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

The Many Faces of Nonviolence

by Emily Mattio

In April 2018, twelve women in red cloaks and white bonnets stood behind California State Treasurer John Chiang, voicelessly embodying the handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel of a future where women’s rights are nonexistent. These costumed protesters, among many others, gathered in support of Chiang’s announcement that he would circulate a petition to direct part of California’s state budget to end rape backlog and begin testing approximately 13,000 untouched  rape kits. Out of the many survivors of sexual assault, only some go through these invasive examinations to help prosecute their attackers. However, many of these kits remain untested, which prevents thousands of survivors from building a strong legal case. Chiang’s call to action, inspired by these powerful protesters, is a step towards justice.

Among the crusaders was Chelsea Byers, who was asked to not only organize, but also to speak at the press conference. She founded her organization, the Campaign to Abolish Statutes of Limitations on Rape and Sexual Assault (CASOL), after observing the power of grassroots movements and hearing survivors’ stories firsthand. Its message is simple and straightforward: it is time for every state across the nation to eradicate statutes of limitations (SOLs) for rape and sexual assault.

SOLs restrict the amount of time between a crime and the ability to charge someone for it. SOLs for rape and sexual assault ignore the holistic knowledge that we now have about survivors of such crimes, along with recent technological developments that make it easier to identify and prosecute perpetrators. This prevents survivors from speaking their truth and bringing their attacker to justice once they are emotionally and physically ready to do so. 

Due to societal stigma, a broken justice system, and the severe emotional and/or physical trauma that results from an sexual violence, many victims choose not to report their attackers. SOLs don’t take these factors into account, and instead gives victims a time limit to come forward. It disregards the fact that the time provided by the SOLs might not be sufficient for the victims to heal and prepare to report their attacker. Chelsea Byers has heard this story countless times. A specific instance that came to Byers’ mind concerns a nurse in the Midwest, whose daughter was sexually assaulted but unable to prosecute her attacker once she felt ready to speak with law enforcement officers. This mother now works with CASOL to rally her community behind this issue.

CASOL is in the process of publishing an advocacy toolkit and organizing an advisory committee to combat SOLs on sexual crimes. The toolkit will compile relevant information that will make it easier to share ideas, give advice on how to influence local legislation, and run meetings/campaigns. Additionally, CASOL will start an advisory committee to represent different communities across the country in order to build a stronger support system, decentralize efforts while maintaining a central body, and address intersectionality. In the meantime, CASOL continues to support active campaigns in five different states. As the movement grows, CASOL hopes to grow with it, offering solutions and resources for any problems that arise.

CASOL also offers Nonviolent Direct Action Training (NVDA), which plays a large role in the organization’s activities. NDVA puts power back into the hands of a survivor by providing them with effective tools to rise up against injustice. Byers believed that a legislative approach alone would miss the greater movement-building opportunity inherent in this cause. Investing in building capacity for nonviolent action is the best way to create a large base of people power, which then puts pressure on lawmakers to change legislation.

Byers argues that everyone, not just survivors, should be working to abolish SOLs for sexual assault. Movements such as CASOL and #MeToo demonstrate that our current criminal justice system cannot adequately address sexual violence. While CASOL cannot change the past, it provides survivors with tools that will empower and motivate them to advocate for a future where individuals are able to come forward once they are ready. Nonviolence International is proud to be partners with such an incredible organization that is making significant strides in using nonviolent action to support the rights of survivors. We are grateful for the opportunity to tell their story.

The Many Faces of Nonviolence

by Emily Mattioli

Surrounded by thousands of people, an activist named Renaldo Pearson stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang, “the only thing we did right was the day we started to fight.” One of the thousands was Tania Maduro. She had stepped out of her Connecticut home in April 2016 to take part in the largest American civil disobedience action of the 21^st century. It was a march from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., followed by a weeklong protest led by Democracy Spring demanding the removal of big money from politics and the expansion and protection of voting rights.

