Sent WS, Blog, individuals:

OMNI

NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #10, JUNE 12, 2014.

http://omnicenter.org/newsletters/2014/2014-06-12.pdf

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace. (#1 Feb. 17, 2011; #2 May 13, 2011; #3 June 7, 2011, #4 September 30, 2011; #5 Sept. 21, 2012; #6 Dec. 28, 2012; #7 Jan. 17, 2013; #8 March 28, 2013; #9 April 18, 2013).

My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on Peace, Justice, and Ecology:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

Violence USA: Imperialism, Militarism, Pentagon, Recruiting, Suicides, Violence, Whistleblowing, and more.

JESUS

Gandhi was quoted as saying: “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.”

APATHY

“Nonviolence, of course, does not mean that we shouldn’t take action in the world. Nonviolence is not passivity; it is not inaction. Nonviolence denounces apathy. In fact, apathy is one of the greatest threats to peace.” Scott Hunt, The Future of Peace, p. 336.

Nos. 5-9 at end

Contents Nonviolence Newsletter #10

NONVIOLENCE LOCAL(see newsletters on Compassion Campaign)

Doc. Film on Gun Violence July 14 at OMNI

NONVIOLENCE USA

A. J. Muste, US Gandhi

Muste Notes

Kelley, Nuclear Bombe Cores on Highways

Social Justice Grants

Muste Institute

NONVIOLENCE GLOBAL

Nonviolence Charter, Signatories Around the World

Catholic Theory and Practice

Cochran, Catholic Realism and the Abolition of War

Schlabach, Just Policing, Not War

Agape Community, Shanley’s The Many Sides of Peace

Kurlansky, History and Critique of Nonviolence and Pacifism

Avery, Tolstoy

Rosenbloom, Palestinian Nonviolence and US Media Underreporting

Zack Baddorf, Syria

Stephen Zunes, Ukraine

07/09/2013

DOCUMENTARY ON GUN VIOLENCE AIRED AT OMNI CENTER, FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS

On July 14, 2013, 7:00 pm, at the Omni Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a documentary film on gun violence will be shown. The film is entitled Living for 32 and refers to the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. The film is by Colin Goddard, a survivor of the shooting, who will be available for discussion after the film through a Skype connection.

You can download the flyer here.

Please disseminate this information widely, as this promises to be an enlightening evening, particularly as we approach the 2014 Senatorial elections in Arkansas.

ShareThisFacebookTweetLinkedInPinterestEmail

- See more at: http://readwrite.typepad.com/gunsense/#sthash.PBzPPG0V.dpuf

NONVIOLENCE USA

A.J. Muste Memorial Institute [info@ajmuste.org]

Friday, January 24, 2014 10:50 AM

GLOBAL NONVIOLENCE

Nonviolence Charter: progress report 4 (Apr 2014), by Robert J. Burrowes & Anita McKone. flametree@riseup.net, via uark.edu

[An annotated list of activities of signatories of the Nonviolence Charter. A germ of a nonviolence directory around the world. –Dick]

Dear fellow signatories of the Nonviolence Charter

How are you all? And welcome to our most recent signatories.

Here is the latest six-monthly report on progress in relation to 'The
People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' and a sample of news about,
and reports of forthcoming events by, Charter signatories.

Building a worldwide consensus against the use of violence in all contexts
is quite a challenge but we are making solid progress!

Since our last report on 3 October 2013, we have gained our first
signatories in another seven countries - Egypt, Finland, Hungary, Jordan,
Madagascar, Mozambique and Poland - a total of 65 countries now. We also
have 88 organisational endorsements in 28 countries with recent
endorsements by organisations in Bolivia, France, Mozambique, Thailand and
Uganda being the first in their respective countries.

If you wish, you can see the list of organisational endorsements on the
Charter website:
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/organisations/

If you wish to see individual signatories, click on the 'View signatures'
item in the sidebar. You can use the search facility if you want to look
for a specific name.

Tragically, we have been unable to contact several of our Filipino
signatories since supertyphoon Yolanda (as it is known locally) last
October and we do not know if they have survived.

And, sadly, it seems that veteran Steve Hamm, the US signatory who
suffered serious ill-health as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange
during the war on Vietnam, has died. His email account has closed and the
time is now beyond his expected life-expectancy when we last communicated.
We have not been able to trace him since.

The latest progress report 'The Struggle for Humanity' was recently
distributed to 65 progressive news websites in 20 countries around the
world and 537 contacts at 275 mainstream outlets in 93 countries: it was
published by 21 news outlets (on both progressive and mainstream websites)
in 13 countries, thanks to supportive editors (four of whom are Charter
signatories). If you wish, you can read the article on War Is A Crime:
http://warisacrime.org/content/struggle-humanity

If any of you would like a copy of the World Media List (which is
primarily newspapers but no Murdoch outlets), then you are welcome to
email Robert at flametree@riseup.net and he will send you a copy. Several
Charter signatories are using some or all of the list and it is apparent
that our articles are being published more or less widely. We are not
naive about the corporate media but sending them regular doses of the
truth cannot do them any harm!

If you feel inclined to do so, you are welcome to help raise awareness of
the Nonviolence Charter using whatever means are easiest for you: email,
articles, Facebook, Twitter ...

And if any of you would like to tell us something about yourself and what
you are doing, please write back. We are keen to hear!

Here's a (rather inadequate) sample of reports of nonviolent actions,
articles, books, events and new initiatives in which fellow Charter
signatories have been involved (apart from those mentioned in the
published article):

First, one of our Nonviolence Charter signatories, Antonio C.S. Rosa is a
survivor of torture in Brazil. The final item in this report is a brief
excerpt of his experience. The attached photo depicts the instrument of
his torture.

Second, a new initiative 'World Beyond War' is also flagged below for your
interest.

But before these items, here's a summary of the efforts of some signatories:

Kathy Kelly, of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, continues her work in
support of the Afghan Peace Volunteers. Here's an article - 'Women's
Liberation at Barefoot College' - about some young women APVs who
travelled to India as guests of Barefoot College, 'a renowned initiative
that uses village wisdom, local knowledge and practical skills available
in the rural areas to improve villagers' lives':
http://vcnv.org/women-s-liberation-at-barefoot-college

Many Charter signatories continue to be involved in nonviolent actions
against drone murders. For example, Elliott Adams, past President of
Veterans for Peace in the USA, was arrested and imprisoned for his part in
a nonviolent protest against US drone strikes at the Hancock Air Force
Base near Syracuse, New York. If you would like to read his brief,
eloquent statement in response to that jail sentence, you can do so here:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/who-we-are/member-highlights/2014/02/25/elliott-adams-past-president-vfp-sentenced-15-days?utm_source=Drone+Action&utm_campaign=5d3a230348-What_You_Can_Do_7_24_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_beae583d40-5d3a230348-323605697

On 5 March Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire was deported from Egypt as she
attempted to enter the country in order to join an international
delegation of 100 women wishing to visit Gaza via the Egyptian Rafah
border. You can read her account of this initiative here:
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/03/nobel-peace-laureate-mairead-maguire-deported-from-egypt-while-en-route-to-gaza/

If you would like to read about the great work done by Sami Awad and his
colleagues at the Holy Land Trust in Palestine, then you can check out
their March newsletter here:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=3338d3a7-edee-43a3-9354-a069f709b2aa&c=da0cf100-6668-11e3-adc2-d4ae52754dbc&ch=da11fa10-6668-11e3-adc2-d4ae52754dbc

And here is the link to the phenomenal work of co-Directors Dan
Goldenblatt (Israel) and Riman Barakat (Palestine) and their colleagues at
Israel-Palestine: Creative Regional Initiatives (IPCRI)
http://www.ipcri.org/ which is 'the only joint Israeli-Palestinian
think-tank in the world. We are devoted to developing practical solutions
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of "two states for two
peoples."'

Marthie Momberg has uploaded the Kairos Southern Africa presentation to
the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town on 6 February 2014 in support
of the People of Cuba, Western Sahara and Palestine:
http://marthiemombergblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/why-kairos-sa-asked-for-bold-steps-by-the-south-african-parliament/

Marthie's report back on the presentation is here:
http://marthiemombergblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/feedback-on-session-in-parliament-good-news/

Tenzin Lobsang continues to campaign vigorously for the liberation of
Tibet through his Tibetan youth organisation in Australia and New Zealand:
http://www.anzty.com/

Dr Tess Ramiro directs Aksyon para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan-Center for
Active Non-Violence (AKKAPKA-CANV) in the Philippines. AKKAPKA-CANV standsfor 'the radical response to violence through the power of truth, the
power of love, the power of justice.' AKKAPKA-CANV 'promotes and supports
active non-violence as an alternative expression of the Filipino people's
resistance to an unjust, repressive, exploitative and dehumanizing
system.... Active non-violence, according to AKKAPKA-CANV, is the only
authentic avenue if there is to be absolute respect for the human person,
without labeling him or her as a soldier, communist, rightist or
leftist.... It believes that the active non-violent movement must grow "if
the country is to prevent further ideological polarization of our people;
avert a bloody fratricide; heal the wounds inflicted on our nation by the
deposed repressive regime".'

Tom Shea, Leonard Eiger and their fellow nonviolent activists at the
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in the US continue their
long-standing and relentless campaign against nuclear weapons, including
the '$100 billion plan for a new fleet of Trident nuclear submarines' for
which we will be paying. You can find out about many of their recent
events, nonviolent actions, arrests, court statements and forthcoming
activities in their April 2014 newsletter:
http://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/April-14-newsletter-for-website.pdf

While many indigenous people, including Hawai'ians, have signed the
Charter, many other signatories actively support their struggles. A recent
example is Jon Olsen's book titled 'Liberate Hawai'i: Renouncing and
Defying the Continuing Fraudulent U.S. claim to the Sovereignty of
Hawai'i'. It is available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberate-Hawaii-Jon-D-Olsen/dp/1597131474

An issue that still remains largely beyond the radar of activists is the
ongoing and extensive use of psychiatric violence as a key means of
maintaining elite social control. This has a very long history with some
particularly ugly manifestations - the Nazi eugenics and 'euthanasia'
program (that is, the mass murder of 'weak' and 'unwanted' members of
society) being the classic one. Psychiatric violence has often been
trialled on unknowing military personnel - just as nuclear weapons have
been so tested - and this violence has many manifestations including
psychiatry's extensive use of legally enforced involuntary treatment as
well as its use of psychiatric drugs and electroshocking of activists,
people needing help for emotional problems and children who do not
submissively obey (supposedly suffering 'disruptive behaviour disorders'
including 'Attention Deficit-Hyperactivitiy Disorder'). Efforts to raise
awareness and mobilise action against this violence have been slow to make
an impact, given the complicity of the medical and pharmaceutical
industries, the legal system and the corporate media in promoting this
highly profitable violence. One particularly racist version of psychiatric
violence was the Federal Violence Initiative started in the US in 1992.
According to John Breeding, author of 'The Necessity of Madness and
Unproductivity: Psychiatric Oppression or Human Transformation': 'This
initiative includes ongoing "research" into the supposed biological basis
of inner-city violence and includes proposals for biomedical social
control. The US government asks "Are Black People Genetically Violent?"
and plans a psychiatric screening program which would lead to mass
drugging of innocent inner-city children, the vast majority of whom are
young people of color.'

Two Charter signatories are among the many people and organisations who
work on the issue of psychiatric violence. Gary G. Kohls MD writes on the
subject regularly. Here is one recent article of his - 'Lies That My
Medical School Professors Taught Me (And Which Were Reinforced by My Drug
Reps)':
http://evergreenedigest.org/sites/evergreenedigest.org/files/Duty%20to%20Warn%20Lies%20my%20Med%20School%20Professors%20%28and%20Drug%20Reps%29%20Taught%20Me.pdf

And Ronald Bassman PhD is a courageous survivor of psychiatric violence
who is now active in resisting it: 'With other ex-patients and allies, I
was a co-founder of the International Network Towards Alternatives for
Recovery (INTAR), which held its first meeting of alternative
practitioners and psychiatric survivors in 2004.' You can see his website
here: http://ronaldbassman.com/

In January 2014, nonviolent activist (with some 75 arrests for his
nonviolent acts of conscience) and scholar Father John Dear announced he
was leaving the Jesuit Order. You can read his evocative account of why he
did so in his article 'Leaving the Jesuits after 32 years' here:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/leaving-jesuits-after-32-years

For an excellent selection of news either African or from an African
perspective, check out Gifty Ayim-Korankye's great news website 'Daybreak
Africa': http://daybreakafrica.us/

Several Charter signatories have been active in drawing attention to
recent US interference in the Ukraine and Venezuela. You can read the
respective insightful analyses of Ray McGovern - a former CIA analyst
whose responsibilities included preparing the US President's daily brief -
and Professor Chandra Muzaffar - president of the International Movement
for a JUST World based in Malaysia - here:

- Ray's article: 'Ukraine: One "Regime Change" Too Many?' 1 March 2014:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/01/ukraine-one-regime-change-too-many/

- Chandra's article: 'Ousting A Democratically Elected Leader In Ukraine
And Elsewhere' 4 March 2014:
http://www.countercurrents.org/muzaffar040314.htm

Chandra continues to facilitate the dialogue among civilisations. For more
of his thoughtful work on this subject and news of ongoing initiatives in
this regard, see the website of the International Movement for a JUST
World:
http://www.just-international.org/

Maud Easter and her fellow activists at Women Against War, originally
founded in response to the plan of the US government to attack Iraq in
2003 have 'become a vital participant in the larger national and
international peace and justice movement through [their] various projects
and affiliations'. You can check out their superb efforts here:
http://www.womenagainstwar.org/

Paul Buchheit's succinct articles continue to throw light on the ugliness
of the global economy when managed by corporations. Here are two recent
samples:
- 'Four Frightening Ways We're Reverting to the Dark Days of Our Past', 10
March 2014:
http://www.nationofchange.org/four-frightening-ways-we-re-reverting-dark-days-our-past-1394458724

- 'Eight Headlines the Mainstream Media Doesn't Have the Courage to
Print', 7 April 2014: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/07-0

And to repeat one item from the published article, Earthgardens in Bolivia
is a real treat! http://riverprincess.tripod.com/

If you would like to read Yves Engler's insightful and searing critiques
of Canadian foreign policy, you can do so on his website:
http://yvesengler.com/

Rachel Siegel, Carmen Solari and Kyle Silliman-Smith are the key people at
the Peace and Justice Center in Vermont. Their ambitous mission - 'to
create a just and peaceful world' - is pursued by working on the
interconnected issues of economic and racial justice, peace and human
rights. You can check out their tremendous work here:
http://www.pjcvt.org/

Here is a few brief profiles of signatories/organisations:

Dr Ukum U. Edodi 'read economics at both undergraduate and postgraduate
levels.... My areas of interest include monetary economics and corporate
governance. I have worked in both public and private sectors of the
Nigerian economy.... I returned back to the public sector as Director in
the Presidency with responsibilities as Head of Commercial and Industrial
Development; Agriculture, as well as Planning/Research(and head of budget)
at the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC) between 2002 and 2010,
when I went into early retirement.... I'm currently into private
consulting on institutional and corporate governance, restructuring and
good environmental practices. I'm 54 years and married with three
children. Above all, my role model is M.K. Gandhi.'

Canon Joyce Nima B.A.S. is Head of the Department of Peace Building and
Conflict Transformation with the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC), an
ecumenical organization that was established in 1963. Its current
membership comprises the Church of Uganda, The Roman Catholic Church and
the Uganda Orthodox Church, which together constitute about 78% of
Uganda's population. 'The actions and voices of the Church advocating for
the "voiceless" have undoubtedly been loud and clear to many leaders and
ordinary citizens on issues of corruption, land, poverty, illegal
possession of small arms and light weapons, human sacrifice (killing
people in the name of offering a "sacrifice to God"), environmental
degradation, election malpractices, poor education and health services,
violent conflicts, human rights abuses, intolerance and peaceful
co-existence among others.'

Among his many achievements in government, as a consultant, UN appointee
and scholar, Professor Rameshwar P. Misra in India has authored/edited
over 70 volumes on Gandhian Thought, Social Geography, Regional
Development, Urbanization, and Rural Development including a five volume
series on the Gandhian alternative and a ten volume series on
'Rediscovering Gandhi'. He also edits 'Anasakti Darshan: An International
Journal of Gandhian Studies and Peace Research'.

You can read the latest full-color issue of 'Space Alert', newletter of
the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, which has
extensive reporting about the US 'pivot' into the Asia-Pacific and
anti-drone campaigning, online here:
http://www.space4peace.org/newsletter/Space%20Alert%2029.pdf

And you can see GN convenor Dave Webb's highly informative video
presentation about the work of the Global Network at the recent 22nd
annual meeting here: http://youtu.be/P83-NStmbzc

Professor John Scales Avery in Denmark - who was part of a group that
shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in organizing the Pugwash
Conferences on Science and World Affairs - has written extensively on
peace and you can access his valuable and thoughtful writings here:
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/collected.pdf
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/collected2.pdf
http://www.learndev.org/dl/Crisis21-Avery.pdf

For a succinct summary of 'shifts' in the Pentagon's vision for our
future, Brian J. Trautman's article of 3 March 2014 is hard to beat: 'The
Pentagon's Vision of Covert and Endless War':
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/the-pentagons-vision-of-covert-and-endless-war/

And Jonathan Power's new book 'Conundrums of Humanity: The Big Foreign
Policy Questions of Our Day' is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Conundrums-Humanity-Foreign-Policy-Questions/dp/1490481788
If you are willing to review it, he will send you a free copy! Contact:
"Jonathan Power" <jonatpower@aol.com>

We mentioned Vijay Mehta's book last time but, having now read it, wanted
to mention it again. The book has some fascinating detail about a variety
of topics including the way long-standing US support for terrorism has
come back to bite it and how China's interest in US military and
industrial technology coupled with the US refusal to supply it helps to
generate the huge trade imbalance between the two countries. Vijay Mehta:
'The Economics of Killing'. His recent interview about it can be heard on
the 'Uniting for Peace' website: http://www.unitingforpeace.com/

And here's some forthcoming initiatives and events of fellow Charter
signatories in which you might want to be involved:

The global launch of a new movement to end war 'World Beyond War' -
http://www.worldbeyondwar.org/ - will take place on 21 September 2014
(International Peace Day). David Swanson and David Hartsough are key
people behind this initiative which is already being supported by many
Charter signatories. If you wish to sign your support for this initiative
ahead of the launch, you can do so via the website.

For those of you participating in 'The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on
Earth' - http://tinyurl.com/flametree - maths professor Tarcisio
Praciano-Pereira in Brazil is kindly translating it into Portuguese thus
making it available for those of you who prefer to read in that language.

***

And finally, as mentioned above, one of our Nonviolence Charter
signatories, Antonio C.S. Rosa, who is editor of the TRANSCEND Media
Service - https://www.transcend.org/tms/ - is a survivor of torture in
Brazil. At our request, he has courageously and kindly agreed to let us
include a few paragraphs of his experience in this report so that we are
all reminded of the true horror of the violence that we are working to end
in our world: 'As a survivor, it is my duty to denounce to the best of my
abilities.' The attached photo is not of Antonio himself but is an
accurate representation of his ordeal and that of many others.

The photo has recently been published in Brazil as they remember 50 years
since the military ousted elected president João 'Jango' Goulart and
installed a dictatorship in a US-sponsored coup. Here is a brief excerpt
from Antonio's account:

'In Brazil there is an instrument of torture called "Pau de Arara" (I
translate it loosely as The Rack). Arara is a bird, Macaw in English. And
"Pau" is the stick where it stands. So the literal translation is Macaw
Stand or something like that. It is like this:

'They put me naked, place an iron rod, like a broomstick, behind my knees,
tie my hands and feet around it, then lift both ends of the rod to stands
on both ends so that I am positioned on a makeshift rack, upside down, by
hands and feet tied around it. Like a chicken being roasted in those
machines that keep rolling them to be evenly roasted. Is this a clear
picture? I wish I could draw the scene but I am not an artist. So, they
hang me upside down like that. Then they tie towels around my arms and
feet, where the electric cords will be placed. This is because the
electric shock directly on the skin would burn and leave marks. And that
would be evidence, corpo de delito, corpus delicti and they could be sued
if I showed a judge the marks in my body. So, they leave no marks
whatsoever. When they beat people up they send them to the infirmary to be
treated to eliminate any marks of torture or beatings. And when they kill
the body disappears forever.

'Anyway, they tie the electric cords to my feet, hands and genitals,
protected with rags. Sometimes they stick also inside the person's anus,
but they didn't do that to me. The cords come from a generator the size of
a shoe box, more or less. They hold it in their hand and turn a handle to
produce the electric current. Have you seen a Barrel Organ that sells
fortune messages with a parakeet? Like that, a crank. This instrument was
introduced to Brazil at the time of Pres. Kennedy, through his Alliance
for Progress, when Operation Condor started under Henry Kissinger. They
wanted to eliminate Communism from Latin America. And I had been arrested
as a supposed communist terrorist who had a lot to talk, to sing, as they
say. But I didn't [know anything].

'These sessions were always at night, late at night, into the early hours.
In a basement where you could scream because nobody would hear. But: they
stuck a towel in my mouth, not to bite your tong, they said. Because the
110-volt current made me lose control of my body and could make me bite my
tong. I remember that when they started the electric shocks, my body
became stiff and started getting up in the rod, because it felt like
frozen, hardened, and was moving by itself, up, perhaps by contraction of
muscles and nerves. And the feeling of the shocks throughout the body is
indescribable. I could never find words to describe it. I had some 3
sessions in the +or- 3 weeks that I stayed imprisoned. They keep the
current for minutes on end that look like hours. You scream, pass out,
want to die....

'You reach a point that fear is replaced with realism. You are at their
mercy, hanging upside down, they can squeeze your testicles, stick
whatever up your anus, or do anything they want to cause you pain and
despair and fear of more to come. Sometimes they put out cigarettes in the
body of the prisoner being tortured. Or worse, like removing finger nails
with pliers. When the guy is too Mr. Macho, they fucked him in the ass. Or
give them water mixed with urine to drink, or spit in their food, or deny
toilet paper, or blankets/mattress/clothes at night, or whatever. Use your
imagination, as they do; they are very creative. These sorts of
humiliation create terrorists from normal, average persons. It is a
logical consequence that stands to reason.

'I am in tears and saying that I have nothing to say; I beg for mercy, I
beg with my eyes! The shocks make me faint, at times, and they throw a
bucket of water over my body for me to wake up. You can imagine electric
current in a wet body. It multiplies manifold. The shock gets to intense,
so painful, that you would do anything for them to stop. But I had nothing
to say because I was not a terrorist; I was not even a communist, although
I was against the military dictatorship implanted in Brazil in the 1964
revolution, which stated the whole thing. Operation Condor. Of course I
was against the dictatorship, but I was not a communist. I was a
protester, a dissenter, but not a criminal, subversive.'

You have our utmost admiration Antonio both for your courage and your life
of dedicated struggle for peace and justice.

***

In appreciation of all of your efforts (including all of those not
mentioned above)...

For a world without violence.

Con mi solidario abrazo (with our embrace of solidarity); Robert, Anita
and Anahata

P.S. This Charter progess report is being emailed, in a sequence of
emails, to all signatories of the Nonviolence Charter for whom we have a
current email address.

Anita McKone and Robert J. Burrowes
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net
Websites: http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com (Charter)
  http://tinyurl.com/flametree (Flame Tree Project)
  http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence ('Why Violence?')
  http://anitamckone.wordpress.com (Songs of Nonviolence)
  http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

CATHOLIC THEORY

Argues that the same social forces that have opposed and overturned other modes of violence can also end war.

Is war an inevitable and inescapable reality of the human condition? While arguments in favor of the judicious use of warfare (such as just war theory) often rely on what seem like "commonsense" or realistic attitudes toward the necessity of violence in an imperfect world, other forms of institutionalized violence, such as vendettas and duels, slavery, and lynching, were also often accepted as commonplace in American society.

Through a gradual and reinforcing process of changing social attitudes as well as public policies, Cochran argues, humanity can move toward the eventual elimination of war as an acceptable form of violence just as it has moved, albeit slowly and unevenly, toward the abolition of these other forms of institutional violence.

"If the causes of conflict resolution and Christian peacemaking are to gain ground in the coming decades, this progress will depend upon the kind of keen analysis that Cochran offers in this splendid book."--Thomas Massaro, S.J., Dean and Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

David Cochran teaches politics and directs the Archbishop Kucera Center for Catholic Intellectual and Spiritual Life at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. He is co-author of The Catholic Vote: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Just Policing, Not War

An Alternative Response to World Violence

Gerald W. Schlabach, Editor; Foreword by Jim Wallis. 2007.

2008 Catholic Press Association Honorable Mention!

For decades, the Catholic Church and historical peace churches such as the Mennonites have come together in ecumenical discussions about war and peace. The dividing point has always been between pacifism, the view held by Mennonites and other peace churches, and the just war theory that dominates Catholic thinking on the issue. Given the transformation of global relations over this period—increased interdependency and communication as well as the fall of the Soviet Union, emerging nationalism movements, and the slow development of international courts—the time is right to rethink the Christian response to war.

Gerald Schlabach has proposed just policing theory as a way to narrow the gap between just war and pacifist traditions. If the world can address problems of violence through a police model instead of a conventional military model, there may be a role for Christians from all traditions. In this volume, Schlabach presents his theory and has invited a number of scholars representing Catholic, Mennonite, and other traditions to respond to the theory and address a number of key questions:

What do we mean by policing?
Can policing solve conflicts beyond one’s own borders?
How does just policing theory address terrorism?
Is international policing possible, and what would it look like?
Is just policing a Christian solution that meets the criteria of both traditions?

This important volume offers a fresh and meaningful discussion to help Christians of all traditions navigate the difficult questions of how to live in these times of violence and war.

Gerald W. Schlabach, PhD, is associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he teaches courses in social ethics and Christian morality. He has written on topics ranging from peace, social justice, and nonviolence to Augustinian thought, Benedictine spirituality, and the Eucharist.

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BOOK REVIEW: “The Many Sides of Peace” Challenges One to Live Gospel Nonviolence by Brayton Shanley

Posted on June 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

by Pat Ferrone,
Pax Christi Massachusetts

Pat Ferrone with Brayton Shanley, author of “The Many Sides of Peace” at Agape

I have a long-standing habit of underlining, or in other ways noting, challenging or profound thoughts expressed in some of the books I read. This initiates a kind of ‘lectio divina’ in which I then reflect on the text and allow it to enhance or alter previously held ideas. Happily, Brayton Shanley’s new book, The Many Sides of Peace qualified for just such appraisal. Many underlined, notated, starred passages can be found in my copy of his book, elucidating points that hadn’t occurred to me in my years of soul-searching and peacemaking.

Though my bias of friendship with the author should be noted, I insist that this beautifully rendered apologetic for an all-embracing and whole-hearted approach to living Gospel nonviolence, is a ‘must-read.’ Beginning with the first page, one enters into the company of a veritable Cloud of Witnesses who have resonated with the compelling call of Jesus’ radical invitation to “Come follow me…” From the gospels and the prophets arise the words of admonishment and the call to forgiveness and metanoia; from seekers of truth of long-ago history to the present day, we hear voices that ring with authority and insight, reminding us that if we truly desire Peace on Earth, only the means of boundless, nonviolent love will seed this hope and, ultimately, bring about transformation.

In his writing, Brayton never shies away from the observation that these are, indeed, dire times. He in no way avoids the deviltry of individual causality, nor the accretions of dominative power built into the very structure of society, which contribute to the bereaved moaning of so many in the global community. He identifies the dead-end approaches we employ to deal with individual enmity and global issues of violence when fear is operative and the means of loving action based on imagination and creativity are abandoned. It is then that we are more likely to acquiesce to the idea that a little violence here, a bit more there, will remedy the evil perpetrated by the treacherous ‘other,’ the intransigent dictator, the greed of corporate machinations or governmental secrecy and the plague of war.

Brayton’s years of immersion in scripture, self-reflection, analysis, and plain hard work, lead him to suggest that this Way blossoms as we align ourselves with the needs of our suffering brothers and sisters, and by fidelity to the holistic means of prayer, study, physical work, protest, and the nurturing of the nonviolent community -always in celebration of the essential goodness of our God-given lives, and of all creation. With clarity, he details the grounded life of nonviolence lived with his wife Suzanne, co- creator with him of the rural, “green,” Agape community in western Massachusetts. Guided by the Spirit of the Divine Feminine, and with the energizing company of other truth-seekers and supporters, Brayton presents convincing evidence that a sustained commitment to seeking God’s will is possible, and yields much fruit.

There’s trust on these pages that slowly by slowly, one will be blessed with the grace and strength to witness to the perfidy and pain of our suffering world, and to participate in its healing. I would suggest that you seek out a copy of the book, published by RESOURCE Publications (Wipf and Stock Publishers), and ponder its thesis. Better yet, read and discuss it in the company of others committed to peacemaking, as will be done by our Pax Christi MA board, beginning in September.

Originally posted on http://paxchristiusa.org/2013/06/11/book-review-the-many-sides-of-peace-challenges-one-to-live-gospel-nonviolence/

A History of Nonviolence and Pacifism by MARK KURLANSKY

Review by MARK ENGLER. Salon, WEDNESDAY, SEP 13, 2006 06:30 AM CDT

The author of "Cod" suggests that the world's most dangerous idea could have derailed the American Revolution, the Civil War and possibly even World War II. [Engler criticizes Kurlansky’s commitment to pacifism while finding the book valuable for raising questions seldom heard regarding the necessity of various US wars and the value of pacifism. This is a long review, but I found it very worth reading. –Dick]

George Orwell was never much for pacifists. He wrote of his nonviolent political adversaries during World War II: If they “imagine that one can somehow ‘overcome’ the German army by lying on one’s back, let them go on imagining it, but let them also wonder occasionally whether this is not an illusion due to security, too much money and a simple ignorance of the way in which things actually happen.” To Mohandas Gandhi, his Indian contemporary and fellow anti-imperialist, he accorded only a grudging and critical respect. Yet because he viewed many pacifists as specialists in evading unpleasant truths, Orwell did admire Gandhi’s unflinching honesty with regard to the Holocaust: When asked about resistance to the Nazis, Gandhi argued that the Jews should have prepared en masse to sacrifice their lives in nonviolence — something Orwell regarded as “collective suicide” — in order to “[arouse] the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.”

No doubt Orwell would have been skeptical of the contentions advanced by author Mark Kurlansky in his new primer, “Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea.” Compared with the standard histories offered in American public education, these arguments can safely be described as contrarian: “The case can be made that it was not the American Revolution that secured independence from Britain,” Kurlansky writes; “it was not the Civil War that freed the slaves; and World War II did not save the Jews.”

“For every Crusade and Revolution and Civil War,” he explains further, “there have always been those who argued, with great clarity, that violence not only was immoral but that it was even a less effective means of achieving laudable goals.” Joining the chorus of dissidents, Kurlansky attempts to shed light on the epic failures of warfare to secure peace, as well as to cultivate a new understanding of “the way in which things actually happen” in history.

Author of previous works including “Salt: A World History” and “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World,” Kurlansky has established himself as a pioneer in the field of micro-history, producing idiosyncratic investigations into small topics that bloom into tales of broad general interest. In his new book, he shows a command of a sweeping body of pacifist history, and he makes centuries of material flow into an overview that is far more combative than its protagonists’ peaceful ways might suggest.

A standard narrative of nonviolence as a modern political instrument — especially in the United States — might start around the time of Henry David Thoreau, who, sitting in jail for war tax resistance, first argued that civil disobedience could undermine the legitimacy of the state and provoke a crisis in governance. The story might mention “peace churches” like those of the Quakers and their creation of a pacifist way of life based on Jesus’ teachings. But it would soon rush forward to figures like Gandhi, who pioneered the strategy of how to apply nonviolent disruption on a mass scale, and to Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi’s most famous American importer.

In Kurlansky’s history, however, Jesus himself is a relative latecomer to the scene. Well before him there appear individuals like Mozi, the Chinese rebel-philosopher who lived from about 470 to 390 B.C. Mozi was an opponent of Confucius who championed the concept of “mutual love” and was exasperated by the prevalence of warfare: “To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime to kill a hundred men is to increase it a hundred-fold,” he argued. “This the rulers of the earth all recognize and yet when it comes to the greatest crime — waging war on another state — they praise it!”

Kurlansky spends the bulk of his short book progressing from ancient China to the dawn of the 20th century, profiling groups that rejected the “ideology of warfare.” The ranks of the war resisters include early Christians, the French Cathars, Protestants like the Anabaptists, Mennonites and Quakers, white Americans in the abolitionist movement (African-Americans tended to be more open to supporting violent slave rebellions), and the international peace organizations of the 19th century.

Statements of nonviolent doctrine appear in each of the major world religions, and Kurlansky prepares a succinct and useful survey of them. The Hindu principle of “ahimsa,” or “not doing harm,” is an old tenet that Gandhi would later find significant and that is taken to extremes by the Jainists, who “keep their mouths masked to insure that they do not accidentally inhale a tiny insect.” Kindred sentiments range from Buddhist prohibitions on taking life, to Taoism’s invocations of water wearing away stone, to Mohammed’s complete ban on violence in his model society at Mecca, to Moses’ “Thou shalt not kill” and Jesus’ “Turn the other cheek.”

Early on in the book the distinction between two closely related ideas, pacifism and nonviolence, becomes important. “Pacifism is passive,” Kurlansky acknowledges; it is a “state of mind” that rejects war and aggression. “Nonviolence, exactly like violence, is a means of persuasion, a technique for political activism, a recipe for prevailing”; it uses tactics such as marches, boycotts, strikes and sit-ins to provoke social conflict to advance a cause. The author purports to be concerned with the latter. But in fact the groups he traces are generally active only in the sense that they might preach against war and face sometimes severe persecution for their refusal to take up arms. They are not nonviolent in the manner of the lunch-counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement, which forced a confrontation around desegregation.

By the end of the book, it’s clear that Kurlansky himself is a pacifist, although he never admits it outright. While he may well be supportive of active nonviolence, time and again his attention returns to pacifism. His primary concern is to “end war” in toto, not to use nonviolent persuasion to advance other causes. Tactical innovators in nonviolence consistently receive short shrift: Thoreau is among the many theorists he mentions only in passing. Gandhi and Martin Luther King receive just a few pages each, and it would be difficult for a reader to understand their distinctive contributions. The subtitle’s promise of a tutorial notwithstanding (Kurlansky’s “25 lessons” are scattered throughout the text and only enumerated explicitly in an appendix), there is little in the book of concrete usefulness for a modern-day practitioner of nonviolence seeking to engage in creative social disruption.

The book has rather more to offer a conscientious objector heading for a draft interview. Kurlansky can be heavy-handed at times, especially when he’s drawing parallels between his lessons from history and our present state of war. (When he uses historical examples to show that warmongers will inevitably denounce nonviolent critics as immoral traitors and will always claim to have God on their side, the implications for today are plenty clear without him calling out Karl Rove and President Bush by name.) Yet Kurlansky can also be a compelling narrator, willing to dive into age-old debates without intellectual hesitation. At the core of “Nonviolence” lies a series of “What if?” scenarios questioning whether the major wars of U.S. history might have been averted. Many of the book’s arguments were famously foreshadowed 25 years ago in Howard Zinn’s war-resister-friendly “A People’s History of the United States.” Still, they remain rare and relevant in our current political discussion. Once the guns start firing, Kurlansky observes, debate about the necessity of a war ceases, at least for a time. To that we can add: Once a war is enshrined and justified in the history textbooks, popular reappraisal will be long in coming.

The American Revolution, from the pacifist’s perspective, “was a brutal civil conflict” where “[c]ivilians would run in terror at the approach of either army. Homes were sacked and women were raped.” Worse yet, it was arguably superfluous. As John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson years afterward, “The revolution was in the minds of the people, and in the union of the colonies, both of which were accomplished before the hostilities commenced.” Kurlansky concludes from this that colonists could have expelled the British by continuing a program of nonviolent protests and acts of economic resistance like the Boston Tea Party.

The same quotes from Adams appeared not long ago in Jonathan Schell’s “The Unconquerable World,” although Schell used them only to say that, since the revolution had been completed before military engagement commenced, the war was therefore one of self-defense against recolonization. Kurlansky goes much further in suggesting that the war was altogether unnecessary. This is a bold proposition, something that could no doubt keep a conference of historians indoors debating through a sunny weekend. But it is also an important challenge to America’s founding myth, opening the door for a wider reinterpretation of who we are, and what we might become, as a nation.

Kurlansky goes on to take issue with the idea that the Civil War was an effective means of ending slavery. The Union Army, of course, did not set out to free the slaves. Such a cause would not have been well received in the North as a justification for the conflict. President Lincoln pronounced that his objective was “not either to save or destroy slavery If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” When the Emancipation Proclamation finally came, it cynically applied only to rebel territory and not to border states within the Union that permitted slavery, like Maryland. Could the abolitionist movement of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison have won a more decisive end to slavery without the war? We can’t know. It is worth noting, though, that the freedom ultimately afforded to Southern blacks by the war proved limited, and it took a nonviolent movement, a century later, to secure any genuine protection for their basic civil rights.

As a rejoinder to pacifism, no one is cited more frequently than Hitler. But even with regard to World War II Kurlansky makes some provocative proposals. The claim that the war was launched to stop the Holocaust only became widespread years after the war ended. “Neither Roosevelt, Churchill, nor most of all Stalin wanted to make the war about saving the Jews,” Kurlansky writes, “because, as with freeing the slaves, going to war to save the Jews would not have been popular.” Despite urgings from groups like the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Allied leaders refused to bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz because, they said, “We have a war to win.”

It’s not hard to think of objections to Kurlansky’s reading of this war. He argues that nonviolent resistance in Denmark proved far more effective at saving Jews than did militaristic uprisings in other countries. True, the Germans succeeded in deporting only about 400 of Denmark’s 6,000 Jews, while in the Netherlands, where there was armed resistance, over 100,000 members of a Jewish community of 140,000 were killed. But certainly the Nazis might have made a more concerted effort if the Danish had a larger Jewish population — and if their army was not preoccupied with fighting a war on multiple fronts. Moreover, Kurlansky contends that only in the isolation and brutality of wartime did Hitler launch the “final solution”; he had previously entertained ideas of merely deporting all Jews to Madagascar. Be this as it may, it remains fanciful to think that the fate of Jewish Europeans would have been rosy had fascism progressed unchecked by military force.

What is missing from the book is just the sort of reckoning with the price of nonviolence that Orwell respected in Gandhi. “If you are not prepared to take a life, you must often be prepared for lives to be lost in some other way,” Orwell wrote. Yet Kurlansky ultimately dodges the question of how the spread of fascism could have been stopped without the force of arms. He never sketches a strategy of nonviolent resistance that might have sacrificed many thousands of lives to stop the Nazis. Absent this, the alternate history he implies seems unrealistically bloodless in a way that hard-nosed advocacy of nonviolence need not be. After all, the war itself required millions of sacrificed lives and also ushered in the age of nuclear war. However grotesque the demands of nonviolence might be, they might still compare favorably.

Kurlansky’s arguments are valuable not because they are always airtight, but rather because such contentions are rarely considered at all. It would never cross the minds of most Americans to question the necessity of the patriots taking up arms against the British or U.S. soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy. Given that our government was all too easily able to obtain support for launching its current war, and that Iraq is unlikely to be our last military adventure of the 21st century, this is surely a costly failure of imagination.

Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be reached via the web site http://www.democracyuprising.com.

TOLSTOY

Count Leo Tolstoy, We Need Your Voice Today!
By John Scales Avery http://www.countercurrents.org/

What would Tolstoy say about the 1,700,000,000,000.00 dollars which the world spends each year on armaments while 11 million children die each year from poverty and starvation? What would Tolstoy say about the illegal war that ruined Iraq, smashing its infrastructure, killing a million innocent people, displacing two million Iraqis, and forcing two million more to flee as refugees?

Another 'Palestinian Gandhi' Ignored by U.S. Media

Posted on 07/18/2012 by Chad Rosenbloom

In recent years, corporate media pundits like Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristof have expressed deep concern over what they claim is a lack of peaceful elements within the Palestinian resistance to the 44-year Israeli occupation. Where is the "Palestinian Gandhi" who could inspire the violent Arab masses to lay down their weapons and pursue a more virtuous path to freedom (FAIR Blog, 2/17/12)?

Either the many examples of Palestinians successfully using nonviolent direct action to confront their occupiers have gone unnoticed or are being deliberately ignored in mainstream reports. Another amazing victory for peaceful resistance occurred last Tuesday, when Palestinian professional soccer player Mahmoud Sarsak was released from Israeli prison after a three-month hunger strike.

Sarsak had been imprisoned for three years without charge or trial, based on a claim by the Israeli security forces that he was a member of Islamic Jihad. He was subjected to "administrative detention"–imprisonment without trial–when Israeli authorities failed to produce enough evidence to formally prosecute him.

Sarsak's release came several months after 33-year-old baker Khader Adnan also won his freedom after a hunger strike.

Despite the pundits' assurances that a nonviolent Palestinian movement would attract journalists' attention, Sarsak's release–like Adnan's–received little attention in U.S. corporate media. According to a search of the Nexis news database, his release was not mentioned on television. In fact the only U.S. publication that mentioned Sarsak's release was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (7/10/12), which gave the story a few sentences in a news brief feature in the Sports section.

And here's how that article–based on an AP dispatch–introduced the case:

Dozens of Islamic militants fired rifles in the air today in a rousing homecoming for a member of the Palestinian national soccer team who was released by Israel after being held for three years without formal charges.

Rather than stressing the fact that Sarsak was illegally detained like so many other Palestinians, the Post-Gazette's wire dispatch evokes an image of violent militants welcoming home one of their released comrades.

If the corporate media have truly been waiting for examples of peaceful Palestinian resistance to embrace, than why have Sarsak's case and the many other instances of individuals nonviolently risking their lives for national liberation been essentially ignored? From the West Bank village of Budrus to the deep recesses of Israeli jails, literally thousands of Palestinians have rejected violence as the most effective means by which to fight the apartheid structure that has divided and oppressed them for decades. But establishment media in the U.S. clearly do not find what Sarsak called the "revolution of empty stomachs" newsworthy.

SYRIA

[See the many articles by Mohja Kahf in OMNI’s Syria Newsletters. –Dick]

By Contributor on February 10, 2014

“Practicing Nonviolence in Syria” by Zack Baddorf

This article is from the Dec. 2013/Jan. 2014 double issue of The Progressive. For more great content like this, subscribe today and get a whole year of the magazine for as little as $10. ------

The Syrian revolution started with these simple words: “The people want the regime to fall.” Fifteen schoolchildren painted this anti-regime mantra on a wall in the Syrian city of Dara’a in March 2011. Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s forces arrested them all, prompting Syrians to hold nonviolent protests across the country. The army responded with force, and eventually the revolution turned violent, with rebels taking up arms to defend themselves and try to take down Assad. But not everyone abandoned nonviolence. Some Syrian activists inside and outside of their homeland still remain committed to it. “We believe that speaking loudly is stronger than using any weapons,” says Omar Assil, the awareness program manager for the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, which coordinates peaceful activities and civil resistance throughout Syria. The movement has run campaigns throughout Syria that allow people to stand up against the powerful military elements in their areas, be they radical Islamists or Assad’s troops. The “Dignity Strikes” campaign, for example, allowed Syrians to pick activities that they could do without putting themselves in danger. Some Syrians protested by gathering at a central place and wearing a certain color. Others attempted to block a street. Some people banged on kitchen pots. These nonviolent tactics may not sound like they will have much effect on stopping the war, but activist Alaa Zaza says they are crucial. “We believe the change in Syria that is required is not just toppling the regime or replacing the regime with another dictator or another system that is going to violate human rights,” he tells me at a café in Gaziantep, Turkey, just a short drive from the Syrian border. What they don’t need is “a new regime, with a different name but the same behavior.” As vice president of the nonviolence organization, Zaza lives outside his homeland but returns as often as he can. With his background in child psychology, he leads a child protection program inside Syria. He also works to educate people about how they can use nonviolence to fight the regime. Given the pervading violence and the high risk of being targeted, Syrians find unconventional ways to participate in this peace movement. Some are working as citizen journalists; others are organizing themselves in youth groups. “Even if it seems like there is no impact, all these [changes] are building up inside the community, inside the society,” Assil says. “What we want in the first place is achieving democracy, human rights, and real rights, and this will not happen immediately.” Getting people to fight without weapons during an ongoing military conflict has been tough. “It is very difficult and challenging to talk about these things in a time of war because people will say, ‘We are being shelled and killed,’ ” says Assil. “But in the long term, it has an impact.” Zaza argues that violence will never allow Syrians to be victorious. “The regime strategy is to push people into violence because that’s where the regime can control things,” Zaza says. “Violence means more space and more room and more power for the regime because it is stronger in terms of weapons and the external support it gets.” As the war continues, the rebels are losing ground militarily, and people continue to be killed and injured every day. Syrians are “desperate for real change,” Assil says. “They haven’t seen the progress that they want to see.” As a result, the activists say more people are starting to shift toward nonviolence. For example, in areas held by Al Qaeda-linked militant groups, activists are using nonviolent methods—like refusing to sell goods to the militants—instead of taking up arms. “There is now a culture, even though it’s not that influential, a culture of nonviolence that did not exist before,” Zaza says. Like the other nonviolent activists, Zaza says he expects the conflict will eventually end with both sides sitting down to negotiate. He said they should do so as soon as possible in order to save lives. “If not now, if after twenty years, if after twenty million people killed, they will eventually sit down and talk,” he says. Taking the nonviolent route, he says, “is not easy and will never be easy,” but he notes that the use of massive violence so far hasn’t worked, either. And Assil points out that the practice of nonviolence will be essential in rebuilding civil society after the war. “Even if the regime is gone today, there is still more work to do,” he says. “It will not be a bright country overnight.” ------ Zack Baddorf is a freelance reporter based in Brooklyn. He’s a military veteran with ten years of video, radio, print, photo, and web reporting in more than thirty countries. Photo: Dona_Bozzi / Shutterstock.com.

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/02/186966/practicing-nonviolence-syria#sthash.T36cynh8.dpuf

Syrian Nonviolence Movement English Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SyrainNonviolence

Website: http://www.alharak.org/

SNVM Arabic Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/al7rak.assilmi?fref=ts

Syrian Nonviolence Movement was established in April, 2011, by a group of Syrians who believe in nonviolent struggle and civil resistance as a principle and method in achieving social, cultural, and political change in Syrian society.

UKRAINE

STEPHEN ZUNES

Here is a recent article I co-authored with strategic analyst Erica Chenoweth in which we examine recent nonviolent action against Russian aggrandizement in eastern Ukraine and Crimea and how an escalation of such popular resistance could help avoid additional violence and defuse the crisis:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/28/a_nonviolent_alternative_for_ukraine

You can also check out two other recent articles of mine from this past March: an earlier article on Ukrainehttp://fpif.org/straight-talk-u-s-ukraine/ and another on the broader phenomenon of nonviolent resistancehttp://www.ozy.com/c-notes/a-force-more-powerful-than-war-nonviolent-resistance/30051.article

Links to other articles of mine--covering such topics as the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, human rights issues, and more--can be found at: http://stephenzunes.org/publications/

Please feel free to forward this on to others and invite them to contact me about being on my email list. And please let me know if you no longer wish to be on my email list.

Stephen Zunes 6-9-14
Professor of Politics
University of San Francisco
phone: 415-422-6981
skype: szunes
website: www.stephenzunes.org

Contents Nonviolence Newsletter #7

Fr. John Dear

Iowa War Protesters

Protesters’ Pro Se Defense

Christian Nonviolence

John Howard Yoder

Tripp York

Contents Nonviolence Newsletter #8 March 28, 2013

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence International Film Festival

International DAY of Nonviolence, Oct. 2 (OMNI National/International DAYS Project)

Muslim Nonviolence

Abdul Ghaffar Badshah Khan: Pakistan’s Muslim Gandhi

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi: Turkey’s Muslim Gandhi

Fethullah Gulen, Follower of Nursi

Kaufman-Lacusta: Palestinian-Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to Occupation

Palestinian Nonviolence and US Media Lack of Attention

Contents Newsletter #9 Nonviolence in Religious Traditions

END NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #10

OMNI NEWSLETTER #9 ON NONVIOLENCE, APRIL 18, 2013. NONVIOLENCE IN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS FORUM. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice. (#1 Feb. 17, 2011; #2 May 13, 2011; #3 June 7, 2011, #4 September 30, 2011; #5 Sept. 21, 2012; #6 Dec. 28, 2012; #7 Jan. 17, 2013; #8 March 28, 2013).

My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on Peace, Justice, and Ecology:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See: Imperialism, Militarism, Pentagon, Recruiting, Suicides, Whistleblowing, and more.

Nos. 5 and 6 at end

Contents #7

Fr. John Dear

Iowa War Protesters

Protesters’ Pro Se Defense

Christian Nonviolence

John Howard Yoder

Tripp York

Contents #8 March 28, 2013

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence International Film Festival

International DAY of Nonviolence, Oct. 2 (OMNI National/International DAYS Project)

Muslim Nonviolence

Abdul Ghaffar Badshah Khan: Pakistan’s Muslim Gandhi

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi: Turkey’s Muslim Gandhi

Fethullah Gulen, Follower of Nursi

Kaufman-Lacusta: Palestinian-Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to Occupation

Palestinian Nonviolence and US Media Lack of Attention

Contents #9 Special Number on Nonviolence in Religious Traditions

OMNI Book Forum April 19, 2013

Smith-Christopher, Subverting Hatred

Dick’s Review

Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

OMNI Forums on Nonviolence in Religions: 2003-2013

Universal Golden Rule

BOOK FORUM ON NONVIOLENCE IN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS

APRIL 19, 2013

AT OMNI, 3274 Lee Ave., Fayetteville (OMNI is located between Office Depot and Liquor World), 7 P.M.

Panelists

Hameed Naseem, Islam: “Islam” Means Peace.

Sidney Burris, Buddhism: HHDL's Ethics for a New Millennium, Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon (Teachings of the Buddha)

Dick Bennett, Christianity: Richard McSorley, New Testament Basis of Peacemaking; John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus.

Hameed Naseem

Hameed Naseem is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR. He serves as the President of the Tulsa Chapter of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, USA. He is the founding Faculty Advisor of Al-Islam Students Association, a registered Students Organization (RSO) at the University of Arkansas. And he advocates the peaceful teachings of Islam as propounded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.

Sidney Burris

· Educated at Duke University (BA, Classical Studies) and University of Virginia (PhD, English)

· Professor, Department of English, U of A

· Director, Fulbright College Honors Program, U of A

· Professor, Department of English

· Co-Director, The TEXT Program (Tibetan oral history with U of A students)

· Co-Founder, The Tibetan Cultural Institute of Arkansas

Dick Bennett

Dick is a Prof. Emer., English, UAF. He also created courses at UAF on “World War III” and “War and Peace.” He was co-founder of the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology. His publications include the annotated bibliographies Control of Information in the United States and Control of the Media in the United States, and he compiled the Peace Movement Directory for N. America.

DANIEL L. SMITH-CHRISTOPHER, ED. SUBVERTING HATRED: THE CHALLENGE OF NONVIOLENCE IN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS.

Review by Dick Bennett

Notable authors examine the nonviolent foundations of nine religions in this order: Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Indigenous (Cheyenne), Islam, Judaism, Christianity. They ask: What are the teachings about nonviolence in the world’s major religious traditions? How have these teachings been exemplified?

Unfortunately, despite these attempts to give humans refuge and guide, wars and atrocities continue. But their teachings have shown us ways to live without violence and have strengthened us when violence threatens our lives and societies. They have offered us beginnings. And let’s grasp a grassroots perspective. It is up to humans to enact the teachings. Just as in a democracy our representatives must be pushed to act for the welfare of the people, each nonviolent religion is as effectively peaceful as the people demand it to live up to its original principles and practices in nonviolence.

Religions have arisen from many human desires and social conditions, and one is the desire to create a society in which people can live without fear of being killed or tortured, bombed or shot—and to extend the principle, to live without hunger. They seek a society in which people, all people, can live with hope and happiness. To step outside religions for a minute, President Roosevelt expressed this yearning in a message to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941. The end of WWII, he said, should provide “four freedoms”: of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear.” Roosevelt wished for every nation following the war “a healthy peaceful life for its inhabitants”; he wished for a “reduction of armaments to such a point. . .that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor.”

The principles and the practices of nonviolence established in our world religions provide us guides to achieve such trust and harmony. In each chapter the writers identify the immense assistance to a world of cooperation and well-being offered by the religions. We look backward to get our bearings for our struggle forward. Yes, religions have been used to justify violence, but the nonviolent roots were not the cause. They were and they remain today a solid mooring for resistance to sources of violence both inside the religion and from the cultures in which the religions function.

Nonviolence carries a “not” and a “yes.” It assumes the refusal to engage in killing and it presumes the necessity of preventing the conditions of violence, personal and international, by energetically expanding fairness, justice, respect, compassion for all people. To the question, for example, How do we stop the Pentagon and US imperialism? the answer is given, work against the warriors, but more importantly commit yourself to changing the conditions that lead to killing, whether from weapons or want. Now, today. To the question, but how do I know what to do? The answer is, the way was established in your religion long ago. Walk the way with others, and do not fear.

But it’s even harder than that sounds, for the writers consider their essays and the text as a whole to be “unfinished,” “a thorough opening statement” leading to new approaches to nonviolent actions.

Our panel follows this book by focusing on the nonviolent sources—the source texts and the prophets—of three of these major religions--Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity.

Spirituality & Practice

Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Subverting Hatred
The Challenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher. Orbis Books/Boston Research Center, 1998.
This timely volume published in association with The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century is edited by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, a professor of theological studies and director of the Peace Studies program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He notes in the introduction that ethnic conflicts have erupted all over the world and while there is much talk about nonviolence, very few groups are willing to practice it.

Thankfully, the nine different religious traditions covered in this helpful resource are in agreement about the validity of subverting hatred and practicing peace. Christopher Key Chapple discusses the rich meaning of Jainism's concept of ahimsa and concludes: "In order for nonviolence to be integrated into one's personal and interpersonal life and into work environments, one needs to investigate ways in which to foster virtuous conduct, cooperation, and communication."

Christopher S. Queen presents a succinct overview of Buddhist resources for nonviolent activism including lovingkindness, generosity, and wisdom as antidotes to the seeds of violence; the concept of the interconnectedness between all beings; and the practical curriculum of skillful actions for taming and transforming the mind. Tam Wai Lun believes that Taoism's wuwei (nonaction) can be understood as an alternative to violence and force. Rabia Terri Harris and Jeremy Milgrom assess the tradition of nonviolence in Islam and Judaism.

One of the many gems in this book is a prayer for peace by Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: "There should be no hatred, jealousy, rivalry, triumphalism or pettiness between people, only love and a great peace, that everyone should experience love from one another, and be sure that each wants good to befall the other, and to love them and for them to succeed, so that all could come together and speak with each other and explain the truth to one another."

OMNI’S RELIGIOUS PEACE TRADITIONS FORUMS: Six Forums 2003-2013.

Jan. 14, 2003, Faith-based Peace Traditions Roundtable (12 faiths represented)(one of many OMNI protests against the threatened invasion of Iraq). Coordinator: Dick Bennett. Speakers: Baptist, Rev. Scott Jones; Buddhist, Geoff Oelsner; Christian Church/Disciplies of Christ, Rev. Jim Johnson; Church of the Brethren/Mennonite, Eli Miller; Episcopal Church, Rev. Lowell Grisham; Judaism, Prof. Mike Lieber; Muslim, Winy; Presbyterian Church, Rev. Libbie Lazzaraga; Quaker, Ladeana Mullinix;

Roman Catholic, Paul Warren; Unitarian Universalist, Rev. Rhett Baird

Unity, Rev. Gary Simmons

Nov. 19, 2003, Faith/Fellowship-based Peace Traditions SYMPOSIUM (five faiths)(8 months following the invasion of Iraq). Coordinators: Dick Bennett, Jill Shankar, Rachel Townsend-Moore. Speakers: Dr. Barbara Taylor, Buddhist; Jeff Plum, Christian Science (CSCPAR@aol.com);

Dr. Hamid Naseem, Muslim (HANASEEM@uark.edu); Darla Newman, Jewish (DPNewman@aol.com); AJay Malshe, Hinduism. At OMNI, UA Presbyterian Campus Ministry.

Jan. 26, 2004, Nonviolent Religious Peace Traditions Symposium (10 months after invasion of Iraq). Coordinated by Dick Bennett and Rachel Townsend-Moore. Panelists: Hugh Talat Halman, Sufi Muslim tradition, “Badshah Khan (1890-1988): Gandhi's Afghan Warrior for Peace -- an Islamic Witness for Nonviolence”; Erin Cowsert, Unitarian Universalist, Humanist, "Nobels & Whistles: Peacemaking in the Unitarian Tradition";

Rev. Nancy Benson-Nicol, First United Presbyterian Church (Calvin St., Fayetteville), “Peacemaking: Presbyterian Perspectives”;

Melanie Dietzel, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, “Roman Catholic Peacemakers: The Berrigan Brothers.” Place: OMNI/United Campus Ministry Sanctuary

[March 5, 2004, UA/King Fahd Forum on Islam’s Peace Tradition (4 panelists). “Peacemaking and Peacemakers in Islam.” Sponsored by Islam Program. Discussants: Gray Henry, Omid Safi, Vincent Cornell, and Hugh Talat Halman. Moderator: Vincent Cornell.]

FALL 2006.

HINDU: Murthy Kolluru, 401 NW Palomino St. Rogers? 72712, 464-4560

BUDDHIST: Hugh Talat Halman (see letter below)

CATHOLIC: Anne Marie Candido

HUMANIST: UUFF, Rev. Kerry Mueller

METHODIST: Rev. Gary Lunsford, St. James Methodist,

Sept. 4, 2007, War in Iraq: Faith, Peace and War Traditions, and Local Silence (8 panelists, 6 faiths). Coordinator: Dick Bennett.

PARTICIPANTS: Moderator: Rev. Dave Hunter, Co-Minister of UUFF;

Adamson, Adelaide (Addie), Instructor at UA’s Spring International;

Geshe Thupten Dorjee (Tup-ten Dor-jay), Tibetan Monk; Grisham, Lowell, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church; Head, Frank, Director, Catholic Charities, NWA; Krueger, Doug, Philosophy Instructor at NWACC, Co-founder of Freethinkers; Naseem, Hameed, Engineering Prof., Advisor of UA Al Islam Student Peace Group; Robinson, Grady Jim, Former Fundamentalist Minister, Agnostic, Columnist for Northwest Arkansas Times .

April 19, 2013, Nonviolence in Religious Traditions Book Forum. Coordinator: Dick Bennett. Islam, Prof. Hameed Naseem. Buddhism, Prof. Sidney Burris. Christianity: Prof. Emer. Dick Bennett.

UNIVERSAL GOLDEN RULE

Brahmanism: This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.: Mahabharata 5:1517

Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.: Matthew 7:12

Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother what which he desires for himself. Sunnah

Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.: Udana Varga 5:18

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowmen. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.: Talmud, Shabbat 31:a

Confucianism: Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you.: Analects 15:23

Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss.: T'ai Shag Kan Ying P'ien

Zoroastrianism: That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good: for itself. : Dadistan-i-dinik 94:5

Contents of #5

The People’s Charter

Nonviolence Organizations

Nevada Desert

War Resisters League

Books

Reviews of Books

Kurlansky

Ram and Summy

Schell

Contents of #6

New Book: York and Barringer, essays on Christian Nonviolence and Pacifism

Dick: Noncooperation, One Method of Direct Action

Gene Sharp, There Are Alternatives (to violence and wars)(free book)

Nonviolence and Pacifism, Misc. Writings

Two Older Books on Nonviolence.

Judson on Children

McAllister on Women

Dick: OMNI’S TV “Book Sampler”

END NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #9, NONVIOLENCE IN RELIGIONS

Sent to WS and Blog

OMNI NEWSLETTER #8 ON NONVIOLENCE, March 28, 2013. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace. (#1 Feb. 17, 2011; #2 May 13, 2011; #3 June 7, 2011, #4 September 30, 2011; #5 Sept. 21, 2012; #6 Dec. 28, 2012; #7 Jan. 17, 2013).

My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on Peace, Justice, and Ecology:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See: Imperialism, Militarism, Pentagon, Recruiting, Suicides, Whistleblowing, and more.

Gandhi was quoted as saying: “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.”

Nos. 5 and 6 at end

Contents #7

Fr. John Dear

Iowa War Protesters

Protesters’ Pro Se Defense

Christian Nonviolence

John Howard Yoder

Tripp York

Contents #8 March 28, 2013

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence International Film Festival

International DAY of Nonviolence, Oct. 2 (OMNI National/International DAYS Project)

Muslim Nonviolence

Abdul Ghaffar Badshah Khan: Pakistan’s Muslim Gandhi

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi: Turkey’s Muslim Gandhi

Fethullah Gulen, Follower of Nursi

Kaufman-Lacusta: Palestinian-Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to Occupation

Palestinian Nonviolence and US Media Lack of Attention

Nonviolence International

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Randall Internship And Research Fellowships

Mar 26th, 13 / 0 Comments

Dr. Awad, president of Nonviolence International is proud to launch international internship awards as well as research scholarships in the name of Darrall and Mildred Randall. The Randall’s devoted their lives to international peace and understanding and the education of young people. In honor of the Randall’s lifelong commitment, NI wishes to support up to four international interns every year to work at our offices around the world.

Dr. Randall spent decades teaching young scholars, with a special interest in human needs and nonviolence, at the School of International Service at the American University. In addition to the international internship awards, Dr. Abdul Aziz Said, Vice President of Nonviolence International is proud to announce the availability of research funding for graduate students who are either attending or are alumni of the American University and are interested in researching nonviolence around the world.

For more information and applications for these programs:

Randall Global Internships

Randall Research on Nonviolence Funding

News Update

Nonviolent Protests In Response To Newtown Massacre

Dec 21st, 12 / 0 Comments

CODEPINK Protesters Unfurl Banners “NRA KILLING OUR KIDS” and “NRA BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS” at first NRA Press Conference after Newtown Shooting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2012Contact:
Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK coordinator, (415) 235-6517
Mobbie Tazamal, CODEPINK coordinator, (571) 345-4155

Video footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UinZSdV6oRI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r1vlVZZ3Yjs

Washington DC – Today as the National Rifle Association held its first press conference since the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, two activists with the peace group CODEPINK stood up and unfurled banners that read “NRA KILLING OUR KIDS” and “NRA BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS”. The activists, Medea Benjamin and Tighe Barry, were held, questioned, and then released.

“It’s time for our government to finally stand up to the NRA. It’s time for them to protect our children, not their guns,” says CODEPINK co-director Medea Benjamin. “The NRA spokesperson was talking about ‘reckless behavior’ of the media and I stood up and said, ‘We need to stop the reckless behavior of the NRA, ban assault weapons, and have less guns on our streets, not more!’”

“From the wars the American government is perpetuating abroad, especially with killer drone strikes, to the glorification of murder in our pop culture, it’s no surprise that violence is prevalent in our society,” said CODEPINK co-director Rae Abileah. “We need a comprehensive plan to address weapons in our communities and it starts with holding the NRA accountable.”

“The NRA is out of touch, and showed a lack of remorse today. By advocating for armed guards, they want to put more guns in our schools, rather than protect our children,” Tighe Barry went on to say. “The NRA uses Washington as a way to bypass the wishes of the American public. We need to end the violence now.”

Earlier this week, CODEPINK visited the office of Senator Reid and told him it’s time to take a stand for gun control and stand up to the NRA.

CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.

News Update

Attendee Of NI’s Workshop In Cairo Makes Statement.

Nov 28th, 12 / 0 Comments

Among the dozens of Facebook groups spawned by the Syrian uprising, a page supporting women’s rights has suddenly received a wave of attention, because of an image posted there by one of its followers. The picture was of 21-year-old Dana Bakdounis, without the veil she had grown up wearing – and it polarised opinion.

Text taken from BBC’s coverage of the statement, read more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20315531

News Update

Gaza’s Ark

Oct 10th, 12 / 0 Comments

The Project.

Nonviolence International is United States fiscal sponsor for the Gaza’s Ark Project. The projects mission statement is to “build a boat in Gaza using existing resources. A crew of internationals and Palestinians will sail it out of Gaza, the only Mediterranean port closed to shipping, carrying Palestinian products to fulfill trade deals with international buyers, to challenge the illegal and inhuman Israeli blockade.”

Recent happenings

Recently the Gaza’s Ark project has announced news that Former Canadian MP (Member of Parliament 1980-88) and retired United Church Minister Jim Manly will join a crew of prominent internationals on the Freedom Flotilla’s “Estelle” sailing from Naples to Gaza to peacefully challenge the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade of Gaza.”

Further Details about Gaza’s Ark can be found on their website through their websitehttp://www.gazaark.org/ Donations to the Gaza’s Ark project can be contributed also through their website at this page. http://www.gazaark.org/donate/

News Update

Spark Of The Arab Spring.

Oct 3rd, 12 / 0 Comments

The 41st Annual Conference of the Association of

Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS)

Religious Dimensions of Democratization

Processes in Muslim-Majority Nations Yale University, New Haven, CT Saturday, September 29, 2012

The Arab Spring

Mubarak Awad

Spark of the Arab Spring

The Arab spring was triggered in Tunisia when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after claiming he was slapped by policewoman Fedia Hamdi. This spark in the Arab World has created a great divide in cultural tradition and rigid tribal mentalities. Feelings that governments intimidated its citizens have degraded Arabs and Moslems alike and have caused unrest in the streets. Mismanagement of funds and economic stratification has created resentment and a feeling of hopelessness for a better future. Youth graduating from college cannot find jobs. They have begun realizing that their four years of college is a waste of time. Military personnel are getting into big business while college graduates have no jobs.

Condition of Arab states

Arab states have lost their vision of unity for the future. Each state has its own agenda and the resource of the land becomes family owned resources which results in a few wealthy families while their countrymen struggle. The authoritarian states, corruption, human rights abuses and violations, inflation, sectarianism, unemployment, and the influence of religion in politics have created unfavorable conditions for the citizens. Additionally, leaders are often willing to ignore the constitution or change them to put their children in positions of power without any consideration of the will or the vote of the people. These factors have resulted in public frustration, lack respect for government, lack of democracy and corruption. In some areas there has been a push to enforce Sharia Law with lack of regard to women’s rights. There has been an increase in the prominence of Islamic fanatics that hide behind religion in order to pursue their own narrow will on others in the name of Islam.

Promises of Nonviolent Action

The people in the streets have no military training or weaponry. Nonviolent resistance Methods can give them power, especially in numbers against the state regimes. Citizens can make civil resistance a part of their strategy. Techniques include mass defection from government jobs or the army, and massive demonstrations which refuse to disperse for many days. Citizens have the ability to communicate with each other faster than the government through the internet and cell phones. The people need to create an atmosphere which makes it clear that we are not happy; we need change and we will not leave. We are even willing to die for our freedom. The Arab Spring is not a conflict between nations. It is a conflict between the people and their own government. The Arab Spring took the regime by surprise. Governments have chosen to use the army against civilians rather than negotiating with their own people, resulting in unnecessary loss of life.

International action

It is unfortunate that the international community has chosen to take military action. This decision has resulted in Arabs start killing Arabs and Moslem killing Moslems. Many have accepted the roll that the UN can play in the Arab world. This is a missed opportunity for spiritual Moslems leaders from different regions and countries to form a peace team to help the Arab region before the intervention of outside forces from Europe and the United States. The UN, NATO and the United States do not think in a timely manner and give enough time for the tribes to resolve conflict using the culture, local tradition and religious tolerance. They quickly jump to use force and end the conflict immediately. But this does not address the issues roots and so the conflict will continue for many years because of the causality on all sides. Unfortunately this has happened time and time again in Islamic and Arab countries.

The state of protest

Today Syria is experiencing a full-scale civil protest between the government and opposition forces. Civil uprisings continue against the government of Bahrain despite government changes. The countries of Kuwait, Lebanon and Oman have begun implementing government changes in response to protests. In Morocco and Jordan, constitutional reforms have been implemented in response to civilian pressure. Protests are ongoing in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Mauritania among other countries.

Effect of the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring is young. Its effect will begin to show 10 years from now. It is a light, a warning. An inspiration for new generations to find themselves free from their parent’s mentality of accepting corruption and living free, accepting each other as human being without consideration for sex, religion or race.

News Update

Accidental Advocacy

Sep 21st, 12 / 0 Comments

As a new resident of Washington, D.C., I set out on an adventure to attend a vigil in honor of Rachel Corrie. Rachel, a U.S. citizen, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer as she protested the demolition of houses in Rafah, Gaza in 2003. After seven years in a civil lawsuit filed by the Corrie family, the Haifa District Court rejected accusations that Israel was to blame for Rachel’s death. Upon hearing the court’s ruling I was struck with a bitter sadness for Rachel’s family and for the plight of all those killed as a result of the occupation. Citizens gathered at the State Department demanding justice for Rachel, a credible investigation into her killing, and protection for US citizens’ rights abroad. In solidarity with the Corrie family and victims of the Israeli occupation, I strapped on my Palestine bracelets and set out to attend the vigil.

It took me two hours to not get there. I was a bit ambitious in thinking I could figure out the DC bus system and not experience mishaps. Fate, combined with two missed buses, rush hour traffic and a faulty GPS system on my phone kept me from my destination. These two hours of chaos led to exchanges with a number of people about the woes of DC transit, the unbearable heat of August in the mid-Atlantic region, and most importantly, Rachel Corrie.

I ended up sharing her story with three people: a friend, a sister, and a very benevolent stranger, none of whom had ever heard of her before. I felt a part of a much larger human community as I saw the shock and sadness on the faces of those learning of Rachel’s fate for the first time. I am somewhat desensitized to the tragedy of the Israeli occupation but was struck by their incredulous responses to this injustice. With three people that day, I grieved the lack of justice for Rachel and Palestine. I didn’t realize the beauty of accidental activism then, but today I thank the D.C. Metrobus system and the GPS that betrayed me for allowing me these very special exchanges.

For those who are interested in learning more about Rachel’s death and trial, visit Foreign Policy in Focus to read Stephen Zunes’ article at http://www.fpif.org/articles/us_shares_responsibility_for_rachel_corries_death

News Update

NI Launches Effort For Change In Syria And Bahrain

Jun 14th, 12 / 0 Comments

As news continues to unfold of the tragedies taking place in Syria and Bahrain please join our petition to call on the governments of the United States, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to take any action possible to pressure Syria and Bahrain authorities to put an end to the violence. The petition can be found here- End Violence in Syria and Bahrain.

News Update

Summary Of “Reclaiming The Power Of Nonviolence” Conference At AU

Apr 3rd, 12 / 0 Comments

Reclaiming the Power of Nonviolence: Successes, Obstacles and Sustainability of Nonviolent Movements in the Arab Spring

On March 29^th and 30^th, American University hosted a symposium on nonviolent movements in the Arab Spring. The event was sponsored by the International Peace and Conflict Resolution department, the Center for Peacebuilding and Development, the Mohammad Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and Nonviolence International. The two-day conference featured various activists, professors, journalists, politicians, and private organization officials from the Middle East and Washington, DC.

The goal of the conference was to create a space to discuss the efforts of nonviolence in the Arab Spring throughout the last year, in particular paying attention to marginalized groups, and determine how nonviolence could be applied in the future within the region to promote peace, growth and stability. The discussions were divided into panels focusing on particular issues or regions.

On Thursday, March 29^th the panelists discussed nonviolent movements in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, the struggles of nonviolent resistance in Syria and Libya, and the role of nonviolence in nations experiencing a governmental transition, particularly Egypt, Yemen and Jordan. Some of the significant questions raised during the first day of the conference included the ability of nonviolent movements to remain nonviolent in the face of violence and the role of the access of information on nonviolent strategies.

The keynote speaker of the conference was Jawdat Said, a Syrian scholar and nonviolent activist. Mr. Said emphasized the traditions of nonviolence within the Quran and stated that justice and equality sustain the rule of law and is applicable to all people, not just Muslims. His speech utilized examples from religious texts, history and philosophy to support his advocacy of nonviolence.

On the second day, March 30^th, the panels focused more specifically on marginalized groups, such as women, ethnic minorities and religious minorities, and looked at the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq as a case study. Important questions addressed in these panels included the role of the international community in the Arab Spring, when and how minorities should join the nonviolent protests and the difficulties in comparing various Middle Eastern countries and their national revolutions. The day concluded with a wrap-up panel that examined the general conclusions of the conference and discussed the future of nonviolent movements in Middle Eastern countries still undergoing revolution or experiencing transition.

News Update

Iran Pledge Of Resistance

Mar 20th, 12 / 0 Comments

The Iran Pledge of Resistance is a grassroots campaign started in February 2012 as a preemptive response to a US led war with Iran. This campaign is modeled after the Central American Pledge of Resistance that successfully prevented a U.S. invasion in Nicaragua. The goal of the Resistance is to rapidly create a strong anti-war base with both online

activism and local, on the ground activism to prevent a violent action against Iran.

Join The Cause!

You can sign the Iran Pledge of Resistance by clicking here.

News Update

Library On Wheels Project

Mar 20th, 12 / 0 Comments

Library on Wheels for Nonviolence and Peace Association (LOWNP) was created by Nonviolence International’s founder, Mubarak Awad, in 1986. LOWNP is a nonprofit organization located in Jerusalem and Hebron. LOWNP promotes the use of nonviolence as a means of social empowerment. It particularly focuses on peace education for Palestinian children and serves as an active library.

Watch video clip describing the projecthere.

News Update

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o Social Action Alien Invasion Training Tool

About a month ago I did a training which was basically an introduction to social action. As part of this training I wrote up a scenario about alien invasion which I gave out to prompt discussion about social action strategy, tactics, and the process of organizing. I was very happy with how this worked, and […]

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o The Supreme Court, marriage equality and the pace of change

by Nathan SchneiderThe front page of the New York Times right now tells us that the Supreme Court justices are concerned about the timing of making sweeping decisions about gay marriage. […]

Nathan Schneider

o Colombian workers fight for the future of coffee

Jake Olzen, Waging Nonviolence, March 25, 2013Colombian farmers are poised to significantly change the way coffee is produced in their country. As coffee growers across South America are in the midst of one of the greatest production crises they’ve f... […]

Learn about nonviolent conflict and civil resistance

o Honduras: Women raise banner of women’s rights

Laura Carlsen, CIP Americas, March 21, 2013Honduras’ “Walk for Dignity and Sovereignty Step by Step” brought together peasant and indigenous organizations, human rights defenders, workers, and feminists. Honduran feminists of all ages participate... […]

Learn about nonviolent conflict and civil resistance

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6. The Non Violence International Film Festival

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14 films to be screened at 2013 Non Violence International Film Festival; |; NVIFF in May 2013; |; 2013 Season Selections Open; |; Fambul Tok takes top prize at ...

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Australia

The Boat

Live Action Short

13 minutes

Finn attempts to reconstruct his fragmented relationship with his father, Walter, through a fishing trip.

USA

Wampler's Ascent

Documentary Feature

77 minutes

Wampler's Ascent takes the audience into the harried, sometimes terrifying and always difficult world of elite rock climbing.

Netherlands

Stories from Lakka Beach

Documentary Feature

76 minutes

A film on Sierra Leone, this is a story about everything else but war.

USA

Global Tides

Live Action Short

7 minutes

Global Tides is an international, interdisciplinary collaboration that incorporates film, music and dance.

USA

Declaration of Interdependence

Documentary Short

4 minutes

Rewriting the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a Declaration of Interdependence.

USA

Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology

Documentary Feature

80 minutes

Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.

USA

World Outside

Live Action Short

11 minutes

A parolee backs himself into a corner one lie at a time, until he risks losing his job or going back to prison.

Brazil

Who Cares?

Documentary Feature

92 minutes

Who Cares? is a documentary about social entrepreneurs around the world.

USA

My Home

Animated Short

20 minutes

My Home is the story of a rather persistent and self-indulgent beaver who is not a very good neighbour.

Switzerland

Prora

Live Action Short

23 minutes

A journey of self-exploration, an odyssey of male adolescence, Prora is a thrilling, tender story about love and friendship.

USA

Pass It On Project

Documentary Feature

46 minutes

Pass It On Project follows a group of Brooklyn eighth-graders on a road trip to the sites of the Civil Rights Movement.

Bulgaria

Botev Is An Idiot

Live Action Short

9 minutes

Vasko, a high school student, questions the symbolic and historical figure of the Bulgarian national hero Hristo Botev.

Venezuela

High Noon

Live Action Short

13 minutes

Figueroa has to face his fears and insecurities in order to confront his enemy just outside the school at High Noon.

Mexico, USA, United Kingdom

Mojado

Live Action Short

30 minutes

A crossing of the vast desert to find work in the U.S. takes a highly unexpected turn for a young Mexican man.

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International Day of Non-Violence - 2 October

www.un.org/events/nonviolence/

Oct 2, 2007 – The International Day of Non-Violence is marked on 2 October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement ...

You've visited this page 2 times. Last visit: 10/1/12

ABDUL GHAFFAR KHAN, THE MUSLIM GANDHI FROM NW PAKISTAN (from google)

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Results 1 - 10 of about 419,000 for muslim gandhi khan. (0.22 seconds)

The Islamic Gandhi

The Islamic Gandhi The world needs to know about Abdul Ghaffar Khan ... Khan began contacting other progressive Muslim leaders in India, and together they ...
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PeacePower: A Muslim Gandhi?

A Muslim Gandhi? Badshah Khan and the World’s First Nonviolent Army. Tim Flinders, Guest Contributor. Printable Version: Download as PDF ...
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A Muslim Gandhi?

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A Muslim Gandhi? Badshah Khan and the. World’s First Nonviolent Army. T. Khan with Gandhi on an evening walk. (J. V. Metha). Tim Flinders, Guest Contributor ...
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Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A lifelong pacifist, a devout Muslim, and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, he was also known as Badshah Khan (also Bacha Khan, Urdu, Pashto: lit., ...
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theculturalconnect.com | In Need of a Muslim Gandhi

And now, if Arabs wish to fight Israeli oppression, a “Muslim Gandhi” must rise ... Most notable is Abdul Ghaffar Khan. As a Muslim leader from the Pashtun ...
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Would a Muslim Gandhi Please Step Forward?

A Muslim Gandhi who led non-violent mass protests in the Middle East would ... Most notable is the figure of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. As a Muslim leader from the ...
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Amazon.com: Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan: A Man to ...

Badshah Khan, Khudai Khidmatgars, Ghaffar Khan, Behram Khan, Khan Saheb, Mahatma Gandhi, Muslim League, Vithalbhai Collection, Red Shirts, Haji Saheb, ...
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Nonviolent Soldier of Islam

“A vivid portrait of a too-little known associate of Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a charismatic pacifist Muslim who led the Pathans of India and Pakistan in ...
www.easwaran.org/nilgiri.cfm/pageid:28/itemid:00-1 - Similar pages

A Pacifist Uncovered | The Progressive Magazine since 1909

Khan once told Gandhi of a discussion he had with a Punjabi Muslim who didn't see the nonviolent core of Islam. "I cited chapter and verse from the Koran to ...
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From Chris D:
Here is a Link to photos of ABDUL GHAFFAR KHAN THE MUSLIM GANDHI
http://images.google.com/images?q=%22ABDUL+GHAFFAR+KHAN%22&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&imgsz=small|medium|large|xlarge

The Danish Peace Academy

Nonviolence in Islam : The Case of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

By Holger Terp 2004

Introduction

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Born 1890 Dead 1988
Indian Muslim, teacher and social reformer from Punjab, the Pride of Afghan, inspired by the pacifism and the morale of Islam; later also inspired by Mohandas Gandhi's ideas on civilian disobedience and nonviolence. Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born and was functioning in the northwestern border area between India and Afghanistan in what is now Pakistan.

Name shaper: The name Abdul was given to the aristocratic Pashtun boys. He was called Ghaffar as a child. As an adult he became known as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the first Khan being a title. The same applied when Khan was called Badshah Khan, in which case Badshah means King. Indians and Pakistanis also relate to Khan as Khan Saheb, mend or master.

When he was just a young man Khan started a school for Pashtun children and made contact to other Muslims who were in favour of progress in the rest of India. In 1914 Khan began his social work and following the First World War he got contact to Mohandas Gandhi in 1919, and - like many other Indians - he was protesting against the Rowlatt Act.

Arrested first time in 1919. In the folIowing years he becomes a member of the Kalifat movement who is trying to strengthen the spiritual links between the Indian Muslims and the Turkish Sultan.

1921 Khan is elected Local Leader of the Kalifat Committee in the Northwestern border area. Khan founds the reform movement Anjumen-e Islah ul-Afaghena in 1921, the farmers' organisation Anjuman-e Zamidaran in 1927 and the youth movement Pustun Jirhah in 1927. Also Abdul Ghaffar Khan founds the nationalistic magazine Paktun in May 1928, and the Khudai Khidmatgar movement (God's Servants) in 1929, which developed and used a Muslim version of the Hindu Satyagraha used in the struggle for Indian independence of Great Britain. In April 1930 the Khudai Khidmatgar movement had 500 peace soldiers, and by the end of that year it had 300,000.

In August 1931 Gandhi seeks to pacify the British Viceroy about Khan: "I wish you would trust Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The more I see him, the more I love him. He is so sincere, he has no spiritual reservations, and he tells me that to him non-violence is not politics; it's a mantra."

According to the editor of the Magazine "Friends of India", Ellen Hørup, this was what made a lasting impression at the Karachi Congress opening ceremony in 1931:

»Abdul Ghaffar Khan who presented a company of his Red Shirts. They were no longer peasants who truddled off in their own clothes, which they themselves had coloured in all kinds of red nuances. March. Discipline. Uniform, everything was soldier -like. The officers' distinctions and the wide leather belt the British way.«.

»The Red Shirts and their leader are Muslims. They belong to one of those races, whom the British call warlike. But Abdul Ghaffar Khan has converted his 300,000 troops, who he claims to muster, into nonviolent Gandhists. With their shouting, “Inquilad Sindabad" (Live the Revolution) they weaken the discipline among those of their fellow countrymen who are enrolled in the army - and in every way, which is peaceful, they prevent the police in using violence against the people of the country.«

Immediately after the second Round Table Conference on India's independence in 1931 the British instigate a massive persecution of the members of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement and the Indian Congress Party. 5,000 members of the Khudai Khidmatgar and 2,000 members of the Congress Party are arrested in the spring of 1932 when India is practically declared in a state of war by a regime of terror.

During 1932 the Khudai Khidmatgar movement changes tactics and involves women in the movement. This causes the police to be 'kind of in a dilemma', though not so much since five police officers in Benares have to be suspended due to 'horrific reports about violence used against young female volunteers'. The oppression, the British police regime and bombings make the imprisoned Gandhi start a fast to death.

The British bomb a village in the Bajadur Valley in March 1932 and arrest Abdul Ghaffar Khan and more than 4,000 of his Red Shirts. The British bombardments in the border area continue up till 1936-1937 because, “India is a training field for active military training which can be found nowhere else in the Empire", thus concludes a British court already in 1933.

The case emerged publicly because that same year there was "disagreement between the Indian Government and the British War Office and the Air force Ministry about some defence expenses, and a tribunal was set to reach a settlement between the parties". The British tribunal seems to have 'forgotten' similar Royal Air force bases in Iraq.

The British bombardments in the border area between India and Afghanistan get consequences in international politics since the participants in the disarmament conference would not allow a British reservation in a proposed treaty on prohibition against air raids. This meant that the treaty was never signed.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan is jailed several times on account of non-violence and protests against the violent oppression administered by the British. For instance he is sentenced a two-year jail term in 1934 for mentioning the British Military's gunning down of 200 protesters; he is demanded released in connection with negotiations on the Indian constitution reform, the Government of India Act 1936.

Often there was much political and religious disagreement which resulted in direct violence between Hindus and Muslims in the periods between wars. The Muslims in India had their own party, the Muslim League; however, there were many Muslims in the Indian National Congress, too. Radical Hindus tried to get the Muslims to leave the Congress Party, however, both Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Mohandas Gandhi were trying to achieve political unity between the two religions - and the cement which kept the two very different religions on the road to Indian home rule, was, according to Gandhi, nonviolence.

The British colonialists administered the Divide-and-Rule tactics with great success in India. This is clearly seen, among others, in the Communal Award Act according to which Hindus and Muslims from 1932 onwards are to cast their votes separately.

In October 1938 the formation of a local division of the Congress Party in Hyadrabad is prohibited, and the authorities are trying to create a confrontation between Hindus and Muslims. Many thousand members of the Congress Party are arrested. In other Indian states the oppression and the need is so great that the inhabitants are fleeing to other states.

In 1942 Sir Stafford Cripps draws up a British proposal for the independence of India because the British are seeking Indian support in World War 2. At the end of the War they (the British) would accept a constitution drawn up by the Indian People, which in reality would mean independence for India.

After World War 2 the National Congress wants a united India whereas the Muslims from 1940 demand a separation of the country in an independent Pakistan and an independent Hindustan, which happens in 1947. While the Indian National Congress in 1940 discussed its feelings about World War 2, Ghaffar Khan stepped back from the Party's Working Committee with the following salute:

»Some recent resolutions of the working Committee indicate that they are restricting the use of non-violence to the fight for India's freedom against constituted authority.... I should like to make it clear that the non-violence I have believed in and preached to my brethren of the Khudai-Khidmatgars is much wider. It affects all our life, and only that has permanent value... The Khudai-Khidmatgars must, therefore, be what our name implies, servants of God and humanity by laying down our own lives and never taking any life.«

Abdul Ghaffar Khan is jailed 1942-1945. The partition of India into two states creates great problems in the northwestern border area.

War breaks out between India and Pakistan over Kashmir in 1947.

Mohandas Gandhi is killed in 1948 during an attempt to make peace between Pakistan and India

Pakistan systematically oppresses and destroys the Khudai Khitmatgar because the movement has too great a political influence and because it wanted an autonomous Republic. In July 1957 Khan founds the National Awami Party.

Ghaffar Khan spends altogether 52 years in prison in India and Pakistan. In 1962 Abdul Ghaffar Khan is awarded "Amnesty International s Prisoner of the Year ". In 1964 Khan becomes a Political Refugee in Afghanistan for six years, and during this time he is not a role model for the CIA.

Abdul Khan published the magazine "Pashto Magazine" in Pakhtoon.

Literature.

Translated by Britt Bartenbach.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, the Gandhi of Turkey

Zeki Saritoprak, John Carroll University

Zeki Saritoprak. "Bediuzzaman Said Nursi" The Islamic world. Ed. Andrew Rippin. London, New York: Routledge, 2008. 403-408.

Also: “Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Paradigm of Islamic Nonviolence.” Crescent and Dove, ed. Qamar-ul Huda. USIP, 2010. In the early half of the twentieth century, Nursi “paid dearly for his commitment to nonviolent action and for his teachings of loving all and hating none; the authorities imprisoned and tortured him regularly. Yet his nonviolent teachings live on….” --Dick.

The Author of the Risale-i Nur

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

This, the first full-length biography of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi to appear in English, answers in satisfying fashion a need so far unmet. Drawing largely on Bediuzzaman's own works and the accounts of those who either knew or met him, it describes the life, works, and struggle in the cause of Islam of this one the most important thinkers and servants of the Qur'an to emerge in the Islamic world this century. Also giving outlines of historical events, the work sets Bediuzzaman's ideas and activities in an historical context. It describes the enterprising and scholarly endeavours of Bediuzzaman's youth in the cause of the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the areas of education, constitutionalism, and Islamic Unity. And in the Second Part, traces both Bediuzzaman's silent struggle through his collection of written works, the Qur'anic commentary known as the Risale-i Nur, against the irreligion that was officially propagated in the first decades of the Turkish Republic, and the growth of the Risale-i Nur movement. This scrupulous biography, which considers all these subjects in detail, will contribute significantly to making better known to readers of English this major figure of modern Islam, and the movement he founded for the renewal of belief .

PART ONE - The Old Said

Chapter One - Childhood and Youth

Chapter Two - Istanbul before Freedom

Chapter Three - Freedom and Constitutionalism

Chapter Four - Bediuzzaman and the Thirty-First of March Incident

Chapter Five - "The Future shall be Islam's, and Islam's alone"

Chapter Six - Service in Balkans, and in the 'Special Organization'

Chapter Seven - War and Captivity

Chapter Eight - Return and Appointment to the Daru'l-Hikmeti'l-Islamiye

Chapter Nine - Supremacy of the Qur'an and Birth of the New Said

Chapter Ten - Opposition to the British and Move to Ankara

PART TWO - The New Said

Chapter One - Van

Chapter Two - Barla

Chapter Three - Eskisehir

Chapter Four - Kastamonu

Chapter Five - Denizli

Chapter Six - Emirdag

Chapter Seven - Afyon

PART THREE - The Third Said

CONCLUSION

Thursday, March 28, 2013

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Islamic scholar Gülen's poems turned into songs for international albumArtists from twelve different countries composed music for poems written by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is known for his global message of peace and inter-faith tolerance, for an album titled “Colors of Peace-Rise Up” to promote peace and tolerance.

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Life is a chain of tests, ensuing one after another. It is a human condition we experience from childhood until the moment we breathe our last. For the discerning souls, each of these minor tests is an elimination to determine the souls that make it to the finals; a matter to be determined within the human conscience and in the eyes of heavenly spirits. We...

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The Heart

What generations expect from education

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· The test

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· What generations expect from education

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Refusing to be Enemies

Refusing to be Enemies: Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation is an interview-based study that presents the voices of over 100 practitioners and theorists of nonviolence, the vast majority either Palestinian or Israeli, as they reflect on their own involvement in nonviolent resistance and speak about the nonviolent strategies and tactics employed by Palestinian and Israeli organizations, both separately and in joint initiatives. In their own words, these activists share examples of effective nonviolent campaigns and discuss obstacles encountered in their pursuit of a just peace, as well as the changes required for their organizations—and the nonviolent movement as a whole—to more successfully pursue this goal. Attention is also devoted to the special challenges of joint struggle and to hopes and visions for a shared future in the region.

Author and contributors are:

Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta (author), a Quaker Jew, lived in Jerusalem for seven years and has written widely on Palestinian and Israeli nonviolent activism and related topics.

Ursula Franklin (Foreword) is a Canadian Quaker thinker and writer, pacifist, feminist, social activist, and research scientist—a long-time member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW)—best known for her extensive writings on the political and social effects of technology.

Ghassan Andoni (editorial partner and essay contributor) is a cofounder of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

Jeff Halper (editorial partner and essay contributor) is an anthropologist, author, lecturer, political activist, and co-founder and Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

Starhawk (essay contributor) is a Jewish-American peace, justice, and environmental activist and author, with broad experience in nonviolent activism, including in Palestine.

Jonathan Kuttab (essay contributor) is a pacifist Palestinian lawyer, writer, human rights advocate, and co-author of The West Bank and the Rule of Law.

For more information and several reviews, please go to the publisher’s website and check out the Reviews page of this blog.

See rev. by Anthony Bing in Peace and Change (January 2013).

Contents of #5

The People’s Charter

Nonviolence Organizations

Nevada Desert

War Resisters League

Books

Reviews of Books

Kurlansky

Ram and Summy

Schell

Contents of #6

New Book: York and Barringer, essays on Christian Nonviolence and Pacifism

Dick: Noncooperation, One Method of Direct Action

Gene Sharp, There Are Alternatives (to violence and wars)(free book)

Nonviolence and Pacifism, Misc. Writings

Two Older Books on Nonviolence.

Judson on Children

McAllister on Women

Dick: OMNI’S TV “Book Sampler”

END NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER # 8

Sent to WS

OMNI NEWSLETTER #7 ON NONVIOLENCE, January 17, 2013. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace. (#1 Feb. 17, 2011; #2 May 13, 2011; #3 June 7, 2011, #4 September 30, 2011; #5 Sept. 21, 2012; #6 Dec. 28, 2012).

My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on Peace, Justice, and Ecology:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See: Imperialism, Militarism, Pentagon, Recruiting, Suicides, Whistleblowing, and more.

Gandhi was quoted as saying: “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.”

Nos. 1 & 2 at End

Contents of #5

The People’s Charter

Nonviolence Organizations

Nevada Desert

War Resisters League

Books

Reviews of Books

Kurlansky

Ram and Summy

Schell

Contents of #6

New Book: York and Barringer, essays on Christian Nonviolence and Pacifism

Dick: Noncooperation, One Method of Direct Action

Gene Sharp, There Are Alternatives (to violence and wars)(free book)

Nonviolence and Pacifism, Misc. Writings

Two Older Books on Nonviolence.

Judson on Children

McAllister on Women

OMNI’S TV “Book Sampler”

Contents #7

Fr. John Dear

Iowa War Protesters

Protesters’ Pro Se Defense

Christian Nonviolence

John Howard Yoder

Tripp York

John Dear

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2011)

John Dear (born 1959) is an American Catholic priest, Christian pacifist, author and lecturer. He has been arrested over 75 times^[1][2] in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice and nuclear weapons.

[hide]

· 1 Studies

· 2 A Jesuit

· 3 Peace and nonviolent commitment

· 4 Speaker and writer

· 7 See also

. . . ..

]Peace and nonviolent commitment

During that time, he founded Bay Area Pax Christi, a region of Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement, and began to arrange for Mother Teresa to intervene with various governors on behalf of people scheduled to be executed on death row. He was ordained a Catholic priest in Baltimore, Maryland on June 12, 1993, and began serving as associate pastor of St. Aloysius’ Church in Washington, D.C.

Throughout these years, John Dear was arrested in scores of nonviolent civil disobedience actions against war, injustice and nuclear weapons—from the Pentagon to Livermore Laboratories in California. On December 7, 1993, he was arrested with three others at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina, for hammering on an F-15 nuclear capable fighter bomber. He was jailed, tried and convicted of two felony counts, and served 8 months in North Carolinajails and nearly a year under house arrest in Washington, D.C. As part of the Plowshares disarmament movement, the defendants argued that they were fulfilling Isaiah’s mandate to “beat swords into plowshares,” and Jesus’ command to “love your enemies.”

From 1994-1996, John Dear served as executive director of the Sacred Heart Center, a community center for low-income African-American women and children, inRichmond, Virginia. In the Spring of 1997, he taught theology for one semester at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. From 1997-1998, he lived in Derry, Northern Ireland, as part of the Jesuit “tertianship” sabbatical program, and worked at a human rights center in Belfast.

From 1998-2001, he served as executive director of the US Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organization in the United States, based inNyack, NY. In 1999, he led a delegation of Nobel Peace Prize winners on a peace mission to Iraq, and also an interfaith delegation to Palestine/Israel.

Immediately after September 11, 2001, he served as a Red Cross coordinator of chaplains at the Family Assistance Center in Manhattan, and personally counseled thousands of relatives and rescue workers. From 2002-2004, he served as pastor to five parishes in the high desert of northeastern New Mexico, and founded Pax Christi New Mexico, a region of Pax Christi USA.

In 2006, he led a demonstration against the U.S. war in Iraq in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2009, he joined the Creech 14 in a civil disobedience protest at Creech Air Force base against the U.S. drone war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and was arrested and put in the Clark County, Nevada jail for a night. He was later found guilty but given time served.

[edit]Speaker and writer

Over the years, he has given thousands of lectures on peace, disarmament and nonviolence in churches, schools and universities across the United States, and around the world, including national speaking tours of Australia, New Zealand and England.

He writes a weekly column for the National Catholic Reporter. He is also featured in several other books and featured in a wide variety of U.S. publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is featured in the DVD documentary film, The Narrow Path, and the subject of John Dear On Peace, by Patti Normile (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2009).

[edit]Peace Awards

John Dear has received several Peace awards, including the 2010 Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award, from the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa; and the Courage of Conscience Award, from the Peace Abbey in Boston, Massachusetts.

John Dear has been also nominated several times for the Nobel Peace prize, most notably, in January, 2008, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. John Dear “is the embodiment of a peacemaker,” Archbishop Tutu wrote. “He has led by example through his actions and in his writings and in numerous sermons, speeches and demonstrations. He believes that peace is not something static, but rather to make peace is to be engaged, mind, body and spirit. His teaching is to love yourself, to love your neighbor, your enemy, and to love the world and to understand the profound responsibility in doing all of these. He is a man who has the courage of his convictions and who speaks out and acts against war, the manufacture of weapons and any situation where a human being might be at risk through violence. Fr John Dear has studied and follows the teachings of nonviolence as espoused by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. He serves the homeless and the marginalized and sees each person as being of infinite worth. I would hope that were he to receive this honor his teachings and activities might become more widely accepted and adopted. The world would undoubtedly become a better and more peaceful place if this were to happen.”

[edit]Bibliography

· Disarming the Heart: Toward a Vow of Nonviolence. (Foreword by John Stoner)

· Jean Donovan and the Call to Discipleship.

· Christ Is With the Poor: Sayings of Horace McKenna, S.J. (Ed.)

· Our God Is Nonviolent: Witnesses in the Struggle for Peace and Justice. (Foreword by Elizabeth McAlister)

· It’s a Sin to Build a Nuclear Weapon: The Writings of Richard McSorley, S.J. (Ed.)

· Oscar Romero and the Nonviolent Struggle for Justice.

· Seeds of Nonviolence (Foreword by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton)

· The God of Peace: Toward a Theology of Nonviolence (Foreword by James W. Douglass).

· The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience (Foreword by Daniel Berrigan)

· Peace Behind Bars: A Peacemaking Priest’s Journal from Jail (Foreword by Philip Berrigan).

· The Road to Peace: Writings on Peace and Justice by Henri Nouwen (Ed.)

· Jesus the Rebel (Foreword by Daniel Berrigan)

· The Vision of Peace: Writings by Mairead Maguire (Foreword by the Dalai Lama) (Ed.)

· The Sound of Listening: A Retreat Journal from Thomas Merton’s Hermitage.

· And the Risen Bread: The Selected Poetry of Daniel Berrigan, S.J. (Ed.)

· Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action.

· Christianity and Vegetarianism: Pursuing the Nonviolence of Jesus.^[1]

· Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings (Ed.)

· Mary of Nazareth, Prophet of Peace. (Foreword by Joan Chittister)

· The Questions of Jesus. (Foreword by Richard Rohr)

· Testimony: Essays by Daniel Berrigan (Ed.)

· Transfiguration (Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

· You Will Be My Witnesses (with icons by Rev. William McNichols)

· The Advent of Peace

· A Persistent Peace: An Autobiography. (Foreword by Martin Sheen)

· Put Down Your Sword: Essays on Peace and Justice.

· Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings (Ed.)

· Lazarus Come Forth!: How Jesus Confronts the Culture of Death, and How We Can Too

[edit]See also

· Ben Salmon

[edit]References

1. ^ ^a ^b Timmerman, Christiane (2007). Faith-Based Radicalism: Christianity, Islam and Judaism Between Constructive Activism and Destructive Fanaticism. Peter Lang. p. 101. ISBN 978-90-5201-050-2. Retrieved 17 September 2011.

2. ^ Murtha, William (2010). 100 Words: Two Hundred Visionaries Share Their Hope for the Future. Conari Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-57324-473-2. Retrieved 17 September 2011.

[edit]External links

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Sunday, January 13, 2013

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Iowa War Protestors Vow More Action

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Iowa War Protestors Vow More Action

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Facing trial for a sit-in at the Cedar Rapids office of U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, 11 peace activists vowed at a press conference on Tuesday to step up their efforts to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq."I was against this war six months before it started ... Iraq was not a threat to us, not a threat at all," UI student-protester David Goodner said. "You hear all of this pride and patriotism and hoo-hah after 9/11, and then you realize it's all a ruse."

The protesters include a former Catholic priest, two UI students who served in Iraq, Goodner, five additional UI students, a UI employee, and an Iowa City resident. They were arrested Feb. 26 following a planned event at the Republican senator's Federal Building office in Cedar Rapids; the group pledged not to leave until Grassley, who in days prior had voted to cut off Senate debate on a potential troop pullout, communicated with them by phone.

Grassley, who was traveling most of that day, never called. The activists, charged with simple-misdemeanor criminal trespass, will be tried simultaneously today starting at 9 a.m. in the Linn County Courthouse. The defendants will enter joint not-guilty pleas.

Their attorney, Iowa City-based lawyer Mary Wolfe, said in an interview Tuesday that her clients' case rests on the fact that the Iowa trespassing law they are charged with violating can be defended affirmatively, meaning the protesters can admit to trespass and still be acquitted if they can prove the act was justified. They face an uphill battle, though.

"They were part of the broader occupation project and felt they needed to get our representatives to listen to them in hopes that they decide the war is wrong," Wolfe said. "Our hope is the judge will feel they were justified in doing what they had to do."

Contacted Tuesday afternoon, Grassley spokeswoman Beth Pellett Levine did not provide a statement regarding the trial.

Tuesday's press conference, held at the PEACE center in Old Brick, was headlined by Kathy Kelly, the co-creator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. A two-time Noble Peace Prize nominee, Kelly was fined $200,000 in U.S. trade-sanction penalties for aiding Iraqis during the Gulf War. She said she hasn't paid a dime.

And neither, likely, will Goodner nor fellow protester and UI student Andrew Alemao, should they be convicted of criminal trespass. Both said they probably could not, with a clear conscious, submit to a fine or community service "when I didn't do anything wrong," as Goodner put it.

"And it's inexcusable that Grassley voted for not discussing the war," Alemao said. "If he's going to kill free speech in the Senate, we're going to let him know how we feel."

"We were justified in trying to make him responsive to the antiwar movement," said Ryan Merz, one of the UI students arrested. "He's been unresponsive for the last four years."

One of the protesters, former Catholic priest Frank Cordaro, is no stranger to nonviolent resistance. He has been arrested numerous times for protesting at military bases in Nebraska and elsewhere, resulting in several federal-prison sentences.

Also arrested Feb. 16 was UI graduate student and playwright Joshua Casteel, a former Army interrogator whose recently debuted play Returns details the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Opposing Grassley's Iraq Policies The 11 protesters who will stand trial: - Andrew Alemao, UI student - Joshua Casteel, UI graduate student; *Returns* author; member, Iraq Veterans Against the War - Frank Cordaro, Des Moines Catholic Worker, former priest - Megan Felt, UI student - Timothy Gauger, UI employee - David Goodner, UI student - John Paul Hornbeck, UI graduate student; member, Iraq Veterans Against the War - Ryan Merz, UI student - Conor Murphy, UI student - Rosemary Persaud, Iowa City resident - Justin Riley, UI student

[Dick: see David Goodner, “A Catholic Hero—Joshua Casteel’s Obituary.” Via Pacis (Oct. 2012).

BRIAN TERRELL, PRO SE / DEFEND YOURSELF

Brian Terrell, November 10, 2012 at 11:10 am

[dick: This version is from WAGING NONVIOLENCE, THE ARTS OF PROTEST,

“Five reasons to go to jail like you mean it” by Nadine Bloch | November 10, 2012. i read another version of Terrell’s essay in The Catholic Worker Dec. 2012]

Thank you for the discussion, Nadine. I remember sometimes in jail overhearing cell mates on the phone begging their loved ones to bail them out no matter how and then they would overhear my phone calls where I was turning down repeated offers of bail. My attempts at solidarity with fellow prisoners just made me an odder person in their eyes! still, it is a good idea to refuse bond. There are also examples of “bail solidarity,” causing pressure on the establishment by filling the jails. This is an old IWW technique. The trend to take bail for granted as a matter of course is disturbing, still, I would rather see people act and post bail than not act at all. the article pasted below is, I understand, going to be in the December issue of the CW.

PRO SE DEFENSE

IN THE CATHOLIC WORKER TRADITION

I glanced into the chamber where the judges were talking
Darkness was everywhere, it smelled like a tomb
I was ready to leave, I was already walkin’
But the next time I looked there was light in the room.

Bob Dylan, Day of the Locusts

It was the work of hospitality to the homeless that impelled me to drop out of college to join the Catholic Worker community in New York 35 years ago. It was not long though, before it came clear that “doing good” is only part of the Catholic Worker vocation. We are also required to “resist evil” and in opposing the evils of the arms race, military intervention and economic violence by acts of nonviolent civil resistance I have been arrested well over 100 times, usually in the good company of good friends including other Catholic Workers. Most of these have occasioned at least brief court appearances for which it is my habit to represent myself, appearing pro se, to use the language of the court, without the mediation of a lawyer.
For the first years of my career as a resister, I took a strictly minimalist approach to the courts. I was “not interested in justifying myself before a system whose definition of justice I am unable to relate to and which is more dependent upon the bargaining of attorneys than upon and real moral values,” I wrote in an article published in the June 1978 issue of The Catholic Worker, while in jail for blocking rail shipments of plutonium into the nuclear weapons factory at Rocky Flats, Colorado. I sometimes refused even to enter a plea on my behalf, always sat in jail rather than post bail. I was jailed several times, too, for refusing to cooperate with the courts’ terms of probation or for contempt of court after refusing to pay fines.
I still hold the beliefs of my youth that inspired my earlier disinterest in what happens in court. Experience over the years has only confirmed my conviction that the judicial system in this country is a blunt and brutal instrument of violence in the hands of a rapacious oligarchy to grind the poor and suppress dissent rather the impartial arbiter of justice that it pretends to be. Over time, though, my hard line on this and perhaps every other point upon which as a young man I brooked no concession, has softened. After much practice with elder resisters and with the advice of some good movement lawyers, I have greatly expanded my role as a pro se defendant, arguing my position before judges and juries, cross examining witnesses, filing motions, writing briefs, the whole bit. I have even on a few occasions been found not guilty!
There is much to be found in the canon of the Catholic Worker, not to mention the example of Jesus’ refusal to justify himself before Pilate, to support my earlier practice of declining to participate in the machinations of the courts. Karl Meyer remembers Dorothy Day’s terse instruction before his first arrest, protesting New York’s annual civil defense drills in 1957: “We plead guilty, and we don’t take bail.” Attempts at finding the incontrovertible set of pure Catholic Worker beliefs and practices (whether in religious orthodoxy or courtroom decorum) from which we must not deviate are however, futile exercises bound for frustration. In her monthly column after the first civil defense protest two years earlier, for example, Dorothy reported paying $1500 bail, and again in 1956, “Bail was there …and we all thankfully accepted it.”
Even the anarchist “one man revolution” Ammon Hennacy, famous for his stunning courtroom repartees such as “Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don’t need them and the bad people don’t follow them, so what good are they?” and “I am NOT disturbing the peace, I’m disturbing the war!” and who preferred to “wear out” the police and courts by persistently risking arrest rather than seek an acquittal could be surprisingly flexible. He once allowed the American Civil Liberties Union to “use” him as an “example to provide freedom for those who always moved on when told to do so” in a case that prevailed in the New York State Supreme Court involving Ammon’s arrest for selling the CW newspaper in the streets of New York City.
My increased engagement with the judicial system is perhaps mostly due to the fact that I find myself more comfortable in the courtroom In some cases, as an individual or as part of a discerning community, I will choose keep the time and effort given to the legalities to a minimum, other times the decision is made to go all out with a most elaborate defense- this decision is sometimes tactical, sometimes intuitive. I have no illusions that much good really can be accomplished there. I am very aware that a protestor being found not guilty does not bring an end to war a whit closer. More important than achieving any desired decision from the court, I hope that our courtroom strategies and arguments have been consistent with and have added to the message of our actions on the street, bringing the issues raised to a wider venue.
It is an uphill battle, speaking truth to power in the venue of the courtroom. The scene is stacked against any reality being witnessed to. Half truths, lies, excuses and evasions are promoted, truth ruthlessly suppressed. It is a system that depends upon its victims cutting their losses, pleading out for a lesser sentence regardless of guilt or innocence. The ordinary work of the court is as mundane, humdrum and boring as it is destructive of the human beings that trip into its machinery, judges, lawyers, prosecutors as well as defendants. Years of human beings’ lives and potentials are disposed of with strokes of a pen by functionaries who often as not do not even look up from their files between cases.
This monotonous drone of fractured Latinisms and legal gibberish is shattered by when defendants speak simply and clearly, by women and men taking responsibility for their actions of conscience without apology or alibi, who risk putting the system itself on trial. Good things can be told in court but only when its dominant paradigm is broken. For many judges, being asked to think and to actually make informed decisions is an intolerable effrontery. A few others, on the other hand, might be relieved by such a break in the tedium of their day; some rejoice to hear for the first time in years on the bench the constitutional questions that they studied in law school! In any case, it wakes them up.
If few judges “get it,” then it must be said that even fewer lawyers do. We do have a few precious friends in the bar who can adequately defend or advise a defendant whose aim is not to get off the hook but to “speak truth to power,” but not one in a thousand of those practicing law can be helpful to the nonviolent resister. I advise new resisters that there is far more to lose by having bad counsel than none at all. Well meaning but politically and spiritually unaware lawyers can be generous in their offers of help, but they can easily obscure or even destroy their defendants’ message. Heartbreak, distress, damaged relationships, even weightier legal consequences are more likely to come in the wake of “expert” legal representation than by even the most inexperienced novice stumbling alone through a maze of legal obscurities. Post trial regret among nonviolent resisters is more likely to be expressed as “Why did I ever listen to that lawyer?” than “Why did I go it alone?”
The best trial scenes happen when defendants go to trial with a community of support. Lawyers can be a great help as advisors or representing some defendants, effectively making them “co-counsel” with those who go pro se. The best movement lawyers do not presume to make decisions for their “clients” but act as collaborators, acting in a sense as tour guides and interpreters to travelers to a strange, exotic and confusing landscape. One advantage to this approach is that judges often will order the parameters of testimony so narrow (barring mention of the words “God,” “nuclear weapons,” international law,” “war,” for examples) as to make the proceedings meaningless. While an attorney risks losing her livelihood by speaking the truth in such circumstances, a pro se defendant can speak up risking only a reprimand or at worse a day or two in lock up for contempt.
In my times in court I am continually amazed to find how little knowledge or expertise is to be found among most judges and prosecutors, how little acquaintance with the law is needed for them to exercise their power. Usually I have been more prepared than these professionals, sometimes the only person in the room who has actually read the statute in question. Going to court with the expectation of going to jail is liberating, too, giving one the freedom to speak one’s conscience without regard to consequences. Courtrooms are deliberately designed and decorated to awe and intimidate, but it is all, in the end, smoke and mirrors. “Brace yourself,” G-d commanded the prophet Jeremiah, good advice to all resisters, “stand up and speak to them. Tell them everything that I bid you, do not let your spirit break at the sight of them.”

Christian Nonviolence (books noted on OMNI’s TV Book Sampler 2012)

Bainton, Roland H. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation.

Halpert, Stephen, ed. et al. Witness of the Berrigans: The Effect of Two Extraordinary Men on Both Church and Society as Seen Through the Eyes of Those Who Have Shared Their Commitments. 1972

Merton, Thomas. The Nonviolent Alternative.

McSorley, Richard. New Testament Basis of Peace Making.

Tryzna, Thomas. Blessed are the Pacifists: The Beatitudes and Just War Theory.

Vanderhaar, Gerard. Beyond Violence: In the Spirit of the Nonviolent Christ, 1998

Yoder (see below)

York (see below)

Zahn, Gordon C. War, Conscience and Dissent. 1967

JOHN HOWARD YODER

The Politics of Jesus [Paperback]

John Howard Yoder (Author)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews) | Like(39) Amazon.

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 1994

Tradition has painted a portrait of a Savior aloof from governmental concerns and whose teachings point to an apolitical life for his disciples. How, then, are we to respond today to a world so thoroughly entrenched in national and international affairs? But such a picture of Jesus is far from accurate, argues John Howard Yoder.

Using the texts of the New Testament, Yoder critically examines the traditional portrait of Jesus as an apolitical figure and attempts to clarify the true impact of Jesus' life, work, and teachings on his disciples' social behavior.

The book first surveys the multiple ways the image of an apolitical Jesus has been propagated, then canvasses the Gospel narrative to reveal how Jesus is rightly portrayed as a thinker and leader immediately concerned with the agenda of politics and the related issues of power, status, and right relations. Selected passages from the epistles corroborate a Savior deeply concerned with social, political, and moral issues.

In this thorough revision of his acclaimed 1972 text, Yoder provides updated interaction with publications touching on this subject. Following most of the chapters are new "epilogues" that summarize research conducted during the last two decades -- research that continues to support the insights set forth in Yoder's original work.

Currently a standard in many college and seminary ethics courses, The Politics of Jesus is also an excellent resource for the general reader desiring to understand Christ's response to the world of politics and his will for those who would follow him.

JOHN HOWARD YODER: CHRISTIAN NONVIOLENCE AND PACIFISM

1. Nonviolence: A Brief History by John Howard Yoder

www.jesusradicals.com/nonviolence-a-brief-history-by-john-howard-...

Mar 1, 2010 – John Howard Yoder's newest posthumously published book, ... from there to ground nonviolence resistance in the Judeo-Christian heritage.

2. John Howard Yoder's Political Jesus | National Catholic Reporter

ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/john-howard-yoders-political-jesus

Oct 18, 2011 – John Howard Yoder's Political Jesus ... I urge everyone interested inChristian nonviolence to read this book and study Yoder's wisdom. We're ...

3. John Howard Yoder on Christian Nonviolence and the Haustafeln

dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/5411

by IY Lee - 2012 - Related articles
<p>One of the focuses of John Howard Yoder's theology is Christian nonviolence. From the teaching and example of Jesus, who dealt with the evil in the world ...

4. John Howard Yoder's Sexual Misconduct—Part One - Peace Theology

peacetheology.net/john...yoder/john-howard-yoder’s-sexual-...

ELKHART – How theologian John Howard Yoder responds to the Mennonite .... ofnon-violence as centered in the person and work of Christ and the messianic ...

5. Remembering John Howard Yoder - Article | First Things

www.firstthings.com/processors/proc.old_article_redirect.php?id...

The 1978 Festival Quarterly featured a profile of John Howard Yoder. ... He did note that for many years he had written in defense of Christian nonviolence.

6. John Howard Yoder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Yoder

John Howard Yoder (December 29, 1927 – December 30, 1997) was an .... The Ethics of Nonviolence and Peacemaking (2009); Christian Attitudes to War, ...

7. The Politics of Jesus: John Howard Yoder: 9780802807342 ...

www.amazon.com › ... › Church Institutions & Organizations

Rating: 4.5 - 24 reviews - $13.02 - In stock

No one makes the case for the radical, total non-violence of the Christian message better than John Howard Yoder. Though he wrote many books after this one, ...

Brief ...

8. Nonviolence – A Brief History: The Warsaw Lectures – By John ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com › ... › Vol 19 Issue 1 › Abstract

Jan 5, 2012 – Nonviolence is a collection of lectures given by John Howard Yoder in... that Yoder conceived the discussion surrounding the idea of 'Christian ...

9. A Pacifist Way of Knowing: John Howard Yoder's Nonviolent ...

www.christianbook.com › Academic › Philosophy

A Pacifist Way of Knowing: John Howard Yoder's Nonviolent Epistemology (9781606088814) by John Howard Yoder, Christian Early, Ted Grimsrud.

TRIPP YORK: PACIFISM

REVIEW OF A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Common Questions about Christian Nonviolence

June 21, 2012 By Kurt Willems. Pantheos Blog Newsletter.

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Hello there! If you are new at the Pangea Blog, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed or join the email update list.

I believe that the New Testament clearly teaches that kingdom people ought to refuse violence in all its forms. Nonviolent resistance or pacifism is a regular theme on this blog. It comes up in various forms because I believe that peace is central to the fullness of the gospel of Christ.

An interesting dynamic that becomes evident on the Internet is that there are diverse opinions about Jesus and pacifism. Some of the folks who read my blog agree with my position: that violence is always off-limits for Christ followers. Others, lean in the direction of peacemaking, but don’t know how to reconcile what they see in places like the “sermon on the Mount” with what they know of the real world. This world is all jacked up and sometimes there is nothing else we can do but allow some level of violence. For these folks, they are pacifist at heart but live in the very real tension of dealing with the “what if’s.”

Many people who read this blog come from the perspective that there are times when God allows violence as a “plan B.” These folks, unlike the previous 2 perspectives, don’t necessarily will leave that the Bible teaches nonviolence. In fact, they believe that Christians ought to be soldiers and police officers in order to assure that institutions remain more just than they would otherwise be.

My observation is that anyone on the spectrum between absolute pacifism and pro-militarism asks questions about how Christian nonviolence could actually make sense in situations that might arise. Common questions include: what about Hitler and what about defending the innocent?

In this series of blogs, I developed a basic theology of nonviolence from Scripture. This series, called “Nonviolence 101,” is where I would point anyone who wants to understand how any Christian could believe that Jesus taught us to refuse to bear the sword. If you have never explored this issue, I highly recommend that you read that series.

Now, for those who are already aware of the theology of nonviolence, even if you disagree with it, I recommend a new book called “A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions About Christian Nonviolence.” This book was edited by my friend Justin Bronson Barringer and Tripp York. The forward is written by Stanley Hauerwas and the afterword is by Shane Claiborne. Besides the two aforementioned editors, other contributors include people such as: Greg Boyd, Andy Alexis-Baker, John Deere, Ingrid Lilly, Robert Brimlow, Amy Hall, Lee Camp, and several others.

Having jumped headfirst into this book I am convinced that it is the primer on all things Christian nonviolence, besides offering up a basic New Testament theology (which was not the intention of the book in the 1st place). There is no other book that I would put into the hands of someone wrestling with nonviolence than “A Faith Not Worth Fighting For.” The reason is that I’m convinced that this book contains thorough-yet-concise reflections on the questions all of us ask in a format that is academic-yet-accessible. Each chapter is rich with kingdom insights that will pay higher dividends than if you had invested the cost of the book into stocks or bonds.

This book touches on so many issues that it would be impossible for me to go through all of them. Mostly because of the tension that I am dealing with when it comes to the role of police and a kingdom shaped interaction with such authorities, I was greatly indebted to chapter 5 which asked: must Christian pacifists reject police force? This issue has come up on the blog many times so I want to highlight this chapter as the best exploration of this issue that I have ever read. This is one of the many issues that this book successfully sought out to help readers resolve in their intellect, spirituality, and ultimately in their practice.

Barringer and York say the following in the introduction section:

“We do not think it (Christianity) is worth fighting for if fighting suggests that we can maintain the radical path of Jesus while simultaneously employing violence as a means of dealing with our enemies… (5) Our chief task, therefore, is to provide serious yet accessible responses to the kinds of questions that rendered difficult a commitment to the nonviolent path of Jesus. Such questions are quite prominent: what do I do if someone is harming a loved one? What about violence in the Old Testament? What about the warrior Jesus in Revelation 19? These are all very serious and important questions we aim to answer them as a fully as possible, for what we feel matters most are the practical implications of our arguments. The various contributors to this volume deal accordingly with issues of biblical interpretation, theological analysis, historical problems, hypothetical situations, and matters of daily living in hopes of, at least, complicating the manner by which many of us avoid the subversive nature of Jesus’ message. We hope such a format takes seriously the concerns of the reader as we respond to a number of very important objections to Christian nonviolence (7).”

Based on the thesis they give above, I want to go on the record and say that they have accomplished this task. I highly, without reservation, recommend this book to anyone willing to risk discovering a Christian faith full of risk, self-denial, cross shaped love, and ultimately hope.

I leave you with a video interview with my buddy Justin Bronson Barringer where he introduces the book and wrestles with nonviolence.

1.

2. MORE COMMENTARY

3. Amazon.com: A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly ...

www.amazon.com › ... › Christian Books & Bibles › Christian Living

$24.62 - In stock

... Nonviolence (Peaceable Kingdom) [Multiple Contributors, Tripp York, Justin ... By countering common objections to the Christian peace witness, the book ...

4. Collection of essays answers fundamental questions of nonviolence ...

ncronline.org/.../collection-essays-answers-fundamental-questions-...

Sep 18, 2012 – It's hard to handle the profound challenges of Gospel nonviolence, ...Asked Questions about Christian Nonviolence (edited by Tripp York and Justin ... I say this is a necessary book, even required reading for every Christian ...

5. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For - Wipf and Stock Publishers

https://wipfandstock.com/.../A_Faith_Not_Worth_Fighting_For_Add...

May 17, 2012 – Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian NonviolenceEdited by Tripp York, Justin Bronson Barringer. -. Book Description ...

6. How Am I Not in This Book? A Pacifist's Lament/Book Review ...

www.patrolmag.com/.../how-am-i-not-in-this-book-a-pacifists-lament...

Jun 28, 2012 – Barringer and York quote Gandhi on this: “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.

7. The Case for Christian Nonviolence // Asbury Seedbed

seedbed.com/feed/the-case-for-christian-nonviolence

Nov 1, 2012 – I was first introduced to the idea of Christian nonviolence in a ... As Tripp York and I wrote in the introduction to our new book A Faith Not Worth ...

8. Christian pacifism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_pacifism

Christian pacifism is the theological and ethical position that any form of violence is .....This understanding typifies Walter Wink's book, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way..... Bayside, New York: Holocaust Resource Center and Archives.

9. INTERVIEW: Tripp York Answers Questions About 'A Faith Not Worth ...

theamericanjesus.net/?p=7159

Jul 2, 2012 – Last week I posted my review of the new book on Christian pacifism, A Faith Not Worth Fighting For. Today I'm interviewing Tripp York, co-editor ...

10. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing commonly asked ...

www.goodreads.com/book/.../13604795-a-faith-not-worth-fighting-f...

Rating: 4.4 - 11 votes

Jun 1, 2012 – Goodreads: Book reviews, recommendations, and discussion ... For: Addressing commonly asked questions about Christian nonviolence ... editors Justin Bronson Barringer and Tripp York have assembled a number of essays ...

11. Ask a Pacifist...(Response)

rachelheldevans.com/blog/ask-a-pacifist-response

Mar 22, 2012 – These were tough questions, but our friend Tripp York responded with wit, ... Tripp is also committed to Christian nonviolence, and in June releases a book,... Christian nonviolence is neither a political theory nor a pragmatic ...

Contents #1 Feb. 17, 2011

Gene Sharp

Civil Resistance Success (2 essays)

Zunes on Tunisia and Egypt

OMNI UA Endowment

Books

Organizing

Jesus

Palestinian Film

Contents of #2 May 13, 2011

Nonviolence Convergence in Arkansas

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Waging Nonviolence Blog

PJSA Nonviolence Blog

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence Mentors

Nonviolence Summer Program

Peace Glossary

Peace Journals

Journal of Aggression…

Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research

Books

Boulding and Ikeda

Kurlansky

END NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #7

Sent to WS?

OMNI NEWSLETTER #6 ON NONVIOLENCE, DECEMBER 28, 2012. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace. (#3 June 7, 2011, #4 September 30, 2011; #5 Sept. 21, 2012).

My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on Peace, Justice, and Ecology:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See: Imperialism, Militarism, Pentagon, Recruiting, Suicides, Whistleblowing, and more.

APATHY

Nos. 3 and 4 at end.

Contents of #5

The People’s Charter

Nonviolence Organizations

Nevada Desert

War Resisters League

Books

Reviews of Books

Kurlansky

Ram and Summy

Schell

Contents of #6

New Book: York and Barringer, essays on Christian Nonviolence and Pacifism

Dick: Noncooperation, One Method of Direct Action

Gene Sharp, There Are Alternatives (to violence and wars)(free book)

Nonviolence and Pacifism, Misc. Writings

Two Older Books on Nonviolence.

Judson on Children

McAllister on Women

OMNI’S TV “Book Sampler”

Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

1. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Edited by Tripp York, Justin Bronson Barringer.

2. Amazon.com: A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly ...

www.amazon.com › ... › Christian Books & Bibles › Christian Living

$24.62 - In stock

... Nonviolence (Peaceable Kingdom) [Multiple Contributors, Tripp York, Justin ... By countering common objections to the Christian peace witness, the book ...

3. Collection of essays answers fundamental questions of nonviolence ...

ncronline.org/.../collection-essays-answers-fundamental-questions-...

4. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For - Wipf and Stock Publishers

https://wipfandstock.com/.../A_Faith_Not_Worth_Fighting_For_Add...

May 17, 2012 – Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian Nonviolence. Edited by Tripp York, Justin Bronson Barringer. -. Book Description ...

5. How Am I Not in This Book? A Pacifist's Lament/Book Review ...

www.patrolmag.com/.../how-am-i-not-in-this-book-a-pacifists-lament...

Jun 28, 2012 – Barringer and York quote Gandhii on this: “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.

6. The Case for Christian Nonviolence // Asbury Seedbed

seedbed.com/feed/the-case-for-christian-nonviolence

Nov 1, 2012 – I was first introduced to the idea of Christian nonviolence in a ... As Tripp York and I wrote in the introduction to our new book A Faith Not Worth ...

7. Christian pacifism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_pacifism

8. INTERVIEW: Tripp York Answers Questions About 'A Faith Not Worth ...

theamericanjesus.net/?p=7159

Jul 2, 2012 – Last week I posted my review of the new book on Christian pacifism, A Faith Not Worth Fighting For. Today I'm interviewing Tripp York, co-editor ...

9. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing commonly asked ...

www.goodreads.com/book/.../13604795-a-faith-not-worth-fighting-f...

Rating: 4.4 - 11 votes

10. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Common Questions about Christian ...

www.patheos.com/.../a-faith-not-worth-fighting-for-commo...

by Kurt Willems - in 546 Google+ circles - More by Kurt Willems

Jun 21, 2012 – Having jumped headfirst into this book I am convinced that it is the primer on all things Christian nonviolence, besides offering up a basic New ...

11. Ask a Pacifist...(Response)

rachelheldevans.com/blog/ask-a-pacifist-response

DIRECT ACTION AND NONCOOPERATION

By Dick Bennett

Working nonviolently for peace, justice, and the environment can engage us on three levels: education, protest, and resistance. First, we must ensure that above all we must be informed about the local, state, and national issues we consider crucial, before we attempt to inform the public. Our power begins here; our slogan is “Knowledge is Power.” From this foundation we can launch our appeals and protests against the individuals and institutions that choose, for example, violence and wars, warming and climate change. If after pressing our demands for the people’s sovereignty as thoroughly as we could and receiving only indifference and rebuke, we must turn, as did Gandhi and King, to direct action, which is what they meant by nonviolent resistance. Without using armed force, we must force the stubborn agents of oppression and destruction to change by deploying one or a combination of the methods analyzed, for example, by Gene Sharp, or narrated, for example, in A Force More Powerful.

During the preceding century of slaughter, men and women on all continents also extraordinarily struggled against adversaries of all kinds to reclaim sovereignty of and for the people, to remove the palace and build the ballot. Noncooperation was one of their methods. Thoreau in his “On Civil Disobedience,” 1848, condemned cooperation with a government that permitted slavery and initiated wars of aggression. He affirmed the right to refuse allegiance to a tyrannical government and urged the people of the USA refuse to pay their tax bills to stop state violence.

Thoreau influenced Tolstoy who influenced Gandhi, who wrote in his preface to a reprint of an essay by Tolstoy: “An oppressor’s efforts will be in vain if we refuse to submit to his tyranny.” This is true because, whether exerted against the violence of the Pentagon and wars, a military occupation, the fossil fuel industry, bigotry--racial, religious, or patriarchal--or any other oppression, noncooperation can expose the illegitimacy of power based upon fear, killing, destruction of property, and the legitimacy based upon consent.

This legitimacy can end command-obedience power and can endure in the rule of law derived from people power in republics. And this legitimacy was achieved by movements when unjust laws were not obeyed, when people refused to work or buy, when public services stopped. Noncooperation worked successfully against autocracy in India, South Africa, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries, and is at work in the global BDS Movement against Israel. And it is only one method of nonviolent resistance.

GENE SHARP, THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES (to violence, the Pentagon, wars), a free book

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/TARA.pdf

NONVIOLENCE AND PACIFISM

Scholarly articles for Nonviolence and Pacifism

The Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism - Fleischman - Cited by 7

… League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915- … - Bennett - Cited by 23

The meanings of non-violence: a typology (revised - Sharp - Cited by 30

Search Results

1. Pacifism vs. Non-violence - tribe.net

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Pacifism vs. Non-violence. Tue, July 29, 2008 - 11:25 PM. Interesting ahh-ha moment this evening... I've often considered myself a Pacifist for various reasons.

2. Nonviolence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The term "nonviolence" is often linked with or even used as a synonym for pacifism; however, the two concepts are fundamentally different. Pacifism denotes the ...

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3. The Difference Between Nonviolence and Pacifism | | Occupy Oakland

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Feb 9, 2012 – The Difference Between Nonviolence and Pacifism. A tremendous amount of controversy is being stirred up in Occupy Oakland by the tactics of ...

4. BLACKFIVE: The difference between pacifism and non-violence

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The difference between pacifism and non-violence. Posted By Uncle Jimbo • [ February 17, 2011]. Mark Krikorian makes a distinction that is too often ignored.

5. Pacifism v. Non-Violence As a Tactic | Shall Not Be Questioned

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Jan 19, 2011 – Very good comment, rare for HuffPo, I think, over at Prof. Adam Winkler's post talking about Dr. King's guns: Pacifism and non-violent activism ...

6. Pacifism versus Non-Violence

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NON-VIOLENCE VERSUS PACIFISM: Bill Hulet. (Printer friendly version.) One of the defining values of Greens is our commitment to non-violence. However ...

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Essay: Nonviolence vs. Pacifism - Authors Guild

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NON-VIOLENCE VS PACIFISM: A PSYCHIATRIST'S VIEW by E. James Lieberman Our Generation 2:4, 1962. ~~ ~~ ~~. Note: I recovered this by scanning the ...

8. Nonviolence & Pacifism « The Speed of Dreams: Since 1492

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Jan 16, 2012 – Posts about Nonviolence & Pacifism written by Enaemaehkiw Túpac Keshena.

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3 answers - Jun 3, 2009

Top answer: The term "nonviolence" is often linked with or even used as a synonym for pacifism; however, the two concepts are fundamentally different. Pacifism ...

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10. Amazon.com: Nonviolence & Pacifism: A Thorough Guide

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30+ items – This is not a half-hearted Listmania! List... Here is a list of books ...

1. Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets) by Walter Wink	$9.99	$2.68
8. Choosing Against War: A Christian View by John D. Roth	$9.99	$0.48

TWO OLDER BOOKS from NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS

Judson, Stephanie, ed. A Manual on Nonviolence and Children. Resources for children and adults to resolve problems nonviolently and for creating the peacemakers of tomorrow. 1984.

McAllister, Pam, ed. Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism, and Nonviolence. 1983. “Stressing the connection between patriarchy and war, sex and violence, this book makes it clear that nonviolence can be an assertive, positive force.” Ms. Magazine. Over 50 contributors on such topics as “Women and the Struggle Against Militarism” plus poems, photos, annot. Biblio. “Best new book—1983”—Win Magazine Annual Book Poll. (Dick)

OMNI’S NONVIOLENCE BOOK SAMPLER PROGRAM ON COMMUNITY TV’S “SHORT TAKES” http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

BOOK SAMPLER 2012: 87 BOOKS ON NONVIOLENCE, RESISTANCE, PEACEMAKING, PEACEMAKERS, CULTURES OF PEACE, COMPASSION, EMPATHY, ALTRUISM, LOVE, TOLERATION, EDUCATION, NEGOTIATION, CONFLICT RESOLUTION, DIPLOMACY, FORGIVENESS, PEACE PLACES, PACIFISM, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION

Reported by Dick Bennett during 2012 over Public Access TV’s “Short Takes” (5 minutes), 3 books each ST. http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Contents of #3

Dalai Lama on Nonviolence

Nonviolence History: A Force More Powerful

Civilian Defense
Nonviolent Communication

Anger Positive?
Video from Metta Institute

Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance
Resources/Bibliography (see Newsletters #1 and #2)

Contents of #4

Books on Nonviolence

Books and Film on Nonviolence in Palestinian/Israeli Conflict

Chenoweth and Stephan on Civil Resistance/Nonviolence

Long on Christian Nonviolence

Pal on Islamic Nonviolence

Nonviolence at Liberty Plaza, Cairo

END NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #6

Sent to WS

OMNI NEWSLETTER #5 ON NONVIOLENCE, September 21, 2012 (UN International Day of Peace), Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace (#3 June 7, 2011, #4 September 30, 2011).

My blog: The War Department and Peace Heroes

http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/

Newsletters on Peace, Justice, and Ecology:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See: Imperialism, Militarism, Pentagon, Recruiting, Suicides, Whistleblowing, and more.

APATHY

Contents of #3

Dalai Lama on Nonviolence

Nonviolence History: A Force More Powerful

Civilian Defense
Nonviolent Communication

Anger Positive?
Video from Metta Institute

Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance
Resources/Bibliography (see Newsletters #1 and #2)

Contents of #4

Books on Nonviolence

Books and Film on Nonviolence in Palestinian/Israeli Conflict

Chenoweth and Stephan on Civil Resistance/Nonviolence

Long on Christian Nonviolence

Pal on Islamic Nonviolence

Nonviolence at Liberty Plaza, Cairo

Contents of #5

The People’s Charter

Nonviolence Organizations

Nevada Desert

War Resisters League

Books

Reviews of Books

Kurlansky

Ram and Summy

Schell

Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Launch of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’

May 25, 2011 by robertjburrowes http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/

The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World was launched simultaneously on 11 November 2011 at several locations around the world.

The aim of this Charter is to create a worldwide movement to end violence in all its forms. The People’s Charter will give voice to the millions of ordinary people around the world who want an end to war, oppression, environmental destruction and violence of all kinds. We hope that this Charter will support and unite the courageous nonviolent struggles of ordinary people all over the world.

As you will see, The People’s Charter describes very thoroughly the major forms of violence in the world. It also presents a strategy to end this violence.

We can each play a part in stopping violence and in creating a peaceful and just world. Some of us will focus on reducing our consumption, some of us will parent our children in a way that fosters children’s safety and empowerment, some of us will use nonviolent resistance in the face of military violence. Everyone’s contribution is important and needed. We hope this Charter will be a springboard for us all to take steps to create a peaceful and just world, however small and humble these steps may be. By listening to the deep truth of ourselves, each other and the Earth, each one of us can find our own unique way to help create this nonviolent world.

Why did we choose 11 November as the date to launch The People’s Charter?

‘When I was a boy … all the people of all the nations which fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was at that minute in nineteen-hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields at that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.’
(Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an atheist humanist, in his novel Breakfast of Champions.)

Organisation

So far, the organising groups in various locations have organised launch events in their localities around the world. Some groups are organising follow-up events so that other people have the chance to become involved in local, personal networks.

See ‘Future Events’ for information about the next public event nearest you.

Signing the Charter

The People’s Charter can be read and signed online: click on ‘Read Charter’ or ‘Sign Charter’ in the sidebar. http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/about/

‘A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.’ Mohandas K. Gandhi

The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World was posted on 25 May 2011.

RobertJ.Burrowes--flametree@riseup.net
AnitaMcKone--flametree@riseup.net
Anahata Giri – anahatagiri@gmail.com

See below for the Charter text.

