Without justice there is no peace

Monday night, I was sitting at home watching the news. I heard that the Israeli government continued its strikes against Hamas with an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

On Sunday, it was reported that “(t)here is famine, fullblown famine, in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”

Last week, protest encampments popped up at universities across the province including the University of Toronto, McMaster, Western and the University of Ottawa.

As it seems necessary to highlight, the assault by Hamas on Oct. 7 was despicable and a terrorist act. The Israeli citizens who were kidnapped and are now hostages must be returned safely to their families.

I think we can agree about that, but we may disagree on a few points.

Premier Doug Ford said on Monday night, after the death toll in Gaza had surpassed 34,000 — the majority women and children — and some 1.7 million people displaced, that “people are fed up.”

My God, man, how nice it is to be “fed up” with genocide and to encourage people to “move on” because we’re safe in our homes.

Premier Ford said we live in “peaceful Ontario” and I agree and I’m glad.

I’m glad that I’m not being bombed and there are safe places for me and my family. I’m glad that my children aren’t being starved because a government is withholding food as punishment. I’m glad that I’m not living in a war zone.

I think we can agree about this, but that’s as far as my agreement can go.

This desire for order and peace above justice that will end a war is a problem.

The fight for justice is messy. It means that we, those of us who are blessed enough to not be in a war zone, must make others uncomfortable. This fight often means getting in people’s face — never with hate speech or threats — and refusing to let anyone get complacent.

Because if there is no justice, it is impossible to have real peace.

This idea that we need to ensure order over justice is what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke about in his 1963 “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.”

And, just like today, too many people speak about the necessity of peace and order instead of the necessity of justice for all.

The Rev. Dr. King wrote: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s

great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

I am bewildered as well when people talk of peace but only want convenience.

They say they want peace, but they don’t like how or when you protest. Go over there in that corner and quietly protest and complain, but don’t get in my way because that doesn’t work for me.

Peace and order above justice. How many more people must die for us to realize that order is only useful when it means justice for everyone?

If disorder and discomfort on campus means justice for all, so be it.