I have recently been asked to be a respondent for an on-line presentation on being peacemakers. I was drawn to the presenter’s emphasis on meekness as a critical role in peacemaking. My task was to offer reflections from the experience of the trucker protest/occupation held in Ottawa this past winter.
For three weeks residents and businesses in downtown Ottawa were prevented from being able to freely access and enjoy their properties. Living within the red zone of the occupation has caused me to do some deep reflection on how we define peace. How we define violence. Especially since this occupation was called a peaceful protest by those engaged in the action and those supporting it. So, I wonder if a presentation on peacemakers may also need some serious reflection on the violence that can be generated by meekness.
While it is true, as residents of downtown Ottawa people were not physically beaten, although there were incidents of physical and verbal assault – not to mention the week-long attack of blaring horns.
For me the most disconcerting element of the occupation was the weaponizing of meekness. I first witnessed it in my local grocery store when a young couple cheerfully refused to wear a face mask as they did their shopping. At the checkout, the young man had a broad smile stretched across his face as he cheerfully asked the checkout clerk; “How is your day going?”
The clerk mumbled some response; to which the young man retorted, “Oh, that good, eh?”
That exchange felt deeply violent. Now, maybe if the young couple didn’t believe that there really was a pandemic then they would not recognize the offensive disregard for these heroic essential workers who risked their welfare to make sure we could be fed. If you were to challenge the couple, they would most likely respond that all they were doing was being friendly. Meekness in its sociable form.
Then whenever I would venture along the ten-block stretch of one of the streets jammed with big rigs I would be met with friendly protesters wishing me a good day.
It was this friendliness that was the basis of defining the protest as peaceful.
Yet for three weeks they refused to leave. They wielded the nonviolent power of defiance.
It would be like a family clan holding a massive reunion in front of your residence. Laughter and merrymaking fill the streets, but their partying prevents you from being able to get to your residence. In fact, every day you need to trudge through their reunion to get to your place. Eventually, after a week, you and all your neighbours ask if they could finish up their celebration so that the streets could be used again by residents. But instead of leaving, they erect a bouncy castle and place a hot tub in the street. And during the weekends thousands of others join the reunion and make it even more difficult to find enjoyment and peace in your residence.
The revellers do not physically harm you, instead every day they smile and wave at you as you leave your place and wish you a good day.
The online presenter defined meekness in the presentation as the “gentle, nonviolent power that is hidden in apparent weakness.” I guess I am thinking there is a need to reflect deeply and interrogate the definition of nonviolent power. What are the necessary elements required to assure that power remains nonviolent?
Because when a smile becomes a weapon, then meekness becomes violent.
My experience was a three-week protest. But it has left me altered and unglued. I wonder how often our Christian smiles can be felt as violent.
As we prepare for the upcoming Canada Day celebrations, I am also left to wonder how a continued presence of settlers or occupiers can ever be experienced as peaceful. Particularly when the very act of remaining can be experienced as violent. Most of the participants in the event were from the U.S. and Canada.
Unless we are able to truly recognize the systemic violence that is inherent in colonialism, I fear that the best attempts of embracing the cherished value of meekness will remain an ineffective attempt at making peace.
Submitted by Willard Metzger
Executive Director, Citizens for Public Justice