nonviolence – Page 3 – Engaging Peace

Celebrating Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy, Part 2

Posted on January 17, 2018January 17, 2018 by kathiemm

By Kathie Malley-Morrison & Anthony J. Marsella

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is gone, but his legacy of peace, justice, and nonviolence endures. Hallelujah!

Celebrating that legacy should not be consigned to one day. Let’s strive for an MLK week, an MLK year, an eternally more peaceful and just society.

In that spirit, this week we honor the memory of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. His words and actions sustain those who remain prisoners of poverty, hatred, and violence, and continue to inspire thousands of peace advocates and activists.

Out of those thousands, we are nominating 100 living peace activists for the MLK Peace & Social Justice Team. Compiling this list of advocates and activists was challenging but also inspiring, as each activist we identified added to our hope for the better world Reverend King envisioned.

The activists we are proposing for the MLK team are not angels; they are not flawless. They are human beings, with the kinds of flaws and frustrating qualities that exist in all of us to greater or lesser extents; however, in our view, they are doing more good than bad, more helping than hurting, and are striving to make the world a better place for more people.

In our next post, we will describe the qualities that are particularly characteristic of the individuals whom we are nominating as exemplars of the peace and social justice movement. Please comment on those qualities and offer your own view of what it takes to be a peace leader.In subsequent posts, we will provide the names of our 100 nominees for upholders of the MLK legacy. The list is part of an evolving effort to bring recognition and authority to those whose work for social justice, nonviolence, and peace demands attention, support, and gratitude.

You can help: please nominate yourself or others for inclusion (and include a website address or link where possible). Join us in promoting the MLK legacy as an antidote to the hatred, violence, and destruction that seem so prominent in today’s world. If we join together, we can overcome.

Recovering from the Violence Done

Posted on January 8, 2018January 7, 2018 by kathiemm

By Kathie MM

Violence is oozing its way steadily into our daily lives — into our theaters, churches, homes, and schools. It’s happening right here in the US, but also around the world with a little help from Uncle Sam. If anyone wants to make America great, they should start by reifying nonviolence.

A tremendous effort was made to promote and preserve peace after the two vicious 20th-century World Wars. Countries in Africa and elsewhere were released from the bondage of colonization, a universal convention on human rights was adopted, and international peacekeeping groups were created.And two superpowers emerged — the USSR and the US — and the Cold War began, played out in lots of deadly proxy wars, comfortably away from the nations trying to rebuild their lands and their budgets.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union shrank, and the United States extended its greedy military fingers into all corners of the globe. People primarily of different hues and faiths than the US power elite suffered in untold ways, and the nation’s defense budget expanded, effectively robbing the poor (and increasingly the middle class) to make the rich richer.It’s time for a change.

On one level, the change must be a major political and social rebellion against the military-industrial complex that profits so highly from the death and destruction they impose most obviously on civilians elsewhere, but also on the people at home who bear the burden of the war machine’s costs.

But it’s not enough to resist evil; we must also devote ourselves to particular reactions — to redressing the harm that the nation’s violence has caused civilians in countless (mostly poor) countries around the world, reconciling with the people in countries we have identified as enemies or have raped of resources, repairing the damage our pursuit of profit has inflicted on the environment, and making reparations for the harm our country has done.

In the next two posts, guest author Ross Caputi focuses on reparations.

Engaging Peace vs. Lemmingcide

Posted on November 14, 2017December 10, 2017 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Engaging peace. For what purpose should we engage peace?

To resist violence. To prevent violence. To end violence.

Violence is life-shattering, life-destroying.

Peace is life-affirming, love-affirming, future-affirming.

Right now life on Earth faces the most violent assault since the Ice Age, which wiped out not only dinosaurs but also countless other life-forms.

I am not talking about nuclear bombs or neutron bombs or drones or weapons of mass destruction, although all those threats are real enough, terrifying enough.

I am talking about the program of mass murder, mass suicide, and mass genocide that human beings have undertaken through their wholesale destruction of the life forces that sustain them.

What elements made it possible for the original life forms on Earth to evolve? Water, a tolerable level of sunshine, oxygen or carbon dioxide depending on the species, shelter, and nutrients.

What do we need today if we are to survive? Water, a tolerable level of exposure to sunshine, oxygen or carbon dioxide depending on the species, shelter, and nutrients.

What are we doing to the elements that sustain life? Poisoning them. Destroying them. Making the earth uninhabitable for many plant and animal species that can include our own.

More than 15,000 scientists from more than 180 countries have recently issued a warning about the catastrophes that face us and the steps that can be taken. Read and take steps

Nobody has the right to participate in this suicidal process.

I will be writing more on this subject.

Getting to Good

Posted on August 18, 2017August 18, 2017 by kathiemm

By Kathie MM

In a response to my recent post honoring Gene Sharpe for his long commitment to nonviolent opposition to dictatorial regimes,

Ed Agro commented, “the prescriptions are of little help in the next step: once the struggle is “over” – when the dictator is deposed, or the social malaise is evident to everyone – how do we actually form a government or social order that builds upon the struggle?

Good question.

In a brief (eight minute) Ted Talk Jamila Raqib, one of Sharpe’s disciples, provides some insight into the problem. She explains, powerfully, that

*Nonviolence won’t accomplish much as a moral philosophy; it needs to be a tool, a program of action.

*Nonviolence has proven its effectiveness over the centuries; for example, most of the rights that women and people of color currently have in this country were gained through nonviolent action.

*It’s not enough just to protest against the misuse of power; the sources of that power must be identified and overwhelmed with nonviolent tactics—for example economic power can be weakened through massive general strikes; government-controlled propagnda can be combatted by alternative media.

*To be successful, nonviolent struggle needs to organize and coordinate acts of resistance within the context of strategic planning. It needs clear objectives, and carefully thought-out plans regarding how to achieve them.

Listening to Jamila’s inspiring speech, I decided I would like to see, at peace and social justice rallies, fewer general slogans and more specific recommendations for action.

Philosophically, “Make peace, not war” is a great feel-good mantra, but it doesn’t provide much guidance for anti-war activists.

“Ban the bomb” may be a step in the right direction, but wouldn’t the following be better:

“Call/write Congress!

Tell them Heed the UN.

Ban the bomb!”

For examples of some other action-oriented signs, see here

and here and here .

And then please:

Engage in Peace Action!

Assume your objective is to:

End racism!

What specific steps could you recommend?

Submit your peace and social justice action slogans to engagingpeace.com.