Against the backdrop of global protests against US President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration policies, NILS VON KALM argues that protesting against something is never enough and that to really bring about change, people need to be shown a better alternative…
Back in the 1990s, James Jasper’s book, The Art of Moral Protest
In the 1960s, the civil rights movement marched for equal rights for African Americans, and some things changed. In the same decade, millions marched against the Vietnam War, and almost a generation later, millions again marched against the Iraq War.
MAKING A STAND: Nils von Kalm says that protesting on its own is not enough and that the “world needs to hear a better story”. Pictured are people at an anti-Iraq war protest in London in 2002. PICTURE: Paul Le Comte/www.freeimages.com
“Protest makes a difference, if for nothing other than raising awareness. It can change things. It gave African Americans voting rights, it brought down the Iron Curtain in eastern Europe and it helped overthrow a brutal regime in the Philippines in the 1980s. But protest on its own is never enough.”
Protest is the privilege we have when we live in a free country. If you dared to march in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989 you were on the global news because you were likely to be killed. But if you danced on the Berlin Wall that same year, you were on the global news because the freedoms you were fighting for didn’t any longer make you subject to a crackdown by an authoritarian regime.
Protest makes a difference, if for nothing other than raising awareness. It can change things. It gave African Americans voting rights, it brought down the Iron Curtain in eastern Europe and it helped overthrow a brutal regime in the Philippines in the 1980s.
But protest on its own is never enough. I remember the protests that took place all over the world at the start of the most recent war in Iraq. What bothered me, though, was that hardly anyone was putting up a reasonable alternative to going to war. Amidst all the arguments about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction and the desire to fight terrorism, millions of us were in the streets saying “no more!” But when asked what a better alternative was, we didn’t have a whole lot to say.
The only credible alternative that I saw at the time was put forward by Sojourners in the US. They gathered a small group of people around them who, amongst other things, put forward detailed ideas about undercutting funding to Iraq and hauling Saddam before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. It was a well thought-out response and it stood out to me because it was so rare.
If we believe in the alternative kingdom that Jesus is setting up, we need to hear, have and proclaim a better story. It needs to be a story that is more attractive than the prevailing narrative of fear that is darkening the world at the moment.
Christian speaker and author Richard Rohr says that the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. One of the most beautiful stories to illustrate this is that of Jason and the Argonauts. This Greek tragedy tells of the sirens who lured sailors to their deaths with their irresistible music.
The story contains the seemingly impossible challenge of getting past the sirens without being wrecked on the rocks. One day, Odysseus and his crew needed to sail past an island which no one had ever passed before. Odysseus knew of the beautiful seductive voices of the sirens on this island.
So in order to resist their allure, Odysseus ordered his crew to lash him tight to the mast of his ship, and then to plug their ears with beeswax so they couldn’t hear the sirens’ song. He told his crew that when he heard the singing, even though he would be desperate for them to unleash him and let him be lured over to the sirens, they were not to do so. Odysseus and his crew made it through. But he was exhausted from his efforts at resisting the sirens’ invitation.
When Jason and his Argonauts wanted to sail through the area, though, Jason had a better idea. He brought his own musician, Orpheus. When they heard the sirens’ singing, Orpheus took out his lyre and played, and his music was more beautiful than that of the sirens, and so Jason and his crew passed through unharmed.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth walked the dusty roads of the Middle East living out the same message. The common people heard Him gladly because in Him they found not condemnation, but acceptance. The love and truth of His life and message resonated more deeply than the story of tyranny and brutality that the Romans and the prevailing honour and shame culture were playing out.
“We need to be the change we want to see in the world. People do not change until they see that their present way of living is no longer working. It is then that we need to know there is a better way. Followers of Christ have the perfect example to embody.”
The ‘Good News’ of Jesus is that another world is possible and another world is here. Protest is not enough. The world needs to hear a better story. The current climate of ‘alternative facts’ and blind loyalty to a person instead of to love and truth has produced an atmosphere in which people are despondent. The mood of hatred and fear has brought about a sense of despair amongst people of goodwill.
We need to be the change we want to see in the world. People do not change until they see that their present way of living is no longer working. It is then that we need to know there is a better way. Followers of Christ have the perfect example to embody.
The Scriptures teach us to embody the way of love, of forgiveness, of speaking truth to power. Jesus tells us to let our light so shine that others will praise our Father in Heaven. We are to live a life so attractive that people won’t have anything to pin on us.
Now is the time for people of faith, hope and love to come together and show that love does indeed cast out all fear; that there is indeed a better way. Now is the time to get together with others who want to live this way. It was US cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead who said, “Never forget that a small group of people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has”.
When darkness seems to be all around, ruling the world, a bright little candle burning in the corner says, “I beg to differ”. Let’s be that candle.
