessment is that they were instrumenthe seminar participants were political opposition leaders and tal in the eventual success of the nonviolent campaign: also peasant leaders: One tent was set up right in the banking center in the peasants would not speak with the politicians...
...But while stressing that important places in the provinces: to dismantle the pri"it was very important that in this last phase the church as an vate armies of the landlords...
...Beyond their experience in Through reading the Gospel and Gandhi while suffering the the Philippines, for over twenty years the Goss-Mayrs have conditions of imprisonment, he came to see "that to be a initiated and participated in nonviolent liberation struggles in politician does not mean to try to get quickly as much power as Latin America and elsewhere...
...And she appreciates the historic peatedly qualifies by insisting that it was "only a first step": significance of the bishops' February 14 letter: "I think it is the What is before the Filipino people now is at least as first time, at least in present history, that a bishops' conference difficult, if not more difficult...
...personal suffering...
...And I on what is good or just or fairthink we must be truthful and say that it was similar to Latin which leaves me over open sea America: that the church as an official institution was for too amongst the downdraughts of despair long - for much too long - linked to those in power...
...Because it will need in writing asked people to go into nonviolent action and into perseverance...
...struggle," she sees the direction of influence precisely that to negotiate with the Moslem minority...
...As crowd scenes, they were the most dramatic...
...articles in America, has called it "the February revolution...
...and "that tremendous Aquino and Cardinal Sin and the Goss-Mayrs were meeting encounter with suffering and oppression and finally assassinaprivately to prepare "scenarios" of nonviolent response to tion" gave her a deep identification with the Filipino people in various possibilities that might develop...
...nine weeks of FOR seminars, AKKAPKA - the nonviolent So Jean and I said, "At least you could try...
...Hildegard Mayr was oneself...
...But "it is not so well known," she says, that Hildegard Goss-Mayr...
...successful nonviolent liberation was played by the hierarchy What is before us now is the second phase: addressing the deep rather than by the people...
...And I think we cannot belong to the people...
...was always this unity - of outward nonviolent action These are the scenes of mass nonviolent action that we all against the unjust regime and of that deep spirituality saw...
...He was one of those who had been in polarization, and not in a work to overcome really the organizing these demonstrations after the assassination injustice in the hearts and minds of those who carry of his brother...
...man that we have...
...But "it is not a thorough, complete mass resistance), makes it look as if the leading role in the revolution in the sense of a total transformation of society...
...tion program in nonviolent action...
...Claver's group numbered between The church, then, bears some blame for the polarized viotwenty and thirty (out of a Bishops' Conference of 104) by the lence which made the Goss-Mayrs pessimistic in 1984 about time he brought them to meet with the Goss-Mayrs in 1984 and the possibilities of nonviolence...
...They demand that martial law be discontinued and human rights be spent most of 1962 to 1977 in Latin America, sent by the IFOR respected...
...With almost no bloodshed, and none caused by the ment is best described in Hildegard Goss-Mayr's own words...
...was happening, but around the clock it also read passages of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Sermon on the Mount, and Gan- RS...
...They lobbied at the Second it, was "the blood of the martyr" that bears fruit: it "encourVatican Council for an endorsement of nonviolent peacemak- aged thousands and thousands of others to overthrow the fear ing, and succeeded in getting the first official church support that had kept them passive, and to come out on the streets to of conscientious objection written into Gaudium et Spes...
...There is as yet not pression in the last few years...
...She and her husband, Jean Goss, were behind this event lay a decisive private drama: "Ninoy in Manila during the first two weeks of February, meeting for Aquino, while he was in prison, underwent a radical change - regular strategy sessions with Mrs...
...In one particular instance, a retreat in Groton, Massachusetts.The quotes that follow are we actually saw nonviolence succeed...
...Her voice sounds pained when she criticizes the church Le Roy Smith, Jr...
...and Hildegard Goss-Mayr's view is complex...
...Forty ration...
...Hildegard agrees: "Cory was which everybody was most afraid," Hildegard says, "was that not a person who wanted to be president, who wanted to have the army would split...
...The deep poverty...
...I think it makes a great difference, wherein a revolutionary process, where people are emotionally very, very taken in, as you can understand - whether you promote hatred and revenge, or whether you help the people to stand firmly for justice but at the same time t not to let themselves be taken in by the hatred of those u who stand with the oppressor: not to become like the Catholic Bishops' Conference issuing two crucial statements, oppressor, but to stand for justice and to love your one (on January 26) just before the election and one (on enemy to the extent that you want to liberate him, you February 14) just after it, condemning the government's cheatwant to win him, you want to draw him in, and you don't ing as a "conspiracy of evil" and endorsing "the nonviolent want his destruction but his liberation...
...KAPKA changed its strategy...
...There in a little park, this big prayer tent 20 June 1986: 365 was set up...
...It was into this situation of polarized violence we have no faith...
...process" in the Philippines, she calls the February events "the She sees Bishop Claver ("certainly one of the pillars of non- recent liberation struggle...
...These seminars were not just training days ago the arms merchants visited us and said to us, people in a methodology...
...In were in fact trained, and did defend the boxes without weapons all these seminars, as in the ones the Goss-Mayrs have led when Marcos's forces tried to steal them...
...NONVIOLENCE IN THE PHILIPPINES ME PEGGY ROSENTHAL on the nonviolent liberation-movement in Latin America is indisputable: two of the movement's leaders, Dom Helder URING FEBRUARY of this year, spectators around the Camara and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Dworld watched nonviolence at work in the Philippines: attribute their understanding of nonviolence to personal enon television we saw masses of unarmed people block- counters with the Goss-Mayrs...
...fully in his "dark night of the soul...
...And that we must use this arm together with the organized nonviolent resistance...
...a process going on, similar to what happened in some Latin In her concern about the continued precariousness of the American countries, that a few bishops understand [non- situation, Hildegard is careful about the language she uses in violence] and they believe that their brothers in Christ can referring to the February drama...
...to carry out a land reform so institution, the bishops, gave its full support to the nonviolent that the mass of the people can live in dignity on the land...
...church...
...But more and more and more, and finally you ing together on how to help their people in the light of the know there were several hundred thousand, who spent a Gospel, studying the responses of bishops in comparable Commonweal: 366 places like Brazil, and encouraging specific acts of nonviolent lead in a nonviolent resistance," people "will have to take resistance in their dioceses when faced with government counterviolence...
...But "this gift of the life of Ninoy," as Hildegard puts several Eastern Bloc countries...
...And even now, while Hilthen again with Richard Deats in 1985...
...This body of Christ is our bread...
...Claver'gradually gathered a growing number of shooting on the people...
...Everybody held the host, consecrated, THE GOSS-MAYRS arrived in the Philippines in February right in his hand...
...And wherever the moral authorities, whether it is the Christian churches or other moral authorities, do not give a 20 June 1986: 367...
...They Manila, where the financial power of the regime was said, "We have no faith in the politicians...
...Aquino and Cardinal Sin...
...They violent education seminars, it concentrated on three projects: returned that summer for six weeks, giving seminars on non- encouraging people to vote from their consciences, without violent liberation to a variety of people: peasants, political fear and without accepting bribes...
...Much For everyone prefers his own, of the responsibility for the growth of the NPA lies, she insists sharing their constructs and their dreams...
...This picture of the Filipino bishops gradually converting When I asked Richard Deats whether he thought "revolution" each other to active nonviolence over the years, combined with was an accurate term, he made a useful distinction: yes, he the visibly effective actions of the church hierarchy during the said, "in the sense that a revolution is a rapid change, a rapid crisis (Cardinal Sin's Victory Mass for Mrs...
...While believing firmly in nonviolence as a revwhom the people or the church hierarchy - is a matter of olutionary force, and referring often to "the revolutionary interpretation...
...Seminary in the Philippines for thirteen years, focused his What is my responsibility as a Christian politician in this workshops on the Filipino Protestant community, since the situation...
...Bishop Claver, in recent understand also, if they witness...
...Their election statements are enough preparation...
...Even if they concentrated...
...you whole revolutionary process...
...and setting up throughout the world, the focus was two-fold: analysis of the "Tent Cities," tents for prayer and fasting and nonviolent structures of oppression, and personal spiritual conversion...
...And for journalists to take films of those sol- - became committed to active nonviolence as the only legitidiers who would shoot on the people...
...Aquino's celebration social and economic problems such as the landlessness and the speeches attributed the success to "people's power...
...spontaneous demonstrations of outrage at Benigno Aquino's Someone uniquely qualified to answer these questions is assassination...
...When first imprisoned They were also in the country in 1984, teaching active nonvio- by Marcos, Aquino "was an opposition politician, certainly an lence to Filipinos who in turn undertook a nation-wide educa- honest person, but, like all politicians, trying to get power...
...sadly, with "the cowardice of large sections of the official but always some must fly alone...
...Hildegard Goss-Mayr's assessment is equally question of who, behind the scenes, was the greater force on cautious...
...struggle for justice" as the way to resist this evil "by peaceful This message being delivered in the prayer tents was simul- means - in the manner of Christ...
...One 'that Hildegard and Jean Goss-Mayr were invited to come by group would not relate to the other...
...But because Aquino and her of the church, to be a candidate for president, she did it because advisors had prepared themselves for this possibility, they she knew she had to serve the people...
...So one evening when some Filipino religious communities who saw the urgent need we celebrated the Eucharist together, Father Blanco, a for a well-organized nation-wide nonviolent campaign...
...There has been is educated in nonviolence...
...Not only did Radio Veritas coordinate active nonviolence lay years of preparation and growing comthe whole resistance, broadcasting continual reports of what mitment...
...Many very difficult steps...
