family violence – Engaging Peace

What brand will you settle for? Maybe not the “Made in America” Variety. Part II

Posted on March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Negative peace sounds pretty good, right? Signing truces and other agreements to end all the dirty little wars in which our government involves us, and putting a stop to terrorism, gang wars, domestic violence, and the other forms of violence haunting our lives today—wouldn’t that be heavenly? Yes, but wouldn’t it be even better to help peace endure at all levels of society?

Unfortunately, at the international and national levels, the history of peace treaties, ceasefires, nonaggression pacts, and truces is not very encouraging. Treaties and truces have been made and broken repeatedly, at the cost of millions and millions of lives, as greedy governments have used increasingly sophisticated armaments to seize land and resources from resistant others.

At the family level, despite innovative truce bells and family truce intervals, marital cease-and-desist agreements often fail to produce lasting marital peace, leading instead to the negative peace of separation, divorce, and angry children, with all parties smoldering with a sense of unfair treatment.

As for gang violence, truces among violent gangs are relatively commonplace, but like those between nations, also commonly broken. Some evidence indicates that while truces may work for awhile, gang warfare usually resumes in the absence of efforts to address fundamental political and social welfare challenges like marginalization, unemployment, and lack of equal opportunity.

Such concerns are very much the purview of positive peace advocates. Positive peace, by definition, addresses the roots of violence. As conceptualized by Johan Galtung and other peace advocates, positive peace means cooperation for mutual and equal benefit. It means reform of the political and social structures that create and reinforce inequality. It means genuine respect for human rights. It means that women’s voices matter, that people of color don’t need to fear entering their churches, that people of non-Christian faiths can walk fearlessly on our streets. It means that war profiteers are not enabled to put their pursuit of profits ahead of the well-being—indeed the lives—of everyone whom they can “other” for their differences.

Positive peace may sound like the impossible dream, the delusion of cockeyed optimists, but if we don’t strive for it, what kind of future will the world have?

For further reading, see Galtung’s Mini-theory of peace.

What brand will you settle for? Maybe not the “Made in the USA” variety. Part I.

Posted on March 14, 2019March 18, 2019 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Most people (not the war profiteers, but most people) say they want peace. Most people can see the benefits of peace, and wouldn’t mind sharing them with others.
But beware: Peace comes in many sizes and shapes, and what some people call “peace” may not be what you’ve been hoping for.

The major classification for types of peace differentiates between negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace, as discussed previously on this blog, refers to the absence of war, or armed conflict, or other forms of violence—especially structural violence (i.e., the kinds of violence built into the economic and political structures that keep some groups at a disadvantage). Negative peace is what prevailed in Europe after World War 1—and look where that led us (World War 2).

Negative in this context does not mean something bad—it’s not like negative vibes. It simply means absent, such as a negative medical test result showing that you don’t have the flu, or pneumonia, or cancer, or some other wretched and potentially deadly
disease. However, while it’s good to be free of bad symptoms (especially if you’ve been misusing your body), that’s not the same as having positive health. Seekers of positive health often need to get more exercise, give up smoking, eat better, etc.

Negative peace is one of those multi-layered phenomena. Within and between families, within and between communities, and within and between nations, negative peace benefits more people and saves more lives than violence. Violence today is probably more deadly than the most dangerous diseases, and negative peace doesn’t protect people (or the environment) from renewed attack.

We can have truces at every level. We can have agreements not to harm or kill each other, at every level, and those truces and agreements can help save lives and improve the quality of living. But none of those truces, none of those agreements, none of those live-and-live pacts is the same as positive peace. They’re not the same as cooperation, collaboration, and harmony, and not the same as the social justice and respect for human rights that are essential for a healthy society and a healthy planet. {More on that coming.)

P.S. The father of peace studies and the theory of positive and negative peace is Johan Galtung; see, for example, this recent article.

Honor Thy Children (to save humanity)

Posted on February 18, 2019February 17, 2019 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Cloe Axelson in a WBUR Cognoscenti article tells us, “The kids have something to say, and we should listen.” And she’s right.

Axelson’s article focuses on student activists who survived last February’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 died.

Parkland was not the first example of a mass school shooting in this country; given that the United States has become a nation in which nearly 100 people die daily from guns, it is unlikely to be the last. [I hope you are as horrified to read these words as I am to write them and are thinking of ways to fight the NRA’s deadly work for the arms industry.]

One of the highlights of Axelson’s article is her reminiscence about another young student, Mary Beth Tinker, who was suspended from her middle school in Iowa in the 1960s for wearing a black arm band to school to protest the Vietnam War. The ACLU took her case on behalf of student rights to free speech all the way to the Supreme Court, where she won her case in a 7-2 decision.

I have same hypotheses about the child-rearing Mary Beth and other student activists experienced. I believe that in general, they were not bullied and beaten by their parents. They were not sent off to military schools to straighten them out. They were not told to shut their traps, mind their own beeswax, watch out or they’d get what was coming to them, obey…or else.

More likely, young activists like these are allowed to ask questions, wonder about injustices, read widely, educate themselves about society’s ills, and even speak out about problems they see in their communities and beyond—nurtured rather than suppressed, taught to love rather than to hate, urged to strive for a better society rather than become bullies themselves.

“Beating the devil” out of kids is not a path to a better world. Corporal punishment can beat out a lot of potential for developing a universal ethic and sense of justice—and perhaps destroy our only hope for survival of the planet. If you want to stop violence in and to the world, work to end violence in the home.

And inspire yourself! Hear Mary Beth today in this brief video.

https://nowthisnews.com/videos/news/mary-beth-tinker-talks-about-her-role-in-the-history-of-student-rights

Violence is a many-layered thing

Posted on February 11, 2019February 11, 2019 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

“My partner never took responsibility for his own actions. He blamed me incessantly, even for his own abusive behavior. When confronted, he always had some excuse to justify himself. At his hands, I was subjected to insults, put-downs, shouting, threats and sarcasm….He typically ended his verbal assaults by accusing me of provoking his abuse or telling me that I deserved it. …” [i]

Every reader of this blog recognizes this type of guy—an entitled bully who considers himself right at all times and becomes enraged at any sign of “disrespect” or threat to his “authority.” He’s the kind of guy whose behavior inspired the feminist movement–and more recently the “smash patriarchy” initiatives. And he’s everywhere.

Clearly there are many men who have respect for others, and who feel compassion and empathy for all who struggle with life’s challenges, even those who differ in gender, sexuality, skin color, faith, and/or national origins. But who is it that you see running, controlling, and bossing the “traditional families,” big corporations, military-industrial complexes, and governments? Who is it that wrote the laws, stacked the judiciaries, assumed control of the armies, and built the structures and shaped the cultures to ensure and strengthen their own power while enriching themselves? Not Sojourner Truth, not Harriet Tubman, not the Suffragettes, not Jane Addams, not Jeannette Rankin, not Rosa Parks, not Shirley Chisholm, not Medea Benjamin (and not Martin Luther King, Jr., or the many other male supporters of peace and justice, either).

So, if we want peace and justice, harmony and hope, to whom do we turn in these frightening times? The models for nonviolence and cooperation are everywhere too—it’s just harder for them to break through the Old Guard’s barriers without help from all of us who see the widespread injustices and looming catastrophes.

So, if you’re tired of seeing violence rewarded at every level of society while the rich get richer and just about everyone else gets poorer, don’t get in bed with the bad guys! Look for the people in your own community who recognize the threats to our environment and to humanity, and support their efforts. Free yourself from the corporate media.

While you’re at it, take a good look at current members of Congress. Identify, among both newer and established members of Congress, both female and male, Republican and Democrat, both those who are invested in the status quo, and those who will work to reform the corrupt structures endangering us all. Support the reformers, in and out of government. Our freedoms, our rights, our very lives are at stake.

And, for further ideas and opportunities, investigate organizations like Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (and support engaging peace).

[i] Adapted from a case study published in Family Violence in the United States, by Hines, Malley-Morrison, & Dutton, 2nd ed.