Canadian mennonite article series: #7: limits and conflict - the obligation of the peacemaker
Wealth and conflict have long gone hand-in-hand. So it now is with oil: Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Sudan, Angola ...
Being a pacifist can no longer just mean not being willing to go to war. To refuse to hold and use a gun is a relatively straightforward position. However wars are fought for complex and subtle reasons, and frequently fought in complex and subtle ways. Surely to be a committed pacifist must also mean to live in such a way as to prevent the need for holding and using a gun from arising in the first place.
If energy is the blood keeping modern societies alive, then a threat to energy supplies is essentially an attack on the modern society. Indeed, the Carter doctrine of the United States made this interpretation explicit:
“Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States ... repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
There are other examples, including a similar British declaration prior to world war one, and more recent involvements of the United States in Iraq. By being participants and consumers in a modern society, we participate in and benefit from such military threats.
For the majority of Mennonites, our employment, vacation plans, lifestyle, and financial savings rely on the continued running of a cheap-energy society. We may openly deplore the war in Iraq, but we still want gas (preferably cheap!) for our car from “somewhere”. So we may not be willing to physically fight or kill for energy, but are we willing to either turn a blind eye (having someone else fight for us), or to fight economically (to keep paying for energy, depriving poorer people of their share)?
Most pacifists would probably declare themselves unwilling to fight physically, whether implicitly or economically. However despite decades of documentaries, books and awareness raising, most North Americans, including most Mennonites (and including the author), have managed only the most trivial and modest changes in lifestyle. If anything, since the 1960's we have become much more relaxed about consumption, as air-conditioning, regular air travel and multiple-car families are much more prevalent now than then. Therefore the evidence suggests that, in fact, we are willing to fight implicitly and economically.
In the past five years oil has increased in price from around $20/barrel to $120/barrel, with only the slightest change in consumption. In economic terms, this makes oil a highly “inelastic” product, in that our willingness to pay varies only very little with price. The same cannot be said, however, for many of the world's moderately poor. What exactly are we waiting for? How explicit do the documentaries need to get, how widespread do energy and food riots need to be before we think harder about the sermon on the mount, the prayer of St. Francis, or Menno Simon's statement of true evangelical faith?
The wisdom of the Amish or Old-Order separation from a dependence on modern society suddenly becomes clear. Pacifism means changing our lifestyle – in ways that are not necessarily easy or comfortable. I see basically two alternatives, which I figuratively refer to as the “Noam Chomsky” and “Amish” approaches:
- Noam Chomsky: You go to considerable effort to be highly informed, to know how to control your impact, to be aware of the many subtleties in how your choices affect other people.
- Amish: You significantly change your lifestyle to avoid making an impact.
Unfortunately the vast majority us are doing neither of these – we're making an impact, and we're uninformed. Therefore we buy the bananas, and somewhere in Central America a family struggles to eke an existence on a plantation. We buy the airplane ticket, and somewhere in oil-producing regions of Sudan, Iraq, Nigerian people are suffering terribly, or ecological damage on an unimaginable scale is taking place in the tar-sands. Perhaps we make the connection, or perhaps not – enjoying our tropical fruit in a flight around the world. Regardless of whether we consciously make the connection, however, the connection is made: our desire to purchase is asserted, and somewhere someone is willing to fight on our behalf, and the consequences follow.
As a pacifist, I can no longer pretend that my status-quo lifestyle is unconnected with conflict in other parts of the world. If I want to participate in the benefits of globalization, then I also have to bear the responsibility of my influence on the globe. No more excuses – our energy consumption is far, far above average, and wars are being fought over our energy supplies. Jesus' lifestyle was, after all, emphatically not status-quo, and for many of the same reasons that ours shouldn't be.