100 new peace activists, Part 1

By Kathie Malley-Morrison & Anthony J. Marsella

Be not afraid!  You are not alone! There are thousands of advocates and activists across the world who are bringing conscience to the struggle for peace and justice. They are willing to endure the dangers of speaking for peace and justice, wherever human and legal rights are violated by people in power.

In the face of abuses and oppression, we recall the iconic peace and justice leaders of the past, including Mohatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Samuel Gompers, Caesar Chavez, Larry Itliong, Rachel Corrie, Philip & Daniel Berrigan, Glenn Paige, Hedy Epstein, and Malcom X. Peace advocates like these are testimony to the enduring human quest to resist oppression and to claim liberty, even when the cost is life itself.

This is the second list of living peace and justice advocates and activists we have compiled and published to celebrate Reverend Martin Luther King’s enduring contributions to peace and justice.

We are eternally grateful for Rev King’s efforts to free people and nations from the brutal oppressions of governments, nations, societies, organizations, and individuals who support racism, prejudice, violence, and war.

We have chosen to demonstrate our responsibilities and commitment to Rev King by identifying another 100 living peace and social justice leaders and models, starting with 50 new names. You will recognize many of the names, while others have not yet received the  attention they deserve. 

Please help us make the lists grow. The list will include emerging local community activists as well as some who have already attracted media attention. Although our current lists include mostly journalists and academics, we welcome people from other disciplines.  Please use the comment section at the end of this post to nominate a wider range of peace and justice activists.

  1. Abu-Nimr: Mohammad Abu-Nimr 
  2. Adams: Glenn Adams 
  3. Arbuthnot: Felicity Arbuthnot
  4. Arrigo: Jean Marie Arrigo
  5. Arredondo: Patricia Arredondo
  6. Awad: Murbarak Awad
  7. Baez: Joan Baez 
  8. Barber: Reverend William Barber 
  9. Barnat: Ilyad Barnat 
  10. Bassett: Larry Bassett
  11. Belle: Deborah Belle
  12. Bigombe: Betty Oyella Bigombe
  13. Blackmon-Lowery: Lynda Blackmon-Lowery
  14. Blume: Art Blume
  15. Bowen: Kevin Bowen
  16. Bretherton: Diane Bretherton
  17. Bryant: Brandon Bryant
  18. Burghardt: Tom Burghardt
  19. Cacciatori: Joanne Cacciatori
  20. Campos: Pam Campos
  21. Caputi: Ross Caputi
  22. Carruthers: Charlene Carruthers
  23. Chappell: Paul Chappell
  24. Chomsky: Avi Chomsky
  25. Chossudovsky: Michael Chossudovsky
  26. Christie: Daniel Christie
  27. Clark: Ramsey Clark
  28. Connolly: David Connelly
  29. Cox: Lynell Cox
  30. D’Andrea: Michael D’Andrea
  31. Dunbar: Edward Dunbar
  32. Correia: Antone De’Jaun Correia  
  33. Degirmencioglu: Serdar Degirmencioglu
  34. Drake: Thomas A. Drake
  35. FihnBeatrice Fihn
  36. Finklestein: Norman Finklestein
  37. Flowers: Margaret Flowers
  38. Fox: Matthew Fox
  39. Furtado: Michael Furtado
  40. Gagnon: Bruce K. Gagnon
  41. Giffords: Gabrielle Giffords
  42. Gillotti, Michael Gillotti
  43. Goldberg: Whoopi Goldberg
  44. Green: Paula Green
  45. Hall: Mitchell K. Hall
  46. Handwerker: Steven E. Handwerker
  47. Haney: Craig Haney
  48. Hazare: Anna Hazare
  49. Hines: Denise Hines 
  50. Jackson-Lowman: Huberta Jackson-Lowman

This is a somewhat condensed version of a post that appeared today on Transcend Media Services.  Part 2 will appear 2/19/2018 on this blog.

The Epic Ideological Struggle of Our Global Era: Part 2. Multiculturalism versus Homogenization

By Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

Multiculturalism: A Competing Ideology

Statue titled, Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Pirelli, in front of Union Station, Toronto, Ontario
Statue titled, Monument to Multiculturalism by Francesco Pirelli, in front of Union Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: paul (dex) from Toronto.

