The Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, bishop of the Diocese of California, comments on the protests surrounding the Summer Olympics in China and the role of righteous anger:
The best manners, the most respectful posture towards another in the range of our relationships is one that sheds light – love – both outward and inward.
Voices that say that San Franciscans, Parisians, all those living where the Olympic torch is being carried on its way to Beijing should respectfully let it pass should be heard as promoting a lesser form of human kindness. A recommendation for silence over injustice means complicity, and finally more shadows and less light.
It matters, though, and greatly, how we protest. It is heartening to see the unafraid, creative, non-violent way in which protesters have been emblazoning the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Golden Gate Bridge. As my friends and co-workers who have been following these protests tell me about them, they do so with a happy light in their eyes, and with a spark of energy to join in.
The late Rabbi Friedman advised meeting anger with humor – not the easiest prescription to follow, as we human animals tend to either fight or run when confronted with threatening anger. It is a genuinely human response to respond creatively, as these protestors are doing. I would say it is how the fully human Jesus responded to his attackers, and how I hope to follow him.
I said that we must take a posture that shines the light of love outward and inward when we protest. This comes from what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from the Birmingham Jail, when he was responding to clergymen who said, “Wait, be polite,” with respect to the urgency of the Civil Rights Movement. When planning a non-violent action, King wrote, one of the deliberate steps he and others in the Movement took was to purify their motives.
Read it all here.
Protests have begun in the San Francisco area as the torch arrives and passes through that city. AFP reports:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actor Richard Gere are to attend a pro-Tibet demonstration in the city on Tuesday, during which a “freedom torch” that has shadowed the Olympic torch will be carried to the Chinese consulate.
Tsering Gyurmey, secretary of the Tibetan Association of Northern California, told AFP protestors would be encouraged to demonstrate peacefully.
“We are urging all our supporters to be very peaceful and not be in confrontation with anybody,” he said.
Read more news here.
UPDATE: 1:30 p.m.
Bishop Andrus is co-hosting, with Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral an event honoring Bishop Desmod Tutu, sponsored by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commision tonight at Grace Cathedral. Following that event Andrus and Tutu are going to a candlelight vigil for Tibet sponsored by the International Campaign for Tibet.