by Jennifer Murnan
What does justice mean within a CPR collective? How do we institute practices that can maintain justice within our communities?
The dominant culture is designed on every level to maintain systems of domination and subordination; and the system that delivers what is called “justice” within civilization is completely consistent with this overriding imperative to dominate and subordinate, objectify and claim ownership of the “object”. This is the system we know, this is what we in civilization have encountered. Fortunately there are those within our communities who work from a different foundation, with radically different designs and practices. I have seen the possibility of radical justice, true justice, being delivered in a process that is life-supporting and relationship-sustaining.
what is called “justice” within civilization is completely consistent with this overriding imperative to dominate and subordinate, objectify and claim ownership
In this post I will look critically at what passes for justice in civilization. Is the dominant culture, civilization, a just society? Do the institutions and practices used by civilization, ones that we are all too familiar with, belong in a CPR collective? What are the alternatives? I will then share other possibilities which I have encountered and offer brief comments on how I think these options could serve as templates for designing systems of justice within our CPRs.
Civilized “Justice”
In the dominant culture (civilization), patriarchy is fueled by imperialism, racism, misogyny, human supremacism and capitalism. Its all-pervasive drive is to dominate and control humans and the natural world. What passes for justice within this toxic life and community-destroying culture can be characterized as “crime and punishment” – A set of laws designed by the elite to maintain social control.
“Sociologists have frequently observed that governments use punishment primarily as a tool of social control, and thus the extent or severity of punishment is often unrelated to actual crime patterns.” ― Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that’s why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.”
― Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
“Our justice system asks what laws have been broken and what punishment suits the crime. Legal negotiations often prevent the person who committed the crime from taking responsibility for his or her actions. While rehabilitation is the goal, recidivism rates indicate that incarceration rarely improves one’s behavior or core value system.” Brian Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
“The most plausible candidate for a core definition of justice comes from the Institutes of Justinian, a codification of Roman Law from the sixth century AD, where justice is defined as ‘the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due’” Justice (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The culture that has risen to global domination defines justice in this way and in my experience “rendering to each his due” in practical terms is the exercise of putting all beings into their place in the hierarchy. Those at the top live beyond the laws that are designed to serve them, while their servants and slaves struggle below, with non-humans beneath consideration, having no legal standing at all.
In this view, there is no justice for non-humans or natural communities. Land and water, and other non-human forms of life are considered property. As property, your owner exerts control over your use as a “resource”. This control is absolute and grants the property owner the “right” to utterly destroy you.
…there is no justice for non-humans or natural communities. Land and water, and other non-human forms of life are considered property.
Here are a few of my personal observations when I have engaged with the dominant culture’s “justice system”:
The process of finding fault and punishing wrongdoing is overseen by experts who have spent years studying the law. Laws themselves are written terms that are not easily comprehensible to the majority of humans they govern. Years of study are necessary to properly interpret them! I have gone to court and to a parole hearing for a political prisoner, and these are intimidating and traumatic experiences. The process and the decisions I observed were rendered with all the biases and prejudices of civilization in full play.
The dominant culture’s justice system does nothing to maintain or restore my relationships with any community members. That was not the purpose, in my experience. The purpose was to intimidate. The purpose was to punish. The purpose was to control.
I have watched as living beings, rivers, non-humans, and biological communities were shunted beneath the consideration of property holders, drawn and quartered for profit with the full support of the “justice” system.
Do any of the practices or mechanisms of “justice” supporting civilization have a place in Communities that Protect and Resist? Are they practical in any way or under any circumstances for us?
In my opinion:
The scale and complexity of the legal justice system as it exists in the civilized world is completely impractical for adaptation within CPR collectives.
Justice, fairness, and the foundational agreements, laws, upon which we build our relationships, can and should be comprehensible to all our community members, who after all are their creators.
Intimidation is exploitative and has no place within free and egalitarian societies.
Adaptation of a structure of enacting justice must allow our Community to constantly seek fair, just, harmonious relationships with humans and non-humans alike. Designating nonhumans, land, or water as “property” must become incomprehensible to us and is intrinsically destructive, unjust.
…a structure of enacting justice must allow our Community to constantly seek fair, just, harmonious relationships with humans and non-humans alike.
I am not a lawyer so perhaps there are specific elements of the process that may be of use to CPR collectives. I am open to this possibility; however, I can’t consider what I have never encountered!
I have encountered those who seek justice in the spirit of the famous Cornel West quote:
“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
Let’s take a look and see what we might adopt in service of building community and resistance from some sources that seek to restore true justice in communities.
EJI
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is headquartered in Montgomery Alabama. The organization does a wide variety of work, including (to quote from their website):
“EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment. We are committed to changing the narrative about race in America. EJI produces groundbreaking reports, an award-winning calendar, and short films that explore our nation’s history of racial injustice. And in 2018, we opened the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice as part of our national effort to create new spaces, markers, and memorials that address the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, which shapes many issues today.”
We all come to the work of building and maintaining CPR collectives with baggage from the dominant culture. Unpacking and dealing with that baggage is essential lest it remain to poison our interhuman relationships and render us blind to the ties that prevent healthy relationships from developing. It is my belief that only a foundation of truth-telling can be strong enough to heal our relationships with humans as well as non-humans from the ills that a sick society has created.
“I think we all want reconciliation. We want peace, we want understanding, we want redemption—all of these wonderful things. But we haven’t committed ourselves to truth-telling. Truth and reconciliation are not simultaneous. They are sequential. Tell the truth first, and it’s the truth that motivates you to understand what it will take to recover, repair, endure—to reconcile.
I do think we haven’t done the hard part, truth-telling, which is a predicate, the precondition to the reformation and reconciliation that follows.” Brian Stevenson https://afpglobal.org/news/truth-telling-reconciliation
EJI sets forth an extraordinary model of truth-telling on a historical and societal scale. This work is well worth studying within CPR collectives and perhaps emulating as a means of healing rifts within our own and between our diverse communities.
I first encountered EJI when seeking out an interview as part of a series on women in incarceration that I was creating for a community radio station I had volunteered for. I interviewed one of their senior attorneys who was key in the Tutwiler investigation and resulting report. Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, has long had the highest rate of sexual assault in the U.S. among correctional facilities for women. EJI’s Investigation into Sexual Abuse at Tutwiler. EJI ucovered the widespread sexual abuse of incarcerated women by male guards at Tutwiler.
My first encounter with their historical justice work was witnessing the placement of plaques at sights in Montgomery where the slave trade was conducted.
From the first time I encountered EJI I was impressed with the willingness to go deep in pursuit of truth and in service of community. From the scope of their work they set an example of the importance of approaching justice tirelessly, with dedication and heart and commitment to not only seeing the whole picture across time, but healing the whole community through collectively facing the truth. I believe CPR collectives need dedication and strong footing in historical justice to heal their members’ historical trauma and bond into healthy, diverse communities.
Community Environmental Defense Fund CELDF
A revolutionary approach to transforming foundational law to serve community and the natural world is found in the work of CELDF.
From THE CELDF website:
“Communities across the country and planet are “told” that they don’t have the power to make critical decisions for themselves, particularly when corporate profits would be impacted. Communities are “told” they cannot say “no” to fracking or factory farming. They’re told they cannot raise the minimum wage. They’re told they can’t say “yes” to truly sustainable food or energy systems. They’re told they can’t raise protections for workers. They are told that police are “necessary” to keep the community safe, when in reality the first State Police department was created to suppress the workers rights movement in Pennsylvania!
Through “Community Rights” organizing, communities are working with CELDF to create a structure of law and government of all people, by all people, and for all people. That structure recognizes and protects the inalienable rights of natural and human communities. “
“CELDF upends the dominant legal structure and creates a base for law in which the rights of nature and of communities are superior to the interests of corporations.
When we create laws that mandate respectful and balanced relationships among all natural beings, then it is our obligation to enforce these laws. It is our obligation to engage in revolution and dismantle the dominant culture. We can have no part in complying with laws that violate the rights of rivers and forests and fellow species. We must enforce the laws of our community, the laws that support life. We become a community that will do no harm, a community of peace keepers and healers dedicated to the greater good, to the affirmation and continuation of life – that is our social norm. We do not act punitively to advance our selfish interests, we act communally, in service to life as responsible and fully human beings.” CELDF Website
I have attended CELDF’s democracy school and watched as the truth of the foundation of the dominant culture’s, western civilization’s law was revealed to the participants. CELDF doesn’t just explain the problem, they provide support and assistance to communities challenging the system by creating their own foundation of law and declaring community rights and rights of nature superior to the system which seeks to control them. What they offer is practical, accessible and transformational.
Restorative Justice
There is no doubt in my mind and heart that the best models and teachers in our quest to restore and sustain justice within our communities come from indigenous peoples and their societal practices.
At the most basic level of understanding, justice is understood differently by Aboriginal people. The dominant society tries to control actions it considers potentially or actually harmful to society as a whole, to individuals or to the wrongdoers themselves by interdiction, enforcement or apprehension, in order to prevent or punish harmful or deviant behaviour. The emphasis is on the punishment of the deviant as a means of making that person conform, or as a means of protecting other members of society.
The purpose of a justice system in an Aboriginal society is to restore the peace and equilibrium within the community, and to reconcile the accused with his or her own conscience and with the individual or family who has been wronged. This is a primary difference. It is a difference that significantly challenges the appropriateness of the present legal and justice system for Aboriginal people in the resolution of conflict, the reconciliation and the maintenance of community harmony and good order” http://ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter2.html#1
“Restorative justice has been defined in a number of ways. On the abstract level, “restorative justice is fundamentally concerned with restoring relationships, with establishing or re-establishing social equality in relationships”.2 On a more concrete level, restorative justice “involves the victim, the offender, and the community in a search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation, and reassurance”.3 The unifying concept behind restorative justice is the restoration of relationships.” Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba http://ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter2.html#1
My personal encounter with restorative justice occurred when I met Agnes Fury at the Spiritual Enrichment Center in Dothan Alabama while I was living with political prisoner Sekou Kambui after his parole. She began A presentation with this video:
There are no words for the alchemy of experiencing love, of gifting love. Relationships can be established and maintained even in the harsh reality of the most devastating of crimes: murder.
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” Brian Stevenson
I will never forget the profound emotional impact meeting Agnes had on me. Agnes and Leonard practice restorative justice at the most intimate level and share this possibility within their respective communities.
“Restorative justice, which is derived from the traditions of indigenous peoples of New Zealand, Australia and Canada, has at its core an abiding belief that a dignified response to crime will result in healing for all.”
“Restorative justice, which is derived from the traditions of indigenous peoples…has at its core an abiding belief that a dignified response to crime will result in healing for us all.”
Wildflowers in the Median A Restorative Journey into Healing Justice and Joy by Agnew Fury and Leonard Scovens
From the Afterword Why does restorative justice matter? by Social worker and certified mediator Matrtha Weinstien
How does restorative justice do its work? Here is a basic idea from the Healing Justice website:https://healingjusticeproject.org/circle-process
“Restorative Justice and the Circle Process
Unlike criminal justice, which is focused on the person accused of a crime, restorative justice was designed to address the needs of crime victims and survivors and to empower them to achieve emotional healing. Restorative justice is not a specific model, instead it is a set of guiding principles that focuses not on retribution but on repairing damage and restoring relationships.
Our criminal justice system asks the following questions:
- What law was broken?
- Who broke it?
- What punishment is deserved?
In contrast, in restorative justice we ask:
- How were you harmed?
- What do you need?
- Whose obligation is it to meet those needs?
Restorative justice often also goes on to ask:
4. Who has a stake in this situation?
5. What are the causes?
6. What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to make things right and address underlying causes?”
In my estimation, restorative justice operates on a human scale and aligns with CPR communal qualities easily.
I also believe that elders in our communities, wise in experience and knowledge of social norms and relationships within the community, will be well equipped to facilitate restorative justice processes.
Applying the restorative justice process to non humans, asking and then addressing the very same questions, is an additional possibility.
Leading Radical Justice
I offer one final observation. As CPR collectives we seek restoration of balance and right-relationships within our human communities and with the biological Community to which we owe our life. We also accept the task of defending our Community. We can live and breathe justice in our lives. Leading in this way is what I would call Radical Justice, and like love, Radical Justice is a verb.
…CPR collectives…seek restoration of balance and right-relationships within our human Communities and with the biological community to which we owe our life.
Please consider the life of Mangari Mathai:
Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement. She began by planting trees, specifically, by teaching women to plant trees. Why? Because the trees in Kenya had been cut down, violated, murdered and the world had been sent into the nightmare of rainless, waterless, drought and famine as a result. Why teach women to plant trees? Because women were considered to be of a lower status, marginalized. . But justice demanded the restoration of rights, of relevance, of reverence, and Maathai began with most marginalized and abused and the most important humans to re-empower, in order to restore ecological and social balance. She taught women to plant trees and …… a revolution began ecologically, and socially, subversively. Though empowering the least among her community (in the dominant cultures estimation). Matthai spread the revolution into the political realm and from bottom up and the movement challenged the corrupt government of her country.
“We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process to heal our own – indeed to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.” Wangari Maathai
I only know Wangari Maathai through film and story. Action is inspired by the stories we share!
Summary
Here are the four possibilities I have personally encountered that look promising as we work to establish truly radical justice in our CPRs:
- Historical justice, truth telling in laying the foundation for reconciliation, healing relationships damaged by societal ills
- Claiming community self determination by creating and then enforcing our own laws that support egalitarian human communities and the natural rights of non-humans to thrive.
- Adopting the restorative justice process
- Leading resistance in service of social and environmental justice.
In conclusion I wish to acknowledge that what I have shared here is limited by my own personal experience as a white woman and radical activist living in the US. The reason I am sharing them here is because they have made a profound emotional impact on me, and in all but the story of Wangari Mathai, I have had personal encounters with members of these organization and with their work.
My perspective may have little to offer to humans creating CPR collectives originating in a different cultural context relating to a different land base. Your experiences and encounters are different than mine. My hope is that some of what I have shared will be useful to you. Take what is compelling and please respond to this article with your observations and discoveries!
Recommended Resources:
:Restorative Justice and the Circle Process
The Origins of Restorative Justice
“Westerners are fond of saying ‘Life isn’t fair’. Then they end in snide triumph: ‘So get used to it!’
What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!” Barbara Alice Mann
Communities that Protect and Resist 