Thinking about Power

As US planes head off into Operation Swarmer with Iraqi forces to carry an offensive against a pocket of insurgents, I find myself wondering about power. President Bush said today that first strikes or the ability to wage pre-emptive war remains one of our most important weapons in the War on Terror. You hurt us or you even threaten to hurt us and we’ll hurt you so bad you won’t even know what hit you. You know, the old shock and awe idea. If your enemy is dead they can’t threaten you anymore. Sadly, we have found out in the years since 9/11 that this idea doesn’t seem to work in reality. The more we bomb and threaten, the more we lock them up in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the more those danged terrorists just keep sprouting up like mushrooms! What’s up with them anyway? What makes them stay at it? Why do they keep throwing those IED’s, exploding themselves in suicide bombings, kidnapping, torturing and executing people, and for all we know, plotting mass attacks on the USA? Why don’t they  get it? We’re stronger than they are! Why don’t they just give up?In the present paradigm or kind of thinking that most of us the US (including the US government) engage in, power equals force or might. Power means making people do what you want them to do. We give the police the power to use lethal force, if they have to, to stop dangerous criminals from hurting the rest of us. On the level of nations and politics, we give our governments the ability to mobilize armies and to make war to protect us from other nations or armies that would do us harm. Diplomacy was supposed to be the avenue for a more civilized way out of armed conflict; democratic and rational actors on the world stage would talk things out and figure out equitable solutions and avoid the insanity of war. However, as the twentieth century has given way to the twenty first and as the American love affair with technology has deepened, it seems that so too, our love for using violent, and increasingly sophisticated technological approaches to armed conlfict has grown exponentially and our ability to use diplomacy and other non-military approaches to conflict has diminished. As our weapons and their lethality have grown more sophisticated, so too, has our willingness to use those weapons. One might even say that we have become less creative in our approaches to solving conflict with those who want to hurt us. Could it be that we are so enamored of our power, that we literally cannot think of other possibilities to approach the current problem that threatens our world, the problem of terrorism?Now there is a good reason for thinking that force is a good way to deal with dangerous people. That’s because sometimes it works. It works fairly well for our police forces when they are dealing with isolated criminals who are threatening the community. It seemed to be fairly effective in the last good war, the effort to save Europe from the Nazis during WWII. But is it really effective? Let’s go a little bit deeper here. I’ve worked on psychiatric units for over thirty five years and during that time have had to deal with many violent patients, men, women and children, who have lost control of themselves and who were threatening the safety of others. Whenever I have been engaged in those events (we call them a show of support) the concerns are always two: how to keep the staff from getting hurt and how to subdue and control the patient so that he/she does not get hurt. In other words, although we were intervening in violence, sometimes with considerable force, the way we conducted ourselves was methodical, disciplined and dedicated to creating no further harm. The problem in the geo-political realm when you have violent people intent on causing harm to others, particularly to civilians, the rules seem to go out the window. In fact, part of the rules are to create harm and if someone gets hurt who was not supposed to be there, well, that’s collateral damage. This is because in the realm of armed warfare the paradigm of power as force rules. There is a hidden hope or wish that if we kill enough of the enemy that they will get tired of the fight and give up. That may have worked in Nazi Germany but it is not working with the terrorists. These folks are playing by a different set of rules and our present paradigm is simply inadequate to the task. What we are ignoring or failing to truly understand is that every act of violence fuels a feeling of anger and yearning for revenge in the victim or the survivors. There is something in this whole terrorism scenario that we are simply not seeing and not seeing it is causing many young American men and women to lose their lives, not to mention the countless innocent Iraqi men, women and children who are dying in their own country.Power in the sense of force, is someone making you do something you don’t want to do because they are threatening to  hurt you or those you care about.  That kind of power works in the short run. If we are afraid for our lives and someone is pointing a gun at our heads we will probably do as the gunman asks. But we won’t like it. Just recall the last time someone told you to do something you didn’t want to do or criticized you or one of your family. You probably wanted to hit them or at least got defensive. In an emergency, if the building is burning down and I have to evacuate people, yes I will raise my voice and tell them to move it, move it! even if they don’t like it but I will be doing it in the interest of saving their lives. Other than that power as force or power over as it is sometimes called, is not ultimately very effective. People who have been made to do things they don’t want to do, treated disrespectfully or shamed publicly, get angry about it and nurse those grievances. People whose loved ones have been killed in wars and armed conflicts don’t simply get over it and move on. Those kinds of traumas last a lifetime. This is particularly true in cultures where shame and avenging one’s honor are core parts of the societal code. Whenever human beings experience what feels like an injustice to them, they remember it and it is likely to plant the seeds for future violence.

What I am suggesting here is that the old way of thinking about power is no longer helpful or workable on our ever smaller and inter-connected planet. It may be time to look at a new definition of power. That definition is: power is the ability to be effective in life. Power is the ability to say that we want a dream or vision in our life to emerge and we want to be able to use all our abilities so that our  hopes and dreams become reality—and I might add, to do that in ways that are loving and respectful of all human beings. Not many people in our world are really effective in that way. Nelson Mandela was. Gandhi was. Rosa Parks was.  They say no when other people would say yes, or say yes to a future that no one else yet dares to dream. They are able to create life the way they want it to be, the way they know it can be. All human beings yearn to love and be loved. All of us long to raise our families in safety with enough food and a roof over our heads. We all long to express ourselves fully and completely, each according to his/her gifts and talents. And we all feel a persistent urge to contribute to making the world a better place and to leave a legacy to those who come after us. When we are not effective in this way, we feel frustrated, powerless,  perhaps even trapped. When the sense of powerlessness is extreme, a person’s resentment may build into blame, fault finding and projecting that onto an enemy who must be responsible for their suffering. At the extreme end of the spectrum of suffering, the most troubled people take action by committing acts of violence that seem to offer them a shortcut to feeling powerful. I am hurting terribly inside because I don’t feel powerful. I am blocked. I cannot love or work as I know I or could. It’s your fault. Aha! I know, I will kill you. I will make you or your loved ones hurt as I and my loved ones hurt. I will be so powerful when I make you hurt as I have hurt! Too bad the sense of power is so shortlived. But people keep taking this drug–over and over and over again. And terrorists aren’t the only ones hooked on this drug.

If the US government wanted really wanted to end terrorism the smartest thing it could do would be to seek to empower all would-be terrorists. It would try to find out how to make them feel an authentic sense of power over their own lives! Now wouldn’t that be something.  Now how would you do that? Well, you might begin by engaging these young men and women, talking to them about their hopes and dreams and yearnings. Maybe you’d have to, like–go to their countries and sit down and talk to them? What a novel idea! I read once about a discussion session the Vietnamese Buddhist priest and peacemaker Thich Nhat Hahn once had at one of his retreats at Plum Village in France. Someone asked him  whether it was acceptable to retaliate with violence against suicide bombers. Thich Nhat Hahn’s response was approximately the following: we are so over-practiced in the arts of violence and war,  and havecommitted so much effort to developing the technology of weapons and violence and we are so under-skilled and under-practiced in the ways and arts of peace.

Why is it that we would rather shoot a gun at a terrorist or someone we think might be a terrorist, than to actually sit down and talk with people who might support them? Why is it easier to raise our voices and yell at our loved ones than listen to their grievances? Why do we nurture our own resentments and grudges rather than seek the routes of understanding and forgiveness? What way takes more honest-to-God courage? What are the roads we need to travel to authentic power? The way of true empowerment is not an easy one to walk but it is exhilarating and thrilling. My sense is that the world’s present approach to handling violence and creating peace is unworkable and uncreative. We could use a radically new approach.