Peace Stories
April 2003
Banner photo: Nara, Japan [©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO]
A Moment of Nonviolence
Students walk past a destroyed building in Jaffna [CC HumanityAshore]
It was a brilliant evening in Jaffna, and I was having tea with my friend Jaya's family when we heard a thunderous explosion. Then there was a moment of stillness, a moment of inexpressible panic in my heart. We thought it was an ambush by the Tamil militants on an Indian army vehicle. When such attacks happen, innocent people usually flee immediately because injured soldiers will open fire on any moving object in their panic. And when reinforcements arrive, they usually arrest or shoot people around the area in revenge.
Jaya and I ran out to the front of the house. Peeking out from behind a wall, we saw that the blast had been from a suicide attack intended to blow up the army camp 100 meters from the house. But the bomb had gone off prematurely, in the midst of innocent people, before the car full of explosives reached the target.
We looked over at the army camp. The soldiers were pointing their guns at the bomb site. People were calling out, asking for help. Jaya wanted to leave the compound to help the injured. But I was frozen by fear. What if the soldiers thought we were militants and opened fire on us?
Facing Fear
With great reluctance, I went out with Jaya. He ran to the injured, but I decided to walk toward the army sentry point. I wanted to defuse the tension and animosity, so that we could help the injured without getting shot. Raising my hands, I walked toward the soldiers. I was so afraid and I could hear my heart beating.
Making sure my body language was nonthreatening, I walked very slowly, maintaining eye contact with the soldiers. While I was walking toward them, I thought I should ask for their help, to put them in a position of empathy with the injured.
I stopped at a safe distance. If I had come too close to them, they might have thought that I was carrying explosives on my body. I asked the soldiers in a loud voice if they could provide me with a vehicle so that we could take the injured people to the hospital. The sentry was angry with me at first, then confused, and then, carefully, he measured me. He was still pointing his gun at me. I could see he was very suspicious of me. He turned around and talked to another soldier. Then silence. I got more scared.
Then the sentry lowered his gun and said, "We don't have a vehicle at this camp, but we will get you a truck from the other camp so you can take the injured to the hospital." I felt a huge weight lift from my body. It was a powerful moment, a moment of solidarity in crisis. I ran back to the injured people. Dead bodies, unrecognizable, were strewn about. But that night we took several other people to the hospital, and only two more died there.
At that time, I never considered my actions as a form of nonviolence. What struck me then was the transformation that occurred in the enraged soldier. Receiving a request for help provided him with an opportunity to make a spontaneous transformation from anger to compassion. This was also a personal transformation for me, overcoming fear in a time of emergency. It was a most magical moment witnessing how nonviolence works in a difficult time.
It took a long time for me to realize the implications of Jaya's actions, the soldier's actions and those of myself. The cord that bound all of us was the spirit of humanity and caring for the suffering. Later, I learned from reading Gandhi that this is the essence of nonviolence: our identification with suffering. After this I became heavily involved in human rights work. After the assassination of a colleague at Jaffna University, I left Sri Lanka. Since then, I have devoted myself to studying, teaching and researching nonviolence.
Rajmohan Ramanathapillai is visiting professor of global studies in the department of philosophy at Gettysburg College, U.S.A. Born in Sri Lanka, he was previously director of the M. K. Gandhi Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.
