    The Sword of St Michael

    By Israel Shamir

    In The Dune, a visionary film that predicted the US invasion of the
    Middle East, the spiritual leader of the Resistance is asked:

    - Will we ever have peace?

    - We’ll have victory, - he replied.

    Indeed, the invader may relent and seek for peace; an attacked must seek
    victory until the invader will seek peace. Thus, during the Vietnam War,
    good Americans demanded ‘peace’, but people of Vietnam and their
    supporters elsewhere sought to defeat the invader. The rule is often
    forgotten by modern proponents of pacifism and non-violence. They preach
    non-violence to the oppressed as the panacea for their troubles. Not
    surprisingly, non-violence gets very good media coverage and is supplied
    for downtrodden in great abundance.

    The Holy Land received recently a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi who went
    teaching non-violence to the Palestinians in Ramallah. Good idea, wrong
    place: non-violence is the daily bread of vast majority of Palestinians,
    while their ‘violence of the oppressed’ is a rare and precious thing;
    without it, non-violence has no meaning. The lion's share of violence is
    done by the Jewish state, though it is often “suspended violence”, as an
    Israeli philosopher and a friend of Palestine, Adi Ophir, has called it
    -- violence suspended as the Damocles sword, as a suspended sentence
    ready to uncoil any moment. Pacifiers leave the suspended violence in
    place; that is why instead of seeking peace we may seek victory.

    What is more annoying is an attempt to establish non-violence as the
    only acceptable way, as a religiously orthodox norm of dissent. “Nothing
    justifies violence”, or “Two wrongs do not make a right” – one hears
    these pseudo-wisdom cracks daily. It is not true from any point of view;
    even from the highest moral ground: violence is justified and commanded
    in order to save another person’s life and dignity. A saintly man may
    follow the Sermon of the Mount advice to the dot and turn his right
    cheek to be slapped; but he may not pass by a rapist or a murderer at
    his vile deed and leave him unchecked. He must kill him, if there is no
    other way to stop the murderer. We are free to give up our life and
    dignity, but we have a duty to defend others. Equally, justice is “doing
    wrong” by imprisoning, fining or executing a man for he did “wrong” by
    murder or rape; in such a way “two wrongs make one right”, indeed.

    This simple rule is sometimes forgotten, often intentionally, by
    non-violence preachers. In the T-net discussion (reproduced below), a
    pacific Indian-Canadian, Ardeshir Mehta claimed that: “One can be a
    Christian, or one can advocate violence, but one can't be both.” He was
    neither, but words of Christ are often quoted with the same ease
    Nietzsche quoted Zarathustra. The radical South African, Joh Domingo
    retorted: “Do I justify Palestinian violence? No, I support it”.

    Is violent resistance wrong and non-Christian act? This question brought
    to my mind a picture I have seen in Medina del Campo, a small Castilian
    town that hosted an exhibition in memory of Isabella la Catolica, the
    Queen of Columbus and Granada. The picture by her contemporary El
    Maestro de Zafra (Alejo Fernandez) was one of the most striking and
    impressive of the art of his period, of any period, period. In the midst
    of an Apocalyptic battle, amongst saints and angels, devils and dragons,
    on the deep blue background, shone a handsome, calm, serene countenance
    of St Michael with raised sword in one hand and the embossed shield in
    the other. A visage of supreme beauty, somewhat androgynous as angels
    are, the serene St Michael knew no hate; fury clouded not his calm blue
    eyes; anger furrowed not his brow crowned with cross; but his sword was
    not a toy, and it was raised to smite.

    Tucked away in a deep valley lies the Palestinian village of En Karim,
    where red and purple bunches of bougainvillea embrace its delightful
    Visitation Church, which marks the meeting of the two expecting mothers.
    In its second storey, there is a big painting of the Lepanto maritime
    battle, with the Virgin as the battle spirit, the Commander of the
    Celestial Army and the Defender of Faith, akin to the St Michael of
    Castilians, to Nike of Greeks and to Valkyries of the North; a
    manifestation of Christ, who said, 'I've brought you not peace but
    sword’, the sword of St Michael.

