Christophe Nyambatsi Mutaka

Poster at Rededication ceremony, Peace Abbey, July 29, 2018. Reprinted by permission. Thanks to Lewis Randa.

By Kathie Malley-Morrison and Anthony J. Marsella

There is a new spirit of encounter (e.g., Black Lives Matter; Me Too) in our times, a new spirit of protest against oppression and abuse, evidenced by national and local gatherings among and for women and minority groups!

There is a new spirit of communication and connection among free media critical of government, military, and wealth controls! There is a new spirit of protest against war and militarism, against the wasting of a nation’s wealth on weaponry and endless war!

There is a new spirit of concern for life and land, a concern especially regarding anthropogenic climate changes! Activists are protesting destructive developments and supporting climate change policies to limit Co2 release.

There is a new spirit of determination to expose abuses of privilege and position by select government officials who have politicized and weaponized laws for personal use (e.g., FISA Court).

These changes signal and sustain hope. Hope is the life blood of progressive change. Hope can be suppressed and oppressed, but it cannot be defeated. Hope endures because it is the very essence of life. Regardless of life form and species, hope is the evolutionary impulse to pursue survival, adaptation, and adjustment, free of oppression.

And hope is sustained and enlarged through the work of the brave activists being honored in our fourth list of living peace and social justice activists.

Erakat: Noura Erakat, human rights attorney, writer, activist, specialist in Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Fisk: Ro bert Fisk, war zone Guardian correspondent
Flanders: Laura Flanders, author, journalist,
Frompovich: Catherine Frompovich, health rights advocate, journalist
Gaynor: Maureen Gaynor, disability activist, supporter of civil disobedience
Gattinger: Malvin Gattinger, Transcend Media Services staff
Gold: Ariel Gold, Jewish mother, BDS activist, pro-Palestinian, Code Pink leader.
Gonzalez: Naomi Emma Gonzalez, leader in youth-led gun control student movement.
Haque: Umair Haque, inspirational writer
Hightower: Jim Hightower, progressive political activist, supporter of sustainable agriculture
Huerta: Delores Huerta, labor leader and civil rights activist. Worked with Caesar Chavez in founding United Farm Workers Union
Jackson: Richard Jackson, Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Johnson: Jake Johnson ,Common Dreams writer
Jones: Preston Jones, professor, peace activist on American Empire
Kent: George Kent, Teaches human rights, on the Board of Directors of the International Peace Research Association Foundation.
Klare: Michael T. Klare, Five College Professor of Peace & World Security Studies
Kolhatkar: Sonali Kolhatkar, columnist for Truthdig, co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission
Kunstler: Barton Kunstler, Author, Nation of change.
Laurison: Hannah Burton Laurison, human rights activist.
Lillard: Kwame Leo Lillard, Nashville civil rights leader
Loladze : Irakli Loladze, professor, Environment of Food Supply
McKay: Donna McKay, active with Physicians for Human Rights.
McKibben: Bill McKibben, leading environmentalist in USA
Melamed: Barbara G. Melamed, psychologist, promotes women’s peacebuilding, mediation
Milton-Lightening: Heather Milton-Lightening, international Indigenous Peoples advocate, activist for ending Gaza blockade.
Mingo: Erika Mingo, Past President, PSYSR; Racial Justice Action Group
Munayyer: Yousef Munayyer, US Campaign for Palestinian
RightsMutaka: Christophe Nyambatsi Mutaka key figure at the Groupe Martin Luther King; promotes active nonviolence, human rights, and peace, focuses on reducing sexual and other violence against women.
Nair: Keshavan Nair, Gandhi scholar
Neville: Helen A. Neville, Professor, African-American Studies/Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Please support their efforts and ours. And vote in November!

By Guest Authors Anita McKone and Robert J. Burrowes

Note from Kathie MM: Anita McKone and Robert J. Burrowes are life-long peace and justice advocates. They were featured in Kathie MM and Tony Marcella’s recent series, dedicated to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. , on peace activists. Today, Anita and Robert begin a guest series with inspiring stories of Nonviolence Charter members.

Ella Polyakova is the key figure at Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg in Russia. In Ella’s words: “When we were creating our organization, we understood that people knew little about their rights, enshrined in Russia’s Constitution, that the concept of ‘human dignity’ had almost disappeared, that no one had been working with the problems of common people, let alone those of conscripts. We clearly understood what a soldier in the Russian army was – a mere cog in the state machine, yet with an assault rifle. We felt how important hope, self-confidence and trust were for every person. At the beginning of our journey, we saw that people around us, as a rule, did not even know what it meant to feel free. It was obvious for us that the path towards freedom and the attainment of dignity was going through enlightenment. Therefore, our organization’s mission is to enlighten people around us. Social work is all about showing, explaining, and proving things to people, it is about convincing them. Having equipped ourselves with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Russia’s Constitution, we started to demolish this dispossession belt between citizens and their rights. It was necessary to make sure that people clearly understood that, having a good knowledge of rights, laws, and situations at hand, they would be able to take responsibility and protect themselves from abuse.”

Lily Thapa is the inspirational founder president, in 1994, of Women for Human Rights, a single women group (WHR) in Nepal. WHR is an NGO “dedicated to creating an active network of single women on a regional, national, and international level.” By working exclusively with and for them, WHR is dedicated to addressing the rights of single women and creating a just and equitable society where the lives of single women are strengthened and empowered. “Rejecting the label “widow”, WHR ‘issued a national declaration to use the term “single women” instead of “widow.” The word ‘widow’ (‘Bidhwa’ in Nepali) carries negativity and disdainful societal views, which leaves many single women feeling humiliated and distressed.” Working to empower women economically, politically, socially, and culturally in order to live dignified lives and enjoy the value of human rights, WHR works at the grassroots, district, regional, national, South Asian, and international levels. Lily has pointed out that there are “285 million single women in the world; among them 115 million fall below the poverty line and 38 million conflict-affected single women have no access to justice; these women are last.” Recently, Lily was awarded the South Asian ‘Dayawati Modi Stree Shakti Samman’, which is “presented annually to a woman who has dared to dream and has the capability to translate that dream into reality.”

Christophe Nyambatsi Mutaka is the key figure at the Groupe Martin Luther King, which promotes active nonviolence, human rights, and peace. The group is based in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in central Africa, and focuses particularly on reducing sexual and other violence against women.