Gene Sharp – Engaging Peace

Patriotism Embraces Nonviolence in the NFL

Posted on September 27, 2017September 27, 2017 by kathiemm

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.Author: Daniel Hartwig.

It’s time—no, it’s way overdue—to pay tribute to people of color in the United States for their self-restraint in response to centuries of violent racist resistance to their pursuit of democracy.

If we are going to accept the Miriam Webster definition of “patriotism” as “love for or devotion to one’s country” (which is not the same thing as the easily-manipulated symbols of flags and anthems), and if “patriotism” also means love and respect for democracy and social justice (which it should), then the patriotism of countless people of color in this country far exceeds that of the white beneficiaries of the military industrial complex.

It seems almost miraculous that violent race wars are rare almost to the point of non-existence (other than during the near-genocide perpetrated on the native people by the European colonists) when decade after decade people have been beaten, tortured, murdered, and (equally-harmfully) robbed of resources, dignity, and respect.

How have people been able to tolerate so much violence perpetrated for no real reason except that their skin was not deemed white enough by the power brokers—or that they were pinpointed as easily identifiable scapegoats for diverting the rage of paler people convinced (often correctly) that they were not getting a fair break?

Gene Sharp [see here and here and here] has advocated nonviolent resistance as the most effective response to tyranny (and racism is tyrannical), because tyrants always have more killing and destructive power than their victims.

Fascism may seem to be spreading like lice in the fabric of this nation, but we have seen some great examples this year of nonviolent resistance to the social, psychological, economic, educational, and environmental brutality of a greedy and racist power structure.

Recently, a notable example of nonviolent protest in action is the stance of Colin Kaepernick, and a growing number of supporters, who have refused to stand up robotically in enforced homage to an anthem and a flag whose benefits have never been offered freely to people of color. Since when is kneeling down or joining arms antipatriotic?

It is those protestors who should be honored for pursuing true democracy.

(For more on the long history of race, sports, and politics in the US, click here)

News of its Death is Greatly Exaggerated

Posted on October 20, 2014October 20, 2014 by kathiemm

It is alive. It is well. It goes underground and then reasserts itself.

It can currently be seen in Hong Kong, striving for greater democracy, under the name of Occupy Central—Central being the major financial center in Hong Kong, sort of like Wall Street, New York.

Occupy Central was described this morning, Monday October 20, 2014, in the South China Morning Post, as “a civil disobedience movement which began in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014. It calls on thousands of protesters to block roads and paralyse Hong Kong’s financial district if the Beijing and Hong Kong governments do not agree to implement universal suffrage…”

The full name of Occupy Central is Occupy Central with Love and Peace –love and peace being central themes in Gene Sharp’s book, the “Manual of Disobedience.” This manual and Sharp’s other publications have energized and guided a growing number of nonviolent resistance movements such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement of 2011.

Sharp, who has been nominated three times for a Nobel Peace Prize, is founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization devoted to the use of nonviolence in struggles for human rights, peace, and social justice. Many of his books and papers are available free on the Institution’s website. To see, for example, a list of his “198 methods of nonviolent action,” click here. Be inspired: Consider the extent to which many of these methods can be applied not just to Occupy Movement tactics but to conflicts at all levels of society. Become engaged: Join the nonviolence movement.

Nonviolent activism: Engine of change, Part 1

Posted on July 22, 2013March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

Recovering nonviolent history: Civil resistance in liberation struggles. Edited by Maciej J. Bartkowski. Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2013 (US).

Reviewed by Ed Agro

This volume will interest anyone who is curious about the history of nonviolent activism and its prospects as an engine of change. The book shows in some detail the birth, development, and fate of little-known (or unknown) nonviolent liberation struggles in 17 countries. The aim is to counterbalance national histories that heroize violence and discount the nonviolent activism that preceded and/or paralleled armed struggle.

The editor and chapter authors are “engaged academics” in the field of peace studies; some were intimately involved in the activism they describe or are inheritors of that activism. In the introduction Bartkowski outlines the importance of these stories for peace studies; in his concluding chapter he draws lessons for those not only studying, but also actively pursuing, peace activism.

The tactics described will be familiar to those who have read Gene Sharp’s studies of strategic nonviolence (From dictatorship to democracy: A conceptual framework for liberation). What’s new here is the explicit recognition of how culture-dependent the expression of those tactics is. In fact, the first reading of the book can be difficult, because from chapter to chapter one has to reorient oneself to different modes of expression.

All peoples desire the same autonomy and dignity; all have discovered the same tools of struggle; yet each re-forges them suitably for their own culture. For example, the description of the Egyptian struggles for a nation-state between 1805 and 1922 are, despite different times and mores, similar to tactics used in the Egyptian revolt (Arab Spring) of 2011. Astoundingly, they also read like a description of Occupy Wall Street.

These convergences are partly due to historical memory and the worldwide intercommunication of activists; but they are also due to the rediscovery of the common principles underlying nonviolent resistance and nonviolent citizenship.

From this book I get the sense that there’s hope yet.

Ed Agro is a long-time peace activist. To learn more about Ed, read his autobiographical statement, as published in Forbes Magazine.

Committed to non-violent protesting (Quaker reflections, Part 3)

Posted on February 20, 2012February 18, 2012 by kathiemm

A continuing series by guest author Jean Gerard

Moving to California, I married and began raising three boys. It was the time of World War II, with its nuclear atrocities that wiped out vast portions of my beloved Japan. All too soon again came the Korean “engagement.”

Finally worried and angry enough, I joined Quakers. With the strength of their comradeship and guidance, I committed to non-violent protesting of further nuclear testing and missile development.

I was a paid office manager for the Sane Nuclear Policy Committee, then later for Women’s Strike for Peace and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze movement, and finally for the American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee. My main interest has long been in world peace:

To what extent could it be taught?
What are the essential ingredients of intercultural understanding and acceptance?
What does empathy have to do with understanding differences?

It is no surprise that I have fallen in with Occupiers. I find them particularly engaging because they are trying to do what I failed to do – discover and employ the most important fundamental of peace-making – creative alternatives to violence.

I have read some, listened a lot, and thought a great deal about the works of Gene Sharp, Richard Gregg and others, and the practices of Gandhi, Mandela, Schweitzer, Havel and Walesa, the Berrigan brothers, and Catholic Worker activists.

When the recent uprisings began in the Middle East, I started reading Al Jazeera and several foreign English language sources. I recognized at last some hope for stopping the destruction of this failing world and for rehabilitating our decadent American democracy.

I see the free Internet as an aid to improving international understanding, and nonviolent revolution as a means toward a human future.