Building on Positive Forces

Transcript

Your first Nonviolent Moment of the year 2025. That may sound a little bit more portentous than it actually is, but I am going to try to give us a snapshot of some of the nonviolent events that are going on around the world.

You know, this is just a mere sampling that I've been collecting recently. I like to emphasize, and I think it's worth bearing in mind always, that nonviolence is alive and well, despite the fact that violence is also so prominent in our world today. But those are the two main forces I think that we have to think about.

One of my favorite authors from the ancient world – that I used to be a classic scholar – is Saint Augustine, who had a sentence, a very portentous, what we used to call in the field a gnomic sentence in his great work, “The City of God.”

And that was [Latin] Two different drives. Two different loves, as he calls them, result in two different world orders. He calls the city of man, which is a city of selfishness and greed and, of course, violence, and the city of God, which hasn't yet been realized on Earth except, in sprinklings here and there.

Which would mean peace and nonviolence and mutual support for all. So, those are the two struggles which today I think bear the most convenient and most effective labels are violence and nonviolence.

I would like to start the year with shouting out a recognition, a hats off, to the passing of a great person, President Jimmy Carter.

He wanted to be a peacemaker. He was a truly great person, and the only president to recognize Palestinian rights, which is, in a way, the more remarkable since he was actually an evangelical Christian. And what a guiding light he would have been for some of the evangelical persons of today. He rightly saw that if an accord could be struck between Israel and Egypt, no Arab state could defeat Israel militarily.

And Averell Harriman, a veteran US diplomat, said of him that this event that he organized, “The Camp David Accords turned out to be the most durable diplomatic achievement since the end of WWII. What he has done with the Middle East is one of the most extraordinary things any president in history has ever accomplished.” And I say those words as his funeral cortège is approaching the nation's capital on the other side of the country.

And where a friend of ours, Ofer Cassif, who is a member of the Israeli Knesset, said rather famously, “If there's peace, everybody wins.”

So, if there's peace, if there's the kind of world that Jimmy Carter worked for, then we are exiting from the polarity of win and lose and can really start going forward again towards our human destiny.

And I want to recognize also a person of the remote past in this country – by American standards, pre-revolutionary Quaker, John Woolman, who toured the South and the North working for the abolition of slavery before the Revolutionary War.

He failed, of course. And that led to an incredible, overwhelming conflict. One of the most devastating wars in the history of the West. It is said that eight out of ten soldiers who were wounded in the war died of their wounds because, you know, they didn't have the kind of Red Cross we have today. Which really actually raises a kind of interesting paradox because, of course, on the humanitarian level, you want to rescue those people from their suffering and from the danger of death. But at the same time, the more you make war acceptable, the more people enter into it. So that is an argument, a paradox I just have to leave you with for the time being. I don't have a position on it.

But it was said, John Woolman. And I'm saying this in the presence of a person from the State of Virginia, ignore John Woolman in one century, and you have John Brown in the next. John Brown, of course, carried out the raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to put an end to slavery through violence. So, there's the paradox that we don't seem to be able to get out of. We want to limit the damage of violence, but we don't really seem to want to get rid of it altogether. If we did, we would reach out to a method which is not itself violent, namely, of course, nonviolence.

So, I will talk more about the Middle East in a little bit but let me mention a couple of upcoming events in this very month, the first month of 2025. And I'm not going to talk about an event that happens on the 20th. Of course, I might just mention in passing that it is my birthday, thank you very much.

But on the 18th at 10AM, there will be a feminist Day of Action. I really look forward to this. As a classic scholar, I remember the play of Aristophanes called, “Lysistrata.” In which, a woman named Lysistrata organizes the Spartan and the Athenian women to undertake a sex strike against the soldiers until they lay down their arms.

It was a wonderful idea. Now, this is not exactly the character of this event, but the statement they have issued says, “We will demand and defend our freedoms against fascism. We will demonstrate our collective strength, sending a clear message: Our freedoms are inalienable, and we will not allow them to be threatened.”

