Violence, like a multi-headed hydra, surrounds us.

In one sad week we had a mass shooting at Virginia Tech, USA that rivaled Australia’s notorious Port Arthur massacre; more suicide bombers in Baghdad, Iraq; the Palestine/Israel violence took the life of a kidnapped BBC journalist; and preparations for Australia’s (and New Zealand’s) observations of ANZAC Day fill the airwaves.

Some say that the problem with violence is that it solves nothing. I think that adage is wrong. I believe humanity’s problem with violence stems from the the truth of a different adage “violence begets violence”.

I heard a comedian defend the invasion of Iraq by saying “violence solved the second world war” and I couldn’t disagree. If your ultimate aim is regime change then violence can be one ruthlessly efficient way to achieve that goal.

Violence put an end to Germany’s Third Reich, but would Hitler ever have grown to be head of a democratic country if there hadn’t been a World War One? Many historians doubt it.Violence has put an end to Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq, but that nation is now caught in the uncivil teeth of civil war.

There are some things that violence can ’solve’. But like the mythical hydra that grows one or two more monstrous heads for each one chopped off, violence brings forth the cancerous mutations of more violence that is even harder to put down.

The problem with violence is not its ends but the method itself. It can ’solve’ problems, but it is such a blunt instrument it creates more problems along the way, including damaging those who perpetrate it.

This is seen literally in the individual: the loyal young Australian bleeding out on ANZAC cove, the desperate suicide bomber making an ultimate cry for self determination, the deranged gunman claiming his last victim - himself.

It can also be seen in our societies: the courted hoard applauding a bloody war or the normalising of violence that occurs when baring arms becomes a right.

Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, made some insightful comments after the Virginia Tech shootings about why violence begats violence. He said it killed the image of God.

We read the news through acts of violence rather than the hidden acts of love that keep hope alive. But there is a common thread in many of the most horrific perpetrators of violence that begs our attention – they kill themselves.

Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence goes against everything that we are created for – to love and to be loved – so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide.

When people succumb to violence it ultimately infects them like a disease or a poison that leads to their own death.

Violence is the voice chosen by terrorist, soldier and solo shooter alike. Weapons and other instruments of war can amplify that voice so that the most powerful, most cunning or most determined perpetrator can have its way. But violence does not bring redemption, it doesn’t transform lives in a way that encourages wholeness.

When Jesus told one of his disciples “those who live by the sword will die by the sword”, he was neither cursing people, nor being a soothsayer. He was reflecting on the self-destructive path of choosing violence as the way to ’solve’ the world’s problems.

For the mythical hydra to stop its cycle of violence, it had to keep its wounds. In the story the hero Hercules cauterises its open necks, so it kept its scars rather than grow new heads.

So too, we need to be reconciled to the woundedness of our human condition and stop seeking to solve our own failings or the failings of others with violent solutions.

Maybe this is what a wise prophet meant when he is said of God’s suffering servant: “by his wounds we are healed.”

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 8:48 pm by just_nigel and is filed under guest posters, iraq, oz politics and society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.