TEXT OF THE PEOPLE’S CHARTER

THE PEOPLE’S CHARTER TO CREATE A NONVIOLENT WORLD

Launch date: 11 November 2011

Recognising that:

1. The United States government dominates world affairs and is engaged in a perpetual war (sometimes presented as a ‘war on terror’) to secure control of essential diminishing natural resources (including oil, water and strategic minerals) from what the 2010 United States Quadrennial Defense Review www.defenselink.mil/qdr refers to as ‘the Global commons’ (which means, in effect, anywhere in the world, including the land of other peoples). The USA, with less than 5% of the world’s population, consumes 33% of the world’s resources

2. The United States government (sometimes together with pliant government allies in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, America and Australia) maintains occupation forces in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the Mariana Islands

3. The Chinese government occupies Tibet

4. The Israeli government occupies Palestine

5. The French government occupies Kanaky and French Polynesia

6. The Indonesian government occupies West Papua

7. The Chinese government violently suppresses the people of China, including practitioners of the gentle, meditative art of Falan Dafa, some of whose imprisoned members are subjected to forced organ removal

8. The populations of many countries including (but not limited to) Burma, China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe are violently suppressed by militarily-backed dictatorships

9. Indigenous peoples in many countries have been dispossessed of their land, culture, spirituality and human rights by settler populations from other countries

10. The use of nuclear materials to generate electricity and create weapons of mass destruction exposes humankind and other species to unnecessary and unacceptable risks of radioactive contamination

11. The burning of fossil fuels (producing carbon dioxide) and extensive animal agriculture (producing methane) is precipitating catastrophic alterations in climate patterns

12. The Earth’s natural processes are being degraded and destroyed by human violence including (but not limited to) the destruction of ecosystems such as forests, rivers, wetlands, grasslands and coral reefs; the over-exploitation and pollution of fresh water supplies; and the degradation and poisoning of industrial agricultural and fishing systems, all of which are precipitating an unnatural and accelerating rate of species extinctions

13. There is a massive and increasing number of refugees and internally displaced persons caused by the use of military violence and climatically induced ‘natural’ disasters

14. Many people devote their energy to the design, manufacture and/or use of weapons and torture equipment in order to harm, mutilate or kill fellow human beings

15. The global economic system, maintained by Western military violence, results in the death through starvation-related diseases of one child in Africa, Asia or Central/South America every five seconds, often denies ordinary working men and women a fair return for their labour, forces many people in industrialised economies into poverty and/or homelessness, and ruthlessly exploits the natural environment and nonhuman species

16. Violent and/or discriminatory practices often deny many groups – including (but not limited to) children, aged people, women, working people, indigenous peoples, racial groups, ethnic groups, religious groups, cultural groups, people with particular sexual orientations, people with disabilities, military personnel, incarcerated people and nonhuman species – the opportunities to which they are entitled as living beings on Earth

17. The global slave trade denies 27,000,000 human beings the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals – especially women and children – to lives of sexual slavery, forced labour or childhood military service

18. Terrorist organisations, criminal organisations, drug cartels and cults use terror and violence to exploit ordinary people

19. There is widespread violence in the family home, in schools, at the workplace and on the street

20. All of the violent behaviours described above have their origin in adult violence against children: this violence generates the warped emotional and behavioural patterns that later manifest as adult violence in its many forms. See Why Violence? http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence

21. It is human violence – against ourselves, each other and the Earth – that threatens to cause human extinction

22. National governments, international government organisations and global institutions (such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation), all of which represent national elites, are not capable of addressing the above problems…

The Purpose of The People’s Charter:

This Charter identifies eight aims of a nonviolent strategy to mobilise ordinary people, local groups, communities, non-government organisations and international networks opposed to these and other manifestations of human violence to explicitly renounce the use of violence themselves and to take nonviolent action to strategically resist this violence in all of its forms for the sake of humankind, future generations, all other species on Earth and the Earth itself.

The aims of this nonviolent strategy are as follows:

1. To convince or, if necessary, nonviolently compel the United States government and United States corporations to no longer use military violence and economic coercion to control world affairs for the benefit of the United States elite and its allied national elites in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, America and Australia

2. To convince or, if necessary, nonviolently compel the United States government and its allied governments to completely dismantle their military (including nuclear) forces and overseas bases, to decolonise or end their occupation of all occupied territories, and to instead adopt a strategy of nonviolent defence

3. To encourage all individuals and organisations currently resisting the military and/or economic domination of the United States elite and its allied elites to recognise the shared nature of our struggle and, when appropriate, to coordinate at local, regional or global level our acts of nonviolent resistance to this domination

4. To support the development and implementation of comprehensive nonviolent strategies for the liberation of Afghanistan, Burma, China, French Polynesia, Iran, Iraq, Kanaky, the Mariana Islands, North Korea, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Syria, Tibet, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, West Papua, Zimbabwe and all other countries living under the yoke of occupation or dictatorship. (See Robert J. Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach, State University of New York Press, 1996.)

5. To support the development and implementation of comprehensive nonviolent strategies to end violence in the home, slavery, the sexual trafficking of women and children, the use of child soldiers, as well as the existence of terrorist and criminal organisations, drug cartels and cults

6. To support the development and implementation of comprehensive nonviolent strategies to end the marginalisation and exploitation of particular identity groups including (but not limited to) indigenous peoples; women; workers; racial, ethnic, religious and cultural groups; children; aged people; military personnel; incarcerated people; refugees and internally displaced peoples; those who are homeless and/or live in poverty; people with a particular sexual orientation; people with disabilities and nonhuman species

7. To encourage the people of the industrialised world (except those already living in poverty) to each accept personal responsibility for reducing their consumption of global resources to a level that is commensurate with genuine equity for all human beings on Earth and the ecological carrying capacity of the Earth itself, particularly given the needs of other species. See The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth http://tinyurl.com/flametree

8. To encourage all adults to understand the violence they (unconsciously) inflict on children and to take responsibility for ending this.

The methods of this nonviolent strategy are as follows:

1. To listen deeply to ourselves, each other and the Earth

2. To engage in acts of nonviolent resistance and creation: acts of nonviolent protest and persuasion, acts of nonviolent noncooperation and acts of nonviolent intervention, including the creation of new organisations, communities, institutions and structures that genuinely meet the needs of all beings in a just, peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner. (For ideas about nonviolent actions, see Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973.)

The People’s Charter Pledge:

Having read and agreed with this Charter:

1. I pledge to listen to the deep truth of myself, others and the Earth

2. I pledge to make every effort to progressively eliminate the violence I inflict on myself, others and the Earth

3. I pledge to engage in acts of nonviolent resistance and/or creation to bring about a nonviolent future on Earth

Signing The People’s Charter:

If you are committed to acting on this Charter, please add your name and country to the list of Charter participants HERE.

For Ideas:

If you need ideas to fulfil your pledge, please consult the websites and books cited in The People’s Charter.

You are welcome to invite others to consider signing this Charter.

Robert J. Burrowes – Australia
Anita McKone – Australia
Anahata Giri – Australia

NONVIOLENCE ORGANIZATIONS

James Richard Bennett. Peace Movement Directory. 2001. See Index.

NEVADA DESERT EXPERIENCE

An action group based at Las Vegas, NV.

Publishes Desert Voices ; vol. 24, #4, Winter 2011 plans actions against drones, confront tourists visiting the Atomic Testing Museum, “Sacred Peace Walk” annually from Las Vegas to the Nevada National Security Site, frequent petitions to Pres. and Congress, and more. info@NevadaDesertExperience.org; NevadaDesertExperience.org (D)

Programs

· Tear Gas Campaign

§ Organizing for Peace

§ Counter Recruitment

§ War Tax Resistance

§ GI Rights/Resistance

§ Speakers/Training

§ WIN Magazine

ACTIVIST PROFILE

Brandywine Peace Community

BPC at Occupy Philly

Brandywine Peace Community, a long-time WRL affiliate, has been throwing their support behind the Occupy movement with "Welcome, Occupy Philly" signs and banners that made the connection between the corporate control of U.S. democracy and the corporate militarism of such war profiteers as Lockheed Martin, the world's #1 war profiteer and Pentagon weapons producer.

Read More...

IN MEMORIUM

Karl Bissinger, 1914-2008

Beloved longtime WRL staff member Karl Bissinger succumbed to a stroke on November 19. Karl was an energetic and creative fund raiser, an enthusiastic civil disobedient, a generous host to countless meetings, and a loyal and supportive friend.

Ralph DiGia: 1914-2008

Ralph DiGia Ralph, a lifelong war resister and pacifist, died February 1 in New York City. Ralph had been the heart and soul of WRL since he came on staff shortly after the end of World War II.

Bill Sutherland, 1918-2010

Bill Sutherland, unofficial ambassador between the peoples of Africa and the Americas for over fifty years, died peacefully on January 2, 2010. He was 91.

Marv Davidov

Marv Davidov
Photo courtesy Tom Bottolene/Circlevision.org

Long-time Minnesota peace activist Marv Davidov died on January 14 at age 80. Marv was well known for his role in starting the Honeywell Project, which he helped start in 1968 to oppose the anti-personnel weapons made by the Minneapolis company and used against civilians in Southeast Asia. Marv was one of the Freedom Riders, and was on the Quebec to Guantanamo Walk organized by the Committee for Nonviolent Action in the early '60's.

Read more

24th Annual WRL RAFFLE FOR RESISTANCE 2012

Nearly Twice as Many Prizes!
$3 per ticket, $25 for a sheet of 12

WRL Raffle for Resistance 2012

Your raffle contribution directly supports the campaigns and programs of War Resisters League in our efforts to end war and eliminate its causes. We try to choose prizes with some special meaning: unique, handcrafted items and/or those from people or companies who are members and friends in the struggle for justice and peace. We are eager for new suggestions and prize donations. Please let us hear from you!

Surprise a friend or two by sending in a few tickets with their names as well!

GRAND PRIZE - FOUR NIGHTS ON CAPE COD
Have a quiet getaway on Cape Cod, MA. The three-room house, kindly offered by member Craig Simpson, is next to a nature preserve near Hyannis and Woods Hole and includes a wonderful screened-in porch! (Travel is not included.)

And 23 more prizes, including books, music, artwork and handcrafted jewelry!

Facing Tear Gas is a story-telling project of War Resisters League by and for people that have experienced tear gas all over the world. By making the links between these stories we hope to bring those that profit off of tear gas further into the public consciousness and, along with that, the inspiring movements the gas is used to squelch. This is part of a broader campaign to end the US’s role in the business of tear gas in solidarity with global nonviolent uprisings and those facing US-backed repression everywhere, including within the US.

Get more info at http://facingteargas.tumblr.com/

and https://www.warresisters.org/content/info-tear-gas

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin, and many groups—from the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee and inter-faith Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) to the labor federation AFL-CIO to countless educational institutions—are engaged in celebrating this man of humble beginnings. Rustin, however, was more than simply a campaigner for individual liberties—be they for Black or gay folks. He was a revolutionary critic of the status quo, one whose commitment to radical pacifism and ability to bring together broad and often conflicting peoples made a mark still very relevant today.

This slideshow, put together by the War Resisters League (WRL, for whom Rustin served as Executive Secretary from 1953 till 1965—including the period when he was chief architect of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom), focuses on this radical bridge-building aspect of Rustin’s life.

View the slide show on Slideshare

Read More...

New! WIN Magazine Summer 2012

WIN Summer 2012 cover

Cover photo by Eric Drooker (Drooker.com)

Our summer issue focuses on music, with articles on using rap music in a social justice curriculum, hip hop against homophobia and heavy metal songs you forgot were antiwar.

The issue also features an interview with Basra, Iraq labor activist Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi, a speech by Bayard Rustin, conscientious objector and civil and gay rights pioneer (who would have turned 100 this year) , and reviews, news and reports from WRL organizers.

Check out the Summer 2012 issue of WIN

Subscribe to WIN!

To mark the NATO summit to held in May 2012 in Chicago and the simultaneous G8 summit held in Camp David, Maryland, War Resisters League and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance released a new popular education resource.

Download the curriculum here.

Download the supplement to the curriculum.

2012 Peace Calendar Cover

$ 5 each -- Order Online Now!

Organize This!
A 1955-2011 Retrospective

War Resisters League
2012 Peace Calendar

Edited by Liz Roberts
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
Afterword by Wendy Schwartz

BUY NOW!

FY 2013 Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes - Pie Chart Flyer

The War Resisters League's famous "pie chart" flyer analyzes the Federal Fiscal Year 2013 Budget (released in February 2012). Perfect for Tax Day!

Each year, War Resisters League analyzes federal funds outlays as presented in detailed tables in "Analytical Perspectives" of the Budget of the United States Government. Our analysis is based on federal funds, which do not include trust funds -- such as Social Security -- that are raised separately from income taxes for specific purposes. What you pay (or don't pay) by April 15, 2012 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget.

Read More...

MORE BOOKS

--Cousineau, Phil, ed. Beyond Forgiveness: Reflections on Atonement. Josey-Bass, 2011. Rev. Veterans for Peace (Fall 2011).

Kurlansky, Mark. Nonviolence. (review below)

Senthil Ram and Ralph Summy. Nonviolence.

--Schell, Jonathan. The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. Metropolitan/Holt, 2003. (review below)

--Willson, S. Brian. Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson. PM, 2011. Rev. Veterans for Peace (Fall 2011).

--Zinn, Howard. The Power of Nonviolence.

Nonviolence: A History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Kurlansky

Reviewed by Tim Wolcott

Non-violence seems like harmless idea, it being rooted in compassionate and peaceful interests. Why is it then that practitioners of non-violence are often seen as enemies of the state? Mark Kurlansky’s book illuminates that dark corner where commercial, religious and state power often collude to perpetuate violence and marginalize activists for peace. It also delivers context to our struggle and hope for our prevailing.

Violence between combatants is disturbing and wasteful enough, but when statistics show that civilians are increasingly the majority of the casualties of war (In World War I, 20% of the casualties were civilian. In WWII, 67% were civilian. In 21st century warfare, such as Iraq, the casualties may be as high as 90%), there is more impetus to eschew violence. Many believe that violence is inevitable, however, - hard wired into human behavior. Kurlansky posits that the source of violence is not human nature, but a lack of imagination. He asserts that, "War’s inevitability does not rest on natural law, but on individuals incapable of conceiving of another path."

The Nazis are often cited as an example of an enemy against whom non-violence would have been futile. This book contends that in fact, more Jews were saved by non-violence than by violence. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved by individuals who risked the lives of their entire family to hide a Jew or a Jewish family. Moreover, the governments of Denmark and Bulgaria, a German ally, saved thousands by refusing to cooperate in anti- Semitic measures.

Etienne de la Boetie asked in a 1548 essay on dictators, "What could the dictator do to you if you did not connive with them who plunders you?" Gandhi said, "No government can exist for a single moment without the cooperation of the people, willing or forced, and if people withdraw their cooperation in every detail, the government will come to a standstill". History shows that this became the successful strategy of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in their resistance to Soviet Union dictatorship.

The presumption that political conflicts must necessarily be resolved through warfare wasn’t always the case. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was known to have said, "If the distant peoples do not submit, then build up culture and character and so win them." In his The Analects was the idea that the military is essential to government, but less important than other functions. The current US Department of Defense including the VA requires 57% of the federal budget. How did we arrive at the point where endless war dominates our lives, where national treasure is squandered while civilian support systems wither away? Non-violence traces the history of this evolution.

The ideology of warfare that has been repeatedly invoked for the past thousand years of Western history grew out of Bishop Augustine of Hippo’s thesis of "just war" in the fifth century. He believed that if a pious man believed in a just cause and truly loved his enemies, it was permissible to go to war and to kill the enemies he loved because he was doing it in a high-minded way. Pope Urban II developed a propaganda campaign to launch the first Crusade at the end of the eleventh century based on this ideology. Pope Urban’s speech became a textbook model for rallying the troops. It contained all the traditional lies by which people are convinced to kill and be killed. The enemy is evil, and we have God on our side. Those who did not support the war should be and would be singled out as immoral. President Obama invoked the concept of "just war" to rationalize his "surge" in Afghanistan.

Neither Kurlansky nor I believe that religions necessarily promote war. Most religions shun warfare and hold non-violence as the only moral route toward political change. However, religion and its language have often been co-opted by the violent people who have been governing societies. Once a state takes over a religion, the religion loses its non-violent teachings. The state imagines it is impotent without a military, because it cannot conceive of power without force.

Peter Chelcicky in fifteenth century Prague was one of the first to see that the cause of perpetual war lies not in the nature of man, but in the nature of power. He believed that to establish a world living in peace would require the abandonment of power politics. He saw war as a conspiracy in which the poor were duped into fighting to defend the privileges of the rich. He was even opposed to universities promoting a militaristic, wealth-hoarding society. His thoughts still resonate today.

America’s Founding Fathers were greatly influenced by the 17th century Oxford scholar Thomas Hobbes who believed that man had a selfish nature and that continued warfare was his natural state. He also believed in man’s acquisitive nature and that until contracts to the contrary were established, he had the right to take what he wanted (and that we did in earnest - starting with Indian lands, continuing with Spanish, Mexican, Philippine, Iraqi, etc.).

William Penn and his Quaker allies who controlled the Pennsylvania Assembly denied the state its Hobbesian rights to war, colonial expansion and slavery. Quaker control of the colony lasted only 74 years, until 1756, when they were voted out of office. The central problem was that the pacifist state was part of a larger colonial system that vehemently rejected non-violence.

According to Kurlansky, it is always easier to promote war than peace, easier to end the peace than end the war, because peace is fragile and war is durable. Once the shots are fired, those who oppose the war are simply branded as traitors.

While it is perfectly feasible to convince a people faced with brutal repression to rise up in a suicidal attack on their oppressor, it is almost impossible to convince them to meet deadly violence with non-violent resistance. Alexander McKeown, VP Amer. Fed. of Hosiery Workers, in 1937 is quoted, "The fact of the matter is that non-violence is a tactic that requires perhaps a higher type of courage and devotion than is called for in ordinary physical combat." Only if the non-violent side has the discipline to avoid slipping into violence does it win.

Tim Wolcott, posted 2-2010, http://www.teachpeacenow.org/issue_dangerousidea.html

Resource Library

Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terror(ism)

Senthil Ram and Ralph Summy (editors). New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2007)

DOWNLOAD A CHAPTER FROM THIS BOOK

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The so-called 'war on terror' has gone badly for the West, playing directly into the strategy of al-Qa'ida and the rest of the terrorist network. Why did this happen? Were there other approaches that might have been implemented with better prospects of success? This edited collection of perspectives on the non-violent counter to terrorism opens the topic to serious consideration. The development of a non-violent paradigm brings into sharp focus the deficiencies of present thinking, and paves the way for comprehending how non-violence might overcome those deficiencies and introduce viable alternatives. Since there is a general ignorance about the history, theory and operational dynamics of non-violence, these aspects are featured throughout the book, and related to the special case of terrorism.To understand empathetically the background and mind-set of the opponent (without condoning his actions), to study his culture, to avoid the strategic trap he has set, to examine the different gender reactions of a Muslim Society, to differentiate between non-violent Islam and Islamic Terrorism, to jettison the misinformed baggage we carry about violence, to appreciate the positive role education and aesthetics can play, and to investigate ways in which a non-violent counter to terrorism might be staged, including a Gandhian response. These are just some of the tasks that the contributors have collectively pursued. Their ideas excitingly open up a whole new set of possibilities for a more peaceful world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Preface by Luc Reycher

Foreword by the Dalai Lama

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction: Nonviolent Counter to Global Terror(ism) and Paradigms of Counter-Terrorism
            by Senthil Ram and Ralph Summy
1. The Origins of Violence: New Ideas and New Explanations Affecting Terrorism
            by Piero P. Giorgi

PART II: NONVIOLENCE AND TERRORISM

2. Searching for an Exit in the Corridor of Fear: Revisiting Gandhi and King in Times of Terror[ism]
            by Anna Alomes
3. The Mahatma and the Muhiadeen: Gandhi’s Answer to Terrorism
            by Michael Nagler
4. Terrorism as a Backfire Process
            by Brian Martin
5. Understanding the Indirect Strategy of Terrorism: Insights from Nonviolent Action Research
            by Senthil Ram

PART III: NONVIOLENT ISLAM AND ISLAMIC TERRORISM

6. Understanding Islamic Terrorism: Humiliation Awareness and the Role for Nonviolence
            by Victoria Fontan
7. Terrorism, Gender and Nonviolent Islam: The Case of Eritrea
            by Christine Mason
8. The Jahiliyya Factor?: Fighting Muslims’ Cultural Resistance to Nonviolence
            by Chaiwat Satha-Anand

PART IV: NONVIOLENT ROLE OF EDUCATION, AESTHETICS AND UN POLICE

9. A Nonviolent Response to Terrorism: What Can Peace Education Do?
            by Don McInnis
10. Art Against Terror: Nonviolent Alternatives Through Emotional Insight
            by Roland Bleiker
11. The Role of UN Police in Nonviolently Countering Terroris
            by Timothy A. McElwee

PART V: NONVIOLENT RESPONSES TO TERRORISM

12: Nonviolent Response to Terrorism: Acting Locally
            by Tom H. Hastings
13: Dissolving Terrorism at Its Roots
            by Hardy Merriman and Jack DuVall
14: Terrorism: Violent and Nonviolent Responses
            by Kevin P. Clements
15. Defeating Terrorism Nonviolently: An Enquiry into an Alternative Strategy
            by Ralph Summy

“Marching on together”

Martin Jacques takes heart from Jonathan Schell's sobering yet optimistic analysis of modern warfare, The Unconquerable World. The Guardian, Friday 23 April 2004.

The Unconquerable World by Jonathan Schell

The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People by Jonathan Schell 435pp, Allen Lane, £20

This is an admirably ambitious and intelligent book. It seeks to trace the changing nature of war over time: a somewhat specialist subject, you might think, but this is no narrow military history. On the contrary, it places war and force in its proper context, the evolution of society.

Jonathan Schell starts, as have so many before, with Carl von Clausewitz, and his discussion of the conflict between the desirable aim of pursuing war to its ultimate end and the necessary political constraints that should always prevent this happening. Clausewitz, a Prussian military philosopher, was trying to make sense of the profound impact that the French revolution, and the rise and fall of Napoleon, had had upon warfare.

During the course of the 19th century, Schell contends, four parallel developments were to transform the nature of warfare: the democratic revolutions that brought the masses into politics for the first time; the scientific revolutions that introduced new military technologies; the industrial revolution, which allowed these to be applied; and imperialism, which ensured that the new European war system became a global one, bringing the whole world into its vortex. "This system," Schell writes, "implacable and merciless, compelled all 'backward' nations to reform on pain of death, in short, to adapt to the modern western system or die as independent countries."

The rise of democracy fed the new war system, as the whole body politic could, in the guise of modern nationalism, be mobilised for war in a new way. In this context, Schell makes an excellent observation later in the book. Historically speaking, when it came to nation-building, western European countries such as Britain and France enjoyed a great advantage in that when they became modern nations, the question of who was French or British within their territory was largely taken for granted.

In contrast, the situation was far messier in central Europe, and even messier and more difficult in Africa and the Middle East. But the cost for others was to be enormous: these ethnically homogeneous countries exported their sense of unproblematic racial superiority overseas in global conquest and plunder. Between 1870 and 1900, European nations seized control of some 10 million square miles of territory on which 150 million people lived.

The new war system reached its terrifying apogee in the first and second world wars when, for the last time, total war was fought to the bitter end. In the very death throes of the second world war, there was born the weapon that would profoundly change the nature of warfare. "The [nuclear] bomb revealed that total war was not an everlasting but a historical phenomenon," Schell writes. The invention of atomic weapons rendered the old global war system unworkable. The bitter end would in future mean nothing less than the destruction of humanity.

The consequence was the freezing of the global system by the policy of deterrence, together with the "sweeping displacement of military conflicts from theatres of actual combat to a theatre of appearances". In a fascinating discussion of the Cuban missile crisis, the most dangerous moment of the bipolar nuclear conflict, Schell shows how Kennedy and Khrushchev reached one agreement in public and a quite different one in private (the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from Turkey), whose terms were to remain secret until well after the end of the cold war.

On a more optimistic note, Schell traces the rise of a second, concurrent development that was also to have a profound impact on the nature of war: the rise of "people's war", whose origins he traces back to the Peninsular War of 1807-14, in which the Spanish mounted fierce resistance to Napoleonic conquest. Schell is - unlike all too many writers - unerringly excellent on imperialism, displaying a rare knowledge, awareness and feel for its all-encompassing nature, multifarious ramifications and colossal impact on the traditional world.

"The confrontation between the modern imperial west and the world's traditional societies," he writes, "presents one of the most extreme disparities in the power of civilisations that has ever existed - a disparity wider by far, for instance, than that between ancient Rome and the peoples she subjugated."

Take Iraq and the United States today, for example, or the historical template of such conflict, that between Vietnam and the United States. People's war was the means by which less developed societies could overcome this yawning disparity and fight to defeat the world's most powerful. The crucial laboratory for people's war was the Chinese communist guerrilla struggle against the Japanese in the late 30s. The Vietnamese war was to bring together the two great new military innovations that transformed the war system in the latter half of the 20th century, as the world's foremost nuclear power fought its most sophisticated exponent of people's war, the Vietnamese communists.

Notwithstanding the profoundly discouraging portents of the world's current predicament, Schell points to the underlying democratic trends of the last 100 years or less. He draws encouragement from the success of the national self-determination movement, representing the assertion of people and politics in the face of overwhelming force. He points to the manner in which, when societal conflict has been at its most dangerous and acute, namely during the course of revolutions, they have for the most part been surprisingly non-violent. He cites the glorious revolution in England of 1689, the American revolution, the French revolution and indeed the Russian revolution (it is reckoned that more people died in Eisenstein's filming of the storming of the Winter Palace than in the actual event): only in their aftermath did they become such bloody events.

From this he argues that when the mass of the people is in support, violence is marginalised. Similarly, he rightly takes solace in the fact that the fall of the Soviet Union and the east European regimes proved to be remarkably peaceful events. Likewise, he points to the extraordinary recent spread of democracy: 30 democratic states in 1971, 121 in 2002.

For Schell, these developments represent the possibility of a non-violent rather than ever more violent future. But he is not a dreamer. He is starkly aware of the dark clouds that now threaten the planet. In ridiculing Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis, he coins a far better notion of the significance of 1989: "a grand settlement along liberal lines of what might be called the western civil war of the 20th century". But, he asks, was this but the setting of the stage for a new confrontation, that between the west and the Islamic "east"? Or perhaps, I would add, a little further down the historical road, between the west and China, another very different kind of civilisation?

It is the rise of a very different United States, of course, that lies at the root of these fears and forebodings. Schell is excellent at laying bare the emergence of the new America and describing the character of its new imperial policy: the insistence, following 9/11, on describing the fight against terrorism as "war", thereby enabling the full deployment of the supreme military machine of our time; the assault on proliferation with the invocation of the axis of evil, combined with the endorsement of pre-emptive action, giving the United States the right to intervene anywhere at any time; the rejection of multilateral treaties; and the hubristic assumption that the American economic and political system is the only valid one. We have entered a profoundly dangerous era with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Schell's book is an important contribution in our quest to make sense of this new era. Although at times it gets becalmed in too much detail, Schell writes well, and the overall argument and reach are impressive. He is also to be commended for seeking to find a positive way of thinking about the present - although, alas, his optimistic prescription for the future is far less convincing than the sobering realities of the present. He can hardly be blamed for that.

· Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Asian Research Centre

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OMNI NEWSLETTER #1 ON NONVIOLENCE, February 17, 2011, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace

Contents #1 Feb. 17, 2011

Gene Sharp

Civil Resistance Success (2 essays)

Zunes on Tunisia and Egypt

OMNI UA Endowment

Books

Organizing

Jesus

Palestinian Film

END NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #5

OMNI NEWSLETTER #4 ON NONVIOLENCE, September 30, 2011, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace (#3 June 7, 2011)

Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Contents of #1

Gene Sharp

Civil Resistance Success (2 essays)

Zunes on Tunisia and Egypt

OMNI UA Endowment

Books

Organizing

Jesus

Palestinian Film

Contents of #2

Nonviolence Convergence in Arkansas

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Waging Nonviolence Blog

PJSA Nonviolence Blog

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence Mentors

Nonviolence Summer Program

Peace Glossary

Peace Journals

Journal of Aggression…

Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research

Books

Boulding and Ikeda

Kurlansky

Contents of #3

Dalai Lama on Nonviolence

Nonviolence History: A Force More Powerful

Civilian Defense
Nonviolent Communication

Anger Positive ?
Video from Metta Institute

Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance
Resources/Bibliography (see Newsletters #1 and #2)

Contents of #4

Books on Nonviolence

Books and Film on Nonviolence in Palestinian/Israeli Conflict

Chenoweth and Stephan on Civil Resistance/Nonviolence

Long on Christian Nonviolence

Pal on Islamic Nonviolence

Nonviolence at Liberty Plaza, Cairo

BOOKS on NONVIOLENCE

--Chenoweth, Erica and Maria Stephan. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Columbia UP, 2011. See below. Rev. Amitabh Pal, “How Nonviolence Succeeds,” The Progressive (October 2011).

--Long, Michael, ed. Christian Peace and Nonviolence: A Documentary History. Orbis, 2011. From the martyrs of the early church to the activists of the 21^st century, Long documents 2,000 years of Christian nonviolence. Nonviolence is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Christ. See below.

BOOKS on NONVIOLENCE in Palestinian/Israeli Conflict

--Broning, Michael. The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Building and Non-violent Resistance. Pluto P, 2011. The general competence and honesty of Palestinian leadership, the re-9invention of Hmas, the reform of Fatah, etc.

Why Civil Resistance Works

--Kaufman-Lacusta, Maxine. Refusing to Be Enemies. Ithica P, 2010. Rev. Washington report on Middle East Affairs (July 2011). Joins “a flood of new works covering nonviolent activism in Palestine.”

--Riordon, Michael. Our Way to Fight: Israeli and Palestinian Activists for Peace. Lawrence Hill Books, 2011. Portraits of nonviolent activists.

--Sarioglu, Bishara Bendeck. Farewell to Palestine. Examines roots of problems and suggests nonviolent solutions. Extraordinary heroism of ordinary people.

FILM ON NONVIOLENCE in Palestine

Budrus by Julia Bacha, 2011, 82 mins. Award-winning documentary about successful non-violent resistance to the Israel Wall by the small village of Budrus led by Ayed Morrar..

CHENOWETH AND STEPHAN

“Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Confict” Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth [an earlier article]

International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Summer 2008), pp. 7–44

Implicit in recent scholarly debates about the efªcacy of methods of warfare is the assumption that

the most effective means of waging political struggle entails violence.1 Among

political scientists, the prevailing view is that opposition movements select violent

methods because such means are more effective than nonviolent strategies

at achieving policy goals.2 Despite these assumptions, from 2000 to 2006

organized civilian populations successfully employed nonviolent methods in-cluding boycotts, strikes, protests, and organized noncooperation to challenge

entrenched power and exact political concessions in Serbia (2000), Madagascar

(2002), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004–05), Lebanon (2005), and Nepal

(2006).3 The success of these nonviolent campaigns—especially in light of the

enduring violent insurgencies occurring in some of the same countries—begs

systematic investigation. MORE http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/IS3301_pp007-044_Stephan_Chenoweth.pdf

Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan

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August, 2011
Cloth, 320 pages, 11 figures, 19 tables
For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.

Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents’ erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment.

Chenoweth and Stephan conclude that successful nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war. Presenting a rich, evidentiary argument, they originally and systematically compare violent and nonviolent outcomes in different historical periods and geographical contexts, debunking the myth that violence occurs because of structural and environmental factors and that it is necessary to achieve certain political goals. Instead, the authors discover, violent insurgency is rarely justifiable on strategic grounds.

Series Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare

About the Authors

Erica Chenoweth is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University. Previously she was a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a visiting fellow at the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of International Studies.

Maria J. Stephan is a strategic planner with the U.S. Department of State. Formerly she served as director of policy and research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and American University. She has also been a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Two REVIEWS OF LONG

Christian Peace and Nonviolence: A Documentary History

Michael G. Long by Stanley Hauerwas

From the Sermon on the Mount to the twenty-first century, this comprehensive reader recounts the Christian message of peace and nonviolence. Through testimony by the confessors and martyrs of the early church, the voices of medieval figures like St. Benedict and St. Francis, as well as Erasmus, Lollards, Anabaptists, and Quakers abolitionists, Christian Peace and Nonviolence presents a coherent story in which the peace message of Jesus is restored to central place. Later sections highlight many of the great prophets of modern times, including Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, A.J. Muste, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, and Oscar Romero. Their challenge remains timely and urgent. As John Haynes Holmes observed, "If war is right then Christianity is false, a lie." Christian Peace and Nonviolence is not only intellectually compelling but also inspirational. It is more than a reference work. It is a witness.

May 17, 2011

“The Glorious History of Gospel Nonviolence”

By John Dear http://www.johndear.org/articles/history-of-gospel-nonviolence.html

There is no reason to continue this senseless war in Afghanistan; we should end it immediately. That's what many people across the country are now saying. There are only 100 Al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan, Jim Wallis wrote this week, but we still have over 100,000 American soldiers there. "As the debate on the deficit heats up," Jim wrote, "we need to say again and again that the more than $100 billion a year that is spent on the war is no longer sustainable. Every American should know these numbers: 100 terrorists; 100,000 troops; $100 billion -- it just isn't adding up anymore. There are no more excuses for delaying a withdrawal of U.S. troops."

He's right. Everyone should call or write their congressional representatives and the White House to demand an immediate end to this terrible war.

This is our Easter duty--to work as best we can for the end of war and the transformation of the culture of death into a new culture of justice, nonviolence and peace.

This week, an extraordinary new anthology on Christian peacemaking was just published which will help us with this work. It chronicles two thousand years of the Christian witness of nonviolence. I urge everyone to get it, study it, teach it, and promote it in churches and schools everywhere. It will not only encourage our efforts to stop our senseless wars; it will inspire us to join the holy Christian lineage of peacemaking.

Christian Peace and Nonviolence: A Documentary History (edited by Michael G. Long, Orbis Books, $40.00, 348 pages) may be the definitive anthology on Christian peacemaking and nonviolence. Reading it is a revelation. With essays by 116 leading Christian voices over the centuries, this book reminds us that Christianity is all about nonviolence as a way of life. Thousands, millions, have gone before us living lives of peace in discipleship to the nonviolent Jesus. This is the norm. What we see today---from our Republican party bishops who support war and nuclear weapons to the millions of Catholics who support our wars and weapons---is an aberration.

The testimonies in this book are astonishing. From the confessors and martyrs of the early church, to the voices of medieval figures like St. Benedict and St. Francis, as well as Erasmus, the Lollards, Anabaptists, and Quaker abolitionists, up to Jane Addams, Muriel Lester, Howard Thurman, Dr. King, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and the Berrigans, we hear a clarion call to end war and make peace, and see an eye-popping new vision of Gospel nonviolence. This call, this vision and this history need to be reclaimed and renewed.

"You can kill us, but cannot do us any real harm," St. Justin (100-165 CE) wrote in his famous letter to the emperor before being killed. "We who once killed each other not only do not make war on each other, but in order not to lie or deceive our inquisitors, we gladly die for the confession of Christ. We who were filled with war and mutual slaughter and every wickedness have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons--our swords into plowshares, and our spears into implements of tillage, and now we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope which we have from God through the One who was crucified."

"I am committed to serve my Lord," St. Maximilian tells his judge in 295, according to the court record, just before he was killed for refusing to enlist in the Roman military. "I cannot serve in an army of this world. I am a Christian."

"Our country is the world, our countrymen and women are all humankind," William Lloyd Garrison, the great abolitionist, writes in 1838. "We can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury. The Prince of Peace, under whose stainless banner we rally, came not to destroy, but to save, even the worst of enemies. He has left us an example, that we should follow his steps."

"I am opposed to war because I am a believer in Christianity," Frederick Douglass wrote in 1846. "I am opposed to war because I am a lover of my race. The first gleam of Christian truth that beamed upon my dark mind after having escaped the clutches of those who held me in slavery was accompanied by the spirit of love. I felt at that moment as if I were embracing the whole world in the arms of love and affection. I could not have injured one hair of the head of my worst enemy, although that enemy might have been at that very time imbruing his hands in the blood of a brother or a sister. I believe all who have experienced this love, who are living in the enjoyment of this love, feel this same spirit, this same abhorrence of injuring a single individual, no matter what his conduct happens to be."

"It was of such resistance as this that our Savior was speaking," the brilliant Universalist minister Adin Ballou wrote in 1843. "His obvious doctrine is: Resist not personal injury with personal injury. It bears on all humankind in every social relation of life... It is [our] bounded duty, by all such benevolent resistance, to promote the safety and welfare, the holiness and happiness, of all human beings. A true Christian...cannot kill, maim, or otherwise absolutely injure any human being. He cannot participate in any lawless conspiracy, mob, riotous assembly.... He cannot be a member of any association which approves of war, capital punishment or any other absolute personal injury. He cannot be an officer, private, or chaplain in the army, navy or militia of any nation. He cannot be an officer, prosecutor, agent or elected official of any government.... Faith in the inherent superiority of good over evil, truth over error, right over wrong, love over hatred, is the immediate moral basis of our doctrine."

"It seems to me that it should be the special duty of those who love and honor the name of Jesus to be opposed to war," Lucretia Mott, the great abolitionist and feminist, said in an 1869 speech. "If we can do away with the practice of taking life, it will be a great advance in the world."

"If war is right, then Christianity is false, a lie," John Haynes Holmes preached in New York City on the eve of World War I. "When there comes a call, I shall refuse to heed. When the system of conscription is adopted, I shall have to decline to serve. If this means imprisonment, I will serve my term. If this means persecution, I will carry my cross. No order of president or governor, no law of nation or state, no loss of reputation, freedom or life, will persuade me or force me to this business of killing."

"These extraordinary documents, which bear witness to the Christian commitment to peace across time, clarify that nonviolence is not a mere â€˜exception'--it is at the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Christ," my friend Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University writes in his foreword. He continues:

In the early Church, Christians did not even find it necessary to declare they were nonviolent--exactly because the way of nonviolence could not be distinguished from what it meant for them to be Christian. To worship Jesus, to follow Jesus, was to assume a way of life that altogether precluded the question of whether one might need to kill; it simply did not come up...

Nonviolence was not some further implication that might be drawn from fundamental Christian convictions--nonviolence was constitutive of the Christian conviction that Jesus is Lord.

Christians committed to nonviolence were, and are, anything but passive. Indeed, it was Christians committed to nonviolence who took the lead, for example, in challenging the presumption that Christians could own slaves.

"The documents gathered in Christian Peace and Nonviolence," he concludes, "are the start of the kind of historiography we desperately need if we are to provide an alternative to the presumption that violence is inevitable."

I thank Michael Long for this great contribution to the growing literature on nonviolence, and I hope everyone will find new inspiration from Christian Peace and Nonviolence: A Documentary History, as I have, to carry on the Easter duty of ending war and making peace.

“Amitabh Pal on Islam and nonviolence”

by Eric Stoner | August 5, 2011, 6:13 pm

After the Arab Spring, few would argue—as many did until very recently—that nonviolence and Islam are incompatible or even contradictory. At the same time, however, few still have any knowledge of the rich history of nonviolence in the Muslim world, which long predates the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

That is why “Islam” Means Peace: Understanding the Muslim Principle of Nonviolence Today, the new book by Amitabh Pal, the managing editor of the Progressive, is so important. In addition to writing wonderful chapters on somewhat more well-known figures in the nonviolence world like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Pal tells the story of many obscure Muslim peacemakers who deserve far more attention—such as Abdul Kalam Azad, who worked alongside Gandhi in India’s independence struggle, and Ibrahim Rugova, who led the Kosovar Albanians’ nonviolent movement against Milosevic.

For anyone not well-versed in Islam, Pal also provides a great primer on the Qur’an, the real meaning of jihad and how Islam actually spread around the world, effectively rebuting many of the most common myths about the religion. I recently interviewed Pal for Religion Dispatches about this hidden history and how the nonviolent movements in the Middle East are shaking up both the region and the way that the West perceives Islam. Here is an excerpt:

What role have women played in nonviolent movements in Muslim countries? How might their greater participation in these actions and campaigns change the gender dynamics in these countries?

I can answer this historically. In the case of Ghaffar Khan’s movement there was the participation of a surprising number of women, given how conservative—and you can even argue misogynist—Pashtun society had been traditionally. They allowed women to participate because he said so and his honor and stature was such that they couldn’t resist. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, women used to lead their marches! This is just incredible. What power and influence he must have had to convince them to allow that to happen! Did that lead to a large scale change in the way that women were perceived in Pashtun society? No, probably not. Did that perhaps lead to a small, tiny change? Hopefully yes.

If we leap forward to what’s happening in Egypt and Tunisia, women have participated in very large numbers. I think it’s been a very positive development and I think they will form the bulwark against a regression on women’s rights and ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood and their ilk will not be able to seize power and push women to the back room. They have been empowered and I don’t think they’re going to give up their rights, at least in these two countries, very easily. That’s positive and hopeful. Historically, Tunisia has been one of the most progressive in the Arab world in terms of women’s rights, and I think women there are determined to keep it that way.

In one part of the interview that was cut from the final version, Pal gives a very powerful response to a question about the difficulties that many of the ongoing movements in the region still face that is worth remembering.

What would you say to critics who now point to Libya or the recalcitrance of regimes in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain to argue that nonviolence can’t succeed against more ruthless regimes?

I would urge people to be patient. We live in an age of short attention spans where everything seems to happen at hyper speed. It took Gandhi three plus decades. Let’s not forget. He came to India from South Africa during World World I. It took Martin Luther King a decade or so, from Birmingham to the civil rights bills. To take a European example, Solidarity in Poland seemed to be vanquished in the mid-80s and it came back in the late 80s after a decade of struggle and toil. So it takes time. It has barely been six or eight months for heaven’s sake. People are so impatient!

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2011/08/amitabh-pal-on-islam-and-nonviolence/

“The Whole World Is Watching: Nonviolence at Liberty Plaza”

Nathan Schneider, Waging Nonviolence, Sept. 23, 2011, RSN

Excerpt: "The largest risk for a failure of discipline in a nonviolent movement is that some members may become violent. Therefore, nonviolent discipline - the ability of people to remain nonviolent, even in the face of provocations - is often continually instilled in participants. There are practical reasons for this. Violent incidents by members of a movement can dramatically reduce its legitimacy while giving the movement's opponent an excuse to use repression."

END OF NEWSLETTER #4 ON NONVIOLENCE.

[Sent to web site & WH June 7, 2011)

OMNI NEWSLETTER #3 ON NONVIOLENCE, June 7, 2011, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace

Contents of #1

Gene Sharp

Civil Resistance Success (2 essays)

Zunes on Tunisia and Egypt

OMNI UA Endowment

Books

Organizing

Jesus

Palestinian Film

Contents of #2

Nonviolence Convergence in Arkansas

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Waging Nonviolence Blog

PJSA Nonviolence Blog

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence Mentors

Nonviolence Summer Program

Peace Glossary

Peace Journals

Journal of Aggression…

Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research

Books

Boulding and Ikeda

Kurlansky

Contents of #3

Dalai Lama on Nonviolence

Nonviolence History: A Force More Powerful

Civilian Defense
Nonviolent Communication

Anger Positive ?
Video from Metta Institute

Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance
Resources/Bibliography (see Newsletters #1 and #2)

DALAI LAMA IN FAYETTEVILLE ON NONVIOLENCE

A momentous event for Arkansas—filling UA’s largest basketball arena with people wanting to know about nonviolence!

Stop by TIBETSPACE for a video in which His Holiness address nonviolence in a secular world. It makes a nice warm-up for his trip to Fayetteville on May 11.
Sidney https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/12f211630ca4b321 [Sidney]

The historic visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the University of Arkansas was recorded and is available on video and text transcript for anyone who could not attend or wishes to re-visit the panel discussion and lecture. www.dalailama.uark.edu

The panel discussion Turning Swords into Ploughshares: The Many Paths of Nonviolence featured the Dalai Lama, Sister Helen Prejean and Vincent Harding, and the Dalai Lama also presented the afternoon keynote address Nonviolence in the New Century: The Way Forward.

BOOK: How to Be Compassionate: A Handbook for Creating Inner Peace and a Happier World. Techniques for transformation of mind and heart, showing us how to pay attention to others and the world. Urges caring for others as best way to turn selfishness into compassion.

A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict

Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall
(Hardback: New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000)
(Paperback: New York: Palgrave, 2001) 560 pages

Visit the A Force More Powerful website for ordering information and to learn about the companion film and other resources on nonviolent conflict.

DESCRIPTION:

This nationally-acclaimed book shows how popular movements used nonviolent action to overthrow dictators, obstruct military invaders and secure human rights in country after country, over the past century. Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall depict how nonviolent sanctions--such as protests, strikes and boycotts--separate brutal regimes from their means of control. They tell inside stories--how Danes outmaneuvered the Nazis, Solidarity defeated Polish communism, and mass action removed a Chilean dictator--and also how nonviolent power is changing the world today, from Burma to Serbia.

--taken from the publisher

REVIEWS:

"A Force More Powerful challenges a longstanding myth that lies at the heart of much of the turmoil of the 20th century: that power comes from the barrel of a gun; based on convincing detail, Ackerman and Duvall dare to claim that nonviolent movements lead to more secure democracies."

--Christian Science Monitor

"A skillful blend of sweeping narrative and tightly focused case studies, the book fills a vacuum in historical studies of the 20th century, which all too often stress the themes of total war and bloody revolutions...If there is one lesson that Ackerman and DuVall emphasize in their splendid book, it is the necessity of maintaining nonviolent discipline in the face of frequently savage response by the governing elites..."

--Philadelphia Inquirer

"This thoroughly researched and highly readable book underlines the contrast between stable democratic societies created by nonviolent movements and tyrannical regimes born of violent revolution. Recommended..."

--Library Journal

"...this book is an important documentation of non-violence as an attested historical force."

--The Times Higher Education Supplement

"[A Force More Powerful] is a comprehensive and lucidly written addition to the literature of peace... Ackerman and DuVall, deserving of praise for writing nonideologically when they might easily and self-indulgently not have...use fourteen chapters to document and analyze history-altering reforms created by nonviolent strategies... A Force More Powerful will likely stand as a book more powerful than any guts-and-glory war memoirs by generals or gun-toters, or any extollings of military might by one-note historians."

--The Nation

"These are powerful stories--about truth overcoming lies, love dissolving evil, and life eclipsing death. Nonviolent valor can end oppression, and the world of the 21st century will be safer, freer and more humane if it heeds the lessons of this book."

--Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States

"In their well-written, often moving book, A Force More Powerful, Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall deliver a compelling argument for the efficacy of nonviolent resistance to tyranny.... This book explains how profoundly history has been shaped by men and women who had the courage to act for a cause greater than their self-interest, and, thus, could not be conquered by the most ruthless, well-armed adversaries. I recommend it to anyone who believes that power only flows from the barrel of a gun."

--John McCain, United States Senator

"Peter Ackerman's and Jack DuVall's informative and absorbing study on the inspired use of nonviolence as a force for peace lends meaning to Vaclav Havel's praise of 'the power of the powerless.'"

--Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

"Hope is a rare commodity in the struggle for justice. This book offers hope, but of a spare, hard-headed kind - the kind that appeals to the partisan as readily as the prophet - and it does so with eloquence and grace. If nonviolent resistance is a righteous strategy, this book is holy writ!"

--Dr. William F. Shultz, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA

"This book is a masterful revelation of the way that nonviolent resistance has created the power to overcome even the most extreme suppression of human rights, even the most dictatorial invasions of private life, even the most authoritarian rule. We have all looked at the clashes of arms of the past century as the primary drivers of political change. Ackerman and DuVall show us that, surprisingly, we also have much to learn from the lessons of nonviolent conflict. This is a book that all of us will want to read."

--General John R. Galvin (U.S. Army, retired), former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (NATO)

"A Force More Powerful challenges the misguided notion that violence is the ultimate form of power. Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall provide dramatic examples of how people have been empowered through strategic use of nonviolent action, depriving their armed oppressors of political control and creating the conditions for democracy."

--Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace

"A Force More Powerful tells the compelling stories of 20th century movements that made democracy a reality in the face of repression and cruelty. Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall have engagingly chronicled the efforts of people as diverse as Polish shipyard workers and South African blacks to win their freedom through force of civic action rather than arms. This book will be valued by scholars and casual readers alike for its succinct, moving portrayal of some of the most important struggles of the past century."

--Warren Christopher, former U.S. Secretary of State

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

List of Photographs
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Introduction

PART ONE: MOVEMENT TO POWER
1. Russia, 1905: The People Strike
2. India: Movement for Self-Rule
3. Poland: Power from Solidarity

PART TWO: RESISTANCE TO TERROR
4. The Ruhrkampf, 1923: Resisting Invaders
5. Denmark, the Netherlands, the Rosenstrasse: Resisting Nazis
6. El Salvador, 1944: Removing the General
7. Argentina and Chile: Resisting Repression

PART THREE: CAMPAIGNS FOR RIGHTS
8. The American South: Campaign for Civil Rights
9. South Africa: Campaign against Apartheid
10. The Philippines: Restoring Democracy
11. The Intifada: Campaign for a Homeland
12. China, Eastern Europe, Mongolia: The Democratic Tide

PART FOUR: VIOLENCE AND POWER
13. The Mythology of Violence
14. The New World of Power
Conclusion: Victory without Violence

Notes
Index

Civilian Defense

Opening Page | Glossary | Menu Shortcut Page

Civilian defense is a strategy for defending against potential military aggression which uses unarmed civilians, rather than armed forces, to defend against attack. Thus, rather than relying on military force to deter or repel an invasion, civilian defense uses nonviolent approaches--primarily massive noncooperation--to make invasion more trouble than it is worth. By withholding political, social, and economic cooperation from the invading army and government, the local citizens can make the society come to a stand still. Political noncooperation, for example, would include civil disobedience, the boycott of governmental activities (such as voting) and the establishment of alternative governmental offices. Social noncooperation can include refusing to participate in social activities, or even failing/refusing to acknowledge the presence of the invaders. Economic noncooperation includes strikes and boycotts of goods and services. Although none of the acts alone will be successful, if many of these protest tactics are implemented by a large body of citizens, they can be very difficult to overcome. This will prevent the invaders from gaining any benefits from their occupation, and may well lead them to abandon their efforts.

Civilian defense also diminishes the legitimacy of the invading force, which slowly will reduce its power. As Gene Sharp, an expert in nonviolent direct action asserts, all governments, no matter how tyrannical, govern only with the consent of the people. If this consent is withdrawn, the government will fall, as it takes people to implement its policies. Although it has not been widely utilized, civilian defense has been used successfully in the past. For example, the Germans used this approach to resist the Kapp Putsch in 1920, the French used it to oppose a coup in 1961, and the Norwegians used it to resist Nazi occupation. Most recently, it was used by Lithuanians and Russian citizens in 1990 when the Lithuanians were fighting for the independence from the Soviet Union and the Russians prevented the coup against Gorbachev.

Center for Nonviolent Communication: An International Organization

· French

· Spanish


Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is based on the principles of nonviolence-- the natural state of compassion when no violence is present in the heart. NVC begins by assuming that we are all compassionate by nature and that violent strategies—whether verbal or physical—are learned behaviors taught and supported by the prevailing culture. NVC also assumes that we all share the same, basic human needs, and that each of our actions are a strategy to meet one or more of these needs. People who practice NVC have found greater authenticity in their communication, increased understanding, deepening connection and conflict resolution. The NVC community is active in over 65 countries around the globe. Find out more about how NVC is changing the world and how you can get involved.
Learn the benefits of creating your own account. It's free and will allow you access to more NVC resources.
When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving! -- CNVC founder, Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing, and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. --Rumi

New to this site? Find out how to use it.

Posted Tue, 2011-01-11 16:52 by Web Master

The Center for Nonviolent Communication
5600 San Francisco Rd. NE Suite A
Albuquerque, NM 87109 USA
Tel: +1.505.244.4041 | Fax: +1.505.247.0414 | US Only: 800 255 7696

NEW fundraising opportunity for US residents.

Subject: Re: [members_pjsa] NON-VIOLENT COMMUNICATION

ANGER A GIFT

Hi Everyone [PJSA],

Along with communicating non-violently, developing the ability to work positively with anger is crucial to lasting peace. To help reach this goal I've written a workbook called The Gift of Anger, which redefines anger as a two-stage, positive emotion that is designed to lead to understanding and peace. I explain what anger is and what causes it, explore how we form our beliefs and choose our feelings, and I teach a 7-step process for moving from anger to understanding, then to emotional strengthening, and finally to closure through forgiveness. Geared toward the general public, each chapter contains exercises that could be used individually or as a basis for group discussion. In order to find out if this book would be useful in a classroom setting, I've asked my publisher to provide a way for you to examine The Gift of Anger. If you're interested, please go to:

http://www.newharbingeronline.com/gift-of-anger.html

where you can read the first 45 pages and even request a complete copy of the book so you can examine it fully and decide whether it would be helpful to your students.

The Gift of Anger is my best effort to teach peace. Thanks for checking it out. Best to you,Marcia

Marcia Cannon, Ph.D., MFT, Author of The Gift of Anger

http://www.giftofanger.com

METTA VIDEO: SIX STEPS TO TAKE FOR NONVIOLENCE

From Metta, January 23, 2011 To: team@mettacenter.org, "S. Francesca Po" <francescapo@gmail.com>, Ty Olson ty@mettacenter.org

ISRAEL AND PALESTINIAN NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE

Posted by: "mike ferner" mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net Veterans for Peace from The Economist (May 17)

Tue May 24, 2011 12:26 pm (PDT)

From: Michael Gillespie <cmichaelg49@gmail.com>

Subject: Here Comes Your Non-Violent Resistance

To: anothercountry@prayforpeaceandworkforjustice.us

Date: Friday, May 20, 2011, 6:36 PM

For the complete essay go to: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/israel_and_palestine_0?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/herecomesyournonviolentresistance

. . . .Why does the pro-Israel crowd view non-violence as a disease? Why are Zionists so frightened, so fearful of non-violent protest? Perhaps they are panicking because non-violence is foreign to the Zionist world view, and this seems to be true of Christian as well as Jewish Zionists. When Zionists react to perceived threats, as they so often do, with wildly disproportionate violence against defenseless civilians, men, women, and children, modern political Zionism, an inherently exclusivist ideology with a deceitful mythology and a propensity for violent methods, is revealed for all the world to see as what it actually is, brutal, ruthless, and reactionary, a morally repugnant anachronism, one that mankind and history itself are now busy repudiating.

[On Nonviolence]

There are basically two ways of looking at the world and relating to others. There is the ethic of revenge: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." And there is the ethic of reciprocity: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That is, there is violence, the way of "nature, red in tooth and claw," the way of war, death, and destruction. And there is non-violence, the way of the spiritualized man, the way of diplomacy, peace, and progress.

