Week of March 20, 2023
In this week’s Nonviolence Report, we regret to inform listeners that Traute Lafrenz, the last surviving member of The White Rose has passed away at 103. In international news, the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran has put out an inspiring document called the Charter of Solidarity and Alliance for Freedom – or, popularly, the Mahsa Charter, after Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman whose death sparked outspoken protests, and In the face of anti-democratic government action in Israel-Palestine, thousands of Israeli military service members are threatening conscientious objection. Here in the United States, the National Postal Service is in the process of upgrading its fleet to electric vehicles, and constructing thousands of new charging stations all over the country.
Listen to the full episode for more detail on these stories and more, including networks of Gandhian activists and scholars in India, a new environmental book that lays out paths for a hopeful future, and mediation response units in NYC.
Topics Scan and Links:
Traute Lafrenze and the White Rose
Traute Lafrenz who passed away at her home in South Carolina. She was 103 and the last surviving member of the White Rose.
Zan, Zindagi Azadi – Woman, Life, Freedom
Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran
Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran
Charter of Solidarity and Alliance for Freedom
USPS Upgrading to Electric Fleet
Conscientious Objectors in Israel
Comment from Shimri Zameret
Global Gandhian Movement for Swaraj
Earth4All
Earth4All has been praised because it’s very clear-eyed on the impending destruction of the environment, the economy, as it lays out five paths to a systematic rescue.
Mediation Response Units
Mediation Response Unit are having a series of online breakfasts
Full Transcript
Traute Lafrenze and the White Rose
I’m Michael Nagler and this is the Nonviolence Report for today. I’d like to start our episode today with an in memorium. This is for a woman named Traute Lafrenz who passed away at her home in South Carolina. She was 103. You can tell from the name that Traute was German, and the significance of this is that she was the last surviving member of the White Rose.
I just love this little organization. A small band of about 30 people. These were courageous students at the University of Munich in 1942 and 1943. They had decided that they were against the policies of the government, and they passed out leaflets. They wrote slogans on public buildings calling for the overthrow of Hitler and an end of the war.
Ultimately, they were betrayed by a custodian in the university atrium, and they were all imprisoned, including Traute. And almost all executed shortly thereafter. Traute was not only because the allies liberated the prison that she was in, probably no more than three or four days before her execution was scheduled.
Interestingly enough, a French resistance fighter, Simone Segouin, who went by the nom de guerre of Nicole passed away at the age of 97. So, these two parallel stories also provide an interesting contrast because the iconic picture of Nicole shows her holding a submachine gun, where the White Rose students never touched a weapon. They weren’t constitutionally against it, but they had no opportunity to do it. Instead, they fought the battle of words and ideas, which I think was more dangerous to Hitler than bullets and guerilla fighting.
Now I just want to add a personal note. I narrowly missed meeting Traute Lafrenz, to my great regret. She came to Berkeley to visit us, but it was a day when I was not on campus. But I did hear this interesting story from my colleague, Professor Fritz Tubach, the Gestapo found out about the White Rose. They knew all the members. They came to arrest Traute, and they went to her lab where she worked at the university, and it just so happened that Traute was sick that day, so she wasn’t there.
They spoke to her chemistry professor. Now, you have to remember in Germany, professors are maybe a step below God. And you know, I think that’s kind of where we belong. Anyway, they asked about her. The professor said, “Why?” And they said, “Well,” they explained she was a member of a resistance group. Strictly illegal. And her professor said, “Ze? [German]. Her? No, she couldn’t possibly have been involved,” knowing full well that she was.
So, he risked her life, but because of the prestige of professors, Traute was not arrested on that occasion, which would have meant her death. And when she was later on, as I mentioned, she was rescued and came to this country.
Zan, Zindagi, Azadi – Woman, Life, Freedom
Another woman’s group I want to talk about now. This, of course, is the big one that’s in the news, “Zan, Zindagi, Azadi,” Woman, Life, Freedom. A little background here – it was back in September around the 16th of September, a 22-year-old woman from a Kurdish province – I think that may have had something to do with this – she died in a hospital in Tehran.
She had been arrested three days earlier by Iran’s Guidance Patrol or Morality Police for wearing her hijab improperly. Not that she wasn’t wearing one. She wasn’t wearing it exactly correctly. And she fell into a coma after she was beaten inside the police van that was taking her to the detention center.
And during her funeral on the 17th, crowds gathered in her hometown of Saqqez, and someone started chanting the slogan, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” which caught on almost immediately and spread throughout the country.
So, Iranian women have always been present in these national uprisings, which have been quite frequent, but this time they’re leading them. And these are the first protests where compulsory veiling, which is actually one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic, has been openly defied. And where demands for women’s bodily autonomy have led to calls for the end of the republic, that is, the end of the theocracy. In a little while, we'll be talking about the Association for Freedom and Democracy in Iran, which has a very interesting alternative to propose.
So, despite the presence of vast members of security forces, people gathered in many locations in Tehran and other cities during the traditional Iranian fire festival, which means that it was a pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian origin. And they chanted slogans and danced. I wanted to make a comment on that. That fun, and especially fun as an act of defiance, are very, very useful, and very appropriate in nonviolence.
It always reminds me of AOC, her first day entering her office in Congress, how she danced to show that even politics can be illuminated by a little bit of humanity, a little bit of fun. So, that part of it, I’m fine.
What’s not good, I think, are the slogans calling, for example, “Death to Khamenei, down with the regime.” This is not nonviolent. And I recently was sent an argument that was made by an Iranian friend. I’m going to quote it and comment on it. He said, “We need to openly exercise our freedom of speech, given that it’s the root cause of many of our problems, and radical chants targeting supreme leader is a cheerful way to show we do not submit to the oppressive demand to respect him in our speech.” He adds that, “It is actually a crime in the penal code to disrespect him in speech.”
So, from the nonviolence point-of-view, I strongly support the fact that they’re openly exercising their freedom and taking a risk doing so. That is Nonviolence 101. But we want to be very careful about disrespect, especially disrespect to a person, ad hominem, disrespect.
I’ve suggested to some of the Iranian protester friends that I’m in contact with that just little changes of language could change the tone to make it much more nonviolent. For example, they were in there calling for the overthrow of the regime. I say, how about just saying the replacement of the regime. That difference in tone can make a tremendous difference.
Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran
So, now, I mentioned that there’s a group called Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran – ADFI. And they did something which is a critical step in all movements of this type – insurrectionary movements. And that is to layout what you want. And often enough, protest groups forget to do this. They say, We’re against this. We’re against that. But they don’t give a substitute, and they lose a lot of power. They lose a lot of authenticity with the public that they're trying to recruit.
So, they have created this charter called the Charter of Solidarity and Alliance for Freedom, popularly known as the Mahsa Charter – Mahsa being the first name of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was killed, precipitating this whole uprising. And it’s an inspiring document. You can find it – ADFI, I think, I will get you there, the Mahsa Charter – officially, the Charter of Solidarity and Alliance for Freedom.
I have, as usual, one little comment I have to make. And that is that it is just a bit too vindictive, a bit too personalistic, and doesn’t say anything very concrete about reconciliation. In fact, it doesn’t say much very concrete about what – how the noble inspiring principles laid out in this wonderful charter, which was really an inspiration to read, will be implemented. And that makes all the difference, you know? The means and the ends go together.
USPS Upgrading to Electric Fleet
Well, we could stand a real change of pace here and take a breather for a second. It’s the equivalent almost of comic relief, but there’s nothing comic about it. I want to talk about some positive news that’s happening back here in the states.
And that is that the US Postal Service is going to reduce its carbon footprint by buying, 9000 new electric vehicles. These are Ford vehicles. And to do that, they will have to construct 14,000 additional charging stations in 75 different counties and municipalities around the country.
By 2026 the Postmaster General DeJoy has said that all new purchases of vehicles for the service will be of EVs, electric vehicles. And that was particularly noteworthy because Mr. DeJoy has not been, shall we say, the cutting edge of progressive change. I’ll just leave it at that.