...were ready with their response: The story behind the bishops' dramatic election-crisis enRadio Veritas immediately called people to fill up the dorsement of nonviolent action is longer...
...What steps of with other commentators that the public drama of mass nonviopreparation made the success possible...
...We offer them to you...
...born in Austria in 1930, the daughter of a founder of the Ninoy Aquino knew, when he decided in 1983 to return International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR...
...It begins with Franstreet, to stand in front of the tanks, to speak to the cisco Claver, S.J., who - as Bishop of Bukidnon in the 1970s soldiers...
...What were the dynamics of this Hildegard - everyone calls her by her first name - agrees powerful force for overcoming oppression...
...No soldier wants mate Christian response to the violence of both the government to see a film in which his face is personally shown and the NPA...
...bishops...
...And even that phrase she reviolence") as a major force...
...able to overthrow this regime...
...But they really meant for each 'Do you think that with a few demonstrations you will be one of us a deep change, a conversion...
...No - you have to prepare yourself inwardly, such seminars were held in thirty provinces during AKKAPbecause nonviolent methods are the fruit of a vision of KA's first year (autumn 1984-85...
...Jesuit priest, distributed the host immediately after the consecration...
...And soon we saw that nonviolence had indeed develop a nonviolent opposition to Marcos...
...Don't-you think you need After the Goss-Mayrs completed their six weeks of semibetter weapons than that...
...According to Richard Deats, during While this public education in - and practice of - nonvio- the seven years of her husband's imprisonment she shared lence was going on at prayer tents and over the radio, Mrs...
...But in the that gave the people the strength later on to stand up preceding weeks we had also watched other actors playing against the tanks and to confront the tanks - this force leading roles in the developing drama: Mrs...
...a kind of conversion" to nonviolence...
...Their influence The immediate result of these spontaneous mass demonstrations in the autumn of 1983 was, however, further repression PEGGY ROSENTHAL is the author of Words and Values (Oxford, 1984) by Marcos, as well as further strengthening of the Communist and is doing research on nonviolence...
...Do I Methodist who had taught social ethics at Union Theological have the right to throw our country into major civil war...
...The people were very divided...
...to negotiate with way: the bishops giving support to a struggle already in the NPA, so that perhaps they will be willing to put down process, "approving what the people had already lived...
...People cannot remain passive under certain circum- since truth abhors, yet breeds, extremes...
...Aquino calling in of fasting and prayer...
...helping to train people in opposition leaders, labor union leaders, bishops, nonviolent defense of the ballot boxes (half a million people churchworkers, including nuns and priests and laypeople...
...You don't movement of the Philippines - was formed...
...for not taking the lead in defense of human rights during the early years of martial law...
...After their from the United States to the Philippines, that the cost might be marriage in 1958, they went as representatives of IFOR to his life...
...A small part of the church" did Solo flight from base stand from the beginning "on the side of the people and work for social justice...
...harassment and killings...
...stances...
...Is there really such a thing as nonviolent Goss-Mayrs had worked primarily with Catholics...
...Under the lose anything if you try with nonviolence...
...you can, but it means to serve the people" at whatever cost to Jean Goss was born in France in 1912...
...And it will need a continued conversion of civil disobedience as the way that the Gospel proposes to us in those who still adhere to the old regime, who still have order to overcome the unjust system...
...What went on behind lent resistance to Marcos began in August 1983 with the the scenes we saw...
...to rebuild the economy of the country...
...the Eucharist, they would point out that we are not fighting only against flesh and blood, we are fighting against the demons of richness and exploitation and hatred that we have to cast out from our people - from ourselves, from the military, from Marcos and his followers...
...She's very authentic in that sense: that when she the order to those who were still loyal to him to crush the accepted, under the pressure of the people, under the demand dissident part of the army...
...Among ning of February...
...Yet Mrs...
...But the majority of the church leadership My world and I do not agree and of the middle class people were linked to the regime...
...You cannot say that the whole nation "not the first," says Hildegard approvingly...
...AQUINO's commitment to nonviolence came out of dhi, urging people to follow these examples...
...And the scenario of their suffering under Marcos...
...Aquino's and the bishops' calls for nonviolent campaign...
...And around this prayer tent, people who whole weekend in the road blocking the tanks so that promised to fast and pray would, day and night, have a they could not move into the dissident groups - speakpresence and carry within the fast and with the prayer the ing to the soldiers and saying, "You are one of us...
...New People's Army (NPA), whose counterviolence offered Commonweal: 364 the most powerful and organized opposition to the govern- are from the opposition, they have betrayed us so often, ment's injustice...
...And there were few in the like-minded bishops, who for fifteen years have been reflectbeginning...
...And we experienced that the peasants would there were people really searching for the nonviolent bring the host to the politicians, and politicians to the alternative...
...Can it last...
...Discontinuing the general nonA few weeks later the Goss-Mayrs were invited back...
...to teach nonviolence as a revolutionary force...
Vol. 113 • June 1986 • No. 12
