Nonviolence confronts colonial legacies

In Morocco-occupied Western Sahara, renowned Sahrawi human rights defender Sultana Khaya and her sister Luara were attacked and sexually assaulted

This week, Nonviolence Radio hosts three exceptional guests: Tim Pluta and Adrienne Kinne, two former veterans now working for peace, and writer and activist Laurence Cox. Tim and Adrienne talk to Stephanie and Michael about their recent work in Western Sahara with three women from the Khaya family who have been forcibly detained in their home for well over a year. The suffering they have endured is horrifying, and Tim and Adrienne are drawing on the strategy of nonviolent civilian accompaniment as a means to support them. But their aim extends further: They hope to raise awareness about the plight of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, which is far too often unseen by the world.

Laurence Cox continues the discussion about colonization, but through the lens of Burma. His interview ends with some hopeful conclusions about the end of empire. Despite the ongoing and profound injustice we see in Myanmar and in the world, Laurence speaks optimistically about the future. He encourages us to acknowledge that there may be no single path out of our present difficulties, perhaps though, a single, clear route is not the right way to conceive of the way forward:

…there’s something really quite liberating about stepping slightly back from that and going, “Some of the time, it may be okay not to have an exact plan. Either a vision of what the future world we want will be, or of the exact steps that will get it there.” And then even, you know, as in Asia, to find out that there wasn’t one path out of empire. There were lots of different ones. And some of them, in retrospect, we might think that was a better way out. Others, we might think that was not a great way out. But actually, there were lots of different routes out of empire.

The possibility of many roads out of current difficulties creates space for creative and surprising approaches, ones which arise in response to particular circumstances, empowering local actors to establish genuine and lasting change.

Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence