genocide – Page 4 – Engaging Peace

Global Resources and Challenges for 2016 ©

Posted on January 18, 2016February 1, 2016 by kathiemm

guest author: Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

The new calendar year is upon us . . . in every sense of the word! We use the New Year as an opportunity for renewal — a chance for a fresh start. We leave behind the accumulate residue of the past year, and respond now with a blank slate of possibilities — an imagined vision of what could be . . . “If only.” Yes, it is the “If only,” constraining us and inspiring us. I once wrote a wisdom bite: “If! A two-letter word, simple in sound, profound in consequence.”

So here we are! Wanting a new start, but clear we have much unfinished business from last year. There is wisdom in knowing the challenges we face, for life is never free of them. It is also useful to know the resources we possess, even if they may be inadequate to the task. It is useful to explore the dynamics of resource-challenge relations. There will always be tradeoffs and compromises, and these are disappointing. Yet, they constitute a reality that cannot be ignored. So what does 2016 look like from the resource-challenge perspective?

In my opinion, there are reasons for fear, and reasons for hope. Has it ever been anything different? Hasn’t history shown us each age was filled with its challenges and resources? Yes, this is true. But what is different this year – 2016 – is the “global stage” in which the challenges and resources are being tested and contested. We are unprepared for the magnitude of stage. And, the problem is resources are always fewer in number than challenges. But is their power less?

There is something noble and inspirational about the willingness to assert human and environmental dignity and worth via various resources. There is something noble about joining causes to bring positive changes. This may be the most important thing! It is hard to speak of the nobility of the human spirit when we consider the widespread abuses and insults human have engendered. But perhaps the “process” of responding to challenges reminds us of the essence of life itself – a felt force seeking and pursuing, not only survival, but growth, development, and becoming. Go for it!

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822.

Show, by your actions, that you choose peace over war, freedom over oppression, voice over silence, service over self-interest, respect over advantage, courage over fear, cooperation over competition, action over passivity, diversity over uniformity, and justice over all.

Oracle, Optimist, Ostrich, or Obfuscator? Part 1.

Posted on June 18, 2015March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

Abraham tries to sacrifice Isaak.
Image by Sibeaster, image is in the public domain.

The postulates and prophesies of the impressively credentialed psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, formerly at MIT and now at Harvard, appear to be everywhere. He is a darling of the New York Times and endless variations on his ex cathedra pronouncements concerning a purported global decline in violence echo across the media. Violence, he intones repeatedly, “has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species” (emphasis added).

One pillar of Pinker’s argument is that, historically, human beings were much more violent than is generally recognized today. One of his sources, the Old Testament, contains, he tells us, numerous examples of genocide as well as death by stoning to punish “nonviolent infractions, including idolatry, blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, disrespecting one’s parents, and picking up sticks on the Sabbath.” Early tribes of Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Chinese were, he said, as murderous as those early Hebrews, and current casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan pale by contrast. It is romanticizing the past and ignorance of history, Pinker argues, that lead people to believe the modern era is unduly violent.

(To see rejections of his historical arguments, click here. )

Mathematically, Pinker supports his thesis by calculating percentages of violent deaths in relation to the global population within a particular era. As Timothy Snyder suggests, “[Ask] yourself: Is it preferable for ten people in a group of 1,000 to die violent deaths or for ten million in a group of one billion? For Pinker, the two scenarios are exactly the same, since in both, an individual person has a 99 percent chance of dying peacefully.” Snyder’s question is critical one. What would your answer be?

Does nonviolent resistance work? Part 2a

Posted on May 1, 2014May 24, 2014 by kathiemm

Rally at Ft Meade for Bradley Manning
Photo used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The next three posts are Part II of a series of posts in which Dr. Ian Hansen shares his thoughts on nonviolence.

See also Part 1a, Part 1b, Part 1c, Part2b and Part2c.

In March 17, 2014 post, I suggested that in their book Why Civil Resistance Works Chenoweth and Stephan provide good evidence that:

relatively nonviolent movements are more likely to achieve their goals than exclusively violent movements, and
nonviolent movements are less likely to bring to power the type of people who drag their nations into bloody purges and genocidal-scope mass killings.

That said, recent history reminds us that nonviolent uprisings against brutal governments (e.g., Libya, Syria) can stir up mass participation with some significant likelihood of tilting towards violence (particularly if the state responds to the peaceful protests with psychotic carnage).

Moreover, mass movements in strategically important states (like Syria and Libya) also tend to attract the meddling interest of large regional powers—as well as global imperial powers—and this meddling can tilt the probabilities even further towards mass carnage.

The prognosis for exploited and manipulated nonviolent revolutions is probably still better than the prognosis for exploited and manipulated violent revolutions, though perhaps not better than the prognosis for cleverly innovating some new form of rebellion that authoritarian and imperial forces are not so confident about co-opting or disrupting. The hacktivism of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden may be an example of this kind of avant garde rebellion.

Still, transforming the relations of power will require more than simply exposing the vileness of current state policies on the internet. Tunisia may owe the tinder-striking moment for its revolution in part to Chelsea Manning’s whistleblowing courage and wikileaks’ reportage, but it still had to make a revolution in the streets. The Tunisian revolution was televised (and tweeted) but it was live too, and without the live part it would not have succeeded.

Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at York College, City University of New York. His research focuses in part on how witness for human rights and peace can transcend explicit political ideology. He is also on the Steering Committee for Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

G is for Genocide; R is for Remembrance.

Posted on April 24, 2014April 24, 2014 by kathiemm

Exterior of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Holocaust is the iconic narrative of man’s inhumanity to man, of unspeakable cruelty to men, women, and children, of horrors multiplied infinitely by the systematic, scientific nature of that state-sponsored genocide.

But we do need to speak of it. This year commemorative events for Holocaust Remembrance Day (“Yom Hashoah”) are being held on Sunday April 27 and Monday April 28, but genocide, wherever it occurs, and whomever its victims, needs to be confronted daily—as does the hatred, the racism, the othering that can spiral out of control.

A visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is an opportunity for a deeply-moving, challenging, energizing experience any day of the year.

The importance of the museum lies not just in its powerful exhibits, its artifacts, films, and photos, but in the dedication of the museum to educating people around the world concerning genocides—not just the best known Holocaust but also genocides in Bosnia-Herzegovinia, Burma, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, the Sudan and South Sudan, and Syria. Other valuable contributions to the confronting of genocide are its online encyclopedia and its outreach programs—for example, to Rwanda.

If you get to Washington DC, you should visit the museum; also check out Holocaust museums in other cities around the world.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology