Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Sarajevo, five minutes before their assassination, 28 June 1914. Photo, Walter Tausch, Wikimedia Commons.
I am in London visiting my dear friends Michael and Mary Pat Robertson I planned this trip months ago, without knowing that it would be such a relief to be temporarily away from the United States in this particular moment of great political turmoil. Being in Europe – and perhaps especially in the UK during a landslide Labour victory after 14 consecutive years of Tory rule – has given me distance from my country, and new perspectives on our current political crisis.
It is striking to see policemen here in London, unarmed. They don’t need guns because the civilian population is unarmed. In England and Wales, there are 4.5 guns per 100 people. In the U.S. tragically, there are 120.5 guns per 100 people. It is no surprise that incidents of gun violence in the U.S. are vastly higher than in the UK or any country in Europe.
When English people speak of “the civil war,” they are referring to the armed struggle between Royalist forces and Parliamentarians in the mid-1600s. When Americans speak of civil war, they are increasingly referring to their fears for the immediate future. According to the most recent Marist poll (April 2024) gathering data on this subject, 47% of Americans think there is a likelihood of another U.S. Civil War in their lifetime.
Michael and I met in summer 1978 when we were faculty colleagues at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City for the following academic year: Michael taught high school English; 21 years old, fresh out of college, this was my first full time job – teaching social studies (American History and World History) to 7th and 8th graders. Michael’s unshakable commitment to peace, justice and fellowship – expressed in his life of scholarship and teaching, and in his deep attentiveness to life and care for human beings – has profoundly impacted me throughout the 46 years we have been close, and shaped my own understanding of the theory and practice of nonviolence from the 19th century to the present day.
Michael and Mary Pat are both Quakers and members of the Quaker community in Hampstead, where they live. Yesterday, Sunday, I joined Michael at the weekly Friends worship meeting. If you have never been to a Quaker meeting, I encourage you to have that experience. As described by a flier I picked up at the Hampstead Friends House:
Quaker worship is a shared activity and it is an experience quite unlike any other. In worship Quakers gather to open themselves to the strength and the guidance they need to live in the world. They seek a sense of connection with their own inner selves, with each other and with their deepest truth. They bring their whole lives and the world around them into this time, and they try to see it – and themselves – with new clarity. In worship Quakers seek a place beyond words or thoughts, where hearts may be open, challenged and inspired.
In Quaker meetings, participants sit together in shared stillness and silence. If someone feels moved to speak, they can stand and share a “message” from their heart. Michael told me that most of the Hampstead Sunday meetings are entirely silent, with perhaps one or two brief messages. But the meeting I attended was different. One member of the community spoke very personally about some urgent issues that had shaken her, and impacted the entire community. In response, many people were moved to share thoughts and feelings that arose in their own hearts.
In this experience of emotional connection with participants, I too felt moved to share thoughts that I was carrying inside me at that moment.
I thanked everyone for their graciousness, for including me in their community. Then I shared feelings about the shooting and attempted assassination of Donald Trump which happened just a few hours earlier.
“One of a stream of bullets took out part of his ear. If he had not suddenly turned his head just a second before, or if the bullet had been a few millimeters closer, Trump would have been murdered, a victim of gun violence – and we would have woken up this morning in a different and even more terrifying world.
“We know that violence begets violence, and we know that instability and political violence in the United States reverberates in highly unpredictable ways, threatening peace and stability across the globe.
“Just two months ago, Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was assassinated. Fico was a leader of Europe’s resurgent far right, an ally of Putin, opposed to support for Ukraine. His would-be assassin was apparently even further to Fico’s right. The assassination attempt against Fico echoed throughout Europe; had it been successful, those echoes would have been louder and more chilling. But there is no comparison between the role of Slovakia and the United States in the international system.
“Tens of millions of Americans support Trump, including millions who see him as a kind of savior. Millions of Americans, right and left, believe that political violence is justified and even necessary under certain circumstances. My country is awash in guns, including “AR-style” rifles and shotguns like the semi-automatic weapon used by the Pennsylvania gunman.
We don’t know how these highly combustible elements would have interacted had one of the bullets fired reached its intended target. We have seen the photograph of Trump standing up after the shooting, his face bloodied, raising his fist in fierce defiance. We can imagine that this image will mobilize his followers with greater intensity. But we do not know the nature or extent of political violence that might follow this assassination attempt.
“Today, in this meeting, I feel acutely aware of the unique role and vision of the Quaker faith and community in our violent world. The Quakers have always shined a light on the better angels of our nature. They have always offered a unique, alternative vision – an urgently needed counterpoint to the dominant beliefs and accepted wisdom that violence and war are inevitable, intrinsic to human nature, and that force must be met with force, even when cycles of blood vengeance are triggered by perceived vulnerability arising from built up tensions and unexpected events. On the contrary, Quakers have held steadfast to the belief that love is stronger than hate, that humanity, peace and reconciliation can and will prevail.
“Over recent months and years, the world has been suffering through an extended dark period of reaction. Communities, nations and regions are beset by war, religious nationalism and authoritarianism. I fear that these forms of political violence will intensify in the coming months, even as I pray that these fears will be proved wrong.
“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. demanded that we focus our attention on what he called ‘the fierce urgency of now.’ “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation.”
At this moment in global history, I feel that the Quakers have an especially important role to play, and a profound responsibility to speak out and take necessary action – along with all people of good will, who care about nonviolence, human rights, democracy and reconciliation. Our voices need to be heard, our values defended, now more than ever.
“I am very grateful to this community for so warmly welcoming me — and for holding and carrying forward such a beautiful, urgent, vitally necessary vision of justice and peace.”
Jonathan D. Greenberg
