Moral Authorities
As the war in Ukraine intensifies, the only solution being offered by most western powers is to provide more weapons. The Biden administration has now pledged $3.8 billion in military weapons of various sorts. Meanwhile Russia is glorifying its invasion as a triumph of military force. There are few voices for peace as the US and much of the world justifies accelerating arms in a conflict that is dangerously close to engulfing the globe.
As we watch this military buildup, I find myself thinking about Beirut and the destruction of that ancient city. Beginning in 1975 a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon as people protested the authoritarian rule of Assad and as the Palestinians developed an independent power base. Over the course of nearly a decade of fighting more than 130,000 people were killed. Some of the most brutal massacres in modern history , at Sabra and Shatila, occurred there. Syrian, Israeli, and UN forces intervened, often intensifying killing in the name of peace. In 1983 the US suffered the largest military defeat since Viet Nam when a lone suicide bomber blew up a Marine Barracks, killing 241 people. Earlier that day, 58 French soldiers were killed in a similar attack. Both groups were part of a larger multinational force attempting to establish peace.
Just prior to the US withdrawal of troops in February of 1984, with little resolved, an American pilot, Robert Goodman, was shot down while flying over Lebanon. Goodman was a high profile hostage held in Syria. US military might was not able to affect the release or safety of the pilot.
In a stunning announcement, the Reverend Jesse Jackson organized a peace mission to Syria and Lebanon. He put together a group of well known civil rights ministers, including Louis Farrakhan, and set off to negotiate for Goodman’s release, in spite of the fact that he had no government support and Assad had refused to acknowledge his communications. After a week of careful negotiations, Goodman was released, returning home with Jackson.
Over the next few years Jackson continued his efforts at direct negotiations on behalf of people held hostage. He persuaded Slobodan Milosovic, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein, as well as Hafez-al-Assad, to free American captives. In doing so, he cast himself as a “citizen of the world” and as a man representing the moral authority of the civil rights movement.
On the 30th anniversary of the release of Goodman, Jackson reflected on the experience saying that it was only possible because of the respect people around the globe had for US civil rights activists who had challenged the authority of the US government. He said, "I think the Civil Rights Movement in America has moral authority in the world community. Our authority may not have an official office, but there's a certain moral authority that the Civil Rights Movement has."
In today’s political landscape it is impossible to see where such moral authority resides. Our most visible public figures challenging the legitimacy of the government do so from a position of fear and hate, justifying violence, limiting basic rights, and protecting white power and male privileges. Those of us who challenge them, and the racial capitalist system they support, have yet to find a clear, strong ground from which to project a different, loving future. The development of a broad movement for peace, rooted in the fundamental belief that we can yet create loving, justice communities is our most urgent task.