The resisters do not agree on everything. Some go limp when arrested. Some plead guilty. Some request the harshest sentence. Some view their defense in court and their attempt to achieve acquittal to be a central part of the action.
And some have moved toward a type of action unlikely to result in prison time, namely travel to nations threatened by or under attack by the U.S. government or its allies. Sending peace teams into zones threatened with war or facing ongoing war and occupation can involve great risk and sacrifice. It can employ the hands-on, face-to-face interactions that peace resisters value. Friendships and alliances can be built across borders that help to educate the people of both nations and influence their governments. And all without the months behind bars.
Peace resisters are my kind of Catholics. Compare them to the Pope, a former Nazi-youth whose Christmas message this week was, first, hatred for gay people, and, second, interaction between the world's religions -- not disarmament, not a cease-fire. Outgrowing the need for religion, and in the process losing a cause of deadly division, wasn't mentioned, of course. But the resisters in Riegle's collection often include their disbelief in death as part of what motivates them, what takes away their fear. And why would I want to take that away from them?
Albert Camus, generally identified as an atheist, is a frequent source of inspiration for religious resisters. Camus was very much a mournful ex-theist ever in the process of very-regretfully losing his religion and proclaiming the world absurd without it. These resisters manage to erase that absurdity. They eliminate their worries over risks of horrible fates, through their willingness to put everything on the line. Perhaps to some extent they believe they're fully insured. They clearly feel a sense of freedom when they set all worry behind them and declare their willingness to accept any suffering whatsoever in order to promote peace and resist war making.
More of us, all of us, should be moving in that direction.
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