Palestinian Quaker Jean Zaru reflects upon her lifelong commitment to peacemaking:
I call myself a Quaker or a Friend. And Friends, throughout history, have maintained a testimony to nonviolence. War, we say, is contrary to the teachings of Christ. Therefore, we are challenged to live in the presence of that power which wins through love rather than through war. This is no easy testimony. It has three aspects:
- To refuse to take part in acts of war ourselves.
- To strive to remove the causes of war.
- To use the way of love open to us to promote peace and to heal wounds.
As Quakers we believe that there is something of God in every person. Why, then, is it so hard for us to see what is of God in one another? Both sides in any conflict often have difficulty seeing the other at all, let alone seeing that of God in the other.…
I believe that we are called to conversion: to be converted to the struggle of women and men everywhere who have no way to escape the unending fatigue of their labor and the daily denial of their human rights and human worth. We must be converted, so to speak, to a new vision of human dignity, what we call “that of God” in each person, even in those we oppose. We must let our hearts be moved by the anguish and suffering of the other.
Zaru considers the inward and outward dimensions of her commitment to peace:
Early on in my struggles with living nonviolently in a situation of violence, I found myself at a crossroads. I needed to know in my own deepest convictions whether I really did believe in the power of nonviolence to transform a situation of conflict.… How can I have peace within when I worry so much about life in general and the lives of my family members?… How can I have peace within when our movement is restricted in our own country, when walls are built to imprison us and separate us from one another?…
As Palestinian women, we have a special burden and service. We are constantly being told to be peaceful. But the inner peace of which I speak is not simply being nice, or being passive, or permitting oneself to be trampled upon without protest. It is not passive nonviolence, but the nonviolence of courageous action.…
What is that inner force that drives us, that provides regeneration and perseverance to speak the truth that desperately needs to be spoken in this moment of history?… If I deserve credit for courage, it is not for anything I do here, but for continuing in my daily struggle under occupation on so many fronts, for remaining samideh (steadfast) and, all the while, remaining open to love, to the beauty of the earth, and contributing to its healing when it is violated.
Reference:
Jean Zaru, Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks, ed. Diana L. Eck and Marla Schrader (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 67, 68, 69, 74, 75.
Image credit and inspiration: David Clode, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Australia, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like a butterfly in open hands, peacemaking requires the humility of opening our hearts to the delicate dance of co-creating a just peace.
Story from Our Community:
I love Julian of Norwich’s phrase, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” It resonates with me, not because it is a panacea of reassurance, but because it touches the space within us where we deeply feel at peace, in a state of equipoise, beingness, and in touch with our interconnection to each other. Although we live in this distracted world, we can still find moments to connect with that deep inner truth.
—Amala L.
