Page A4
July 14,1999
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The Power Of Nonviolent Protest
Both Dr. King and M ohandas
Gandhi believed in the power o f non­
violent protest. They saw that it was
n a sm all Indian village in the
practical and effective method o f pro­
h ig h la n d s o f C h ia p a s s ta te ,
M exico, an incredible event occurred test, especially when confronted by an
opponent possessing much greater fire­
recently that w as rem iniscent o f Dr.
power and resources. Civil disobedi­
M artin L uther K ing, Jr., and the d e­
ence takes tremendous courage and
segregation cam paigns across the
discipline. It endeavors to make the
South during the 1960s.
agents o f authority to question their
For five years, Mexican government
orders, to recognize the inhumanity or
troops have battled against the Zapatista
illegitimacy o f their actions. It seeks to
rebels inChiapas. Since December 1995,
achieve
justice without the loss o f hu­
the Zapatistas have controlled the
man
life
on either side.
mayor’s office and town hall o f San
Several
days ago, on the other side o f
.Andre’s Larrainzar, a rural village. In
the
world,
a
similar protest was orga­
April, 1999, the Mexican government
nized
in
Palestine,
called the “Day o f
decided to seize the town hall by force.
Rage."
Palestinian
activists wanted to
Three hundred state police officers, fully
send a clear message to newly elected
armed, invaded the town hall, o verpow-
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that
ering only two Zapatistas who had been
they would not tolerate the expansionof
guarding the building.
Zionist settlements in the Palestinian
The next day, over one thousand
territory, or West Bank, Several thou­
Zapatistas and their supporters, all un­
sand Palestinians took part in coordi­
armed, gathered into three long col­
nated demonstrations that w ere designed
umns and marched into the center o f
not to provoke an armed military con­
town. There they confronted about 150
frontation with Israeli soldiers. InJerusa-
armed police in riot gear. The protestors
lem, Palestinians organized a general
had no weapons, not even rocks or
strike. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian
sticks. But together, they shouted and
protestors blocked the main thorough­
marched forward, pushing the police
fare nearaZionist settlement. InHebron,
out from the town hall. Government
the
Palestinian protestors m arched
officials later claimed that the police
through
the Jewish section o f town to
had retreated “to avoid a confrontation
denounce a Zionist housing project.
with furious demonstrators.” N o inju­
In the years o f the Intifada, from
ries, deaths or arrests had been reported.
1987 to 1994, thousands o f Palestinian
And the Zapatists had made their point:
teenagers and young adults were bru­
the village was backundertheircontrol.
D r . M anning M ararle
I
tally killed, wounded and imprisoned
by Israeli authorities. Hopes fora mean­
ingful settlement were delayed with the
electoral victory otBenjamin Netanyahu
and his reactionary L ikud party coali­
tion government. But with the victoryof
L.abor last month, there is the real possi­
bility that the Israelis may finally begin
to implement the agreements they prom­
ised regarding autonomy for the Pales­
tinian people. Pressure is necessary to
push the negotiations process forward,
and that is what nonviolent demonstra­
tions may help to accomplish.
In the afterm ath o f the murder o f
Amadou Diallo, over one thousand
two hundred people were arrested in
civil disobedience demonstrations in
New York City. The protests were not
designed to destroy public property or
to physically harass or attack the po­
lice. The purpose was to arouse the
conscience o f the larger community to
the immorality and injustices repre­
sented by police brutality cases such as
Amadou D iallo’s. Although Mayor
R udolph G iu lian ia repeatedly at­
tempted to denigrate the objectives o f
the nonviolent protestors, his contemp­
tuous and arrogant behavior turned
many ofhis political allies against him.
Hastily, the N ew Y ork Police Depart­
ment (NYPD) transferred some black
and H ispanic cops into the Street
Crimes Unit, which had been respon­
sible for D iallo’s death. Days ago, I
even received a call from an NYPD
Jubilee 2000 And No Less
repaid. Moreover, according to Ox fam,
one o f the w orld’s food programs,
even w ith these new measure a country
like M ozambique would be paying
twice as muc h a year for debt payments
as for primary education. According to
Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, the
G7 initiative is simply “tinkering around
the edges,’ ’ and it does not get rid o f the
debt, or free up needed resources for
health and education in poor countries
and leaves the International Monetary
Fund (IM F) in control o f the econo­
mies o f the indebted nations. Clearly,
Africa. Their rationale for the less-than
total debt relief is that total cancellation
would require enonnous budgetary out­
n D ecem ber I attended the W orld
lays by the G7 countries. But some
C ouncil o f C hurches A ssem bly
m eeting in Harare, Zim babw e, where economists argue that the total debt
could be canceled at little budgetary
Christians from a round the world
costtotheU .S. and other creditor coun­
cam e together to pray and worship
tries and would pose no fundamental
and to talk about the issues o f faith
risks to international financial institu­
w hich confront us in this w orld. The
tions or commercial banks.