99 Rise, one of Nonviolence International’s former partners, created Democracy Spring to address problems that are keeping democracy in the United States from thriving. As a grassroots social movement, it uses civil resistance demonstrations to bring attention to voter suppression and the outsized influence of big money in politics. Maduro joined this movement in 2016 after learning about the extent of the issue.

Very few bills get passed in Congress without some input from wealthy donors and their lobbyists. And politicians have good reason to listen. The Washington Post found that better-financed candidates win elections 91% of the time. Through demonstrations, marches, and advocacy, Democracy Spring brings the issue into the public view so that the people will demand greater regulation of money in politics.

Another obstacle that Democracy Spring addresses is voter suppression. While Maduro was initially motivated to end corporate corruption, she soon experienced the threat to voting rights first-hand. She lived out of state due to her work for Democracy Spring, but she went back to her home state of Connecticut to vote in the 2016 primaries. However, officials turned her away, saying that she was ineligible because she did not vote in the last election. Voters laws vary by state, but nearly all of them disproportionately make it harder for minority populations to vote.

The 2018 Midterm Election is one of the most recent displays of voter suppression. The Center for American Progress documented many barriers, from strict registration laws to administrative mistakes, that kept thousands of minority voters and college students from casting a ballot. Similar to Maduro’s experience, many Ohio citizens couldn’t vote because they had not made it to the polls for the previous two elections. These discrepancies, and many more, make voting more difficult for specific populations in the United States, creating unrepresentative election outcomes.

Maduro contends that one of the greatest challenges to rallying people behind these causes is that the discussion surrounding them is very academic, leaving many without the vocabulary or understanding on how to address the injustice. This is one of the reasons why nonviolent direct action is an important tool for the movement. NVDA is unique because it is accessible to everyone and will help the conversation to become more prevalent. Both big money in politics and voter suppression threaten American democracy. While partisan divisions may seem insurmountable, this is something that all Americans can come together on. Nonviolence International supports 99 Rise’s and Democracy Spring’s efforts to enforce a democracy where money does not corrupt and every citizen has an equal opportunity to vote.

Follow  Tania Maduro on Facebook to keep up with the Pro-Democracy Movement.

The Many Faces of Nonviolence - Asna Husin

by Emily Mattioli

Before leaving Indonesia to attend college in the United States, Dr. Asna Husin was guided by one simple thought: “peace is a part of your life from the beginning until now.” Growing up in the predominately Muslim Indonesian province of Aceh, she learned about other religions through her education, but never met people of a different faith from her own. In her early years, the only non-Acehnese she met were the few Chinese who resided in the local market, Kembang Tanjung in Sigli. Until one Ramadan, her grandfather took her to Medan, the third largest city in Indonesia, and Husin found herself playing with Christian children.

In Medan, it wasn’t only the children who got along. Community members of many different faiths and ethnicities coexisted. They attended each other’s weddings and supported one another when they were suffering from grief and loss. On religious holidays, no matter which religion tradition they belonged to, people baked each other cakes and celebrated in each other’s homes. During her stay at her aunt’s house in Medan, Husin witnessed Christians deliver a cake to her house and partake in traditions customary for the end of Ramadan. Later, her aunt did the same for the Christian family during the Christmas season. This experience, along with the Islamic education that instilled in her a desire for mutual understanding and interfaith dialogue, left a positive mark on Husin’s life. She leaned into this desire upon coming to the United States in 1990 to pursue her graduate education. 

Husin received a Fulbright Scholarship for her master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, then earned a PhD in Religious Studies at Columbia University. She went on to serve as a fellow at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, while simultaneously teaching Islamic Civilization at the State University of New York. Upon completing her fellowship at Columbia, Husin worked as the Director of Women’s Programs for the World Conference on Religion and Peace, where she helped organize the World Women Assembly in  Jordan. In 2000, Husin returned to Banda Aceh, Indonesia to resume her teaching position at the Ar-Raniry State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN; now known as Ar-Raniry State Islamic University), while establishing the ‘Peace Education Program’ (PPD) as an independent affiliate of Nonviolence International.

