Michael Beer, Director, Nonviolence International
I could have done a river clean-up on Martin Luther King Jr. day, or gone to a celebration of his life, but instead I thought the best way to honor Dr. King would be to stand up to injustice. I decided to spend the day focused on gun violence.
I went down to Richmond Virginia on January 20th, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day, to lobby and counter a pro-gun rally. At 8am, I left Arlington Virginia in a Prius with a friend from Moms Demand Action ( a group opposed to gun violence). We had intended to support counter-protesters.
I was expecting enormous pro-gun crowds and feared that parking would be difficult. But we kept driving to the capitol and found mostly empty streets with some charter buses. In a parking garage, we pulled our little car into a space between two gigantic pickup trucks. There were many such large gas-guzzling vehicles with many out-of-state license plates.
We walked to the capital and passed many police working for the State, the city of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. We talked to 2 African American men in their 30’s with big orange stickers that said “guns save lives.” We said we were going to join a lobbying event focused on the needs of people of color. Unfortunately, this event was cancelled. They said they were veterans and wanted guns to provide home security. We wandered through the streets of the capitol that were shut off to traffic. We greeted some with “Happy MLK Day”. We always got courteous responses, despite my colleague’s pussy hat and my buttons of progressive causes. We waded through crowds of men who were dressed up like soldiers and carrying semi-automatic weapons. Looks like people were really into showing off their hardware.
I was afraid that some folks would see my anti-gun button and mob us. So I kept moving, kept my eyes down and never had anyone pay us attention. People were happy to be there and everyone was polite. Luckily we didn’t see any Neo-Nazi flags and just a few confederate ones. We were surprised at the paucity of Trump stuff.
Everywhere we looked there were identical orange stickers that said “guns save lives”. It was surprising to see so few hand-made signs, although many folks wore t-shirts, hats, and jackets that had various messages. There were almost no children but quite a mix of adult ages. Also, mostly men, and overwhelmingly European American. As a veteran of hundreds of protests, I’d say there were 6 to 8 thousand people, much fewer than I anticipated. Folks did some chants of USA…and “Northam Out” but there were not many bullhorns. We took some selfies with the crowds in the background to post on our social media pages to let our friends know where we were…and then decided to get out of the crowds and go see our legislators. Unfortunately, the capitol was difficult to get to because of the crowds.
At 11am, we waited in a short line at the Pocahontas building, went through a metal detector, and headed up the stairs to cheer-up and lobby our legislators. None of the legislators were there, so we decided to thank the offices of 11 legislators who we have relationships with. Many had large groups of pro-gun advocates early in the morning, but by noon, the halls were remarkably empty despite crowds outside. Many wanted to display their guns but were not permitted in the building with them. Perhaps this is because many Americans don’t know how to lobby or don’t see its value. So yes, the rally was burdensome on the government because so many police were mobilized and paid overtime. And yes, many legislative staff stayed home. But actually the overall legislative pressure from the pro-gun crowd was modest.
We thanked staffers (see photo below) for their commitments to end gun violence and talked to them about a range of issues that are important to us. Many staff didn't want us to leave..and were grateful for our encouragement. Sure enough, the legislators passed gun control measures the very next day.
As we walked back to the car, the streets were rapidly clearing by 1pm. Organizers were picking up trash and cigarette butts off the streets. This is commendable. Rather than use their guns, they used classic nonviolent tactics found in our global database, such as rallies, flags, music, stickers and banners.
Pictured Below: Barbara Wien (center) with legislative staffers
2019 was an eventful year in terms of nonviolent resistance and people power! In Sudan, people demanded the resignation of their government and the 30 year-old regime toppled. (See more about NVI’s involvement below) In Algeria, Iraq and Hong Kong, relentless protests have pressured regimes to accommodate to their demands and protests continue. Anger over specific pieces of legislation and demands for greater reform occurred in India, Bulgarians, and Indonesia. Massive protests against society's growing inequality and corruption among government officials have occurred in Honduras, Iran, Romania, France, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Guatemala, Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina. Minority groups such as West Papuans, Kashmiri's, Uighurs, indigenous peoples, Palestinians, and Sahrawis cry out for attention and change. And all around the world, nonviolent movements led by 350.org, Fridays for Future, and Extinction Rebellion, have emerged to draw attention to the severity of climate change and the fossil fuel industry's destruction of our planet.
As an organization, Nonviolence International seeks to promote nonviolent solutions by providing educational materials and training programs As a backbone organization for people power campaigns, we provide fiscal sponsorship for many groups such as the International Action Network on Small Arms, Holy Land Trust, We Are Not Numbers, and Gaza Freedom Flotilla. In addition, Control Arms, a civil society network we sponsor that seeks to implement the international Arms Trade Treaty earned a spot on the shortlist of the Peace Research Institute Oslo for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. In May, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence led a group of 45 Jewish activists from across North America to Israel-Palestine to stand in coresistance with their Palestinian and Israeli partners. Over nine days, they learned, worked, and connected with partners in the South Hebron Hills, East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Givat Amal, and Lyd/Lod. And throughout 2019, our partners at Holy Land Trust have engaged in their Home Rebuilding 2019 Campaign to help Palestinians in the West Bank who have lost their homes to Israeli demolitions.