I couldn't agree more, but of course, I have to add, as I usually do, that we will have to do a lot more than march. Marching and then going back home can be an exercise in futility, and maybe actually do more harm than good. It does seem good, of course, because people get to know one another. They sense one another's solidarity. They make their feelings known. But of course, if people in power don't care how you feel, making your feelings known by itself is not going to cut any mustard, as we used to say – I don't know why.

But as I learned from a friend of mine back in the Cold War, when we had to carry out a march in San Francisco – very proud of ourselves. He got up on the podium and said, “I hope you realize that we've done exactly what the warmongers want us to do. They want us to demonstrate that we have the ability to march, and that they didn't stop us. But it has no direct, concrete impact.” So, I welcome this event. I applaud it. And I really encourage people to make connections, form community, and strategize about where to go from here. And there is no question that in the dire times that we are facing right now, we are going to have to make sacrifices and undergo a lot of risk and inconvenience if we're going to make an impact.

But back on the fourth of this month, there was a very good statement that I'd like to share with you from The Jerusalem Post. And it goes like this, “2025 must be a year of healing and rebuilding.” And here's the part I really like, and I want to emphasize with you, “We must channel our grief and anger into a determination to create a future where such tragedies are less likely to occur.” Referring primarily to Gaza.

Resuming the quote, “This means holding ourselves and our leaders accountable, fostering dialogue instead of division, and prioritizing the safety and dignity of all who call this land home.” The Land of Israel-Palestine. Resuming, “It won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. But if we strive to replace hate with understanding, fear with courage, and despair with hope, perhaps 2025 can be the year we finally begin to break the cycle.”

That is a wonderful program and an inspiring formulation for the people of the region, and all of us who have any connections there to live up to.

Now, coming back – I'm going to bounce around a little bit this morning – coming back to, a local source, our friend Rivera Sun, who operates a wonderful website called Nonviolence News. Last year – this is a retrospective now appropriate for January. She reviewed over 2000 stories and pulled out a few more than 280 actions. That “Made me laugh, cheer, and occasionally tear up with emotion over humanity’s bold inventiveness in pursuit of social change. From remote controlled cars with smoking flares to 100 melting snowmen protecting climate change. These stories remind us of the staggering versatility in the nonviolent toolbox.” Let me re-emphasize that – the staggering versatility in the nonviolent toolbox, which will undoubtedly be needed in 2024.

I just want to refine a little bit our thinking here. This versatility really covers a range of two rather different modes of operation, which we have often called strategic versus principled nonviolence. And in addition to doing a program on John Woolman in some coming part of this year, I think I'd like to revisit that question of what we mean by strategic versus principled. But for now, I'm just going to go on.

The Wall Street Journal, among other news outlets, reported on two very tragic events that took place in this country, two outbursts of violence. And they noted without, I think, drawing the necessary conclusion that both of the people who carried out these violent random attacks had been in the US Army. One of them had served in the Army for ten years.

And the FBI said of the second of those attacks, “There was no link between the Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas and the truck attack in New Orleans.” Now that's what they think. They think there is no link because they don't recognize, I think, the difference between a connection and a link.

Okay, there was no link in the sense that maybe these two persons were not in contact, but there's definitely a connection in the sense that every act of violence anywhere, facilitates more violence everywhere. To quote the way Martin Luther King put that, “Injustice anywhere is an injury to justice everywhere.”

So, I emphasize this because I think that unless we learn to think about these two underlying forces, these two loves of Saint Augustine, almost 1400 years ago, I don't think we'll ever understand why these events are happening, nor be able to resolve them.

Personally, I think that the link, the missing link, if I could use that expression, is the concept of, what a human being is, what they are capable of, what we are capable of, and how training that we undertake, or that is offered to us, and which we are sometimes put through unwillingly, will determine the outcome of which of those two loves, which of those two drives, becomes manifest.

So, back on some of the terrific nonviolence works that's going on, Nonviolent Peaceforce is a group that we follow closely. They have an outlet called Peace Watch. And in it, they had a reference to a global directory, which they invite us to visit. It's called No More. It is a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive international directory of domestic and sexual violence helplines, with specialist support services, and resources in almost every UN-recognized country and territory in the world. And you can follow them on Instagram at unarmed.civilian.protectionIP.