    The Christian faith contains seemingly contradictory ideas; this is one
    of its unique qualities. It includes the example of St Francis of Assisi
    who considered it his best pleasure to be humiliated and thrown into
    snow. But it also includes the risen sword of St Michael. These two
    opposites are harmonised by our love to God and to our fellow human
    being. This love can cause us to give everything including our life, and
    it can cause us to take life, as well.

    As our friend and philosopher Michael Neumann eloquently stated,

    “Christianity is a religion of love, but not of cloying, hippy-dippy
    love. The repentant sinner is loved. The sinner persisting in sin is
    abhorred, but receives God's love if or when he receives the grace to
    repent. Think of Tertullian: what we learn on Judgement Day is who, in
    the end, is hated. We must always love our enemies, but not the enemies
    of God.”

    Too often, non-violence grows not out of humility and self-sacrifice,
    but out of self-preservation and fear; fear of supporting the right side
    in the war. It is easier to be “against wars and violence” in general
    than it is to stand against an aggressor and invader, especially if your
    country happens to be the aggressor and invader.

    Thus, in Italy, Communist leader Fausto Bertinotti has proclaimed that
    he is “against the Iraqi War for he is a pacifist and against wars in
    general’. After such a statement, he had no reason to demand the return
    home of Italian soldiers. And he did not. What a change for a party that
    had once taught the ringing words of that great rebel, Chairman Mao,
    “Power grows out of the barrel of a gun”!

    True, the Italians have found themselves in a tight corner. For the
    second time in the last sixty years their country has chosen a wrong
    partner - two times too many! Sixty years ago, young Italian soldiers
    went with Hitler to Stalingrad; today, their sons and grandchildren
    proceed with Bush to Baghdad. Still, then as now, a painful duty of an
    Italian man of conscience is to wish the speedy victory to the people
    who shoot at Italian troops, be it Russian soldiers on Volga River or
    Iraqi resistance fighters on Euphrates.

    Some wars are silly: nobody knows why the WWI was fought – there was not
    even a Helen to be brought home from the banks of Spree River. In such a
    war, one should not fight. But in this war we have a right and a wrong
    side, and we are duty bound to support right against wrong.

    Regarding the Third World War waged in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and
    elsewhere, it is not enough to be “against the war” and preach
    non-violence “to both sides”. One has to give full moral support to the
    fighters who resist the invader just as the Russians resisted the German
    and Italian aggression in WWII. In the same way, good Americans
    supported the Viet Cong against their own army; and good French – like
    our friends Ginette Scandrani and Serge Thion – supported the Algerian
    resistance. Pacifism offers a coward’s escape from facing moral choice.

    The moral record of pacifism is far from perfect. Many readers have
    heard of a wartime American book by a Dr. Kaufman who proposed to
    sterilise the Germans to get rid of the war drive. The German propaganda
    ministry reprinted this book by the millions to steel the spirit of
    their fighters and to remind them that they were defending not only
    their Fatherland but their Fatherhood as well. Not many people know that
    the same Dr. Kaufman proposed to sterilise Americans, too – he was a
    convinced pacifist and thought there was nothing like mass sterilisation
    to bring universal peace.

    Another great pacifist, Lord Bertrand Russell, advocated nuking Soviet
    Russia in order to bring peace. Father of non-violence Mahatma Gandhi
    advised the Jews to commit mass suicide to shame their Nazi oppressors,
    while his political career ended with one of the biggest massacres in
    human history. In short, pacifism is a quirky, doubtful and unsuccessful
    idea.

