It was Brazilian Archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara who wrote the text Spiral of Violence as a wisdom teaching from which he shared his concern for those who would have their eyes opened to the regular State violence that enforces injustice and regularly destroys the life of all creation. Câmara saw the youth in many countries rising up to confront that State violence with violent revolution. If this violent choice would be made, he feared, the State’s predictable response would be to squash whatever revolution or rebellion with escalatory violence reasoning that the social order would need to be protected.
The spiral of violence helped to feed the beast, the regular practice of violence, and justified State violence. Rather, Câmara hoped, how can we create social movements that wield the power of confrontational nonviolence that use liberating moral pressure, in truth and love, to create a more just and humane world? He enjoined the youth of his age to leave no one indifferent, to provoke discussion, make people think, push to make things uncomfortable, as truth is, and to be demanding, as justice is. Câmara did not want to dim their energy, idealism, or radicalism. Rather, he hoped to intercede with a wisdom that might help them to take the long view. What did they think the State’s response would be to their violent revolution?
Violence begets violence, Câmara reasoned. While that may be true for some, violence also has a way of numbing and creating hopelessness for others. Perhaps that is why it is so toxic. Violence seems to naturally shrink our responses to a numbness and hopelessness as one response or a return of violence in retribution or revolution on the other. Love, as the polar opposite of violence, knows more colors of the rainbow. Love creatively invents, discovers, or struggles through with responses that are creative, sometimes fun, often defiant, and will not relent. Love, as spiritual practice, is regular, consistent, creative, and persistent.
When the violent, State-sanctioned terrorists invaded the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6th, there was an outward appearance of a rag-tag, unorganized horde of people who had no singular message as they broke glass, entered with Trump and Confederate flags, hung crosses and nooses, destroyed the John Lewis Memorial, and spread their shit in the building. What we are finding out now is that the chaos of the outward appearance was a cover for highly organized para-military groups, receiving orders from the President of the United States, organized by some of the President’s closest allies, and in contact with law enforcement and members of Congress. They were there as a response and a warning to those protesting for transformational change, largely non-violent, across the country who were putting State violence on display and beginning to make inroads and gains in the efforts. Just that many of these protests and marches came off suggests that something is happening.
We must get it into our heads, if we are going to get any real traction, that what is being termed as “insurrection” by so many media members, was actually State-financed, motivated, and sponsored terror. At the very least, it was a warning shot.
Not unlike the wealthy financiers who were seeking out former military to overthrow the government at the time of FDR, forces were at work in the State-sponsored terror of January 6th to numb and create hopelessness among those who believed the hard work of organizing, protests, and getting people out to the voting booth was working.
Like Câmara, I believe State-sponsored violence and terror are based on a theological lie. Rooted in that lie is the understanding that injustice and violence are God-ordained. It is a lie that has been foundational to slavery, genocide, and racism. It is found in the Doctrine of Discovery and The Declaration of Independence. That lie is contrary to the fundamental principles of faith which say that nobody is born a slave but they we are all created in the Image of God. Aristotle said, “Some are born to be slaves and some are born to be slave masters.” Câmara writes in Spiral of Violence, “No-one is born to be a slave.” In other words, violence and injustice are not divinely ordained. God has no part of them. The advent of racial capitalism and its violence are not God’s plan.
(photo from Clay Banks)
Many of us are numb and feeling hopeless by this display of terror. Some of us had hoped Joe Biden would be the “anti-Donald Trump” and follow through on more progressive actions and policies than he ever promised. Instead, what we are getting is some representation but mostly virtual signaling.
What happened in the streets this past year created an opening, a portal, for the possibility for tremendous change. Change did happen. While justice never did happen for Breonna Taylor, smaller efforts at reform did work and pushes for accountability continue. While Colin Kaepernick is not back in the NFL, the overt messages in college and professional sports radically changed.
Spring is coming. We should be planning for antiracism events all through the summer and into the fall. With the Earrth rapidly changing, now more than ever we need pushes around ending the welfare state for fossil fuels, moving to something beyond a Green New Deal, and incentivizing sustainability across all of our energy, agricultural, and transportation platforms. When Earth Day arrives in April, activism and advocacy should be pushing over the top institutional change which builds infrastructure, weaves together communities, and calls us to another truth — Mitakuye Oyasin.
Piecemeal immigration reform needs to give way to the understanding that transnational corporations cannot traverse national boundaries with impunity while human beings emigrate at the threat of their own lives and families. The very act of leaving a place of injustice and terror vests them with not only with human rights but with the identification of holy pilgrimage of all those who came before them (Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham; Ruth and Naomi, Miriam and Moses; Mary, Joseph, and Jesus). These draconian displays of State power only serve to show the incredible injustice of our trade, foreign, and agricultural policies.
Finally, we need to find a way to end the empty rhetoric of capitalism to develop an economy that serves all of us. We need actions, protests, liturgies, and creative ways to fashion a necessary response to the State-sponsored terror of January 6th that bring about the transformational justice which will bring healing and peace.
No one is born a slave. That is a lie instituted to justify domination and violence. Love creatively invents, discovers, or struggles through with responses that are diverse, sometimes fun, often defiant, and will not relent. Love will not relent.