Peacemaking

I was looking at a roundup of GA over at uuworld and read that there’s a Study/Action issue.  I’m still not sure what the hell that means exactly, but here it is.  “Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between peoples and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?”

It is mighty easy to immediately stand up and shout, “Of course we should adopt this!  Peace all the way!  It’s part of what Unitarian Universalism is.”  But this goes a tad bit too far.

I’ve got no problems with adopting “a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means.”  It’s the fist half that I’ve got an issue with.  Rejecting “any and all kinds of violence”…I’m certainly no hawk.  I was out protesting against the Iraq War just as much as anybody out there (I’ve still got my old protest signs) and although I really, really want to consider myself a pacifist, I just can’t.  There are times when war can be justified.  The times are extremely, extremely rare, and I’m beginning to define a just war as a war in order to stop genocide…the murder of thousands if not millions of innocent souls…there are times when some sort of war is needed.  Nonviolence and diplomacy should always be tried to the fullest extent, but there comes a point when the line needs to be drawn in the sand.   Not to mention this would also send the wrong message.  It would further condemn us to the fringes of society, and frankly put off a lot of people, especially down here in the South where everyone grew up near a base.

I would reword it as “Using nonviolent means for finding a just peace and for resolving disputes between peoples and nations, using violence only as the last result to end genocide.”  Or something like that.  It’s late, therefore my wording sucks.