issue o f the enorm ous global debt
The reality is that the huge debt is
w hich is threatening the very survival
unpayable
and all the richest nations
o f the w orld’s poorest nations w as at
are
doing
is
extracting interest pay­
the heart o f our deliberations. Indeed,
ments
on
loans
they know cannot be
these leaders ofProtestant and Ortho­
dox churches around the w orldjoined
B y B ernice P ow ell J ackson
I
the call for Jubilee 2000, the cancella­
tion o f all the debts o f the w orld’s
poorest nations, w hich had already
been endorsed by Pope John Paul VI
and the bishops and archbishops o f
the w orldw ide A nglican com munion.
It’s been a long tim e since the leaders
o f the C hristian faith all agree on any
issue, but they all agree that it is sinful
for the rich to take from the poor.
W hat has brought them to this po­
sition is the realization that the w orld’s
poorest nations now ow e som ew here
betw een $ 127 - $250 billion, depend­
ing on how one counts. Thus, Zim ba­
bw e, w here our m eeting was taking
place and w hich has the w orld’s high­
est death rate from H IV /A ID S, pays
37% o f its G ross N ational Product to
the repaym ent o f the interest alone on
the debt they owe. Precious dollars
w hich m ight go to AID S prevention
and treatm ent m ust be shuttled in­
stead to debt repaym ent and the same
is true for other services to the people,
including education and farm subsi­
dies and assistance. This is true de­
spite the high tax ation rate o f 40-45%
w hich Z im babw eans now pay.
Indeed, som e African nations spend
four times as m uch servicing debt each
year as they do on health care for their
citizens. A nd according to figures re­
leased by Jubilee 2000, for every dol­
lar given in development aid to these
poor nations, three dollars goes back to
rich countries in debt-service payments.
The irony o f all o f this is frat many of
these poor nations have provided free or
very low-cost resources to the devel­
oped world and now are being forced to
pay for the goods and services it helped
create. At the worldCouncilofChurches
meeting, forexample, we were reminded
by one A frican church leader that
m ilhonsof people were stolen from Af­
rica to provide free labor for the world,
and such natural resources as gold, oil,
diam onds, and m any m etals were
stripped from African countries for a
small portion o f their value. ‘ ‘When you
count all o f that, we don’t owe you
anything,” he said pointedly.
Now, at the latest so-called G7 meet­
ing o f the leaders o f the industrialized
nations, there was call for the forgive­
ness o f some o f the debt burden o f the
world’s poorest countries. Their esti­
mates o f their proposal would provide
$65-90billion indebt relief for some 33
countries, most o f which would be in
lieutenant requesting my assistance in
organizing curricula and selecting text­
books that could train police officers to
become more racially and culturally
tolerant. The police harassments and
stops-and-frisks o f young black teen­
agers seem to have declined in the past
two months. The lesson is clear: non­
violent protests around an important
moral or just cause that has broader
meaning for the majority ofpeople can
change public policies.
People frequently define politics as
“the art o f the possible.” For the op­
pressed, politics must be the struggle to
achieve what others perceive as “the
impossible,” our primary criteria for
successful politics shouldnotbe whether
our candidates get elected, but whether
we have lifted the political discourse o f
this nation, in such a manner that real
problems and viable solutions are being
addressed. I f we confine our notions o f
politics solely to voting, w em ay be able
to replace 1 weedledee, but w e’ll never
transform the system as a whole.
Nonviolent direct action protest
techniques need to be taught to our
young people in our churches, mosques,
com m unity centers and at institutions
across the country. W e need to repro­
duce Diallo-like civil disobedience
demonstrations at hundreds o f police
stations and city halls throughout this
country. To paraphrase the great abo­
litionist Frederick Dougplass, “W ith­
out struggle there is no progress.”
this is one case where a partial solution
does not solve the problem.
C o n g re s s w o m a n
C y n th ia
M cKinney is now preparing to intro­
duce legislation w hich would cancel
one k in d o f international debt, bilateral
debt, or loans between the poorest
nations to the United States and would
require the IMF to do the same as a
condition for its receiving U.S. funds.
More than a dozen members o f con­
gress have agreed to co-sponsor this
legislation, but many more are needed.
Continued on Page A6
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(iffE v iN T YOUR DAUGHTER
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