062Y55A03 03/03/09 Pacifism

To-day was one of those times when I learned something very valuable from you guys. I also gained a little more understanding of Chinese culture.

My intention had been to lead you into discussing retaliation [getting back at someone;reacting to someone who abuses us] and so to see how violence breeds more violence and so is not a worthy thing.

But your responses were very different to those I expected. Instead many of you decided that very often violence was a way to earn respect and that pacifism - which many Westerners believe can be a good thing and is something that can bring about a more peaceful world - could result in lack of respect. To be honest, I expect there are a lot of Westerners who secretly feel the same way but just don't like to admit it.

This is also another area where the traditional culture of Christianity has had a lot of influence. For over a thousand years Christianity was the dominant religion in Europe and in some parts of the East as well. This religion, as many of you know, is based on the teachings of a Jewish rabbi [priest; holy man] called Jesus. He was called The Master in Greek which, translated into English is Christ ...and so the religion was called Christianity.

One of the teachings of this rabbi, and of many of the different sects[branches] of the Jewish religion, was pacifism. Some books called The Gospels were written many years after his death to spread some of the things he said to his followers, and one of these was "If thy neighbour smite[hit; strike] thee [old English word meaning You] on the left cheek turn to him the other that he might smite that also."

The doctrine[teaching; idea] of "turning the other cheek" became a very well-known saying of Christian people. It means that if someone hits you, you should not hit them back but let them hit you again. Although very few Christians actually lived this way it was seen as the perfect response and so, when Christianity became the main religion, millions of people all over Europe believed that, in order to be like their god, they should not be violent. Christianity was supposed to be a religion based on love - if we love people we don't hit them - therefore we were not good Christians if we went around hitting people for any reason at all...even if they hit us.

Because of this, the idea of pacifism became an idea that Western people are very familiar with. Even if they can't find it easy to do, they believe that it is the best way to live one's life. Actually, the history of Christianity is quite a violent one but still the IDEA that non-violence is a good thing is part of Western tradition.

Yet today, in class, I was confronted with a group of people who have not lived their whole lives in familiarity with the idea that"turning the other cheek" was the ideal way for human beings to live. Instead, they have lived with the knowledge that weakness does not earn respect, and that turning away from violence could, sometimes, lose them respect.

For me, it was one of those times when I felt very amazed about how we are always learning new things about one another.

Do not think for one moment that there are not also millions of Western people who do not actually see things the same way. However, the difference is that a lot of people would never admit it. There is also the idea that it is only gangsters who live life like this, and that the average person should not approve of such ideology [ways of living ones life; ones ideas about life]. While we may not all be Christians any more that idea that to be a good person we cannot be a violent person is still ingrained in [part of] Western culture. As you can see, just by picking up a newspaper or watching a movie, there is a lot of violence in the West but, deep inside, a lot of people still think it is a bad thing and are ashamed.

The whole question of Pacifism that I had set to getting you to discuss suddenly became very different. Most Westerners will only start to argue about Pacifism as it effects people in times of war. But to-day in class I realised that the whole idea of pacifism AT ANY TIME was looked at completely differently in China.

It is still my own personal belief that violence is bad. It is unarguable that violence breeds more violence as we discussed with the example of two men starting off with a problem, then bringing along a few more people and so one until there was a whole war going on. But I realised that the time we had in class was simply not enough time to start exploring this whole question.

Many of you might have ended up being a little puzzled by to-days discussion and by what had caused me to talk about it at all. If this is so, I apologise. But, if this is true for you then perhaps it will make you feel a bit better if you learn that I myself will value to-day's class very highly. I am actually so very glad it happened because it taught me a lot of different things. In fact it gave me so many things to think about that I expect I shall remember this class for years to come: I am always telling people that one of the reasons I love my job so much is because I learn so much from my own students, and to-day is one of those days when you probably taught me a lot more than you learned from me! Thank you to everyone who took part in the discussion to-day. It was an eye-opener [something that causes us to learn something new or change an opinion or a way of thinking; something that makes us realise a lot of other things].