Nonviolence

Breaking Bread In Kabul

December 16, 2015 Kathy Kelly, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Afghanistan, Nonviolence

By Kathy Kelly for Waging Nonviolence, Here in Kabul, over breakfast with Afghan Peace Volunteers, or APVs, we easily recalled key elements of the conflict resolution and peer mediation “train the trainers” workshops that Ellis Brooks, with Voices for Creative Nonviolence-UK, had facilitated a week ago. The APV is a grassroots group of ordinary multi-ethnic Afghans seeking a life of nonviolence. Peer mediators make “promises” before beginning a session: We won’t tell you what to do, we won’t take sides, and we won’t talk about this session with anyone outside of our room. While pouring tea and breaking bread, we recalled the hand signals Ellis gave us to help remember each promise.

Curbing Corruption With Civil Resistance

November 29, 2015 Elena Volkava, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Accountability, Book Review, Corruption, Nonviolence

By Elena Volkava for Waging Nonviolence. Book review - Corruption is a widespread and global phenomenon, ranging from “narco-corruption” in Central America to “petty corruption” in Eastern Europe, such as candidates buying votes with buckwheat and sunflower oil before elections. Rather than focusing on the issue itself, Shaazka Beyerle explores how corruption is being curbed with civil resistance in her new book “Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice.” Beyerle documents and analyzes civic grassroots initiatives that have expressed clear demands, reached their objectives, employed an array of nonviolent actions, and were sustained over a period of time.

Black Bloc: The Activist’s Militia

November 22, 2015 Awakened Media, www.thefifthcolumnnews.org Strategize! Anarchism, Black Bloc, Nonviolence, Popular Protest

By Awakened Media for The Fifth Column News. Seattle, Washington (TFC) – A Black Bloc is not a group or organization; in fact, it is a tactic that has greatly evolved since its beginnings in Germany, 1980. Many view the participants as hooligans and violent Anarchists. Some are there only to agitate and be destructive. Some are there to express their anger towards the buildings that signify our addictions and act as a reminder to the ruling class. But, most are there to show solidarity and provide security for the peaceful protesters. They are prepared to fight back against law enforcement when they decide to attack peaceful demonstrators. The dress code is black head to toe for many reasons. To show solidarity and to allow anonymity for those who choose to take certain actions. This allows the Bloc to prevent arrests and “unarrest” those who have been detained. Behind the black uniform and mask are people just like you and I.

An Inspiring Life’s Work Continues To Inspire

November 6, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Book Review, Civil Rights, Nonviolence, Peace

Book Review by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. On June 10th, David joined ten African American students from Howard and a white woman from another college in the heart of hatred and sat down at the lunch counter at the People’s Drug Store in Arlington. The owner told the police not to arrest them and closed the lunch counter. Shouts of racial hatred were heard, people threw things at them, spat on them, shoved lit cigarettes down their clothes and one threw a firecracker at them. American Nazi storm troopers showed up. They were punched and kicked to the floor. They stayed for 16 hours until the store closed for the day. Then, they came back for a second day. On the second day, David had a life changing experience confronting the reality of nonviolent protest.

Gandhi Jayanti, Gandhi’s Dream

October 22, 2015 Robert J. Burrowes, www.PopularResistance Create! Gandhi, Nonviolence, Peace

By Robert J. Burrowes for Popular Resistance - On behalf of those of us who struggle to honor Gandhi's legacy to the world, I would like to wish Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi 'happy birthday!' Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 and had he defied both the assassin's bullet and the aging process, he would have been 146 years old this year. In theory, the world celebrates 2 October as the International Day of Nonviolence but it is a day that few remember or commemorate meaningfully. Perhaps this is appropriate given the rather desultory progress we have made in making our world nonviolent. Still, while our scorecard might not be what Gandhi would have hoped nearly 68 years after his death, a number of people are making a committed effort to create this nonviolent world. This effort, by its nature, must be multifaceted. Much of it is mundane; some of it profound. Let me tell you about some of these efforts by people I find pretty inspiring.

