The World needs Little (Nonviolent) Insurgents

And furthermore.......
we also need big rebels to propagate and enflesh militant nonviolent lifestyles to offer a viable alternative for the masses who are struck in awe at the military technology that abounds our supermarkets (in the form of little ones' toys) and military airfields and barracks (that is, big boys and girls toys).

During the recent international gathering in Warsaw to organise against the G8 we had a couple of guests stay over for the weekend. Alec, originally from the Land of Oz but currently based in Reading had been commissioned by the editor of his local newspaper to write a piece on the Warsaw Uprising museum. Here's a few thoughts on this controversial Polish issue.

Warsaw Uprising - Brave Exploit or Glorified folly?

The Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1st 1944 ending in defeat for the Polish Home Army against the occupying forces of Nazi Germany. The insurgency lasted 63 days, ending on October 2nd, and resulted in the following casualties during the rebellion and as a result of the subsequent Nazi reprisals:

- 18,000 Polish soldiers killed, 25,000 wounded and 250,000 civilians perished.

- On the German side 17,000 soldiers died and 9,000 were wounded

It is widely accepted that Stalin's Red Army, which had reached the Praga district on the other side of the Vistula river, allowed the rebels to be slaughtered by the Germans to aid his strategy of subesquently suppressing Warsaw under Communist rule. Roosevelt and Churchill (less so), not wanting to disturb Uncle Joe's whiskers sat on the sidlines for the most part abandoning requests for assistance for the under-equipped Home Army.

It is a ongoing contentious historical debate whether the uprising was ultimately pre-destined to fail and too high a cost for the potentially destructive end results, or whether, on the other hand, it was a timely form and totally natural expression of resistance from a population which had for 5 years lived under the tyranny of Nazism.

Ireland and Poland's redemptive martyrdoms

The redemptive value of blood-offering and the heroic symbolism of martyrdom is a significant factor within the revolutionary paradigm of both events mentioned. Yet, strategic military folly overwhelmingly superceded the subtle christian ritual of 'giving one's life for their friend' (through the bayonet), and in each nation's current era of reflecting through the lens of historical romanticism it's now almost a taboo to seriously contend that a pro-actively non-violent position in both phases of Ireland and Poland's history would have caused less carnage to civilian life and infrastructure and may have had a more lasting positive socio-political impact against the spiral of violence and oppression chiefly created and exploited by the occupiers.

Extinguishing fire through Ahimsa

If children raised in Polish households or abroad for that matter are to learn anything about how violence is self-perpetuating they should be more deeply critical about the glorification of such violent sacrifices. But this can only begin if one has an iron will to fight fire with water, extinguishing the cyclical role of violent rebellion and the inevitable consequent severe repression, step by step trying to replace it with an equally sacrificial though primarily non-violent rebellion against the forces for disorder. Gandhi called it ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (truth-force).

It will take more gall (and many might say a woeful amount of stupidity, but I'm not one) to fight unarmed than with an AK-47. Gandhi used to ask his followers if they would defend him with arms and when they would reply with the answer they thought he wanted to hear he would send them away - in other words, if aren't willing to fight violence with violence then you lacked the qualities to sustain you to fight the spiritual and corporal battles of nonviolence.

Sanitising the past, we're doomed to repeat it

The challenge to advocates of non-violence is to convince their neighbour, both friend and foe, that the way of the little insurgent in the Warsaw Uprising is as ethically scandalous as our current abhorrence of the Ugandan Lord Rebel Army's or the Tamil Tiger's use of child soldiers for politicial and social revolution.

Both the Irish and Polish governments support for the U.S. in an illegal, immoral and unwinnable imperialist war against Iraq would have their nation's martyrs turning in their graves in disgust. Surely that has nothing got to do with the national self-interest they laid down their lives for?

A Polish Leftie viewpoint

I end this piece by quoting my girlfriend's dad, Piotr Gadzinowski, who is a journalist and politician with the post-communist Social Democratic Alliance party, on the Warsaw Uprising museum:

"The Warsaw Uprising Museum is the first multi-media museum in Poland, predominantly being geared towards the youth. Sorrowfully, it is not of a virtuous form, but on the contrary it's content is related more towards a discotheque attraction. The Uprising was the most heroic rebellion of Poland's population but also its' greatest political mistake. The gvt. in exile and the Home Army headquarters triggered the uprising against the German and Red Armies. The error consisted of this, that neither did they understand nor did they want to understand that the USSR was Poland's most important alliance partner.

An alliance which, apart from symbolic arms air-drops, didn't help the insurrection. In effect, the Uprising led to the deaths of over 200,000 civilians, while Warsaw burned just like Hiroshima after the atom bomb, as did its invaluable 1,000 year old national heritage. Our Czech neighbours revealed their political wisdom by calling for an anti-German Uprising in Prague between the 7-10th of May, 1945. Thanks to this Prague was saved.'"