When Husin moved back to Indonesia, the country was in the midst of a civil war. In their efforts to fight the indigenous Aceh Freedom Fighters (GAM), the military put the province under martial law. Husin risked being caught in the middle of the conflict as she advocated for peace education and nonviolent conflict resolution. It was difficult, even dangerous, but “with the help of God and the commitment of many good people,” she recalls, “we were able to fulfill our tasks and excel in our peace work.” A large part of this work was creating educational materials for the peace education courses.

Husin gathered people for support and built a team to work on educational manuals for use in public high schools and private Islamic academies (dayah or pesantren) throughout Aceh. She and her team pushed textbooks that guided the courses and trainings taught on peace. The first edition was a peace education manual intended for high schools. While brief compared to later versions, it did a wonderful job of “combining Islamic universal values and international principles, Acehnese peace mechanisms and recognized global norms.” This initial success led to a request for a more detailed peace education manual for the private Islamic boarding schools (dayah). The first two books compliment each other and later inspired a third, more comprehensive manual on Islamic Ethics (Akhlaq) designed for use in the Acehnese government and private high schools. 

The later editions of the Ulama peace book and the Akhlaq manual focus on active and joyful learning, concentrating on peace, and “learning by doing” and “playing for learning” techniques. The student-trainees learn and experience conflict while trying to find a peaceful solution applicable to real life. They also study basic theory about conflict, its root causes and ways to manage it. The two major manuals cover subjects ranging from issues of structural and institutional violence, to active and passive peace; managing anger to elevating poverty; human rights and communal responsibilities; and good leadership to communal civility. More than vague concepts, the books and courses offered conceptual knowledge and taught practical skills on how to live harmoniously.

In order to “revive the age-old Islmanic peace tradition for the benefit of our modern era,” Husin and her team injected traditional Islamic learning into the manuals. This undoubtedly helped to win the support of the many Islamic schools that still use these manuals in their curriculum today. Over the eleven years of implementing the project, Husin and her team trained over one thousand teachers from across Aceh, who in turn taught over 70,000 public high school students and the young Ulama in Islamic boarding schools about nonviolent methods for resolving conflict. Furthermore, Husin succeeded in securing uninterrupted international funding to support the program’s activities from a wide range of respected agencies and organizations.

Husin’s determination prevailed despite the many barriers she had to overcome operating a peace program amidst the dangers that engulfed Aceh at the time. Murders, robberies and extortions, abductions, and arsons were common. An inspiration for Husin in these times was her faith. In her own words, “the core of Islam is peace.” She reflected on one of the names for God, ‘Provider of Peace’ (al-Salam), emphasizing that “Muslims seek peace because they want to become closer to God as the source and provider of true peace and human security.”

Interfaith dialogue continued to be a driving force in her work as she persisted in teaching about peace in Indonesia. While she had originally appealed to Muslim educators to accept the program she was establishing, it wasn’t long before Christians in the community began taking an interest in her work. Christians joined in peace education classes at one school in Southeast Aceh, even though the materials reflect the conception of peace from an Islamic perspective. When Husin went to visit this school she asked the young Christians about their experience, they responded, “We love this class. We have a lot of fun. The materials and teachers discuss our religion in a very respectful manner.” The class succeeded in promoting peace not just because of its teachings, but in how it brought different people together.

Dr. Asna Husin currently serves as a senior researcher at Nonviolence International in Washington, D.C., working on cultural resources for Islamic peace building. There are still ways that Husin would like to see her society grow, but she is grateful for how far the community that she calls home has come. Nonviolence International is proud to continue supporting Husin as she completes research on Cultural Resources for Islamic Peace Building, and the History of Indonesian Muslim Communities in America.

The Many Faces of Nonviolence

Nonviolence International Says Goodbye to Our Spring 2019 Interns!