Next Steps In Growing The Movement For Nonviolence

October 10, 2015 Staff, www.paceebene.org Strategize! Nonviolence, Pace e Benne

By Staff for Pace e Penne - This year's 370 actions during Campaign Nonviolence Week grew by more than 100 events over last year. We are grateful for all you did to make nonviolence happen coast to coast and beyond in September! Now we are gearing up for this next year — including Campaign Nonviolence Action Week, September 18-25. Save the date — and start planning now! Campaign Nonviolence is a long-term movement for a culture of peace and nonviolence free from war, poverty, racism, environmental destruction and the epidemic of violence. Here’s what we’re doing this next year!

Over 220 Nonviolent Actions Planned For Nonviolence Week

August 30, 2015 Staff, www.paceebene.org Resist! climate crisis, Nonviolence, Peace, Poverty, Sustainability

By Staff of Campaign Nonviolence - Campaign Nonviolence is a long-term movement to mainstream nonviolence and build a culture of peace in three interrelated ways: practicing nonviolence toward ourselves, toward all others, and toward the world by working to abolish war, end poverty, reverse the climate crisis, and challenge all violence. In cities and towns in all 50 states, Campaign Nonviolence will march against violence and for a world of peace, justice and sustainability. During Campaign Nonviolence Week, we will connect the dots between war, poverty, climate change, and all forms of violence —and join forces to work for a culture of peace.

Nonviolent Resistance In Palestine: Steadfastness, Creativity & Hope

July 21, 2015 Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh, www.opendemocracy.net Resist! Israel, Nonviolence, Palestine, Resistance

For Iyad Burnat, nonviolent resistance is as central to daily life as the twisted-trunk olive trees that frame his rural village of Bil’in in the occupied West Bank. An enthusiastic father of five with a large smile and deep, piercing eyes, he is recognized not only in Palestine, but also among scholars and opinion-shapers around the world as a courageous leader among leaders in an exemplary movement of nonviolent resistance. Over the past decade, images and footage of Bil’in’s resistance have spread across the world, in large part due to the movement’s characteristic use of creative actions, which have increasingly captured the attention of international journalists. The movement also gained significant exposure, especially in the United States, when the film Five Broken Cameras (incidentally filmed by Iyad’s brother, Emad Burnat) was nominated for the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Nonviolent Organizer’s Recipe For Social Change

March 29, 2015 Adam Vogal, www.paceebene.org Strategize! Nonviolence, Nonviolent Action

For me, creating a march for Campaign Nonviolence that encourages positive social change is like making a perfect loaf of banana bread. Like the perfect loaf, there is also a tried and true and unfailing recipe for doing the things necessary to bring equality, love, peace, and joy to our world. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., not to mention countless other inspirational leaders, have devoted their lives to perfecting the recipe for helping to create positive social change. Their recipe is called nonviolent action. It is strategic and loving, powerful, but never harming, and always accessible to anyone willing to use it. Most importantly, the result of nonviolence is that it always works. To be successful in creating positive change, all we have to do is follow the recipe of nonviolence that has been handed down from these amazing leaders. For me, the first part of organizing the nonviolent march recipe means contacting everyone I can to get buy in. I know intuitively that everyone wants a better world so I just have to let them know that we are doing something to work towards that end. Many people are willing to spend time helping to create a better world, but first I have to find them and then bring them all together.

The Mother Of Nonviolent Direct Action: Lucy Parsons

March 16, 2015 William Loren Katz, www.zinnedproject.org Educate! Anarchism, Civil Rights, Nonviolence, Women's Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

She called for the use of nonviolence that would have broad meaning for the world’s protest movements. She told delegates workers shouldn’t “strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production.” A year later Mahatma Gandhi, speaking to fellow Indians at the Johannesburg Empire Theater, advocated nonviolence to fight colonialism, but he was still 25 years away from leading fellow Indians in nonviolent marches against India’s British rulers. Eventually Lucy Parsons’ principle traveled to the U.S. sit-down strikers of the 1930s, Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the antiwar movements that followed, and finally to today’s Arab Spring and the Occupy movements.