    In the past, the enemies of Christ tried to convince Christians (in my
    view Muslims are Christians too, for they believe that Jesus is Christ)
    to accept non-violence and pacifism by various sophisms. The
    entertaining (if anti-Christian-to-extreme) Judaic best-seller of the
    fourth century, Toledot Yeshu, tells us of a cunning Jew who came to the
    first Christians and told them he was sent by Christ. He indoctrinated
    them (the book says) in the name of Jesus:

    “Christ suffered in Jewish hands, but he did not resist. Likewise you
    should suffer whatever Jews do to you and not cause them any damage just
    like Jesus. If a Jew demands that you walk a mile, walk even two miles;
    if a Jew hurts you, do not hurt him back. If a Jew strikes your right
    cheek, offer him your left cheek out of your love to Jesus and do not
    cause Jews any trouble, big or small. If a Jew insults you, do not
    punish him but tell him: “It is your arrogance that speaks;” and let him
    go freely. If you want to be with Jesus in the Better World, you should
    suffer all the evil caused to you by Jews and repay them with good deeds
    and mercy”.

    We do not know whether such an indoctrination attempt ever took place in
    the murky years preceding Constantine’s conversion, but if such an
    attempt was made, it failed profoundly as many an insolent Jew learned
    to his peril. It is not that Christians forgot the words of Jesus (his
    pacific message did not relate to Jews in particular), but the Christian
    faith is not a collection of his sayings; it is manifested in the living
    body of the church, in her doctrine and praxis, and it includes the
    flowers of St Francis and the sword of St Michael.

    The society, like everything in the universe, is in the best state when
    there is a balance between the yin (the passive, female principle) and
    yang (the active, masculine principle). Christendom was powerful when
    its yang was strong. Then, the church blessed many warriors and was
    blessed by them. St George the Dragon Slayer and St Joan of Arc wielded
    sword. The Western Church knew Knights Templar and St John’s, and the
    Eastern Church venerates St Alexander Nevsky who defeated the Germans
    and St Sergius who prayed for victory over the Tartars. For war may have
    a spiritual meaning; and we may acknowledge that “war is a possible
    ascetical and immortalising path”, as Julius Evola summed up the
    medieval Christian tradition. Our Muslim brothers implied it by their
    double concept of a Minor Jihad (war for faith against the oppressor)
    and the Major Jihad (war for faith in the soul of man).

    Now yin element won over the spirit of the west, while its natural
    un-subdued yang parted with harmony. The Peace movement is dominated by
    women, and it is not a coincidence. In his article Little Old Ladies for
    Peace, the reviewer of the Pardes, Owen Owens notes the makeup of the
    Peace Camp crowd as “female, old and short”. For sure they are blessed,
    but their prevalence is a sign of misbalance. Beside the Yin Peace
    Movement, there is – or there should be – the Yang Victory Movement.
    They, the fighters with AK machineguns cautiously treading the narrow
    streets of Nablus or Faluja, the French farmers of Bove crushing
    McDonalds with their bulldozers, the demonstrators of Seattle and Genoa,
    partisans of Che Guevara and rebels of Mishima are the latter day Christ
    warriors, holding out against the ultimate anti-Christian force in the
    history of Christendom. Hail the warriors; hang not on their shooting
    arm. Maybe we won’t have peace; but we’ll have victory.

    --------------------------------------

    The T-net discussion on Non-Violence (edited):

    From Dutch free thinker Joost van Steenis
    (http://members.chello.nl/jsteenis):

    Dear reader,

    If you are a poor black man serving a long prison sentence in an
    American jail, you may not agree that violence pays. But in many cases
    even small groups of mass people get results by using some violence.
    Anyhow, violence brings something about that never can be achieved by
    peaceful means. Shocks, that contain always some violence, are
    indispensable to advance society. The American army was chased away from
    Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. Saddam Hussein and Noriega were arrested
    by American violence. The Spanish and the Philippine army left Iraq
    after violent incidents against their citizens. Jordanian, Saudi and
    Turkish firms stopped their business in Iraq after employees were
    abducted. Many hostages were freed after the payment of ransom. The list
    can be made very long and includes many small acts of unknown people
    that never reach the News.

    Nations and governments often use violence to confirm their leading
    position and their superior power. Relatively small groups of mass
    people, who seem to have no real power, also can get positive results by
    using some violence (including the threat with violence).