In my last post, I discussed homogenization, a dangerous ideology.  Today I discuss a competing ideology, Multiculturalism. An ideology is a systematic set of beliefs that  define a preferred or favored vision of a way-of-life or governance or social formation. In many known ideologies, specific assumptions, premises, and historical foundations and arguments are advanced to promote and defend the ideology’s adoption or empowerment. Uses are often made of symbols, myths, and historical events and forces to enhance the appeal of ideologies, sometimes bringing them to mythic proportions. Scores of ideologies exist, especially within the economic, social, and political areas of thought and action.

Examples of ideologies shaping individual and nation behavior include capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, feminism, Zionism, Marxism, militarism, libertarianism, state-ism, and anarchism. These examples embody different disciplinary (e.g., philosophy, economic, history, theology) and societal sectors (e.g., government, judicial, military, education, religion/faith-based) areas.

Often times, ideologies co-opt religious/faith based, moral, and media resources to further favored goals and ambitions. Nothing is as powerful as beliefs rooted in self-righteous justification in the cause of god or a supreme being. The use of force, violence, vilification, valorization, and legal advantages to promote “causes” is not uncommon. The concentration of power in an ideology’s movement can lead to excessive control and domination, gathering force as they become “crusaders” buoyed by good intentions and purpose.

The ideology of Multiculturalism is based on an appreciation and promotion of diversity among various cultural, ethnic, and racial groups. Multiculturalism considers diversity an essential resource for survival because it adds the virtues of resiliency derived from variation, alternatives, and choices in belief, behavior, and world views. It keeps options open.

When Octavio Paz, Mexican Noble Prize winner in Literature, claimed, “Life is diversity, death is uniformity,” Paz was calling attention to the fact that diversity is the very nature of life — an expression and revelation of life’s abundant manifestations and displays. I share this view, and have written of Lifeism, an ideology positioning “humans” as a part of life, rather than life’s dominant and preferred expression.

Multiculturalism as an ideology evolved in response to the events, forces, and personalities of the turbulent years and tears of change and social upheaval between 1950 and 1980. The post WWII years witnessed major socio-political changes and upheavals in the United States and the world, converging and consummating in new awareness and appreciation of the importance of diversity, justice, inclusion, political correctness, and the politics of identity. All found support in a multicultural ideology respecting human rights, equality, and dignity.

Multiple and Varied Cultures

These years experienced major cultural changes and massive social movements. There was a rising awareness — consciousness — that “culture” was a critical concept, and a major force in shaping individual and collective behavior. It became clear that “culture” was too critical to be reserved for esoteric studies of exotic tribes by anthropologists. Culture was present in the lives of all human beings, both internally and externally.

Table 1 lists some major social, economic, and political events, forces, and people shaping the emergence of contemporary Multiculturalism as an ideology.

Table 1:

Examples of Forces, Events, and People Associated with Multiculturalism

(Circa Post WW II Period – alphabetical order)

  • Assassinations and Overthrows
  • Civil Rights Movement
  • Consciousness of Ideologies
  • Counter-Culture Movements
  • Developments in Information and Communication Technologies
  • Drug Subcultures (e.g., Marijuana, Cocaine, Hallucinogens)
  • Ethno-Cultural Conflicts/Ethnic Cleansing
  • Fall of Berlin Wall
  • Feminist Revolution
  • Globalization
  • Liberation Psychologies
  • Massive International Migrations Waves
  • New Political Alliances and Unions (e.g., EU, NATO)
  • New World Order Efforts
  • Post Modernism
  • Racial Protests and Riots
  • Post WWII Colonial Wars and Liberations (Africa, India, Indonesia)
  • Refugee and IDP Problems
  • Vietnam War, Balkan Wars,
  • Wars and Conflicts in Middle-East and West Asia
  • War on Poverty (Johnson Era)

Understanding Culture

Although culture had long been a topic of study, especially in anthropology and history, social upheavals of the 1950-1980s brought an acute awareness of the socio-political contexts of culture. Colonialism was revealed not as an inevitable unfolding of change as “civilized” progress but as invasive and exploitive abuses to control and suppress mind, behavior, and social position formations. Minority populations, conquered people, and occupied nations understood the cultural relativism, and the possibilities of release and escape from the chains of dominant social, political, and economic orders.