Popular Resistance Needs Your Support

March 8, 2015 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Media, Nonviolence, Popular Resistance, Resistance

The point is that the Popular Resistance team is deeply committed to human rights and protection of the planet. We will do all that we can nonviolently to bring justice and build a stronger movement of movements. The problem is that by stepping out of the realm of traditional political tools, we are not able to receive funding from traditional foundations. We won't compromise our work for funding, but we still need funds to do the work we do. Some of our readers have made donations recently and we greatly appreciate that. We try not to be aggressive about seeking donations, but we currently find ourselves in a situation that makes it necessary to ask. Some of our staff are going without pay and some have reduced their pay in order to keep Popular Resistance going, but this isn't sustainable. We know that the economy is hard for everyone, but we are asking you to make a donation if you can.

Newsletter: Transforming Fundamental Power Inequities

February 21, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, Corporatocracy, Cove Point, Energy, Environment, fast track, Fracking, Free Trade Agreements, Nonviolence, Oil & Gas, Oil Trains, Seneca Lake, TPP, Trade

Most of the Popular Resistance team is in Cove Point, Maryland right now. Almost all are very likely to go to jail for several weeks after Monday's hearing for our efforts to stop the Dominion fracked gas export terminal at Cove Point. You can donate to the campaign here. Stopping this terminal is the key to stopping fracking on the east coast. The Calvert Commissioners have made a charade out of democracy. The government in Calvert County has kept the facts from the public. Before letting the public know of the plan to build the terminal they entered into a secrecy agreement with Dominion so the public has been kept in the dark. In the first hearing on the terminal, the County Attorney wrote the agenda: take public testimony, close the record and vote for the proposal. The proposal was for massive tax breaks for Dominion and waiver of zoning requirements. The latter turned out to be unconstitutional. Protests and civil resistance are the only avenues left to stop the Dominion terminal. This is literally a life and death situation for a community of 44,000 people; hundreds, probably more than a thousand lives, will be shortened and diseases that are not common now, will become common.

How Nonviolent Activists Shape American Identity

February 15, 2015 Rivera Sun, www.laprogressive.com Strategize! Nonviolence

Often minimized in our history books, the tactics of nonviolent action played a powerful role in achieving American Independence from British rule. One hundred and fifty years before Gandhi, the colonists were employing many of the same tactics the Indian Self-Rule Movement would use to free themselves from Great Britain. The boycotting of British goods (tea, cloth, and other items) significantly undermined British profits from the colonies. Noncooperation with unjust laws eroded British authority as the colonists refused to comply with laws that restricted assembly and speech, allowed the quartering of soldiers in colonists’ homes, and imposed curfews. Non-payment of taxes would prove to be a landmark issue for the independence movement. The development of parallel governments and legal structures strengthened the self-rule and self-reliance of the colonists and grew local political control that would ultimately prove strong enough to replace British governance of the colonies. Acts of protest and persuasion, petitions, pamphlets, rallies, marches, denouncements, legal and illegal publications of articles, and disruption of British meetings and legal proceedings were also employed.

Nonviolence: Not Just The Moral Choice But The Strategic One

February 15, 2015 Tina Rosenberg, www.nytimes.com Strategize! Nonviolence, OPTOR, Popovic

In very harsh dictatorships, concentrating people in marches, rallies or protests is dangerous; your people will get arrested or shot. It’s risky for other reasons. A sparsely attended march is a disaster. Or the protest can go perfectly, but someone — perhaps hired by the enemy — decides to throw rocks at the police. And that’s what will lead the evening news. One failed protest can destroy a movement. So what do you do instead? You can start with tactics of dispersal, such as coordinated pot-banging, or traffic slowdowns in which everyone drives at half speed. These tactics show that you have widespread support, they grow people’s confidence, and they’re safe. Otpor, which went from 11 people to 70,000 in two years, initially grew like this: three or four activists staged a humorous piece of anti-Milosevic street theater. People watched, smiled — and then joined. Nonviolence is not just the moral choice; it is almost always the strategic choice. “My biggest objection to violence is the fact that it simply doesn’t work,” Popovic writes. Violence is what every dictator does best.

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