    It does not matter if you agree with what is wanted or with the used
    violent methods (I often do not) but I have to confirm that violence
    sometimes (or is it often?) pays. Successes are numerous. The positive
    results – the perpetrators get what they want – are in flagrant
    contradiction to the results of peaceful actions in which many more
    people are involved. These activities demand much more energy than
    violent and direct actions. Peaceful, decent or dignified demonstrations
    against the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars and the ABC-weapons or in
    connection with human rights, genetic manipulation of crops, the
    continuing existence of widespread poverty and preventable illnesses
    have had hardly any positive result.

    Shamir responded:

    I support Joost. Not only on the practical plane - soldiers, knights,
    warriors are as important as priests in their own place. The propaganda
    of non-violence goes against the very order of things by trying to
    undermine the spirit of chivalry. On this question, Lenin agrees with
    the Knights Templar and with the Upanishads. Even on this list, more
    given to priests than to warriors, we may acknowledge that “war is a
    possible ascetical and immortalising path”, as Evola summed up the
    medieval Christian tradition. As our great task is to restore harmony
    between male and female, Yin and Yang principles, we should not overlook
    the Yang concept of war.

    Joh Domingo quoted:

    "Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress
    limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye
    catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for
    tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; And fight them on until
    there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and
    faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to
    those who practise oppression." 002:191-193 Quran.

    Get that?

    Ardeshir Mehta responded:

    Sorry, here is precisely where I and Hazrat Muhammad, peace (and not
    war!) be unto him, part ways. I am with Christ, who did NOT resist
    tumult and oppression even when practised against him personally!

    How can Shamir call himself a Christian, and then take the path of war?
    Has he forgotten that not only Christ himself, but all, without a single
    exception, a-l-l! - of his disciples, and that too for several hundred
    years after his crucifixion, practised non-violence, and endured "tumult
    and oppression" rather than indulge in slaughter, because THAT is what
    Christ unambiguously taught them to do? One can be a Christian, or one
    can be on the warpath, but one can't be both. Christ has taught so
    himself, MOST clearly. Once the Churches turned militant (and they did
    so as soon as they acquired military might!), they ceased to be
    Christian, and instead turned into instruments of Satan. How much blood
    was spilled by them? Their history makes that of the Jews look
    positively benign in comparison ... as the Jews themselves never cease
    to point out to us when we criticise them! Christ also clearly and
    unambiguously taught (as per Matthew Chapter 7) that to be considered a
    Christian in CHRIST'S eyes - and not merely in one's own! - one must do
    the Will of his "Father which is in heaven":

    Joh Domingo (short-tempered):

    But really Ardeshir, your neo-Christianity is getting tiresome. This is
    not even a question of non-violence vs. violence; yours is the posture a
    dog takes when threatened by a bigger dog - on its back, tail between
    the legs and legs in the air.

    Ardeshir Mehta (unabated):

    It is not NEO-Christianity, it is the ONLY Christianity! Show us where
    Christ advocates physical violence in the gospels. We are all ears!
    Christ NEVER advocated physical violence to be undertaken by his
    disciples. And he said words to the effect that if a person does not do
    as he says, he will repudiate such a person even if that person calls
    Christ "Lord". Check it out! One can be a Christian, or one can advocate
    violence, but one can't be both. This message of the gospels is even
    more abundantly clear than the genocidal racism of the Old Testament!

    It is the violence-advocating position that continues to leave the
    oppressed in Palestine perpetually oppressed - whether oppressed by
    Zionists or by other Palestinians! Remember that the winner in a violent
    conflict is not, in most cases, the kinder, gentler person or party: he
    is normally the more vicious of the two. The winner will almost always
    be worse to those over whom he gains power than the loser would have
    been! (See what has happened in Iraq.)

    Joh Domingo responded:

    Did Jesus not flog the moneychangers in the Temple? perhaps he only beat
    them lightly with a twig? Is violence harmful? Of course it is harmful,
    and adopting a counter- violent posture is safe, nobody will ever
    condemn you for it. But to be non-violent in the face of extreme
    violence is not necessarily noble. It is taking an ideological position
    when you are not in the firing line. Do I justify Palestinian violence?
    No, I support it.