We have been working diligently to prepare our Digital Library of Nonviolent Resistance for a launch in 2020, the world's largest collection of nonviolence training materials. Collaborating with Rutgers University International Institute for Peace (IIP), this digital library provides free online access to a digital collection of training manuals and related material, such as reports on training workshops, tools, exercises, preparatory material for campaigns, and legal and direct action handouts. With its launch occurring this past November, we hope our archive can be used by educational institutions and civil society networks engaged in the training of nonviolent resistance for decades to come.
Alongside our larger organizational initiatives, Nonviolence International has continued to provide direct training and support to students and proponents of nonviolent resistance all around the world. In March of this year, our founder Mubarak Awad traveled to Israeli to teach a course on nonviolent studies at Haifa University. During his time there, he published an op-ed in The Jersusalem Post which detailed steps Palestinians and Israelis could take in the April elections to promote peace between the two groups.
At around the same time, our Executive Director Michael Beer was working tirelessly to support the nonviolent campaign in Sudan to help the country transition to a system of democratic governance after enduring ex-President Omar al-Bashir's autocratic rule for 30 years. Nonviolence International helped democratic opposition leaders by providing webinars and consultations regarding nonviolent resistance and the tactics used to succeed by such means. On at least four occasions since April when ex-President al-Bashir was removed from power, Michael Beer discussed strategies that the campaign could employ to keep up their resistance to the Transitional Military Council such as the dynamics that go into launching a successful general strike. Michael's webinars were extremely impactful, with more than 250,000 views, as the Sudanese people rewarded him and other friends and allies of Nonviolence International with a mural dedicated to them in downtown Khartoum.
With so much great work done this year, there is even more work to be done next year! We thank you for your support of our organization and hope to continue to lead the way in promoting and nonviolent culture and nonviolent resistance to solve the conflicts of our world.
A Doctor’s Remedy for Peace: Follow the Path of Nonviolence
By Connor Paul
Most people never fully experience life and death during their existence even though we all live, and eventually die. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish has certainly encountered his fair share of both states of being. An internationally renowned doctor in obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Abuelaish works to help conceive and deliver life on a daily basis. As an infertility expert, his work, research, speaking appearances, conferences, and counseling regarding the conception of life are all part of his effort to provide humanity the greatest gift we receive. “Using my skills to save a life or help a patient in distress or bring a newborn into the world was what I became most excited about,” he recalls of his preliminary studies at the University of Cairo in his memoir, I Shall Not Hate. But he has also grappled with death on a personal level that few of us have ever experienced.
Born and raised in Jabalia Camp, located within the Gaza Strip of the occupied-Palestinian territories (oPt), Dr. Abuelaish witnessed the death and destruction caused by the Israeli occupation throughout most of his life. From the Six-Day War of 1967 at age twelve through the Gaza War of 2008-2009 at age fifty-three, Dr. Abuelaish saw how a path to peace based on mistrust, hostility, revenge, and political maneuvering produces cycle after cycle of violence instead of lasting results. “It seems humanity has still not learned their lesson,” he told me in our recent conversation. “Even though we are in the twenty-first century, we continue to try to solve our conflicts with wars and violence instead of working to find out their root causes.” This path of darkness taken up by both sides replaces nonviolence with coercion; coercion which directly impacts and destroys the lives of ordinary civilians.
On January 16, 2009, the violence finally touched Dr. Abuelaish and his family more tangibly than they could ever imagine. Two days before the parties signed a truce ending the Gaza War of 2008-2009, an Israeli tank fired multiple rockets at his house. Three of his daughters, Bessan (twenty-one), Mayar (fifteen), and Aya (thirteen) died instantly, as did his niece Noor (seventeen). The shelling also left his daughter, Shatha, his niece, Ghaida, and his brother, Nasser, critically injured. Innocent lives lost. A father in despair. A family overcome with grief. But just like the title of his memoir indicates, he refuses to hate.
After enduring such heartbreak, how does one prevent hate from seeping into their heart and filling them with a desire for revenge and violence? The answer lies in the emotion's corrosive abilities. Just like a cancer, it spreads throughout the body and ingrains itself deeply within, blinding those afflicted from being able to positively engage in conflict resolution. Dr. Abuelaish described the emotion of hatred to me in our recent conversation as, “a destructive, contagious, disease. It is most harmful to the one impacted by it as it is like a poison that weighs us down and prevents us from moving the dialogue forward.” Hate confines people to approach the reconciliation process from the path of darkness where ignorance, arrogance, and greed dictate the terms of negotiations. But there is a more humanistic path to achieving peace, a nonviolent path, a better path--the path of light.
Dr. Abuelaish embraced the path of light long ago which seeks to counter hate and violence by building upon commonalities that we share across humanity. From his endless hours in the maternity ward and intimate work with human life, he notices our commonalities as early as birth. “No one can discriminate or differentiate between the cry of a newborn baby. American, Palestinian, Israeli, male, or female, their cries cannot be distinguished from one another. But even more importantly, humanity has the same reaction to a newborn’s cry. Once we hear the cry of a newborn baby, we all smile because it is the cry of new life.” But even before beginning his medical career, Dr. Abuelaish learned very early on from his own life experiences how similar we all are across our different societies, including Israelis and Palestinians. At fifteen years old, he spent the summer in Israeli working on a Jewish family farm. In his memoir, he talks about the powerful impression the family left on him by not only how kindly they treated him, but also how similar they were to his own family. While working to resolve conflicts, the path of light helps illuminate all of our shared similarities that get obscured when we fixate on our differences. When we are able to see the experiences, emotions, and values that so many of us have in common; we are able to come together to make lasting change that will better all of our societies. Dr. Abuelaish chose to construct his path of light and nonviolence on the strengthening of the solidarity that societies exhibit within the fields of healthcare, education, and the role women maintain. By building upon the shared values of these societal spheres, we will all be able to follow this path of pacifism to achieve a deeper understanding of one another’s situations, making peaceful resolutions much more obtainable in the future.
