Linda Sartor is not afraid to die. Dedicated to nonviolence, she spent 10 years after September 11, 2001 traveling to conflict zones throughout the world as an unarmed peacekeeper, with roles ranging from protective accompaniment to direct interpositioning between parties when tensions were running high. She documents her work across the world — in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and most recently Bahrain — in her new book, Turning Fear into Power: One Woman’s Journey Confronting the War on Terror. Inwardly quiet and exceedingly humble (she chose to sleep outside for eight years of her adult life), her courage and conviction are not only refreshing, they’re infectious. I recently had the privilege of spending a day with her to discuss her travels and the ways in which they have changed her as an individual, as well as her relationship to nonviolent action.
Is there a nonviolent response to terrorism?
I think George W. Bush misused the word “terrorism” so much that it really has no meaning. When protesters in the Occupy movement are portrayed as terrorists, that really changes the meaning of democracy too. If there is such a thing as real terrorism, I think it is often a last resort cry for help by people who are being severely abused and mistreated and who don’t have any other way to be seen and heard by those who could bring justice to a situation. A nonviolent response to terrorism is anything that brings more justice into the world, including more equity in our global economic system so that all people have their needs met and no one can abuse anyone else for their own economic advantage.
What does activism mean to you?
I think the word activism most often means protesting against something, but I am more excited about Gandhi’s idea of constructive program. I prefer the focus on creating models of what we want as opposed to protesting against what we don’t want because I believe that when we put energy against something it actually gives that something more power.
You worked for an organization doing constructive program, which is at the forefront of international unarmed peacekeeping, the Gandhian dream of the Shanti Sena, or Peace Army. Can you tell a story illustrating that kind of nonviolence at work?
The day after a massacre in a Christian Tamil village on an island in Sri Lanka, we Nonviolent Peaceforce unarmed civilian peacekeepers were greeted by the priest who took us to see the bodies. The people of the village were all excited to tell us what they had experienced the night before when the 11 people were killed. Each story confirmed that the killers were of the Sri Lankan Navy. The way it worked in Sri Lanka was that the bodies had to stay in place until the judge looked at them. When the judge arrived walking down the street, she was accompanied by Navy and police. So as soon as the villagers saw the group coming, the women and children all quickly went inside the churchyard and the men clumped closer to each other on the side of the street across from the church. The tension was palpable.
I positioned myself on the side of the clump of men, so the Navy, police and judge walked past me first and then past the village men. As they passed, I smiled and waved and that proved to be totally disarming of the tensions. At that moment, I felt a bodily knowledge that I was safer because I was unarmed than I would have been armed. No one had any reason to be afraid of me, so I was not in personal danger. From that morning on, until the villagers decided to move from their village into a refugee camp, we were able to provide a protective presence to the people and they felt a sense of security that the Navy, which was supposedly responsible for their security, could not provide.
You are one person. What makes you hopeful that you can make a difference?
After 9/11, I couldn’t sit still. I felt a longing to get into some sort of action to take a stronger stand than I had ever taken before. In the 10 years of my life that I portray in my book, I don’t know concretely how much of a difference my actions made in the bigger picture. Like the Afghan Peace Volunteers I spent time with in Afghanistan, I don’t necessarily expect to see the changes I am committed to working toward come about in my lifetime. But I believe that I have to work toward those changes anyway. It is like the line in the song “The Impossible Dream” that says, “And I know if I’ll only be true to this glorious quest, that my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest; and the world will be better for this.”
On another level, if I see something out there in the world that is not okay with me, I believe that if I look inside myself and ask something like, “Where is that violence in me?” then I have a place within myself that I can work to heal. Maybe that is the only place where I really have the power to make a difference. I do believe that that little bit of healing does contribute to the healing that’s needed in the world.
I have been inspired by the words of the poet Clarissa Pinkola Estes, when she says, “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely … We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small determined group who will not give up.”
Your book is about transforming fear into nonviolent power. Fearlessness was one of Gandhi’s key characteristics of the nonviolent soul, or satyagrahi. In his 1928 work, “Satyagraha in South Africa,” he said, “A satyagrahi bids goodbye to fear.” What role do you think fear plays in perpetuating violence in our world?
I see that the powers of domination that seem to be in control of the world today thrive on creating and perpetuating a culture of fear. Fear is contagious and easily blown out of proportion by our imaginations. I see that especially when it is at a distance. For example, people who don’t live in California are afraid of earthquakes and since I have never been in a tornado I fear that. I realized when I was preparing for my first trip — which was to Israel/Palestine — that for everyone back home it would seem like I would be in danger all the time. But in reality, there were only a few moments that were quite scary, and the rest of the time was not.
We can learn to let fears be our teachers and when we accept, or even embrace, a fear and let ourselves learn what we have to learn from it, it has less control over us. It’s not that we ever get rid of fear, it is just that we can be with fear in a different way. The more I am able to be with my fears, the more freedom I have to do what my heart is calling me to do, and the more alive I feel in the end.