Conscientious Objectors in Israel
So, I want to go back abroad to one item and then end up with something from the hometown, from New York. This is from Israel. Most of you know that President Netanyahu, otherwise known as “Bibi,” has made a move now. It isn’t quite completed, which would co-opt the supreme court. It’s possible to do because Israel has no constitution.
But his move has roused extreme protest and alarm from many sectors of Israeli society. There have been tremendous marches. And this has included protests by military personnel, including the Air Force. And the significance of that is that the military is very highly regarded in Israel. There’s very little of the ambiguity that we had in this country from at least Vietnam, if not earlier. But they’re regarded as kind of the saviors of the country.
So, I wanted to read you a bit of the quote from a young fellow named Shimri Zameret who recently left the service. And here’s his comment, “During the Second Intifada,” in the early 2000s, “when the Israeli army was killing thousands of Palestinians in its effort to suppress that uprising, I was part of a movement of Israeli youth and soldiers who refused to serve in the army. From the age of 18 to 20, I spent 21 months under arrest in various Israeli prisons, along with many others.” And this was one of the largest campaigns of conscientious objection ever seen in Israel. Until recently, it seemed very unlikely that we’d see something on that scale again.
But over the past two weeks, and this is now for the first time in two decades, a new movement of Israeli army refusers has emerged in opposition to the far-right government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, as that government advances now a slew of anti-democratic legislation. The proposed laws, which are being described as a ‘judicial coup’ would severely weaken the country’s courts and impact the rights of women, LGBTQ people, and many other minorities and will fall heaviest on Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line” – that is within Israeli-controlled territory and not. They will face the heaviest brunt of that legislation.
“So, against this imminent threat, thousands of Israeli soldiers and reservists have made public statements announcing their intent to refuse army service should the government’s legislation pass.”
And that, again, is the classic technique. It is the correct way to use threat power – namely, you make it conditional. “If you do X, I will be forced to do Y.” That gives the opposition a chance to simply not do it and avoid the problem. It also shows that you're not totally opposed to everything the opposition stands for, but you're using your discrimination.
Global Gandhian Movement for Swaraj
in India, it seems, the spirit of Gandhiji lives on. There’s a network of individuals and organizations called, “The Global Gandhian Movement for Swaraj – GGMS. Swaraj, of course, being a term that Gandhi coined for independence or home-rule.
So, back in November of 2009, in the capital, in Delhi, more than 100 prominent scholars and activists founded this organization. And it recruited his holiness, the Dalai Lama, to be its leader. And this forms now a very large network with Swaraj Peeth and many other Gandhian organizations, and formulating action programs, and carrying out experiments in nonviolent action. And you can learn more about this by looking at gandhianmovement.org.
Earth4All
There’s a new book called, “Earth4All” – the 4 is a number – which is a follow-up on the famous report from the Club of Rome. And it’s been praised because it’s very clear-eyed on the impending destruction of the environment, the economy, and so forth. But it also lays out five paths to a systematic rescue.
As usual, I want to make a comment – I’m citing a comment this time from Messrs, Kothari, and Kalpavriksh, who have reviewed the book, “Though curiously silent on the deep cultural and spiritual revolutions required…” the book is otherwise acceptable. I was really pleased to see this because this curious silence goes on a lot. And it really does a lot to limit the depth and the power of the progressive movement. So, they are curiously silent on the deep cultural and spiritual revolutions that are needed.
Mediation Response Units
Finally, as promised, I want to mention something – and thanks for sending me this, Stephanie – from the hometown there’s an organization for Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York – ACR-GNY. Greater New York is sort of like, you know, [Greek], Greater Greece or – it’s New York and its colonies, southern Connecticut and so forth. Pardon me.
But there is a group called Mediation Response Unit. We all know that New York, among other communities – like other communities, does need a great deal of strengthening of conflict resolution and other ways of responding and mediating in conflict.
And so, they are having now a series of online breakfasts – how you have breakfast with somebody online, I’m not sure. And these are called, “Conflict to Conversation in the Community,” CCC. And I’m happy to report that they have now had almost 300 of these conferences. As a New Yorker, I’m just remembering probably they’re eating for those breakfasts, and a lot of what they're probably saying. But I’m happy to conclude with an upbeat note from the old hometown, the Big Apple, New York City. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time.