As a practitioner of medicine his whole professional career, Dr. Abuelaish sees how humanity’s shared worldview regarding the importance of healthcare can serve as a great starting point to begin constructive dialogue. Dr. Abuelaish rightfully pointed out to me that health is one of the few indiscriminatory “human equalizers” among our distinct societies. “When you go to any hospital and treat any patient there, all of them are treated equally. Treatment is not based on ethnicity, religion, skin color, gender, or name; it is based on the patient’s need and the physician’s diagnosis.” Just as doctors treat all their patients equally and humanely, we all need to learn to apply the same approach to our day-to-day interactions with each other. One of the most important aspects of good health is learning to coexist with one another in stable, peaceful, nonviolent environments. Dr. Abuelaish goes on to note, “Health is peace and peace is health. My health and my peace are linked to your health and your peace. I am not in an environment of good health and peace as long as you are not and vice versa.” More often than not though, the politics we implement on the ground, instead of the healthcare we provide, dictate and create the environments of our societies. These politics so frequently neglect the humanistic aspects of our cultures. We must learn to act based on the needs of the people, not the needs of our governments, as our fundamental needs cross borders and created shared experiences through which we can establish dialogue. “If I come to someone who is in labor and ask what is health, she would tell me a successful delivery; if I come to someone who is thirsty and ask what is health, they would tell me a drink of water; if I come to someone who is oppressed and ask what is health, they would tell me freedom.” Just like how we provide healthcare by listening to the needs of the people we strive to help; we must learn to reconcile our differences through the same measures. Once we actually listen to and acknowledge the realities of our concerns through dialogue, will we then be able to follow the path of light in our efforts to achieve peace through humanity.
Education is just as important of a tool in Dr. Abuelaish’s humanistic approach to peace as it helps eradicate the hatred and discrimination that lead us down the path of darkness. “Education enlightens the people, it gives wisdom to the people, it allows us to see things outside of the box.” He then went on to wisely point out what happened regarding the public education campaign to quit smoking. “When people began to learn that smoking was harmful, what did they do, nothing? But once they began to educate themselves as public awareness of the dangers increased, they began to stop.” The same concept can be applied to hatred as we need to understand the dangers of the emotion. It is our responsibility, as Dr. Abuelaish practices himself so often, to increase the awareness of how hatred and violence spread and to educate ourselves on their root causes. But one of the most important aspects of education is that it not only brings people together, it allows us to learn from a diversity of perspectives. “Education is the passport that enables us to travel and cross this small world, it brings people together.” When we learn together, we share knowledge and experiences that help us reconcile our differences in a proactive, nonviolent way.
But to fully embrace a humanistic approach to peace, our governments and societies need to operate at their full capacities. By this notion, Dr. Abuelaish means we must involve women to participate in the resolution of conflicts to a much greater degree as their perspective provides invaluable input which is so often missing from the discussion. “Women symbolize the humanity, the passion, the love, and life itself; yet more often than not, they are not the ones involved in the decision-making, they are not the ones who wage the war…They do not wage war yet they bear most of the consequences from it.” When we fixate on statistics and numbers from violent conflicts, we so often overlook the wife left without a husband, the mother left without a son, sisters left without brothers. Females are so often the guardians of the house, where they defend what is theirs just as staunchly as men do in wars, but by projecting the values of love and compassion. It is exactly this approach that is so often lacking in the decision making of executive offices, congresses, parliaments, and military headquarters. Dr. Abuelaish sees a quick fix to this problem. “the more we see women sitting at the table, being part of the decision-making, the world will be a better place.” As the keepers of the family unit, females are so much more in touch with humanity than men and can use their perspective and experiences to overpower the hate and vitriol that so often cloud male-led reconciliation. Women are emblematic of following the path of light and serve as an example of how we should embrace nonviolence and humanity when we attempt to foster peace.
Dr. Abuelaish has delivered so many lives into this world, endured death so close to his heart, and yet he never deviates from the path of light. The hope that radiated from his tone when we spoke shows his unique ability to find the positive in bad situations. “We always have to see the positive, and during the bad we must maximize the positive and give hope.” Even in the tragic deaths of his daughters and niece, he managed to find the light and salvage life through the establishment of his ensuing foundation, Daughters for Life. The foundation provides scholarships and awards to young girls from the Middle East who seek to empower themselves and improve their lives through education. Dr. Abuelaish keeps the positivity of his daughters alive through his foundation, just like his tireless work in the maternity ward keeps alive the many babies he delivers or his embodiment of nonviolence and dialogue keeps alive the aspirations for peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. By following the path of Dr. Abuelaish, we shed light on the path of darkness and make the road to peace much more visible and achievable.
Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection. She is the editor of Nonviolence News and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.