Do you recommend that everyone travel to conflict zones as you have?
I encourage people to recognize that they don’t have to do what I did, but that their own hearts have unique callings that are right for them. I trust that if each of us does that, it can lead to solutions that we can’t find when we only think about the problems from our heads and from the perspective of what we’ve done before.
Wonderful to read this empowering wisdom from Linda, hard-won from actual experience. I fortunately was lead trainer for the intensive workshop that prepared Linda and other Nonviolent Peaceforce people for their first Sri Lanka mission, and she was a stand-out already then. Thanks, Stephanie, for bringing this to us.
George
My pleasure, George. And that’s really cool that you and she worked together at that training. Fun to see how nonviolence learning spreads.
Thanks, George.
I liked the interview with Linda Sartor, but I was troubled by her claim that Pres Bush “misused ‘terrorism’ so much that it really has no meaning” Pres Bush always distinguished between the peaceful followers of Islam & Hamas & other groups that used the Islamic religion as an excuse to commit violence vs innocent people. I found the same distortion in some of the responses to your last article on Israel. Gary Anderson called Zionism a “multi-racial cabal of elites” that “seeks world domination” & “destruction of freedoms like free speech & gun rights.” Israel is the only mid-East country that has free speech.
thanks for sharing your view, John.
Thanks for your comment, John. I conflated two thoughts in my comment about Bush and the use of the word, “terrorism.” One thought is that the War on Terror created by Bush was actually an example of terrorism in the world in my view. The second thought is about the misuse of the label “terrorist” to describe members of the Occupy Movement, which emerged long after Bush was in office, but is related because Occupiers were portrayed as terrorists in an ad promoting the “Urban Shield” program, a militarization of police conference financed by the Dept. of Homeland Security that’s been taking place in Oakland for 9 years now.
there is, and always has been, a clear distinction between the state of Israel and zionism. They are not the same.
also, this notion of free speech is curious. if I were to openly criticize, even to point out an incident that is categorically, without doubt, a human rights violation by the state of Israel (think cluster bombs used on civilian populations, here) what sort of free speech rights do you think I might expect to enjoy?
If your answer is “none”, then congratulations! You have been paying attention.
I would, likely, not end up in jail because of it, but I can be assured that (given I had the requisite reach) I would be dismissed as an anti-semite (ultimate irony there as I happen to ‘be’ the textbook definition of “Semite”), receive death threats, be shouted down by the Republican party, and who knows what else, maybe even invited to speak at a KKK rally.
No one, anywhere, is truly free. We all suffer from various forms of repression. If that is news then perhaps, as I was so very recently, you haven’t been paying attention after all…
Thanks for this story — it’s good to cover the growing role of civilian/third-party intervention. And great to hear your story Linda!
Thanks, Daniel.
Hello Daniel. It’s good to cross paths with you again.
Woo! Talk about power! Anyone who doubts their personal power would benefit from reading this interview!
Thank you, David. Wow! what a wonderful comment.
an inspiring women, for sure.
With all due respect, however, I must ask: how is it that Ms. Estes claims to “know” that it doesn’t take everyone to make a peaceful world? In fact she does not know that, and I “know” that it will, in fact, take all of us to create a peaceful world. A ‘small group who will not give up’ don’t seem to be winning, so far.
My point is: if we start from the perspective that a small group is what is necessary, we are risking failure by not shooting for the stars. Starting from the viewpoint that it WILL take everyone is, in my opinion, closer to the truth of the peace army. The peace army is, essentially, an anarchic concept. It steps away from the notion that, “it’s someone else’s responsibility”, whenever we see a problem. Putting responsiblity in the hands of others equates to putting power in the hands of others. Whereas, avoiding that paradigm leaves us with our power. Our power to use, to protect, and to reserve. This is akin to “all power devolves from the people”, which is easy for any libertarian, conservative, liberal, anarchist, populist, hedonist, loner, etc. to digest. This is the essence of the Shanta Sena. (I have seen it work with my own eyes, having been the one who called the Shanta Sena together to deal with a dangerous moment. Rainbow Family members will know what I am talking about.)
Carrying this self-evident truth to its conclusion, we are left with the fact that the power is, and always has been, ours. If we decide to surrender that power to a king, or a president, or a government, we are avoiding our responsibility.
Claiming our responsiblity, especially in this case, will be made much easier if we know that everyone around us is able and willing to get involved in dealing with whatever issue we face. If our default is NOT to have everyone involved, NOT to think in terms of dissipation of power, NOT to reach for inclusiveness, then we risk aiming for, and accepting, a mark that is untenable.
Hello Jimmy,
Thank you for your comment. I’m sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I was in the middle of moving.
You ask how Estes knows what she claims to know and I wonder how you claim to know what you say you know. I find her perspective to be inspiring and yours to be discouraging and disempowering.
We do definitely agree on this point (and I think Estes would too):
Power is ours. If we decide to surrender that power to a king, or a president, or a government, we are avoiding our responsibility.
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