The term “culture” became applied with accuracy and regularity as a noun/adjective: the culture of poverty, the culture of racism, the culture of violence, the culture of oppression, the culture of colonialism, the culture of war. Culture was no longer confined to an ethnic tradition or identity; it was recognized as a complex clustering of self-perpetuating historical, societal, and moral forces, shaping and being shaped, by hidden ethoses, institutions, and definitions of personhood (e.g., “institutional racism”).

Culture was now to be studied, understood, and scrutinized as an explanation for understanding past, present, and future. Social, political, and economic leaders with insights into the abuses of history maintained in dominant cultures challenged sources of domination and control. Leaders became lightning rods for social change – voices crystallizing protests, and illuminating abuses and violence inherent in power asymmetries. It was a time for change in the social fabric and the moral order.

The tolls of raising consciousness regarding marginalized people brought violence and death to many leaders. Consider the examples of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Black Panthers, Ignacio Martin-Baro, as well as elected national leaders considered threats to existing Western social orders, including Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile, Mandela in South Africa, Zapata in Mexico, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. Here William Blum’s (2004) book, Killing Hope, Stephen Kinzer’s (2006) book, Overthrow, and Chalmers Johnson (2010), book, Dismantling the Empire, become essential reading – harbingers of our future, by acknowledging past crimes and offenses. The social, economic, and political roots of “culture” became the path to for understanding injustice and resisting oppression. Multiculturalism became an ideology for correcting for history’s abuses. Colonization is always colonization of mind (Goodman & Gorski, 2014).

Multiculturalism in Counseling, Psychology, and Psychiatry

It was only a matter of time before revolutionary thinkers–including Paulo Friere (1997) in his volumes on pedagogies and Ignacio Martin-Baro (1994), in his volume Writings for a Liberation Psychology– recognized the inherent abuses associated within Western psychologies of political domination, repression, and control. Tod Sloan (1997) acknowledged this reality when he concluded Western psychology was a source for perpetuating “Westernization” as an ideology, replete with its ill-suited values and methods for a changing world.

Multiculturalism acknowledges and emphasizes the role of the distribution of “power” in every domain of human activity. All relations are ultimately about power and its distribution. Even those areas claiming immunity from political interference and power distribution are, in fact, subject to it by guiding thought and practices according to the preferences, wishes, and concerns of those in power.

The term “inclusive” became popular to describe to the importance of “including” people – giving them access and acceptance – because they had been ignored or denied a spectrum of opportunities and services. The playing field was being expanded, but it did not guarantee those in power would yield their largesse. We know that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and this was the case in our nation and around the world as Western political and economic dominance pursued hegemony.

With hegemony came abuses of invading and occupying another nation — often a third- world nation — by imposing and infusing cultural values and traditions. It was a new way to conquer and control using American popular culture as the strategy for control and domination (e.g., individualism, consumerism, commodification, competition, materialism, celebritization, corruption, technology). This was now the pathway for forcing a “homogenization” of world cultures. Differences existed, but efforts were made to deny them because they challenged the hegemony of those in power. The task for the government/corporate system was invasion by “cultural” conquest, and “colonization of mind” (e.g., Goodman & Gorski, 2014).

Amidst an ocean of ideological struggles in a global era, it is clear “Multiculturalism” was, and is, the essential ideology for a global era! Accepting and implementing this ideology among individuals, groups, and nations remains the task of our times. In contrast to homogenization, the preferred ideology of those in power and position seeking control and domination, Multiculturalism embraces the reality of life’s diversity and differences – the beauty of variation. All other ideologies “pale” in complexion, complexity, and comparison.

Author:  Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822. He is the author and editor of twenty books, and more than 300 publications noted for challenging the ethnocentricity and biases of Western psychology and psychiatry, and for advocating peace and social justice.