SOA Vigil - a new face of America

Back in the days of my theology, we extensively discussed what the Gospel of Christ really means to people who are oppressed and persecuted. The answer was that a faith that does not work for justice is barren. I remember the many protest rallied I attended in Delhi against hunger deaths in MP, killing of dalits in Rajastan, US invasion of Iraq and so on. We went to the slums to do relief work after fires and demonstrated in front of Rajghat when the BJP government decided to demolish the Sanjay Amar slum. Political activism? No, it was just faith seeking and doing justice.
This is why the trip to Ft Benning in Georgia was so important for me. I had heard about the School of the Americas even back in India. The graduates of this school were perpetrators of violence in many an Latin American country. And in 1989, they killed six of my brother Jesuits at the University of Central America at El Salvador. Their crime? Teaching and writing about the justice of the gospels.
The vigil in front of the gates of the SOA is about 20 years old. Why does the US government still run this school? The gradutates of this school overthrew the democratically elected government in Honduras a couple of months ago? Why don't they close down this so called School of assassins? The answers are highly political. For the rich and powerful, talking about social justice is equivalent to communism. For me, it is Christianity.
It was a great experience for me to be there at the gates of SOA, together with thousands of Jesuit students and others, singing, dancing, hoping... The 14 hours drive did not matter. What mattered was the solidarity I felt there with all this people. They were my people. And the people who are getting killed in all those countries are my people.
One important part of the whole program was the Ignatian teach-in. We were not going to violently protest. We were non-violent. We wanted to make a point and made it believing that the greatest weapon is non-violence.
It was interesting to meet another Jesuit from India at the gates of SOA. Fr Cedric Prakash is a well known figure in India being a leading human rights activist in Gujarat, especially for his take on the fascist Modi government of Gujarat. I was happy to meet him. Ultimately, this fight is not limited to one place or one time. It has to continue. La Lucha Sigue... The struggle continues...