         From test driving a Tesla to listening to a presentation about peace education in Indonesia, there was rarely a slow day around the office this spring with our three interns, Kimberly Baggelaar, Jillian Maulella, and Emily Mattioli. As we get ready to send off these three exceptional young women, we want to take the time to reflect on all they’ve contributed to our mission.  

         Our interns joined us at an exciting time around the office, at the conjunction of our 30th anniversary and continued process of renewal. We enjoyed sharing with them what our office has accomplished in the past three decades, while looking forward to being even more impactful in the future. Each intern had invaluable insights regarding the renewal process, offering their talents to better serve the organization. Kimberly remembers the renewal meetings sharing, “NI cares about our experience as interns, but went even further to value our opinions about the organization as a whole. We were welcomed into meetings about the renewal of the organization and given the opportunity to contribute.”

         Kimberly Baggelaar is a graduating senior at American University this semester. She studies International Relations with an emphasis on Identity, Race, Gender and Culture. Her work at NI is predominantly composed of creating and maintaining the educational archives, which provide information for activists and organizers on different peace building topics. She also regularly attends rallies and protests for peace in DC. She hopes to continue work in the field of peace education after graduation. Inspiring Kimmy to apply to Nonviolence International was one of her professors, and prominent peace activist Colman McCarthy.   

         Emily Mattioli is also a graduating senior at Malone University in Canton, Ohio. She finished her senior year with us in D.C., and is double majoring in Creative Writing and International Studies. While working at NI, Emily has interviewed our partners and affiliates to learn their stories. In the next couple of months, we will be putting her work up on our website and social medias, so you can learn more about the work we support and are inspired by.  

         “Having the opportunity to talk to our partners, while intimidating, was an incredible experience. I feel fortunate to have been able to meet so many groups and individuals that are furthering their mission through nonviolent action. From discussing the Arms Trade Treaty, to what big money in politics looks like, I had the opportunity to research many different issues and hear about them from people who are actively doing work to resolve them.”

         Emily has also stayed connected to peace efforts regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which she was introduced to last semester while studying in the Middle East. After visiting Bethlehem, Emily met Sami Awad, leader of Holy Land Trust, a partner organization. After an inspiring speech about the role of healing and nonviolence in the conflict, Sami recommended the internship at Nonviolence International to Emily who applied shortly after. Since working at NI’s D.C. office, Emily has been able to reconnect and work with Holy Land Trust and meet Mubarak Awad, Nonviolence International’s founder and a Palestinian Peace Activist. She has also had the opportunity to attend events across the city discussing ways to resolve this difficult conflict.

       Jillian Maulella is a rising senior at James Madison University. She's currently pursuing a degree in International Affairs, with a concentration in International Relations, and an Art History minor. Here at the office, Jillian spends the majority of her time working on the Nonviolent Methods Database, which includes over 300 nonviolent methods and tactics. After graduation, Jillian hopes to further explore the nonprofit world here in D.C. Upon deciding to come to D.C. Jillian knew that she wanted to intern at a nonprofit that was passionate about what they do. Reflecting on this past semester Jillian states, "I feel like my time at nonviolence international has been very valuable. I've learned so much about the nonprofit field and really feel like I am making a difference."

         There is so much to miss about these interns. Kimberly, Jillian, and Emily are deeply committed, have creative insightful ideas, and share their growing wisdom with us. Our frequent interactions are particularly meaningful to me these days when we have many reasons to worry about the future. These emerging leaders show us again and again that their generation is claiming the power to heal and repair the world. We have left them several interlocking crises including our addiction to violence, climate change, and a rigged and brutal economic system. Through their daily actions they demonstrate the capacity to fix what we have broken. Not to mention our Taco Tuesday tradition. NI cares about our interns and hopes that they will remember their time here with us as they continue their careers, and lead their generation into a future of nonviolence.

If you or someone you know is interested in interning at Nonviolence International, please visit our Internship page. To join us in supporting these young leaders in nonviolent action and growth opportunities, donate here.