Instructions for Care: What Ashley Smith reminded us

By Susan Van Haitsma
March 17, 2005

There must be several reasons why the story of unarmed suburbanite, Ashley Smith peacefully winning over armed fugitive, Brian Nichols so captures the public imagination. Because news accounts of brute force being used to overcome brute force are the norm, this story stands out, offering a different kind of heroism. Audiences might applaud instinctively when the bad guy is trounced by the good guy, but when words and wits triumph over weapons, cheers rise from a deeper, more satisfied place.

My Jesuit friend puts it this way: Because every human being is created with instructions for care that recommend "Love your enemies," we should not be surprised when, like clothing that is washed or dried without regard to what is written on the label, we become misshapen in some way when we substitute vengefulness as our guide. Somehow, Ashley Smith recalled her instructions, or perhaps she lived by them so regularly that she naturally allowed love to be her guide during her time of crisis. Maybe there was some luck involved, or pure weariness on Nichols' part, that opened him to the possibility of love. But the aspect of the story that grabs people most, I think, is the underlying truth that Smith recognized and that saved both of them: Brian Nichols was not a monster, he was just a man.

By the time Nichols took Smith hostage, he had committed four terrible murders one after another while facing charges for a previous crime. It was a spree almost unheard of. "I cannot believe that's me on there," Smith reported Nichols saying when he saw himself later on the TV news. Similar sentiments have echoed during the trials of US soldiers convicted of using torture against Iraqi civilians. Soldiers who were described as gentle,caring persons also were capable of committing unthinkable abuse when a process of dehumanization was involved. What Smith seemed to be able to do when faced with a threatening, demeaning situation was break through the fear and indignity by asserting both her own and Nichols' humanity.

Smith recognized a man who needed a meal and someone to talk with. The media, meanwhile, had built the fugitive into a larger-than-life menace who was a danger to an entire city. In a way, Nichols was given more stature by the very institutions that vowed to undo him. I don't think it's a stretch to make a similar argument about what the US government did to mythologize former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, heaping upon one man so much vilification that the effect was actually a paradoxical inflation of the leader's standing in the world. By making him the embodiment of evil, the US loaned him more power than he really had. Following the invasion, when he emerged from his hideout disheveled and confused, suddenly the world saw the man as man-sized. Had it really required the full firepower of the most powerful military force in the world to capture this pitiful human being?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community." Over and over, he stressed separating the doer from the deed. He believed this was a crucial element to nonviolent struggle not only because of the moral obligation to love our enemies, but because he knew that part of the "truth-force" that Gandhi taught was to understand that men are neither gods nor devils to be falsely exalted by either praise or scorn. A beloved community relies upon honesty and equality, which are both endangered when anyone is given the powerful and illusive label of "bad guy."

I have the luxury of distance in the Smith - Nichols case. If one of my family members had been among Nichols' victims, would I be able to see him as Smith did? Probably not at first. But, I believe that I would in time seek a meeting with him so that I could express my anger and grief directly and ask for some kind of reconciliation. That is something I could ask of a man, not a monster.

Van Haitsma is active with Central Texas Fellowship of Reconciliation and Nonmilitary Options for Youth