It does my heart good to know that unarmed civilian protection is now recognized at this level in the world and that it is available on this website, where we are able to pile up, and offer to the public, resources. How often have we who advocate nonviolence have we heard, “But yeah, but no one knows anything about it. It never worked.” Whereas in fact, there's a very rich history, and there now is starting to be resources where ordinary folks like you and me can access that history.

Now, I mentioned before that Nonviolent Peaceforce, continuing with that organization, has carried out an assessment by sending four researchers, back in July of last year, to answering several questions for the potential of an unarmed civilian peacekeeping project in Palestine.

The questions are, is it feasible to initiate and carry out a large-scale UCP operation? Secondly, what UCP responses would be viable and effective? And three, what can be done to enhance the effectiveness of current operations?

And they made two major recommendations – to deploy a mission of at least 100 highly skilled, experienced UCP personnel on the ground in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and when the situation allows, to extend that mission into the Gaza Strip. And two, to provide support to existing UCP organizations apparently working in the West Bank to enhance their effectiveness.

UCP, I should mention, means Unarmed Civilian Protection. And it really is wonderful that this has become a worldwide institution with a pool of 200 trained workers who are on tap, just like Army reserves. These are unarmed, peace reserves. Two hundred is not a huge number, but just conceptually, what a huge difference it makes to have and operate a real alternative now.

So, the assessment team has completed its work in Palestine, and they spent October in New York and Washington seeking support for unarmed civilian protection in general, and Palestine specifically. They hired someone that we interviewed, Amira Musallam, as a member of that team, to lead the advance team in Palestine when their efforts begin this month.

And thanks to World BEYOND War and RootsAction.org, 200,000 emails have been sent to about 24 UN missions advocating for, among other things, “Sending unarmed peacekeepers to Palestine.” What a tremendous difference that can make.

And meanwhile, Community Peacemaker Teams, which was formerly Christian Peacemaker Teams, is recruiting for service in Palestine, Colombia, Lesovo, Iraqi Kurdistan, here in Turtle Island, and the US southern border. Lesovo doesn't come trippingly off my tongue because I'm a classic scholar and that island was called Lesbos in the ancient world. But that is really a quivel that we do not need to worry about. So, Community Peacemaker Teams is now actively recruiting for people who might want to go and serve in those territories.

Campaign Nonviolence, as part of their wrap up of Action Days and their other project, the Nonviolent Cities Project, reached out and thanked many volunteers who gave generously of their time, energy, and passion, to 30 Nonviolent Cities Organizers who put in over 3,000 hours to foster nonviolence in their local communities, where nonviolence really has to begin. I mean, I guess actually has to begin in the family, but then reach out to the local community, to the nation, and then the world – to 40 Affinity Group members who gave 1,000 plus hours to meet monthly and take action for racial justice, environment, war tax resistance – a hallowed project, and engaged in practices of nonviolence. And over 5,000 Campaign Nonviolence Action Days organizers who put in at least 25,000 hours of time into holding actions on the ground and in their networks.

I want to bring up one bright spot. We should not forget that the Albert Einstein College of Medicine received a $1 billion gift to make that institution tuition-free forever, thanks to Ruth Gottesman.

And that reminded me that some years ago, Ted Turner, the media mogul, as he was called, and whom I had spoken with, he was very much in favor of peace and progressive actions, gave $1 billion to the UN. When at that time, it was absolutely unheard of to give a gift of that amount.

But I'm happy to mention that this goes to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine because yesterday, we at the Metta Center interviewed a professor, John Kirk, who has visited Cuba very often and told us about the Cuban doctors who have offered their services all over the world. And I can personally attest to that, having seen the impact of their efforts in Nicaragua when I visited.

One last thing to mention, Elizabeth Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute. Multisolving is called creating Systems Change in a Fractured World. That's on Resistance.org. And I'd like to just mention that for as far as I know, meditation is the ultimate multisolver.

So, thank you very much for listening to the first news broadcast, the first Nonviolent Moment of the new year, 2025. And I look forward to speaking to you again very soon.