LANZA DEL VASTO'S STRUCTURAL PHILOSOPHY ON WAR AND PEACE

Antonino Drago former at Naples, Pisa and Florence Universities

As a biographical note on Lanza del Vasto (for short, LdV), I recall that he born in San Vito dei Normanni (Brindisi), South Italy 29-9-1901, from a rather high class family (the origin of the father was Sicily, the mother Belgium and the grand mother France). He graduated in Philosophy at Pisa University in 1928. Without accepting any social role and in opposition to the Italian Fascism, he cumulated experiences in pilgrimage, humble working, private teaching while he was a poet, painter, actor, sculptor, writer, musician. In a Fascist Italy, which ignored at all conscientious objection, at July 30th 1936 he wrote to his mother that, in the case he was appealed to the military Army, he will declare his refusal even at cost to be shot. He was distressed by the feeling that a second World war was coming. His mind was captured by the questions: Why mankind fall again and again in wars? Why wars rise from peace times as regularly as the tides do? Can human beings be able to survive without wars? He decided that in the World there was only one man capable to give an answer, Gandhi. In 1937 he went in India for “espiating Europe”, a society where each – honest or dishonest - person, by merely doing its duty, contributes to rush to a new disastrous World war. He was disciple of Gandhi, being called by him Shantidas (Peace servant). His “meeting with the truth” overcome his expectations: “I hoped much from my meeting with Gandhi, I found out much more. My thinking, as well as my dream, was surmounted: I saw an issue to the miseries, abuses, servitudes, revolts and wars; the justice as a mathematical and musical exactitude in the acts; the unity of life in the simplicity; the candour of the wise man at the inside as at the outside; the non-violence or the rejection of all which disturbs the harmonious order of the things….” Shortly, the achieved unity of a human life responding to the mankind questions. Also Gandhi’s teachings made clear to LdV that war is unavoidable when people’s life is aimed to the grievance and the exploitation. The every-day life of Gandhi was an example of how rather one can unite in his life the spiritual with the social at the highest degree. Also the life in the Gandhi’s community offered an impressive evidence of how a social group can live in peace although his participants differ at all in their religious beliefs, ethnic origins, ancient cultures and urgent needs dictated by the survival. His book on his Indian experience, Return to Source (1943), illustrates how such a kind of life unites peace and justice so that war is very unlikelihood; and hence the great social and historical value of the Gandhian non-violence, later conceived by him as “a revolutionary and innovative social power”. This deep experience led him to a total conversion in the body – which was obliged by him to conform to the material life of the poor Indians – and in the spirit – which re-discovered the basic of Christian faith, i.e. the conversion to love an enemy even in the struggle. A call received during a pilgrimage to the sources of the Gange river pushed him to come back in Europe to promote “a Peace Army”, i.e. to start inside the Western civilization Gandhian communities aimed to fight wars. However, once he came back in Paris, his ambitious programme met great difficulties. The further reflection on his project led him to overcome his previous anti- militarist attitude for accepting the implicit suggestion received by Gandhi’s life, to introduce non- violence in the basic structure of a society. He started from constituting a group of Gandhian followers. Encouraged by the ecumenical spirit of Gandhi, in particular his teaching to deepen each his own religious tradition, LdV together with his group re-visited Gospel; which was recognised to be in deep agreement with Gandhi’s non- violence. After few years, in 1948, he together with some of this group started in south France a first community of "Western Gandhians". He called it “Community of Ark” according to two meanings; Noah's Ark, built for saving some persons together with all animals from the scourge of the deluge caused by modern civilization; and the Ark of the new alliance between God and mankind, i.e. non-violence. Later this community promoted non-violent Campaigns against the French war in Algeria, against nuclear bombs and nuclear plants, for a loyal recognition of French conscientious objectors, against the expropriation of Larzac's plateau by Army. He died in a Spanish Ark Community (La Longuera, Murcia) 5-1-1981.

After ten years of communitarian life he felt the need to give to his enterprise a theoretical basis which – in the spirit of Gandhian teachings - had to explain the negative social events – as wars are - by means of a chain of detailed causes originated from the personal evil; hence, it had to unite in a continuum the spiritual teachings with the political theories. He had conceived this extraordinary enterprise already in 1937 but he wrote his book Les quatre Fléaux (The Four Scourges) in 1959. It represents an unsurpassed effort for connecting together theology, anthropology, sociology, economics, politics, international relations and history. In agreement with the ecumenical spirit of Gandhi, he considered the basic teachings of all great religions as the most ancient, persistent and at the same time world-wide teachings on most wise attitudes. Through them he looked for a universal and adequate answer to wars and in general to modern times. LdV started by focussing the attention on what constitutes a central core of all religions believing in a creator God. All they have to answer to a basic problem (theodicy): Why the benevolent God created a world, and in particular the human nature, where the evil entered? This corresponds to a universal problem of the secular thinking too: How to explain the conflict between the Good and the Evil inside the mankind history? And moreover it is the basic problem of all people involved in the tiring work for peace: Why one more war? Why peace does not come without impediments? Several great religions offer stories about the fall of the first men from a privileged position to the present, painful position. In the Hebrew-Christian tradition this is the story of the Original Sin (Genesis 3). Also Gandhi shared this religious tenet (Hind Swaraj, beginnings of chp. X). LdV offered a new interpretation of this text on the Original Sin. In modern times someone suggested that the Original sin was a disobedience act which introduced men to the knowledge. Instead according to LdV, the fall is caused by a reduction of the original capability of a knowledge-contemplation, to a knowledge-calculation of his own advantage at the expenses of others and Nature. This Sin is that to divert the human mind from the direct knowledge of the intimate nature of every being – a first God and even animals -, to an interested calculation aimed to exploit all beings so that the good, which originarily is natural to men, in fact is no more spontaneous. As a consequence of this sin concernining relationships, the behaviour of a man is similar to that of an animal: "In the same way a wolf has teeth, a snake poison, so a man has his intelligence for making war to nature and to all other men". Spontaneous to a man/woman is rather to build a lot of conventions, laws and rules allowing the more clever men to prevail upon the naive persons. That introduces in every man an artificial level located between the natural level and the super-natural level, whereas in a society it introduces a lot of legal or conventional customs under which a man – conscious or not - in fact exploits in a regular way his environment. As a result, all men, both evil ones or benevolent ones contribute to the pyramidal structure of the society, where weaker men have to support the heaviest social weights.

Notice that in the subsequent chapter 4 Genesis presents how the Evil pervaded the whole society of the primordial times: brothers, family, town. Maybe this text inspired LdV to illustrate t the growth of evil inside the more complex society of modern times. He achieved it by means of new interpretations of Apocalypse 8 (scourges) and 13 (two Beasts dominating mankind) as presenting an evil structured in social institutions. That anticipated Johan Galtung's suggestion to add to the notion of non-violence inside personal inter-relationships, the notion of a structural non- violence, that performed by social institutions. Truly, the above texts belong to the Christian Bible; however, they describe a historical situation that all religions consider as "an extreme evil"; i.e. a society founded and structured according to the evil; or, in sociological terms, a time in which the political power persecute religions and even the whole mankind. A similar view is in Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1909, end of chp. VI). In ‘30s a similar society was experienced by those European peoples which were subjugated by the Stalinist, Facist, Nazist and Franchist dictatorships How people can reach such an aberration? Through the interconnections of even more numerous social customs the original sin grows up till to constitute ever more social institutions which in the history, may persist as scourges – Misery, Servitude, War and Revolt - irrespectively of the populace’s will. Moreover, original sin takes the greatest advantage from the introduction of the most formal rules, the scientific ones; which are persuasively justified as deriving from a positive collective enterprise of mankind, even blessed by God. Eventually, through Science and Technology (S&T) the evil grows to constitute two specific social institutions which elevate to a universally supported design their subtle way to apply the original sin for a universal exploitation of both Nature and populace. In the history of mankind for the first time the present civilisation applies world-wide the original sin under the benefits which modern S&T offer. Hence the present times represent the widest renewal as possible of the Original Sin. Notice that in a parallel way, Induist tradition and some other religious traditions maintain that the present times represent dark times. LdV suggested an accurate correspondence of the features of modern S&T with the several aspects attributed by the text to the two Beasts. In particular, he stressed that the two social actors subdue all peoples, so much to impress a seal on both mind and right hand of whatsoever person. Previous non-violent teachers (mainly, Tolstoy and Gandhi) advised us against Western S&T, or severely criticised them, which in last centuries gained an unprecedented authority on the life of all peoples, greater than any other cultural or social force. First LdV gave a sure base to this characteristic non-violent appraisal inasmuch as he relied his criticism upon a text representing a universal wisdom. Notice that among the past interpretations of Apocalypse 13, LdV's one is characterised as the first one of a structural kind, since the two Beasts are no more recognised as celebrated evil personalities, but as two social institutions which characteristic of modern times, i.e. S&T. Although no religious authority suggested a new interpretation of some its holy text for evaluating the (negative) influence of modern S&T on people's life. However, it is sufficient LdV’s interpretation to give again authority to religious texts with respect to modern S&T, since no more they are allowed to consider the faith as an overcome attitude, essentially unable to understand the modern life; and even less to consider the personal non-violent attitude as an ancient, naïve illusion with respect to their super-powerful means.

