The Butcher and the Peacemaker

I learned about the death of Quaker peace activist Tom Fox a couple of Saturdays ago, on the same day that I heard about the death of Serbian former dictator Slobodan Milosevic.  My connections to these men were tenuous at best; I had never met either of them, and only knew them through news items and through the stories of people whose lives they had touched. 

My initial reaction to hearing of their deaths was the same: regret.  The reasons for that reaction, however, were not the same.

The first time I heard of Tom Fox was sometime last year, when I followed a series of Friend-ly links to his blog, Waiting in the Light.  At the time I was in the initial flush of a resurgent interest in Quakerism, drawing great spiritual nourishment from the constellation of Quaker sites in the blogosphere.  Searching for writings that addressed the immediate state of my soul, I glanced at Tom's blog once or twice, noted that it seemed to be more about "current events" than about "religion," and moved on. 

In retrospect, I wish that I had taken more time back then to read his entries.  I wish I had taken the time to notice the coursing river of spirit that wended and glimmered through Tom's posts on the current conflict in Iraq.  Had I not been in such a hurry to find latter-day, online incarnations of Thomas Kelly and Rufus Jones, I would have found much that spoke to my condition.  By the time I discovered that Tom was a member of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, someone known well and well liked by many members of my monthly Meeting,  he had already been taken captive by a group of murderous fanatics with a name straight out of a 1930's pulp adventure novel.

I first heard the name of Slobodan Milosevic in 1991, when the man who would later be described as the "Butcher of the Balkans" invaded Croatia.  His name, and the bloody events to which he was so central, would not have made such an impression but for the outrage of a friend of mine, who was of Croatian descent and who had recently reconnected with his family there.  Still, the name of Milosevic blended together with those of all the other actors -- Mladic, Karadzic, Tujman -- in that disgusting, bewildering drama that played out in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990's.  It was not until years later, when I entered the field of refugee resettlement, that the figure of Milosevic began to loom larger in my consciousness.

Many of my clients at that time were Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats who had been displaced by artillery shells, marauding militias, and the scourge of "ethnic cleansing" during the series of conflicts that devastated the Balkans.  They all had stories.  Some of those stories tumbled forth at the drop of a hat, almost compulsively, as if they were a sickness that needed to be purged from the teller's psyche.  Others were more reluctant to share their tales, and when they did, they doled them out in slow, painful draughts.

One young man told me of a woman in Mostar who was shot by Bosnian Serb militia forces while returning home with a bag of groceries.  When her neighbors moved to help her as she lay in the street, they were driven back by sniper fire from the rooftops.  My friend, who had been a mere teenager when this happened, watched in anguish as the woman bled to death, alone, with no one able to come to her aid.  Slobodan Milosevic was the author of that atrocity.

Another man spoke of being rounded up with the other males from his village and herded like animals into the football stadium, where day after day they were shot, beaten, and electrocuted.  A coworker spoke of losing her husband, her car, her house, her job, her livelihood, the very name of the town in which she was born.  Slobodan Milosevic was the author of those atrocities as well.

After hearing a few dozen such tales, my impulse was to retreat down a hole.  Gradually I found I wasn't dealing very well with the weight of those stories.  I felt stressed, and I hated myself for it.  I had nightmares, and felt guilty for them.  I grew increasingly irritable, and felt badly about it.  I eventually left the resettlement field feeling defeated and bitter toward myself, toward my inability to turn poison into a healing balm.

Tom Fox was made of sterner stuff, I think.  His response to evil was to bear witness to it, to look it in the face and stare it down.   He practiced peacemaking in Palestine.  He worked at a Quaker youth camp.  He spoke out against the idiocy of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.  He ventured into Iraq with open eyes, knowing full well what the risks were.  I don't presume to understand exactly what it was that called him to Iraq.  All I know that it was a force powerful enough to overcome the fear of pain, horror, and death, and that I am awed and humbled even contemplating it.

Five years ago, when Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and brought before International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, I felt only the thinnest sort of satisfaction.  Part of me  rejoiced in his capture, while part of me wondered what possible outcome could balance the scales against the immensity of badness the man had wreaked upon the world.  But when I heard about his death, I suddenly understood: while no punishment could possibly begin to make reparations for his actions, the very act of bringing Milosevic to trial was in itself a victory, albeit a small one.  Because the act of adjudicating the most monstrous of humans in a fair, democratic, and transparent manner is a flagstone on the path to a better, less monstrous world.  It's a slight curve in that great arc of history which, as Martin Luther King said, may be long, "but it bends toward justice." 

When Milosevic died, the regret I felt came from his having beaten the system.  Now, instead of the small triumph of a more humane society, we get a martyr, a potent symbol for the misguided and the ignorant who continue to subscribe to his bankrupt ideology.

The regret I felt upon hearing of Tom Fox's death came from a different source.  It was the plain sadness at realizing that the world is too often a dark and grim place for too many people; that we need all the light that we can muster to help each other find the way; and that when even one small light is put out, the way becomes darker for all of us.

But then I remembered the great teaching of Quakerism: that each of those small lights is a part of a greater Light.  And that Light is inextinguishable.

Comments

[Amanda]

This is a beautiful, moving, full post. Please consider submitting it to Friends Journal or somewhere like that. It is a deeply informative and healing piece of writing, and I think many would benefit from reading it.

[Martin Kelley]

Hi MB,
Thanks for the reminder (and thank Tom Fox for the reminder) that what sometimes feels like the divide between spiritual and activist Friends is often false and that our body is most whole when we can find a way to unite them in mission. There's a lot to think about in Fox's life and death.
Your Friend,
Maritn

[John Stephens]

My hurting is based on a great blessing: Tom Fox is my friend and mentor. Before we knew eachother in the Quaker network, he was my boss for three years at Whole Foods Market. There, he began his work as a baker, and even when he was working as a store manager, he would still work in the bakery occasionally. Communion, sharing bread in the spirit of fellowship, was the root of his work in every field.

When I saw your headline, I thought it was a reference to this personal and professional aspect of Tom, a clever allusion to the nursery rhyme ("Turn them out knaves all three").

I have heard many voices renewing their call to activism and lobbying based on Tom's suffering, but I hope that we can be guided by the Spirit that hovers around Tom's gentle presence. I hope that those who are moved to visit congressional delegates can undertake the spirit of servanthood , perhaps bringing fresh bread with them to break in fellowship.

[Kev]

Amanda: Thank you, Friend. I may do just that.

Martin: that's an interesting observation, about the division between "activist" and "spritual" Friends. It's a division I'm working on reconciling in my own life, in fact. I was an activist before I was a Quaker, yet activism wasn't what drew me to the Friends.

John: Thank you so much for your beautifful comment. I feel privileged that you took the time to share that personal memory of Tom Fox, and to remind us that no matter what endeavor we pursue, we should do so in a spirit of Communion.

[Amanda]

Hi Pot, I'm Kettle, and I miss your posts! (says the girl averaging one a month)