Here’s the good news: The debate is over. 75% of US citizens believe climate change is human-caused; more than half say we have to do something and fast.
Here’s even better news: A new report shows that more than 200 cities and counties, and 12 states have committed to or already achieved 100 percent clean electricity. This means that one out of every three Americans (about 111 million Americans and 34 percent of the population) lives in a community or state that has committed to or has already achieved 100 percent clean electricity. Seventy cities are already powered by 100 percent wind and solar power. The not-so-great news is that many of the transition commitments are too little, too late.
The best news? The story doesn’t end there.
We can all pitch in to help save humanity and the planet. And I don’t mean just by planting trees or changing light bulbs. Climate action movements are exploding in numbers, actions, and impact. Groups like Youth Climate Strikes, Extinction Rebellion, #ShutDownDC, the Sunrise Movement, and more are changing the game. Join in if you haven’t already. As Extinction Rebellion reminds us: there’s room for everybody in an effort this enormous. We all make change in different ways, and we’re all needed to make all the changes we need.
Resistance is not futile. As the editor of Nonviolence News, I collect stories of climate action and climate wins. In the past month alone, the millions of people worldwide rising up in nonviolent action have propelled a number of major victories. The University of British Columbia divested $300 million in funds from fossil fuels. The world’s largest public bank ditched fossil fuels and said it would no longer invest in oil and coal. California cracked down on oil and gas fracking permits halting new drilling wells as the state prepares for a renewable energy transition. New Zealand passed a law to put the climate crisis at the front and center of all its policy considerations (the first such legislation in the world). The second-largest ferry operator on the planet is switching from diesel to batteries in preparation for a renewable transition. Re-affirming their anti-pipeline stance, Portland, Oregon city officials told Zenith Energy that they would not reverse their decision, and instead would continue to block new pipelines. Meanwhile, in Portland, Maine, the city council joined the ever-growing list endorsing the youths’ climate emergency resolution. Italy made climate change science mandatory in school. And that’s just for starters.
Is it any wonder Collins Dictionary made “climate strike” the Word of the Year?
Beyond planting trees and changing lightbulbs, here’s a list of things you can do about the climate crisis:
1. Join Greta Thunberg, Fridays for the Future, and the global Student Climate Strikes on Fridays.
2. Not a student? Join Jane Fonda’s #FireDrillFridays (civil disobedience is the latest workout fad; everybody looks good saving the planet).
3. Take to the field, like the students who disrupted the Harvard-Yale football game to demand fossil fuel divestment. You can’t play football on a dead planet, after all.
4. Stage an “oil spill” like these 40 members of Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard (FFDH) and Extinction Rebellion. They staged an oil spill in Harvard’s Science Center Plaza to call attention to the university’s complicity in the climate crisis.
5. Get in the way with city-wide street blockades like #ShutDownDC. People from an alliance of groups blockaded the banks and investment firms in the nation’s capital to protest the financing of fossil fuels, and the ways the banking industry drives the climate migration crisis while profiting from the devastation.
6. Rally the artists and paint giant murals to remind people to take action, like this skyscraper-sized Greta Thunberg mural in San Francisco.
7. No walls handy? Print out a scowling Greta and put it in the office to remind people not to use single-use plastic.
8. Crash Congress (or your city/county officials’ meetings) demanding climate legislation, climate emergency resolutions, and more. That’s what these climate justice activists did last week, protesting legislative inaction and demanding justice for people living on the front lines of the crisis.
9. Occupy the offices: Sit-ins and occupations of public officials offices are one way to take the protest to the politicians. Campaigners occupied US Senator Pelosi’s office and launched their global hunger strike just before US Thanksgiving weekend. In Oregon, 21 people were arrested while occupying the governor’s office to get her to oppose a fracked gas export terminal at Jordan Cove.
10. Organize a coal train blockade like climate activists in Ayers, Massachusetts. They made a series of multi-wave coal train blockades, one group of protesters taking up the blockade as the first group was arrested. Or rally thousands like the Germans did when they gathered between 1,000-4,000 green activists, made their way past police lines, and blocked trains at three important coal mines in eastern Germany.
11. Shut down your local fossil fuel power plant. (We’ve all got one.) New Yorkers did this dramatically a few weeks ago, scaling a smokestack and blockading the gates. In New Hampshire, 67 climate activists were arrested outside their coal power plant, calling for it to be shut down.
12. Of course, another option is to literally take back your power like this small German town that took ownership of their grid and went 100 percent renewable.
13. Like Spiderman? You could add some drama to a protest like these two kids (ages 8 and 11) who rappelled down from a bridge with climbing gear and a protest banner during COP25 in Madrid.
14. Ground the private jets. Extinction Rebellion members went for the gold: they blockaded a private jet terminal used by wealthy elites in Geneva.
15. Sail a Sinking House down the river like Extinction Rebellion did along the Thames to show solidarity with all those who have lost their homes to rising seas.
16. Clean it up. Use mops, brooms, and scrub brushes for a “clean up your act” protest like the one Extinction Rebellion used at Barclay’s Bank branches.
17. Blockade pipeline supply shipments like Washington activists did to stall the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
18. Catch the eye with a Red Brigade Funeral Procession like this one during the Black Friday climate action protests in Vancouver.
19. Tiny House Blockades: Build a tiny house in the path of the pipelines, like these Indigenous women are doing to thwart the Trans Mountain Pipeline in Canada.