Non-violence is an individual choice that recognizes a higher spiritual reality far more powerful than any form of tyranny. When men and women eschew license, when they commit to self-restraint, and when they organize themselves in pursuit of liberty, freedom, through non-violent means, they gain access to spiritual power not available to those who have yet to advance beyond greed, violence, and the ethic of revenge. The massive non-violent protests that characterized Egyptians' overthrow of their long-time dictator earlier this year were not a contagion. Quite the contrary, they were, and they were widely perceived by the world's peoples to be, a powerful spiritual tonic http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tonic. They revealed to the world that non-violence is not the exclusive property of any particular religion or race. The courage to practice non-violence is the right of every man who is so minded and who so

chooses.

118:8.10 As man shakes off the shackles of fear, as he bridges continents and oceans with his machines, generations and centuries with his records, he must substitute for each transcended restraint a new and voluntarily assumed restraint in accordance with the moral dictates of expanding human wisdom. These self-imposed restraints are at once the most powerful and the most tenuous of all the factors of human civilization—concepts of justice and ideals of brotherhood. Man even qualifies himself for the restraining garments of mercy when he dares to love his fellow men, while he achieves the beginnings of spiritual brotherhood when he elects to mete out to them that treatment which he himself would be accorded, even that treatment which he conceives that God would accord them.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/israel_and_palestine_0?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/herecomesyournonviolentresistance

Here comes your non-violent resistance

[comment apparently by a VfP member]

May 17th 2011, 2:09 by M.S.

FOR many years now, we've heard American commentators bemoan the violence of the Palestinian national movement. If only Palestinians had learned the lessons of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we hear, they'd have had their state long ago. Surely no Israeli government would have violently suppressed a non-violent Palestinian movement of national liberation seeking only the universally recognised right of self-determination.

Palestinian commentators and organisers, including Fadi Elsalameen and Moustafa Barghouthi, have spent the last couple of years pointing out that these complaints resolutely ignore the actual and growing Palestinian non-violent resistance movement. For that matter, they elide the fact that the first intifada, which broke out in 1987, was initially as close to non-violent as could be reasonably expected. For the most part, it consisted of general strikes and protest marches. In addition, there was a fair amount of kids throwing rocks, as well as the continuing threat of low-level terrorism, mainly from organisations based abroad; the Israelis conflated the autochthonous protest movement with the terrorism and responded brutally, and the intifada quickly lost its non-violent character. That's not that different from what has happened over the past couple of months in Libya; it shows that it's very hard to keep a non-violent movement non-violent when the

government you're demonstrating against subjects you to gunfire for a sustained period of time.

In any case, if you're among those who have made the argument that Israelis would give Palestinians a state if only the Palestinians would learn to employ Gandhian tactics of non-violent protest, it appears your moment of truth has arrived. As my colleague writes, what happened on Nakba Day was Israel's "nightmare scenario: masses of Palestinians marching, unarmed, towards the borders of the Jewish state, demanding the redress of their decades-old national grievance." Peter Beinart writes that this represents "Israel's Palestinian Arab Spring": the tactics of mass non-violent protest that brought down the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and are threatening to bring down those of Libya, Yemen and Syria, are now being used in the Palestinian cause.

So now we have an opportunity to see how Americans will react. We've asked the Palestinians to lay down their arms. We've told them their lack of a state is their own fault; if only they would embrace non-violence, a reasonable and unprejudiced world would see the merit of their claims. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of them did just that, and it seems likely to continue. If crowds of tens of thousands of non-violent Palestinian protestors continue to march, and if Israel continues to shoot at them, what will we do? Will we make good on our rhetoric, and press Israel to give them their state? Or will it turn out that our paeans to non-violence were just cynical tactics in an amoral international power contest staged by militaristic Israeli and American right-wing groups whose elective affinities lead them to shape a common narrative of the alien Arab/Muslim threat? Will we even bother to acknowledge that the Palestinians are protesting non-violently? Or will we soldier on with the same empty decades-old rhetoric, now drained of any truth or meaning, because it protects established relationships of power? What will it take to make Americans recognise that the real Martin Luther King-style non-violent Palestinian protestors have arrived, and that Israeli soldiers are shooting them with real bullets?

NONVIOLENCE READINGS [Dick]

Beller, Ken and Heather Chase. Great Peacemakers: True Stories From Around the World. LTS P, 2008. Winner of PeaceWriting Award.

--Bennett, Scott. The Admirable Radical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent, 1945-1970. Rev. Peace and Change (April 2011).

--Kaufman-Lacusta, Maxine. Refusing to Be Enemies: Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israelli Occupation. Ithaca P (UK), 2010. Rev. The Catholic Worker (Oct. Nov. 2010): “…material gleaned from many interviews, with a somewhat greater emphasis on Palestinian nonviolent activists, because their work is so little known.” Mubarak Awad, Sami Awad, Muhammad Jadarat, May Rosenfeld, Ido Khenin, Mustafa Shawkat Samha. Includes discussion of two ongoing onviolent campaigns: the joint Israeli and Palestinian activism against the Wall, and the weekly demonstrations in the West Bank village of Bil’in, and four brief essays. Also rev. Fellowship (Fall 2010).

--Kosek, Joseph. Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy. Rev. Peace and Change (April 2011).
--Mosley, Don. Faith Beyond Borders: Doing Justice in a Dangerous World.
Abingdon, 2010. Rev. Fellowship (Fall 2010). Tells about men and women of
faith and compassion who work for “justice in a dangerous world.”

--Pedersen, Jerry. Unfinished Journey: From War to Peace, From Violence to Wholeness. Trafford, 2010. Rev. Fellowship (Fall 2010). Experiences of WWII made Pedersen dedicate his life to peacemaking.
Polner, Murray, and Thomas Woods, Jr., eds. We Who Dared to Say No to War. Basic Books, 2008.

--Smith, Lyn. Voices Against War: A Century of Protest. Mainstream, 2009.

True, Michael. To Construct Peace: 30 More Justice Seekers, Peace Makers. 23^rd Pub., 1992.

--Wright, Scott. Oscar Romero and the Communion of Saints: A Biography. Orbis, 2010. Rev. Fellowship Fall 2010: “fighter for justice, rights, and a decent life for his nation’s poor people.”

Web Sites

-- Voices for Creative Nonviolence organizing against the U.S. wars, including end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. www.vcnv.org, 773-878-3815. The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance is org. a series of protests in October, including Oct. action at the White House. Sign their petition to Obama for end of occupation of Afghanistan at www.iraqpledge.org. Contact Joy First at jsfirst@tds.net

--Waging Nonviolence www.wagingnonviolence.org a new website for rep

--orting on the use of nonviolence by ordinary people around the world.

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice. Arnold Toynbee

END OF NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #3

OMNI NEWSLETTER #2 ON NONVIOLENCE, May 13, 2011, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace

Contents of #1

Gene Sharp

Civil Resistance Success (2 essays)

Zunes on Tunisia and Egypt

OMNI UA Endowment

Books

Organizing

Jesus

Palestinian Film

Contents of #2

Nonviolence Convergence in Arkansas

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Waging Nonviolence Blog

PJSA Nonviolence Blog

Nonviolence International

Nonviolence Mentors

Nonviolence Summer Program

Peace Glossary

Peace Journals

Journal of Aggression…

Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research

Books

Boulding and Ikeda

Kurlansky

NONVIOLENCE MEETING IN ARKANSAS 2011

An unprecedented infusion of nonviolence advocacy occurred in Fayetteville, AR, May 11, 2011, when the Dalai Lama gave an address at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, “Nonviolence in the New Century: The Way Forward,” and joined two notable US nonviolence practitioners (Sister Helen Prejean and Vincent Harding) in a dialog on “Turning Swords into Ploughshares: The Many Paths of Nonviolence.” The videos and texts of these outstanding presentations are in preparation by the University, and the text of the discussion among the three will appear in this Blog.

The Dalai Lama serves the world as: spiritual leader of the Tibetan people through its Government-in-exile; a major spokesperson for human rights, the environment, and the practice of nonviolence in solving personal and political problems; and advocate for harmony among the world’s religions. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the US Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.

Sister Prejean began prison work in 1981 and later focused on capital punishment and prisoners on death row. Her best-selling book Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States was published in 1993.

Vincent Harding was an important force during the African-American freedom movement that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Also important was his support to King in resisting US Wars and the Vietnam War, and he drafted King’s April 4, 1967 speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.”

Prof. Sidney Burris and Geshe-la Thupten Dorjee and others were thanked for arranging these events.

Read Chancellor Gearhart’s comment: “Chancellor's Office

... a special message” May 12, 2011. chancell@uark.edu

The OMNI Center welcomed these visitors and thanks all the organizers for this momentous and we believe permanent increase in public commitment to the altruistic and compassionate nonviolence taught by Tibetan Buddhism.

A SMALL SAMPLE OF NONVIOLENCE ADVOCACY AND PRACTICE IN USA:

FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION

About the Fellowship of Reconciliation USA

Fellowship of Reconciliation: The Largest, Oldest Interfaith Peace Organization in the United States

Since 1915, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) has carried on programs and educational projects concerned with domestic and international peace and justice, nonviolent alternatives to conflict, and the rights of conscience. A nonviolent, interfaith, tax-exempt organization, FOR promotes nonviolence and has members from many religious and ethnic traditions. It is a part of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), which has affiliates in over 40 countries.

521 N. Broadway
Nyack, New York 10960
Phone: 845-358-4601
Get directions to FOR
Additional contact information

Read more about the history

WAGING NONVIOLENCE BLOG

A new blog publishes daily commentary on nonviolence around the world. You are invited to send your writing: www.wagingnonviolence.org

About

What is ”waging nonviolence”?
Practically speaking, it’s the alternative to the more commonly (and regrettably) used phrase “waging war.” Anecdotally, it’s the title of a book that was one of Gandhi’s only possessions. It’s also the focus of this blog: the use of nonviolent methods—such as strikes, boycotts, or sit-ins—by people around the world every day in their struggles for justice, often under the most difficult of circumstances.

Defining nonviolence
We consider nonviolence to be an active struggle for peace and justice by the only means worthy of the goal. We reject the use of force that injures an opponent physically, mentally, or spiritually because, as Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote shortly before his death, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.”

Approaches to nonviolence
King and Gandhi believed in the basic moral superiority of nonviolence. Scholars today describe that approach as “principled nonviolence,” and we consider ourselves firmly rooted in it. However, we also find inspiration in “strategic nonviolence,” which recognizes nonviolence as simply the most effective method of resistance to injustice. With its emphasis on tactics and results, we consider it a natural complement to the moral and spiritual emphasis of the principled approach.

Our content
Stories about nonviolent activism often go largely unnoticed, overshadowed by the gluttonous fixations of the mainstream media. Yet it is happening all around us, in response to the world’s most pressing challenges. Waging Nonviolence is a source for news, analysis, and original reporting about the practice of nonviolence, as well as for discussion of the theory behind it. By drawing attention to such efforts, the site is a constant reminder that Margaret Mead was right when she said that a “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”

Discussion
It’s through conversation that we come closest to the truth. Gandhi spent his life perfecting methods of nonviolent action, which is why he titled his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. “Far be it from me to claim any degree of perfection for these experiments,” he wrote. “I claim for them nothing more than does a scientist who, though he conducts his experiments with the utmost of accuracy, forethought and minuteness, never claims any finality about his conclusions, but keeps an open mind regarding them.” We try to do the same when writing about other people’s experiments with truth and invite others—including activists, scholars, students, and critics, as well as those just discovering nonviolence—to leave constructive comments and submit posts of their own.

Getting involved
If you would like to contribute to Waging Nonviolence please look over our Writer’s Guidelines.

Classroom guide
Here are some tips for teachers and professors interested in using this site in their classrooms.

PJSA BLOG

The Peace and Justice Studies Association publishes a blog open to public viewing for news on peace and justice. “Use our RSS fee; check out the blogroll.” http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/resources/blog.php

NONVIOLENCE INTERNATIONAL

Mission Statement
Nonviolence International promotes nonviolent action and seeks to reduce the use of violence worldwide. We believe that every culture and religion can employ appropriate nonviolent methods for positive social change and international peace.

Organizational Information

Nonviolence International is a decentralized network of resource centers that promote the use of nonviolent action. Founded by Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad in 1989, NI is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in Washington, DC, USA. NI is also a non-governmental organization in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Global Programs Indonesia, Palestine, South America, Newly Independent States, South East Asia

Staff

Internships

Mediation Services

NONVIOLENCE MENTORS SUMMER PROGRAM

The Metta Center for Nonviolence, Berkeley, CA, offers the Metta Mentors Nonviolence Immersion Program in Summer, 2011. For 10 weeks interns learn from experts to reflect, dialogue, live, serve nonviolently. www.mettacenter.org/mc/projects/metta-mentors

SUMMER CONFERENCE

The PJSA and the Gandhi-King Conference presents “A Living Movement: Toward a World of Peace, Solidarity, Justice,” October 21-23, 2011, at Christian Brothers University, Memphis. www.peacejusticestudies.org/conference

PEACE GLOSSARY

“Peace Terms, a Glossary of Terms for Conflict Management and Peacebuilding” by the U. S. Institute for Peace can be accessed at http://glossary.usip.org/

JOURNAL

The Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research welcomes articles on peace. www.pierprofessional.com/jacprflyer

BOOKS

Boulding, Elise and Daisaku Ikeda. Into Full Flower: Making Peace Cultures Happen. www.ikedacenter.org Peace pioneer and historian Boulding in conversation with Buddhist thinker and leader Ikeda, discussing what is necessary to transform our present global war culture into one of peace, sustainability, and hope.

Kurlansky, Mark. Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea. Modern Library, 2008. Rev. Peace and Change (April 2011).

Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History
of a Dangerous Idea, by C. M. Mayo

As the old saying goes, "fish, cut bait, or get out of the boat." Faced with aggression, we can respond in kind, submit, or-? "The first clue, lesson number one from human history on the subject of nonviolence, is that there is no word for it." So opens Mark Kurlansky's Nonviolence, an audacious, concise, and thoroughly original sweep through human history to draw twenty-four additional lessons about the nature, meaning, implications, and potential of nonviolence.

Distinct from pacifism, not a state of mind but a technique- in the Dalai Lama's words, "a rational stimulus to action"- nonviolence has always had its practitioners, but they have been few, seldom understood, and, because considered dangerous by the state, disparaged, imprisoned, tortured, and often killed. They include Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Founding Fathers, many Abolitionists, certain Russian dissidents, the Maori leader Te Whiti, and the Dalai Lama - who has provided a heartfelt preface to this volume. His Holiness writes, "It is my hope and prayer that this book should not only attract attention, but have a profound effect on those who read it."

A scholarly and literary gem, Kurlansky's Nonviolence invites both contemplation and debate. Make no mistake, Nonviolence is a frontal assault on the ideology of warfare, the choice of us versus them, good versus evil, patriots versus traitors- fish or cut bait. Kurlansky asks, "Is the source of violence not human nature, as Hobbes contended, but a lack of imagination?" Could we, perhaps, get out of the boat, as it were? Kurlansky shows that with nonviolence, yes, and - lesson twenty-five - "the hard work of beginning a movement to end war has already been done." This is a book about hope, a book that gives hope. —C. M. Mayo, 2007 finalist judge

END OF NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #2

http://www.peacejusticestudies.org/resources/blog.php

The Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA) is a non-profit organization that was formed in 2001 as a result of a merger of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development (COPRED) and the Peace Studies Association (PSA). Both organizations provided leadership in the broadly defined field of peace, conflict and justice studies.

We are dedicated to bringing together academics, K-12 teachers and grassroots activists to explore alternatives to violence and share visions and strategies for peace-building, social justice, and social change.

PJSA also serves as a professional association for scholars in the field of peace and conflict resolution studies, and is the North-American affiliate of the International Peace Research Association.

Our Mission

PJSA works to create a just and peaceful world through:

♦ The promotion of peace studies within universities, colleges and K-12 grade levels.

♦ The forging of alliances among educators, students, activists, and other peace practitioners in order to enhance each other's work on peace, conflict, and nonviolence.

♦ The creation and nurturing of alternatives to structures of inequality and injustice, war and violence through education, research and action.

[sent to Blog 3-10-11.]

OMNI NEWSLETTER #1 ON NONVIOLENCE, February 17, 2011, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace

Contents #1 Feb. 17, 2011

Gene Sharp

Civil Resistance Success (2 essays)

Zunes on Tunisia and Egypt

OMNI UA Endowment

Books

Organizing

Jesus

Palestinian Film

GENE SHARP AND CIVILIAN BASED RESISTANCE

His writings have inspired countless numbers of people and are presently being used as a guide to the peoples’ revolts such as in Egypt.

If you want to know what the word “comprehensive” means, check out the 3 vols. of Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Just about everything you might imagine for nonviolent thought or action you’ll find there.

It’s time we applied Sharp to our situation in America.

Below are two links to Sharp. The first link is a downloadable PDF free book. The next is his web site.

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pd

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html

Why Civil Resistance Works http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18407/why_civil_resistance_works.html

Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth

The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conºict

Maria J. Stephan is Director of Educational Initiatives at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Erica Chenoweth is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at

Harvard University.

International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Summer 2008), pp. 7–44

Op-Ed Contributor

Give Peaceful Resistance a Chance

By ERICA CHENOWETH Published: March 9, 2011

Related Matar: Libya Calling (March 10, 2011)

THE rebellion in Libya stands out among the recent unrest in the Middle East for its widespread violence: unlike the protesters in Tunisia or Egypt, those in Libya quickly gave up pursuing nonviolent change and became an armed rebellion.

And while the fighting in Libya is far from over, it’s not too early to ask a critical question: which is more effective as a force for change, violent or nonviolent resistance? Unfortunately for the Libyan rebels, research shows that nonviolent resistance is much more likely to produce results, while violent resistance runs a greater risk of backfiring.

Consider the Philippines. Although insurgencies attempted to overthrow Ferdinand Marcos during the 1970s and 1980s, they failed to attract broad support. When the regime did fall in 1986, it was at the hands of the People Power movement, a nonviolent pro-democracy campaign that boasted more than two million followers, including laborers, youth activists and Catholic clergy.

Indeed, a study I recently conducted with Maria J. Stephan, now a strategic planner at the State Department, compared the outcomes of hundreds of violent insurgencies with those of major nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006; we found that over 50 percent of the nonviolent movements succeeded, compared with about 25 percent of the violent insurgencies.

Why? For one thing, people don’t have to give up their jobs, leave their families or agree to kill anyone to participate in a nonviolent campaign. That means such movements tend to draw a wider range of participants, which gives them more access to members of the regime, including security forces and economic elites, who often sympathize with or are even relatives of protesters.

What’s more, oppressive regimes need the loyalty of their personnel to carry out their orders. Violent resistance tends to reinforce that loyalty, while civil resistance undermines it. When security forces refuse orders to, say, fire on peaceful protesters, regimes must accommodate the opposition or give up power — precisely what happened in Egypt.

This is why the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, took such great pains to use armed thugs to try to provoke the Egyptian demonstrators into using violence, after which he could have rallied the military behind him.

But where Mr. Mubarak failed, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi succeeded: what began as peaceful movement became, after a few days of brutal crackdown by his corps of foreign militiamen, an armed but disorganized rebel fighting force. A widely supported popular revolution has been reduced to a smaller group of armed rebels attempting to overthrow a brutal dictator. These rebels are at a major disadvantage, and are unlikely to succeed without direct foreign intervention.

If the other uprisings across the Middle East remain nonviolent, however, we should be optimistic about the prospects for democracy there. That’s because, with a few exceptions — most notably Iran — nonviolent revolutions tend to lead to democracy.

Although the change is not immediate, our data show that from 1900 to 2006, 35 percent to 40 percent of authoritarian regimes that faced major nonviolent uprisings had become democracies five years after the campaign ended, even if the campaigns failed to cause immediate regime change. For the nonviolent campaigns that succeeded, the figure increases to well over 50 percent.

The good guys don’t always win, but their chances increase greatly when they play their cards well. Nonviolent resistance is about finding and exploiting points of leverage in one’s own society. Every dictatorship has vulnerabilities, and every society can find them.

Erica Chenoweth, an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, is the co-author of the forthcoming “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 10, 2011, on page A31 of the New York edition.

Civil Resistance Works

ZUNES ON NONVIOLENT REBELLIONS IN EGYPT AND TUNISIA

I am still optimistic that the revolution will succeed. Here is my most recent article on Egypt, which examines prospects for victory:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/stephen-zunes/egypt%E2%80%99s-pro-democracy-movement-struggle-continues

And here is an article posted on the Yes! magazine web site about nonviolent struggle in Egypt and Tunisia and prospects for democracy in the Arab world:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/egypt-lessons-in-democracy

For additional articles on Egypt and other topics, please check out my web site at: www.stephenzunes.org

OMNI NONVIOLENCE SCHOLARSHIP AWARDED TO UA FULBRIGHT COLLEGE

The purpose of the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology

Faculty Award shall be to promote the study and teaching of peace and

nonviolence in accordance with the insights of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin

Luther King, Jr. and Senator J. William Fulbright.

(a) recognize exceptional research, teaching or service of faculty who

work to promote a culture of peace and the study of nonviolence;

(b) support faculty expenses and participation in conferences or

programs where peace issues or the promotion of nonviolence are

central to the purpose of the travel; or

teaching and course work, that are consistent with the purpose of

this endowment.

RECENT BOOKS ON NONVIOLENCE (from Dick’s Biblio/ Resources #35 and later)

--Deats, Richard. Marked for Life: The Life of Hildegard Goss-Mayr. This Austrian Catholic pioneered in teaching the practice of nonviolence.

--Dear, John. A Persistent Peace: One Man’s Struggle for a Nonviolent Word. Peaceworks (July/August 2009).

--Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns. War Resisters’ International. 2008. www.warresisters.org

-- Kaufman-Lacusta. Maxine. Refusing to Be Enemies: Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation. Ithaca P, 2010. Rev. Terry Rogers, The Catholic Worker (Oct.-Nov. 2010). A study of many of the individuals and groups in Palestine and Israel that have been practicing nonviolence since the 1980s.

--Rynne, Terrence. Gandhi & Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence. Orbis, 2008. Rev. The Catholic Worker (June-July 2009). Rynne’s “critique of war and its tit-for-tat madness is all-encompassing and sorely needed.” The heart of the book is his explanation of "the meaning of Jesus' sacrifice" as it applies to the violence epidemic of the present world.

ORGANIZING FOR NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE

These are two of the numerous nonviolent organizations you will find in the google entries below.

-- Voices for Creative Nonviolence organizing against the U.S. wars, including end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. www.vcnv.org, 773-878-3815. The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance organized a series of protests including an action at the White House. Sign their petition to Obama for end of occupation of Afghanistan at www.iraqpledge.org. Contact Joy First at jsfirst@tds.net

--Waging Nonviolence www.wagingnonviolence.org a new website for reporting on the use of nonviolence by ordinary people around the world.

John Dear, SJ – “On the Road to Peace”

National Catholic Reporter October 26, 2010

How can Jesus be nonviolent? Didn't he say to take up the sword?

I've been crisscrossing the country recently, destined for college auditoriums and churches. There I speak of the dire state of our spirits, tainted as they are by greed and war -- and by our nation's imperial aspirations. I contrast these realities with Jesus' astonishing counter offer: a world brimming with nonviolence, life and peace.Read More

PALESTINIAN NONVIOLENCE FILM

From Joel Gordon:

Little Town of Bethlehem. See Israeli-Palestinian doc.

Budrus by Julia Bacha (2010) about a Palestinian village that resists Israeli occupation nonviolently, led by an ordinary citizen Ayed Morrar. Rev. In These Times (Nov. 2010): Bacha “lets the dynamic of resistance vs. militaristic oppression…speak for itself.”

GOOGLE: NONVIOLENCE

1. or pNonviolence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nonviolence (ahimsa) is a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of violence. Thus, nonviolence is an alternative to passive ...

Forms - Methods - Green politics - Revolution

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolence - Cached - Similar

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2. nonviolence.org

nonviolence.org. Choose a topic... Women Empowerment · Stop War · Peace Movement · World Hunger · Poverty Reduction. image1 ...
www.nonviolence.org/ - Cached

3. Nonviolence International

International group encouraging nonviolent methods to bring about changes reflecting the values of justice and human development.
www.nonviolenceinternational.net/ - Cached

4. Nonviolence : An Introduction

'Nonviolence' is an umbrella term for describing a range of methods for ...
www.nonviolenceinternational.net/seasia/whatis/book.php - Cached

Show more results from nonviolenceinternational.net

5. Non-Violence

The strength of nonviolence lies in its ability to dramatically reduce the moral legitimacy of those who persist in using violent strategies against ...
www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/nonviolc.htm - Cached - Similar

6. Nonviolent Peaceforce

NP is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Nonviolent Peaceforce USA - 425 Oak Grove St. ...
www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/ - Cached - Similar

7. Images for nonviolence

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8. The Center for Nonviolent Communication | Center for Nonviolent ...

Nov 1, 2010 ... CNVC is a steward of the integrity of the NVC process and a nexus point of NVC-related information and resources, including training, ...
www.cnvc.org/ - Cached - Similar

9. Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Voices for Creative Nonviolence has deep, long-standing roots in active nonviolent resistance to U.S. war-making. Voices draws upon the experiences of those ...
vcnv.org/ - Cached - Similar

10. Non-violence: A Study Guide

Non-violence. A Study Guide. by. Thanissaro Bhikkhu. © 2001–2010. Introduction. When embraced, the rod of violence breeds danger & fear: Look at people ...
www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/nonviolence.html - Cached - Similar

11. Meatball Wiki: NonViolence

NonViolence is a direct translation of the sanskrit word ahimsa. As I understand it, literally the "a" prefix means much the same as in English, ...
meatballwiki.org/wiki/NonViolence - Cached

12. Videos for nonviolence

Martin Luther King on Non-Violence
4 min - May 7, 2007
Uploaded by antihostile
youtube.com

Gandhi's non-violence speech
5 min - Aug 28, 2008
Uploaded by Jleibold
youtube.com

13. News for nonviolence

· Minnesota group builds a peace army
13 hours ago

By JEAN HOPFENSPERGER, Star Tribune Most Minnesotans have never heard of the Nonviolent Peaceforce. But nine Nobel Peace Prize laureates have endorsed this ...

Minneapolis Star Tribune - 2 related articles - Shared by 10+

· Ogoni: Nonviolence Will Protect Niger Delta Environment
UNPO - 2 related articles

14. Books for nonviolence

Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating ... - Senthil Ram, Ralph Summy - 2007 - 296 pages
These are just some of the tasks that the contributors have collectively pursued.

Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea - Mark Kurlansky - 2008 - 224 pages
A sweeping history of the idea of nonviolence, from ancient Hindu times to the present ...

The power of nonviolence: writings by ... - Howard Zinn - 2002 - 202 pages
With an introduction by Howard Zinn about September 11 and the U.S. response to the ...

books.google.com

15. Searches related to nonviolence

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aste this link into your browser http://ncronline.org/node/20957

END OF NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER #

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07/09/2013

Nonviolence Charter: progress report 4 (Apr 2014), by Robert J. Burrowes & Anita McKone. flametree@riseup.net, via uark.edu

Catholic Realism and the Abolition of War by David Cochran

BOOK REVIEW: “The Many Sides of Peace” Challenges One to Live Gospel Nonviolence by Brayton Shanley

A History of Nonviolence and Pacifism by MARK KURLANSKY

“Practicing Nonviolence in Syria” by Zack Baddorf

Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

FALL 2006.

HINDU: Murthy Kolluru, 401 NW Palomino St. Rogers? 72712, 464-4560

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The Boat

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Wampler's Ascent

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Global Tides

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Declaration of Interdependence

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