Bullets never win

Sixty years ago today Mohandas Ghandi was gunned down. As if to mock Ghandi's life the assassin was executed and the assassination sparked riots in which many people died. He believed in nonviolence resistance in response to systems of evil. He fought for peace and justice by fasting, at times almost to nothingness. His assassin's motive was that Ghandi insisted that the Indian government pay Pakistan, though they had made an agreement following a short-lived war.

Martin Luther King jr. was shot and killed on April fourth, in sixty-eight. He was thirty-nine years old. I've been reading his autobiography lately and was interested to find out that he spent his graduate work studying Hegel and Tillich and the like. I was aware of his oratory skills, but never knew that he was an outright scholar. He greatly admired Ghandi, and believed in nonviolence himself. He lead many acts of nonviolent civil disobedience for the cause of the oppressed, namely the Blacks of America facing harsh segregation laws. Riots followed his death as well.

On April ninth, nineteen forty-five, just three weeks before the Germans surrendered, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged naked in the courtyard of a detainment camp. He was also thirty-nine. His crime was that he participated in a plot with the goal of Hitler's assassination. Though he did indeed participate with such a plot, Bonhoeffer also believed in the ways of nonviolence. He too admired Ghandi. No riots followed his death, only more war.

I believe in the ways of nonviolence. I believe that Jesus taught and lived nonviolence to perfection. I believe that because humans are created in the image of God that it is indeed sin to commit violence against another human. I believe in nonviolence because it has shown itself over and over to truly be good in the face of evil. Would I commit violence if my mother/sister/wife was being raped? Probably, but I would not feel as like a hero. What about World War Two, was that not justified violence? Was the fire bombing of Dresden just? Was dropping two atomic bombs on Japan just? Certainly there are struggles within the concept of nonviolence, as there is within any aspect of life. Nonviolence as an idealogy is not perfect, but it is good. you have my love.