protest – Page 3 – Engaging Peace

Time to protest?

Posted on October 13, 2011October 11, 2011 by kathiemm

In 1965, the Vietnam Day Committee, an anti-war group in Berkeley, California, called for an International Day of Protest from October 15-16 to express revulsion against the Vietnam War.

Protest demonstrations around the country gradually evolved into a powerful anti-war movement that included servicemen rebelling against involvement in a war that they increasingly saw as immoral and unjust.

In 2011, we see an expanding series of protests against the powerful international banking and financial interests that are increasingly recognized as being at the roots of war, injustice, inequality, and the destruction of the planet. For a dramatic overview of the protests ignited by the economic crisis that has resulted in the largest profits ever accruing to the biggest financial institutions in one year, watch the video above.

In the US, there have been growing protests against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (see, for example), growing protests against Wall Street, and a coming together of the anti-war, anti-Wall Street/pro-peace, pro-democracy groups (see, for example).

These protests are not being conducted by violent fringe groups; they are students, teachers, social workers, nurses, doctors, artists, musicians, community organizers, environmental groups, lay people, professionals—providing a broad representation of the 99% who are not benefiting from the wars and from the control of the government by banking and business institutions.

Their agenda is non-violent. Violence has come from the police and others in authority who are ready to quell protest, however legitimate the concerns of the protestors. The way to keep violence out of protests is not to prevent protests but to bar the police from using violence.

The First Amendment to our Constitution prohibits, among other things, interfering with the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and to petition the government for redress of grievances. If Americans value their democracy, and respect their Constitution, it is important for them to support those rights, and to insure that members of the police/military establishment do not infringe on those rights.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

In honor of President Lincoln: Moving towards freedom

Posted on February 10, 2011February 13, 2011 by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome the first of several contributions by our guest contributor Majed Ashy. Dr. Ashy is an assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He was born in Lebanon and is a Saudi Arabian. He earned his B.A, M.A, and Ph.D. in psychology from Boston University. His research in psychoneuroimmunology and political psychology focuses on childhood experience of adversity and its psychobiological consequences. He authored the Saudi Arabia chapter in State Violence and the Right to Peace: An International Survey of the Views of Ordinary People Greenwood Publishing Group / Praeger series. He is contributing several chapters to two volumes to be published by Springer Publishing Co.: Handbook on War, Torture, and Terrorism, and Handbook on Protest, Peace, Reconciliation, Apology, and Forgiveness.]

By Majed Ashy, Guest Author

Two arguments are presented repeatedly in discussions of the evolution of democracy in the Middle East: “Arabs are not ready for democracy,” and “If Arabs get more democratic rights, then some Islamic extremists will come to power and that is a threat to the whole world.”

Army trucks surrounding Tahrir Square, Cairo (Photo by Ramy Raoof; licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic; from Wikimedia Commons)

I heard similar alarmist arguments against women’s suffrage, African American civil rights movements, and Black liberation in South Africa. President Lincoln, whose birthday is this week, did not accept the arguments against freeing the slaves in America, but millions of people still lack freedom.

With advancements in communication technologies, Internet resources, social networks, media, satellite TV stations, and international travel, the evolution in individual empowerment and the rise of social collective awareness are natural consequences. Masses of people are rejecting as self serving and racist the “old” narratives about the necessity of oppression.

One of the problems faced in the Middle East is the communication gap between governments and the general populations. Many Middle Eastern governments are still using a “language” that does not speak to people who are educated, aware, and able to see through the narratives of oppression. The image of men on camels and horses in Tahrir square in Cairo beating protesters summarize this divide.

We have in the Middle East youth who represent the future, are linked through the Internet to people all over the world, watch satellite TV stations from almost every country, and call for human rights. On the other side we have people who come from the ancient past and deal with their problems by riding camels and beating people up.

The current conflict in the Middle East is about narratives. One narrative that has not been given a chance yet is that the Middle East can evolve into a responsible democracy that takes into account human rights, international law, and democracy. All lovers of freedom and democracy should respect and help sustain this effort.

Majed Ashy

International survey on peace and war

Posted on February 7, 2011July 6, 2011 by kathiemm

We promised in our first blog that we would share, on occasion, findings from our international survey concerning war and peace.

The Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) has been completed by ordinary people from over 40 countries around the world. This survey asks respondents to give their own definitions of war, torture, terrorism, peace, and reconciliation.

It also asks them to indicate on a seven point scale (from 1 totally disagree to 7 totally agree) the extent to which they agree with statements such as the following:

Sometimes one country has the right to invade another.
Governments have the right to order the torture of prisoners during times of war.
Individuals have the right to stage protests against war and in favor of peace.
Children have the right to grow up in a world of peace.

Participants are also asked to explain in their own words the reasoning behind their rating scale scores. These qualitative responses allow us to compare the kinds of arguments made for and against the use of violence and in favor of a right to peace.

How would you respond to those items? In what ways do you think your responses might differ from the ones made by someone from a different country?

In the last post, we asked the question, “In what countries do you think the greatest support for government-sponsored aggression can be found?” The samples showing the greatest tolerance for invasion of one country by another were the samples from the United States and China. In addition, a majority of the samples from both countries provided arguments supporting a state’s right to torture.

What speculations do you have about the apparent tolerance for governmental aggression in each of those countries?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

The suffragettes: Case studies in moral engagement

Posted on October 28, 2010July 6, 2011 by kathiemm

Group of 10 suffragettes — Suffragettes (Photo in public domain from U.S. Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons)

Although the United States won its independence from Great Britain over 200 years ago, the country’s path towards democracy has been long and tortuous.

As brilliant a document as our original Constitution was, it did not give full democratic rights to everyone in the country. For example, women won the right to vote less than 100 years ago!

The men in power violently resisted protest movements by women seeking that right. For example, on November 15, 1917 (the “night of terror”), defenseless women carrying signs asking for the vote and picketing the White House were arrested and thrown into jail, and wrongly convicted of obstructing sidewalk traffic.

While in jail, with the blessings of the warden, the women were subjected to enormous savagery, including being violently beaten, knocked unconscious, hung by their hands from high cell bars overnight, force fed to the point of vomiting, and fed vile worm-infested food for weeks.

To pursue their right to vote, these women and their foremothers exercised considerable moral agency—powered, as Theresa Thorkildsen has said, by a vision of how the world should be.

The full story of these women, including President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to pressure a psychiatrist to diagnose Alice Paul as insane and permanently institutionalize her, can be seen in the HBO documentary “Iron Jawed Angels.”

For a briefer version of the story, watch this video.

The message: Get out and vote on Tuesday, November 2.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology