On Courage and Wisdom, Nov 13, 2011

On Courage and Wisdom

(Address to Occupy Minnesota Protesters and Allies, November 13, 2011)

The mostly young people who have been here day and

night at Hennepin Plaza have already been tested by cold

and hunger and dirt for several weeks and you, like those

first rebels on Wall Street and now in cities all over this

country, have set a proud example of forceful but peaceful

protest in a public square. Congratulations and thanks.

But tonight you are facing your semester exam. I won’t call

it a final exam, because there will be other tests and exams

as long as you live and remain devoted to justice. But, for

some of you, this may be your first fierce confrontation

with institutionalized violence. And how well we all

respond and how well we deal with our own fears is

something you will always remember.

Make no mistake about it, this protest is about to become

an act of civil disobedience. Will we remain committed

to nonviolence when police are moving in, perhaps with

threatening actions more than simple verbal commands?

Ordinarily, as Gandhi taught us, and Jesus before him and

Martin Luther King, Jr. after him, the commitment to non-

violence does not guarantee success in worldly affairs.

History is full of examples of both failures and successes

of nonviolent actions. And ordinarily the necessary training

and preparation for an effective nonviolent action takes

time, the same sort of time that it takes armies and police

departments to teach individuals to trust their teammates.

(2)

But we don’t have that kind of time and the challenge we

face is to stay together and, as the Civil Rights protesters

sang in past years, to hold on, hold on, keep your eyes

on the prize hold on. And the prize is a great one. If I

were a Hindu preacher, instead of an old Jewish surgeon,

I would say the prize is the coming of Truth right here

on earth. The prize is justice as fairness* rather than as

punishment. The prize is equal opportunity for all rather

than for only those lucky enough to be born into situations

of wealth and power. The prize is compassion towards

friend and stranger, neighbor and foreigner, and to see

finally the humanity we have in common even with our

enemy. Abraham Lincoln had that vision of peace in

another time of war: “With malice towards none, with

charity for all.” The prize is love and respect for ourselves

and for all that lives and for this earth and this universe of

surpassing beauty. The prize is Franklin Roosevelt’s vision

of freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to worship in

our own way, freedom from want, freedom from fear.**

So now we become part of that great historical chain

of freedom fighters. In the coldest darkest time of the

American Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote “Common

Sense: These are the times that try men’s [and now we

say, “People’s”] souls. The summer soldier and the

sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service

of his [and her] country; but he [and “she”] that stands it

now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

(3)

Difficult as it is to remember, the soldiers who commit

war and other atrocities in our name and the police who

commit violent acts right here on the home front, are not

our real enemies. They have only been fooled into doing

the bidding of higher officials who act, as we know, in

the service of financial and military institutions who have

become the gods of the modern world. Let us remember

this throughout this stressful time and respond together

with wisdom, remaining gentle and humble and absolutely

fearless. Hold on everybody, hold on.

*John Rawls, deceased professor of law at Harvard

University, in “Justice As Fairness”

**President Franklin Roosevelt, 1941, address to Congress

(on the eve of World War II)