CD Cover to Pacifism as Pathology in the American
Left
Nothing about Ward Churchill is simple. Most of us are familiar with his work
as a scholar documenting the US's imperial taking of American Indian land, or
as an activist with AIM in the modern struggle against the government's
continued genocide and ethnocide of American Indians.
But above all else he's familiar as an author of Pacifism as Pathology, the
little blue book that outlines how pacifism in the US is connected to a
practice that poses no threat to the status quo; gives the illusion the state
gives a damn about candlelight vigils and symbolic arrests; that actively
undermines people doing effective organizing and action against the state.
Churchill's recorded lecture and discussion, Pacifism and Pathology in the
American Left, puts those lessons in the immediate post-September 11th context.
Recorded at the AK Press warehouse on November 16, 2001, he challenges the most
radical of us while giving nuance to the arguments that gave Pacifism as
Pathology its intellectual force.
The talk begins with Ward Churchill underscoring the urgency of situation
today: the American empire sustaining its rule by exploiting and dominating the
world, abroad and at home. Understanding that, how can we categorically
foreclose even the idea of the use of violence? And how can we blame the
victims of state violence for being too militant?
Churchill puts it in terms we can easily understand: Many blamed the Black Bloc
for creating a police state during the Seattle WTO protests, as if, after they
got off the bus from Eugene, the mayor and police chief "ran out and bought
themselves a swat team, a couple armored personnel carriers, a whole inventory
of tear gas, got everyone trained and equipped and coordinated to get out there
in the streets, that all happened in about 28 minutes..."
What's the logic of pacifists there who are presumably fighting against the
US's systematic killing of millions of people, who then help arrest people who
are damaging corporate property and subject those getting arrested to police
brutality? Especially when those helping the cops are the same ones who would
never lift a hand to help someone getting beaten by the police?
Simple enough. But pull back the camera from protest in the US to the
situation worldwide. If your field of vision includes half a million dead
Iraqi children, what does it mean for leftists in the US to condemn the
September 11 attacks? Churchill thinks the technicians of global capital in
the World Trade Center were legitimate targets of people fighting against the
American empire. He feels bad for the janitors in the World Trade Center and
the children in the planes that crashed into it. But he doesn't feel any worse
for them than he does for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians
killed in the last ten years of sanctions. He puts up a mirror that
lets us examine how much of our grief and rage is American exceptionalism.
How much our feelings - not necessarily of the morality of the attacks, but
our mixed emotions about whether such an attack was "appropriate" - come from
our feeling, on a gut level, that American lives are worth more than the lives
of the people we're killing on an everyday basis.
At the same time Churchill challenges our notions of being radical and in
solidarity, he gives nuance to the arguments he made in Pacifism as Pathology.
In the book he gives lip service to pacifists being capable of making change.
But virtually every example he gives shows them as being ineffective at best,
and self-serving and parasitic at worst. Churchill starts his talk, however,
with positive examples of pacifist action. He cites members of Greenpeace
joining an armed AIM encampment being the decisive factor in the federal
marshalls not launching an attack. He also mentions pacifists who are truly
dedicated. The Berrigans engaged in "absolute defiance. Didn't stay safe for
a moment" in their fight against US intervention in Latin America.
In Pacifism as Pathology Churchill mocks a young man who set himself on fire to
protest the Vietnam war; in this talk he comes up again, but in a different
spirit: "the one thing I cannot do is suggest that Norman Morrison avoided
risk. That Norman Morrison avoided sarcifice. That Norman Morrison did not
have the courage of his convictions. He most certainly did."
Morrison's name is chanted again and again, almost like a prayer so he won't be
forgotten. This suggests that Churchill is sincere when he says pacifism as a
practice is not inherently counterproductive. Churchill is clear that he
doesn't expect or demand that everyone to take up armed struggle for social
justice. But Churchill has no time for is pacifists who knee-jerk denounce
armed struggle, who undermine people effectively fighting the system.
That's a comfortable argument in the context of the Black Panther Party or AIM.
But think about the tens of billions of dollars of damage to the US economy
done by the September 11 attacks. Even if we have no intention of doing any
violent action, are we obligated to be in solidarity with the attacks? Instead
of saying, "We don't like terrorism either," is the truly radical response to
say, "These attacks were crucial to stopping the US's empire, and will continue
until we stop dominating the planet"? If we're in solidarity with the
oppressed people of the world, must we be in solidarity with what may be one of
the most effective attacks against the system that's oppressing them?
A lot has changed since September 11th. On an everyday level, we're back to
much of the pre-September 11 normalcy. On a more fundamental level, it's
unclear whether the government is stronger or weaker than it was before. Is
the government more oppressive because of the attacks? Was Seattle more
oppressive because of the Black Bloc?
At the same time, we're witnessing a level of activism in the US not seen in
recent memory. Literally millions of people are learning about US history for
the first time, looking more critically at the media, getting trained and
organized and are hopefully changed for the rest of their lives. It's wholly
unclear whether this will make a dent in the American empire. Iraq fell
quickly, at least initially, and Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Colombia, Saudia
Arabia and any number of other countries may not be far behind.
Nothing about the current situation is simple. Fortunately, neither is Ward
Churchill. His speech focuses on grim topics but he is by turns
conversational, serious, snide, and humorous. The talk recorded in the CD
Pacifism as Pathology in the American Left is as thought provoking, if not as
ultimately persuasive, as anything in his little blue book. Anyone left of
center will enjoy listening to it. And the more radical you think you are, the
more you need to listen to it and reconsider.