LdV suggested also an answer of structural nature to this evil. Apocalypse 13 suggests to the reader also how save himself from this extreme evil. The texts invites to “compute the number of the [first[ Beast”, which “is a man’s name, 666”. LdV interpreted the 6 according to its meaning in common numerology, i.e. as the typical number of a man/woman. He intended the three 6 as a shortening of a mathematical series “666…”, infinitely tending at the right hand. Hence it, as a whole, this figure means a man/woman’s expansion at infinity, yet on a merely natural level, so to never reaching the number 7, i.e. the typical number of a spiritual man/woman. In other words, the key of the Western civilization is the myth of an unbounded expansion of all man’s basic capabilities, but at the expenses of his spiritual life. This interpretation subdues a typical notion of modern Mathematics, i.e. a series, to express a spiritual meaning; according to LdV the text obliges modern science to serve the spiritual design of salvation from the structural, scientific sin. More in general, in order to re-addressing the life towards the good requires to invert his own incline to the original fall. All religions invite a follower to a conversion from the evil, yet at only at a personal or interpersonal level. LdV’s interpretation of Apocalypse 8 stresses that a conversion has to be improved so much to exit out (through conscientious objection) the negative institutions, albeit covert under smooth personal interrelationships, and also to build the corresponding positive ones. In short, a global conversion, involving his own civilization too. This process of structural conversion corresponds to what Gandhi preached to Indian people, i.e. an active struggle against the structural violence exerted by the British empire institutions and also a re-construction of Indian civilization since the basic unit, the village (see Hind Swaraj). According to LdV this conversion, now intended in both personal terms and structural terms, is the non-violent attitude; i.e. non-violence is an impulse or an attitude for reverting the spontaneous drive of a man/woman to his/her own selfishness so much, even at the cost of a voluntary sacrifice of even his/her own life, to be empathetic with all others inside a fight due to an enemy or social institutions structured on evil. Furthermore, this kind of foundation of non-violence may be shared by potentially all religions. This conclusion agrees with both the pluralistic attitude suggested by the intuitive notion of non- violence and Gandhi's positive attitude towards all religions. Conversely, the common tenet of a universal brotherhood, pertaining to most religions, is qualified by this meaning of non-violence as an issue - maybe the best one - for addressing religions to an ecumenical reconciliation. Moreover, whereas in the past religions suggested transcendental efforts at the personal level; now Gandhi’s and Ldv’s non-violence stresses the ethical import of whatsoever religion in order to be free form the evil structured in a society and also to actualize as best as possible God's kingdom inside the present society; or even, in layman terms, to actualize a free, peaceful and just society. LdV stressed that this meaning of non-violence does not require an adhesion to a specific religion since it represents a pre-religious level which may be shared by an atheist too, provided that he is open, as Galtung too maintains, to transcend the material life. As a further result, this notion of 'non-violence' is freed from the Indian culture for pertaining to all cultures in the world. Hence, LdV’s definition of non-violence introduces between Eastern and Western cultures an unprecedented linkage suggesting how to make the interior life agree with the active participation to political life.

Owing to the lack of space it is not possible to report the book’s contents - ranging from theology to the international relationships of “the two Blocks”, USA and SSSR, dominating the entire world in Cold War time. Since the thread of LdV’s illustration –unfortunately a cursorily and even inaccurate one - represents at the same time the historical growth of the Western civilization, in which LdV recognizes in details the violence, his main category is the civilisation, the same of Gandhi’s thinking. However, in this illustration one may recognize more categories, albeit remained almost implicit. As first, the two options. The notion of global conversion represents a choice on an option concerning the kind of development one wants to pursue, either a progress towards abstract and infinitely far targets (“you will be as God” is snake’s promise) or a tireless development of the inter-relationships even inside a conflict. This option is declared as a dichotomy through the two great discoveries LdV attributes to the 20th century, the Bomb and the non-violence (and also the two kinds of powers, , sword’s and spirit’s, according to Napoleon’s dictum). One more option may be recognised about the kinds of organisation, i.e. either the authoritative society resulting from leaving freedom to the clever men to prevail on the others or the self-reliant society actualising the justice for all. In degenerated terms this option is recognised by LdV in the two opposite ideological traditions of “the two Blocks”, liberalism and socialism. These two options generate a further category instantiated by LdV several times. Among the several scourges presented by Apocalypse 8 he retains four ones: Misery, Servitude, War and Riot. Moreover, he stated that four are the basic needs of a man/woman: food, a roof, cloth and an utensil. Moreover, he presented four kind of play (playing at all freely, imitating, playing under formal rules, risk playing; they improve the celebrated Caillois’ classification). Furthermore, he stressed that in a society there exist four possible kinds of sovereignty (Family or Tribe, Religious sect or Monarchy, Nation or Republic or Town, Party). In addition, let us remark that LdV attributed “three historical miracles” to Gandhi: “A not-bloody national liberation A social revolution without revolt. Stopping a war”.(p. 182) We can easily recognize a fourth historical miracle in the ransom of the Indian people from the passive misery in order to acquire a dignity (e.g. by dressing a handmade kadhi). Let us remark that the four issues in the first and the third cases are compared two by two by LdV. In the case of the four scourges he characterises Misery and Servitude as “passive” scourges; and as “active” scourges War and Revolt. In the case of the four sovereignties, he remarks that “the Family [or Tribe] and the Nation look like” as well as “the Monarchy and the Party”. Led by these comparison one easily recognise that each quadripartition corresponds to the four couple of choices on two basic options; in the case of the scourges, the choices are against the scourge. The four possible couples of choices on these two options give four social formations which can be associated to the four sovereignties. “The evolution of these social formations thorugh their interactions, fractures and collusions is the subject of the History of the Civilizations… Fortunately there is some freedom for a man whose horizon is encircled by one of such formations. His wavering allows choice and liberation.” (p. 240) This notion corresponds to the four models of development brilliantly illustrated Galtung in 1976. In my opinion it is the basic notion of a non.-violent political theory. In this new framework, non-violence is eventually characterised in full structural terms, as the ideology of the "Green" model of development, i.e. the model which was actualised by mainly Gandhi's organisation of communitarian villages and then by the Ark community. This socially structured notion of non-violence introduces a great novelty in political science. It represents the exit from the monist ideologies (the “-isms”) or the bipolar ideologies (relying on a conflict, eventually resulting in a further monism) for starting a pluralist ideology. Notice that this one is possible just because at least one actor solves the mutual conflicts without the oppression or the suppression of the adversary, but by a non-violent method leading to a common agreement. This conception summarises an entire philosophy of the structure of both the personal and social life, in particular a philosophy of war and peace. By dismissing the several remarks scattered in the whole book, I quote the following propositions only: “Likely as there is no sea without storm, there never was a nation without war. But from the universal tide of the War successful emerged here and there some tribes, which after all safeguarded their freedom.”(p. 178) In his view the Tribe is the “society that we do not say perfect (no one has to link himself to the impossible), but that we say blessed and welcome.”(p. 182) Hence, “The time is come to remark that the tribe is not necessarily primitive, nor necessarily savage, nor necessarily pagan.” (p. 180). Is rather the social formation implicitly suggested by the Gospel’s teaching of the bliss’s, which according to LdV is “The Charter of the Western non-violence”; (p.334-335) and moreover is the same social formation of a Gandhian village.

Further readings A. Drago: “The Birth of Non-violence as a Political Theory”, Gandhi Marg, 29, no. 3 oct.-nov. 2007, 275-295. A. Drago: “Gandhian Criticism to Western Science”, Gandhi Marg, 31 no. 2, 2009, 261-276. J. Galtung: Ideology and Methodology, Eijlers, Copenhaven. 1976, I, 2; There are alternatives!, Pluto P., London, 1984. M.K. Gandhi: Hind Swaraj, Amhedabad, banned edition, 1909. P. Gonsalves: Khadi. Gandhi’s Mega Symbol of Subversion, Sage, London, 2012. Lanza del Vasto: Pèlerinage aux Sources, Denoël, 1942 (Engl. transl. Return to Source, Rider & Co, 1971). Lanza del Vasto: Les Quatre Fléaux, Denoël, Paris, 1959 (excerpts in English language in Make straight the way of the Lord. An anthology of the philosophical writings of Lanza del Vasto, Random House, 1974). Lanza del Vasto: Approches à la vie interieure, Denoël, Paris, 1962. Lanza del Vasto: Techniques de la Non-violence, Denoël, Paris, 1971. Lanza del Vasto: L’Arche avait une vigne pour voilure, Denoel, Paris, 1978. Lanza del Vasto on relationships http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9W6f2e4HBw Lanza del Vasto sur la guerre (in French) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-E4mrerSkE Site of Mark Shepherd http://www.markshep.com/peace/Ark.html Site of Ark Community in France (in French): http://www.arche-nonviolence.eu/