THE WAR IN KOSOVO: What is a pacifist to do when confronted with the wholesale slaughter of civilians?
Jordan, Patrick
Patrick Jordan T hese are the notes of a quasi-pacifist, that is, of one who is not sure he is one. Over the past fifteen years, as a member of the Commonweal staff, I have found myself at...
...For starters, I look to grassroots bodies like the Sant' Egidio community, the Bruderhof, the Catholic Workers, Amnesty International...
...Further, the pacifist respects the courage and the moral probity of those who resist tyranny, particularly those ready to shed their own blood in the service of honor and the defense of others...
...Then there is the matter of choosing between Christ and Cicero...
...For it seems to me the just-war theory, which they generally hold, fails finally to provide much defense for its adherents, let alone an incontrovertible authority...
...Pacifists—but certainly not pacifists alone—must work to establish a competent authority to resolve international conflicts and to prevent acts of genocide...
...For despite all the staunch axioms, the pacifist recognizes their practical tenuousness: If the logic of pacifism is to act so as to become what you want the other fellow to be, it seldom happens that either side of that equation is achieved...
...Patrick Jordan is Commonweal's managing editor...
...It will require a proliferation of groups—small as well as large—working to create alternatives to war...
...Over the past fifteen years, as a member of the Commonweal staff, I have found myself at odds with editorial policy on nuclear deterrence, the Gulf War, continued sanctions against Iraq, and the present bombardment of Serbia...
...The only final answer, if it is an answer, is to throw yourself and the world about you into the bleeding arms of Christ...
...Think of the varying and changing parts: the requirements of just cause, proper authority, last option, cost of probable victory, proportionality, civilian immunity, sufficient means, changing goals, not to mention human entropy...
...and that there is no substitute for example when it comes to creating an alternative model to violent conflict resolution...
...I am quite aware of their struggles with these issues...
...But despite granting these points, the pacifist maintains the belief that there is an inherent contradiction in trying to make peace through violence...
...But stay I do because Commonweal provides an unusual forum for the reasoned discussion of such issues...
...One may have concluded that the cross teaches a radically different manner of dealing with violence than Augustine, but that does not resolve the concrete problem of what to do about Milosevic...
...Even so, the pacifist also remains in moral free fall...
...That cross means resisting evil with good: By writing, protesting, welcoming the displaced, questioning the war makers, and resisting the crimes (and criminals) that unleash war...
...The pacifist, whose act of faith starts at a different pole, finds himself/herself nonetheless with a similar moral and intellectual dilemma...
...Even the most carefully crafted conditional acceptance of violence authorized by the just-war criteria leaves one some leagues from Nazareth...
...That will happen only after careful preparation on all levels...
...One's life as a pacifist, after all, means losing a lot of arguments...
...that there is an intricate, unimpeachable connection between ends and means...
...Such developments were mighty acts of the Holy Spirit...
...The theory's elements always seem to be flopping out there like disparate pieces of medieval armor, their bearers like unsteady knights trying to hold them all toCommonweal 1 6 June 18,1999 gether...
...We need many more...
...Finally, there are all the unintended consequences: not only of the particular war, but of the theory itself which historically has provided justification to prepare for the next war...
...I hope for a renewed, strengthened United Nations...
...His mercy, his endurance, his faith, his cross...
...And I look to an Eileen Egan and a Jim Douglass, who worked behind the scenes at Vatican II to facilitate a change in the church's teaching on conscientious objection and to clarifying the church's stand against nuclear war...
...Is it out of moral lassitude (I do need a job, I tell myself), or principle...
...From this follows the pacifist's greatest conundrum: How in the face of a Milosevic—and before the eyes of a million refugees—does one continue to adhere to a belief in nonviolence...
...Yet I remain at the magazine...
...And while I do not always agree with the journal's positions, I admire its openness and my colleagues' integrity...
Vol. 126 • June 1999 • No. 12