    "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our heart, than to
    put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence." - Mohandas K.
    Gandhi

    Gandhi knew that non-violence also provoked violence.

    As for non-violence, it is the weakest position there is. The
    implication is that Zionist would dearly love Palestinians to continue
    their violence; nothing could be further from the truth. While it can be
    argued that the strategy of violence can seem to be counterproductive,
    no oppressor prefers violent resistance, especially reactive violence;
    which violent resistance is. Palestinians have wholeheartedly supported
    the violent resistance to Israeli oppression. They are on the ground and
    the victims when the 'retaliation' kicks in. Who are we to second guess
    them? If you cannot support the strategy on the ground, support the
    opposition. Without the armed resistance, we would all be whistling in
    the wind.

    This is the reality; Palestinians are getting killed on a daily basis.
    No strategy has seen them not getting killed. Whether there is violence,
    or not, Palestinians have been getting killed. It is not only happening
    because of the Intifada, it has been happening before OSLO, during OSLO
    and after OSLO. They do not have the option of surrender. What does
    surrender entail? They get killed when they bow and scrape and they get
    killed when they resist. In such circumstance, there is no other option
    but to resist. Talk of Palestinian non-violence is propaganda, and
    Shamir is absolutely correct when he states this evident fact. People do
    not fight and die for no reason at all; this talk defiles the blood
    sacrifice on the battleground.

    From intrepid Hal Womack in SF, California:

    Is Ardeshir being too modest, again? Should he come out & tell us
    frankly that he is the Second Coming, after having learned from his
    mistakes the first time around? Only such an exalted position could
    justify his otherwise ridiculous attempt to block out the sun for all of
    the rest of us by holding up his hand against the sky. Really
    "pontificate"s too weak a verb for brazen balderdash such as:

    Ř “One can be a Christian, or one can be an advocate of violence, but
    one can't be both.”

    Will AM give us the exact number of Christian denominations which
    provide chaplains to the U.S. military? Christianity has been the
    official imperial religion since the Emperor Constantine in the 4th
    Century promoted the slogan "In hoc signo vinces". The traditional
    doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church on the 7 necessary conditions for
    a just war constitutes an intellectual cathedral next to which AM's
    smugly false assertions amount only to a fart in a small paper bag.
    Loath though I am to fall in with the millennially-discredited
    Bible-thumping school of political argument, I will answer AM's
    caps-lock rant with recollections culled only from the old noodle: Am I
    merely hallucinating or does the Gospel have Jesus saying something
    like, 'I come not to bring peace, but the sword, to set husband against
    wife and children against parents' ? In the run-up to his arrest, does
    Jesus tell his disciples to sell their garments in order to buy swords?

    AM says: “Let's suppose the Palestinians do win militarily against the
    Israelis, in other win by violence, and thereupon establish THEIR rule
    in Palestine. Why do you imagine it will it be a better rule?”

    Because the Palestinians wish to have their children educated rather
    than shot, as the Jews do every day. Does AM recognize the name of
    Raghda Al-Assar of Khan Younis? She is eleven years old and until
    yesterday was in the 4th grade where she was sitting at her desk in the
    classroom when the Jews shot her in the head. Now she is on life-support
    machines at the near-by Nasser Hospital which the Jews also regularly
    shoot up.

    > Was the Mullahs' rule in Iran better than that of the Shah?

    "Was"? Did I miss something, has AM been invited to assume the Peacock
    Throne?

    > Was the rule of the Bolsheviks better than that of the Tsars?

    The coup d'état of 1917 did split the White Man's world empire, thus
    allowing the immense coloured majority of humanity to gain its political
    independence. We note that China under Mao Zedong and his successors has
    followed our Planet's most enlightened foreign policy, whereas India
    --labouring under the burden of Gandhi's intellectual muddle-- is still
    slaughtering large numbers of its own Muslims, holding Kashmir captive
    and threatening atomic war. I have previously recommended on the list
    Mao's essay "On Revolutionary War" as the leading contemporary text on
    the question of violence. Evidently AM has yet to make it all the way
    through Luke. Perhaps with a little more time.