20. Make a racket with a pots-and-pans protest. Cacerolazos – pots and pans banging protests – erupted in 12 Latin American countries last week. The media focused on government corruption and economic justice as the cause, but in many nations, including Chile and Bolivia, climate and environmental justice are included in the protesters demands.
21. Share this article. Action inspires more action. Hearing these examples – and the successes – gives us the strength to rise to the challenges we face. You can help stop the climate crisis by sharing these stories with others. (You can also connect to 30-50+ stories of nonviolence in action by signing up for Nonviolence News’ free weekly enewsletter.)
Plus! Here’s a bonus idea from friends at World Beyond War: Connect peace and climate, militarism and environmental destruction, by pressuring your local government to divest from both weapons and fossil fuels, like Charlottesville, VA, did last year, and Arlington,VA, is working on right now.
Remember: all these stories came from the Nonviolence News articles I’ve collected in just the past 30 days! These stories should give you hope, courage, and ideas for taking action. There’s so much to be done, and so much we can do! Joan Baez said that “action is the antidote to despair”. Don’t despair. Organize.
Rivera Sun, editor of Nonviolence News, the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and other novels, and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements. www.riverasun.com
This story was produced by Metta Center for Nonviolence
And posted on Waging Nonviolence
There’s a secret to success for nonviolent movements for change: solidarity. Instead of “going it alone,” movements can amplify their message, leverage collective power, and build strength by seeking solidarity from aligned organizations and groups. Movements can also mobilize thousands of people into tangible, game-changing strategies by consciously designing solidarity actions to support their primary campaign.
Look at Oakland’s Solidarity Schools. During the 2019 Oakland Teachers Strike, a team of volunteers got involved in a much-needed solidarity action: delivering lunches to school children. In Oakland, California, 75 percent of the district’s 37,000 students relied on school lunch. Not wanting the kids to go hungry; the food bank, parents, teachers, and students worked together to organize and distribute lunches for the duration of the strike. This helped the teachers maintain their refusal to work without dividing the community over hunger issues. Solidarity efforts also included alternative schooling and child care. After several weeks, the teachers won their radical demands that ultimately benefited the entire community.
Solidarity strategies can increase the chance of success for your campaign by widening the impact of your actions. Recently in Nonviolence News, I reported on a story from Finland. Postal workers went on strike for two weeks, but their victory wasn’t won by the massive backlog of undelivered holiday packages. The clincher on their struggle occurred when the airline and transport industry workers held a solidarity (or sympathy) strike, grounding over three hundred planes and causing chaos in the capital. As the strike impacted businesses and people across the country, the head of the postal service came under fire for mishandling the postal workers’ strike. The workers won their demands, thanks to the solidarity of other transport workers.
Nonviolent struggle succeeds or fails by the rate of participation in actions that tangibly impact the ability of the power holders to conduct business-as-usual. In fact, studies show that any movement that successfully mobilizes 3.5 percent of the populace into acts of noncooperation (boycotts, strikes, walk-outs) and intervention (blockades, sit-ins, occupations) always wins their campaign. And, sometimes, success comes with even fewer people. So, scheming up those solidarity strategies makes a lot of sense for your movement.
Take Standing Rock, for example. Not everyone could leave their jobs and families, pitch a tent in freezing weather, and take a physical stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, in North Dakota. But all of us could support the legal fund, organize supply caravans, and (perhaps most importantly) take action against the 17-plus banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. Across the country and around the world, the protests outside of bank branches gave those of us horrified by the scenes of police repression at Standing Rock a way to turn outrage into action. We held signs. We delivered petitions and confronted bank managers. We organized our friends and colleagues to move our money and close our accounts. This put powerful pressure on the banks, forcing some to pull out of the DAPL project. While the pipeline at Standing Rock moved forward, a cascade of other fossil fuel projects lost their funding both in the United States and around the world. Also, the efforts during the Standing Rock campaign gave a boost to other fossil fuel divestment campaigns, leading to a ripple effect of institutional divestment. With greater mobilization around the solidarity strategy of moving our money out of the banks, we might have been able to defeat that pipeline project entirely.
The successes of the early U.S. labor movement relied heavily on solidarity and their solidarity actions were breath-taking in scope and generosity. To use just one of hundreds of examples, during the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Bill Haywood and others organized massive support for the striking women. The solidarity efforts included relief committees, soup kitchens, food distribution stations, volunteer doctors, and weekly benefits for strikers. The list of demands was translated into over 50 languages for the multi-national immigrant workers. The most dramatic of solidarity actions was arranging for several hundred children of striking workers to go to supporters’ homes in New York City. This kept the children safe, housed, and fed while their mothers faced arrests, evictions, reduced income, and beatings for participating in the strike.
These tangible forms of solidarity can mean the difference between success and failure. Showing support for the cause with demonstrations can also boost morale and determination. Just this past week, cacerolazos (pots-and-pans banging protests) erupted in twelve Latin and South American countries, including Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador. The united demonstration was organized to acknowledge the shared struggles of the people against widespread economic inequality, corrupt governments, and violence against Indigenous populations. Organizers even distributed a cacerolazo app – in case you weren’t by your kitchen, you could join in with a cellphone simulation.
Occasionally, solidarity actions up the ante on issues, and connect immediate crises to the underlying causes. In the wake of the massive Australian bushfires, citizens chose to do more than send blankets and meals to those who lost their homes. Rejecting the “sending thoughts and prayers” rhetoric of the politicians, Australians organized solidarity sit-downs to demand disaster relief and climate action. In this way, they went beyond simply calling for relief while ignoring the root cause: they connected the fires to global warming, and the human-made climate crisis.
For movement organizers, thinking about solidarity strategies ahead of time can improve your organizing. Who are the people who can stand up for your cause? What allies can’t be arrested, but would love to help organize relief efforts for those who can? What sectors of society could engage in solidarity strikes or walk-outs to broaden your impact? Who can demonstrate to boost the morale of those taking direct action? What groups align with your cause and could have a direct impact on your power holders? What could those groups do to pressure them?
These are important questions for all of us to ask. Get creative with the answers. Solidarity comes in a million shapes and sizes, and it can be the secret to success.
This past weekend, Nonviolence International attended the annual UN Humanitarian Disarmament Forum in New York City. The Executive Director Michael Beer and the Director of the Canadian Office Yeshua Moser attended along with interns Alyssa Scott and Roisin Putti. The forum was hosted by the Columbian Campaign to Ban Landmines and consisted of several presentations and panels as well as both large and small group discussions. Several of Nonviolence International’s partners and affiliates were also represented at the forum such as PAX Netherlands, Control Arms, and some member organizations of International Action Network on Small Arms. Also present were International Network on Explosive Weapons, Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, Conflict and Environment Observatory, Humanity Inclusion, Armed Conflict & Civilian Protection Initiative, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, Cluster Munition Coalition and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The goal of the forum throughout the years has been to share information about campaigns and efforts working for humanitarian disarmament around the globe.
Some of the topics discussed were the importance of maintaining and monitoring existing disarmament treaties as well as looking to the future towards preventing the development and use of autonomous weapons. One concern about autonomous weapons, or killer robots, is that they may not necessarily be regulated under existing treaties or international agreements. A main goal of many of the organizations and campaigns represented at the forum is to continue the discussion of disarmament using a victim or survivor centered approach for understanding both the effects of violence and what effective disarmament might look like. Victims and survivors of armed violence have been leaders in the movements to ban the weapons around the world; several such leaders were present either physically or virtually at the forum. Jesus Martinez for example, spoke about his work with the Survivors and People with Disabilities Network and why disarmament is important to him as well as the work he has been doing to advocate for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
One challenge for the humanitarian disarmament effort is to make the global banning and regulations of weapons’ treaties more accessible to the public, to make them better known and to provide citizens entry points for advocacy and implementation at local, provincial, national and international levels. One solution to this has been the release of an informative brochure on the subject, Humanitarian Disarmament which was co-produced by PAX. Nonviolence International also maintains a data set which lists the signatory status of each state in regards to international disarmament treaties. With efforts like these and our extensive resource library, there is certainly hope to realize our vision justice peace and nonviolent solutions to conflict.
Nonviolence International is celebrating 30 years since its humble beginnings in the founder's basement back in 1989. We have come a long way since then and we are excited to provide an update on the success of our 30th anniversary party. Nonviolence International's founders, Mubarak Awad, Jonathan Kuttab, and staff, Michael Beer and David Hart gathered along with friends and supporters at our co-director’s home in Bethesda, Maryland for an afternoon of food, conversation and inspiration. The atmosphere was light and happy, all who mingled found bright smiles, lively personalities, and stimulating conversation.
People attended from Burma, Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Indonesia, Bahamas, France, and the US. Mubarak Awad and others prepared delicious traditional Middle Eastern and Indonesian dishes including hummus with pita or vegetables, spinach pies, fresh fruit, and scrumptious sweets. Guests explored several mementos from Nonviolence International’s history such as past projects, photographs, and various resources that have been collected throughout the decades. Some materials were available to be taken home by guests including pamphlets produced by Nonviolence International describing different nonviolent resistance tactics, pins with messages of active nonviolence or peace, and copies of the book Faithful Witness by Kamal Boullata. Further, all attendees were entered into a raffle with the third prize being two selected books about nonviolent action, while second prize was a book about activism concerning climate change and a decorative pillow, and first prize was a beautiful piece of Palestinian pottery from Jerusalem. Finally there was a silent auction of signed prints donated to the organization by one of its founders who had recently passed away, Kamal Boullata. Several pieces sold through the auction, though there are still two available for purchase. Inquiries into the pricing or purchasing of the remaining prints can be directed to the Washington D.C. office of Nonviolence International.
Several speeches were given at the event to highlight stories from our past, the people who have made Nonviolence International's work possible over the years, and to look forward to exciting new projects. Mubarak Awad, Michael Beer, David Hart, and Jonathan Kuttab spoke on the rich history of Nonviolence International as well as our hopes for a vibrant future. Many of the people in attendance were involved with Nonviolence International in significant ways such as Betty Sitka, Asna Husin, Nadine Bloch, Paul Magno, Phil Bogdonoff, Elin Ross, Simon Billenness, and Dr. Sein Win. We also heard from two of our interns, Alyssa Scot and Tiffany Schwartz, who spoke about the need for nonviolent campaigns to address the climate crisis, and the establishment of the Abdul Aziz Said Scholarship Fund for interns in the wake of the student debt crisis.
Nonviolence International celebrated many accomplishments and is working to support a new generation of nonviolence leaders to address chronic and emerging challenges. Now more than ever, Nonviolence International remains steadfast in our mission to realize a changed world with a focus on justice, peace, and environmental sanity where the worth and dignity of all people is fully realized and conflicts are resolved without resorting to violence.
In recognition to lifelong contributions to peace by Professor Abdul Aziz Said, Nonviolence International has started a new program under which interns will receive stipends for their service. This financial aid is provided to perpetuate the legacy of Abdul Aziz Said, who co-founded Nonviolence International in 1989 and devoted his life to inspiring students to promote peace and global understanding. In particular, this scholarship will ensure that international students and those of modest financial means will have an equal opportunity to gain professional experience.
Abdul Aziz Said is a world renowned educator. He is a Syrian-born writer and was a professor of international relations in the School of International Service at American University where he taught for 60 years. He was the first occupant of the endowed Mohammed Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace; director-emeritus and founder of AU's Center for Global Peace; and founding director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution department at the School of International Service. Professor Said has written or edited over a dozen books and has been published in many journals.
In 1989, he co-founded Nonviolence International with AU adjunct professor Dr. Mubarak Awad and then served on the board for 30+ years. In 2007 he was awarded the first El-Hibri Peace Education Prize. What can’t be captured in this remarkable career is his deep impact on thousands of students through his charismatic and humble character and the countless careers he inspired devoted to a more just and peaceful world.
Nonviolence International has a storied history of promoting nonviolent action, reconciliation and disarmament and is an NGO in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
American University students and graduates will have priority. Internships are for 12 to 14 weeks in the summer, autumn and winter. This internship is based in Washington, DC. Interns must be able to dedicate 15-20 hours per week on average to their assigned work. Each intern will have her/his time split between nonviolence research, non-profit management, and educational outreach. Students must provide a final report evaluating their experience.
Potential donors to this scholarship fund can reach out to Nonviolence International for further information, or send donations by following this link
On October 2, 2019, the staff and interns of Nonviolence International along with the support of various other organizations were committed to making sure the one year anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi death did not go unnoticed and to demand further accountability.
One year earlier to the day, Washington Post journalist and permanent U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered upon entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The brutality of the murder shocked the world and revealed the heinous extremes that the Saudi Arabian regime would go to in an attempt to silence its dissidents. Crown Prince and heir-apparent Mohammed Bin Salman has denied any involved in the gruesome act as the international community has stood by and done nothing to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the murder. Countries around the world, specifically the United States, have not only accepted the Crown Prince's denial, but have continued to sell weapons to the kingdom to help sustain their involvement in the Yemeni Civil War which has sparked one of the worst humanitarian crises witnessed.
Yesterday our organization, alongside the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Code Pink, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and Justice for Jamal, stood together outside of the Saudi Arabian Washington DC embassy to hold a press conference in remembrance of the esteemed journalist's murder. Representing our organization as a speaker was one of our co-founders, renowned international human rights attorney Jonathan Kuttab. Amidst the condemnation of the Saudi Arabian regime and lack of accountability from the international community, Jonathan convened the theme of hope in his speech as he called on the institutions of society to hold our leaders to a higher standard. Jonathan called on institutions such as the courts, civil society groups, the press, and most importantly, ordinary individuals to stand up for human rights and redouble our efforts to bring accountability to those who suppress such freedoms. Ending on an optimistic note, Jonathan notes that those who engage in violence and suppression will not win the hearts and minds of the world, but rather that victory will be claimed by those who advocate for accountability and justice through nonviolent resistance.
"We must fight with the weapons of light against the weapons of darkness." ~ Jonathan Kuttab
Sparking Change: How Movements Pass On Inspiration
Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Resistance is a continuum. Nonviolent movements arise amidst the efforts of many other struggles. The knowledge of how to organize for change is a global legacy passed between movements and generations of activists through lineages of inspiration that stretch through hundreds of years. (The first recorded strike happened in 1170 BC when Egyptian pyramid builders refused to work until they were paid; they’ve been happening much the same way ever since.) We learn from one another both directly and indirectly. We mimic creative tactics. We replicate strategies. We learn from mistakes. We are emboldened by others’ courage.
I collect 30-50 stories of nonviolence in action each week for Nonviolence News, a news round-up that shows how people around the globe are making change. In the news articles, I often notice clear examples of knowledge-sharing and inspiration passing between global movements.
Wunseidel, Germany’s 2014 involuntary walkathon pledged money to social justice causes for every alt-right marcher that showed up for the march, thereby making them fundraise for causes they hate. This inspired a similar action in Portland, OR, that raised $36,000 for immigrants’ rights groups during a mass rally for the alt-right. Recently, Hong Kong protesters deliberately organized a 28-mile human chain inspired by the 1989 Baltic Way – a human chain involving 2.2 million people that stretched hundreds of kilometers across Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. They even named it the Hong Kong Way. When migrant rescue boat captain Carola Rackete was arrested for saving lives, the crew of a second ship, the Alex,was inspired to defy the law as well.
While the Internet has aided this phenomenon, the way ideas leap from one movement to the next is not new. Throughout history – albeit at a slightly slower pace – this has occurred. The word “boycott,” for example, was coined in 1880 when Irish tenants launched a campaign of social ostracizing against Captain Charles Boycott for his role in brutal evictions. Within six weeks, newspapers as far away as New York City were using the term. A few years later, as the term continued to rise into popular usage, guess which student in Britain was reading the British newspaper reports on the Irish and other struggles? A young guy named Mohandas K. Gandhi.
This was far from Gandhi’s only inspiration as he mobilized mass strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience in the struggle for India’s independence from British rule. He was both highly innovative and a deep thinker and strategist. He clearly learned from the struggles of his time. He drew ideas for nonviolent action and philosophy from a wide range of global writers and thinkers, both Eastern and Western. His unique stamp would have, in its own turn, global impact.
Some of this was spontaneous – but much of it occurred through direct connection. African-Americans, for example, had a long and well-documented exchange with both Gandhi and his successors. Letters and essays on nonviolent struggle were published in African-American newspapers and journals.
In the early 1950s, Rev. James Lawson traveled to India just after Gandhi’s assassination to deepen his study of nonviolent resistance. Upon his return, he became one of the foremost strategic architects of the US Civil Rights Movement. In later years, he has worked with numerous labor justice and other movements. He has also taught countless organizers throughout his long life and emphasizes the importance of training and study to movement success.
Movements share tactics and strategies, and they also share artistic themes. When I wrote my novel, The Dandelion Insurrection, using the dandelion as a symbol of resistance, numerous readers wrote to me about its use by movements as disparate as Norway’s resistance to joining the European Union, the United States’ 1970s Movement for a New Society, the recent Black Lives Matter Movement, and even the global climate justice movement. Like its namesake, it’s a symbol that continues to pop up all over the place.
Music, art, slogans, and imagery circulate between movements in innumerable ways. To highlight one example, the iconic song of the Civil Rights Movement, We Shall Overcome, has had many incarnations. The first version was written in 1900 by African-American Rev. Joseph Tidley under the name, I’ll Overcome Some Day. This version was well-known throughout the labor movement of that decade. A second version, I Will Overcome, was sung in a 1945 cigar workers strike in Charleston, South Carolina. Pete Seeger and Zilphia Horton (music director of the Highlander Center) included this version in a book of folk songs they published. It was rekindled within the Civil Rights Movement at the Highlander Center. Guy Carawan is credited with selecting it as the closing song of a training attended by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King. From there, they and many other folksingers helped to popularize it in the movement.
There are dangers with superficially mimicking movements, however. One of the assessments of the Arab Spring uprisings is that later movements failed because they learned largely from watching television and Internet footage of Tunisia and Egypt’s mass demonstrations. Replicating only the mass street protests, movements in other countries failed to see – and use – the strikes, boycotts, and mass noncooperation campaigns that had effectively eroded the regimes’ power in the first two countries. When protesters flooded the streets in subsequent countries, the brutal repression of police and military was able to crush the movements because other strategies – especially economic resistance – that could have been shifted to had not been developed.
Some important aspects of struggle – such as organizational infrastructure, widespread training programs, acts of noncooperation, and covert resistance – tend not to be as visible to people from the outside. Studying nonviolent movements helps to illuminate these aspects beyond what we see in the news.
It is undeniable that media coverage of movements helps to inspire subsequent uprisings. The Arab Spring is cited as one of the main inspirations for the Occupy protests in the United States. The Occupy protests launched in New York City in September 2011, in part because of an Adbusters Magazinecall-to-action. Within two weeks, 951 Occupy encampments had sprung up across 82 countries, 600 in the United States . . . and a new phrase had entered movement organizing circles: multi-nodal actions. In a country with the geographic expanse of the United States, the notion – while not new – was a revelation for many. Instead of organizing people to go to big city demonstrations, actions in every city and town were organized.
In the United States, this tactical approach has been replicated continuously since the Occupy protests of 2011. The 2017 Women’s March, for example, mobilized one million people in the streets of DC and another 2.7 million across 500 other locations. One out of every 100 Americans participated in either the Women’s March or the Sister Marches (as the multi-nodal actions were called). This multi-nodal organizing approach also lies at the heart of the Student Climate Strikes, which organize weekly student walkouts and days of larger mobilizations.
The stories continue: global labor movements; women’s suffrage movements in the UK and US; Indigenous solidarity movements around the globe; intersectional movements of the 70s and 80s; anti-globalization protests at major trade conferences that shared tactical philosophies; environmental movements that adapted blockades and tree-sits from forest protection to blocking pipelines; and so much more. Each one of these examples deserves a full article. Both contemporary and historical strands of learning and inspiring can be traced through movements.
The circulation of texts, books, and manuals on nonviolent struggle has played a major role in the ways movements share tactics and strategies. The works of M.K. Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gene Sharp have had global impacts. The advent of the Internet made accessing knowledge and following contemporary movements even more common. Current campaigns seem to draw knowledge from a wide variety of sources, including traditional cultural references, organized training programs, current and recent movements, previous campaigns in their history, and local innovation.
In collecting and circulating the weekly Nonviolence News, one of my goals is to help light the sparks between people working for change. By reading about creative actions, wise strategies, and courageous resistance, we can learn from the endeavors of our fellow human beings. The more we learn, the more the sparks of inspiration lead to robust, strategic, and powerful movements for change.
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Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including The Dandelion Insurrection. She is the editor of Nonviolence News and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns. www.riverasun.com