Flipping our structures

Johan Galtung coined the term structural violence to describe the practice of negative peace, imposed peace, peace of the empire, peace at the point of a gun. So, what would structural nonviolence look like, that is, positive peace?

I hold the unchanging conviction that religion exists to serve humanity; humanity does not exist to serve religion. And it is by pursuing the challenge of serving humankind that religion can overcome the tendency toward fundamentalism and authoritarianism and provide the fertile soil from which a genuine culture of peace and empathy may grow.

¾Daisaku Ikeda, Subverting hatred (p. 8)

When religion serves humanity rather than humanity serving religion, we can expect a transformation in at least one driver to war. How can we extend Ikeda's challenge to other realms?

When money serves humanity instead of humanity serving money, that will be a welcome change in the Gordon Gekko Greed Creed.

When homes are built so that they prepare a person for a lifetime of low energy consumption, that will help housing serve humanity instead of humanity serving housing.

When nationalism serves humanity, so that ethnic dances and food and legends of loving serve a nation rather than aggression and hatred of others forcing humanity to serve nationalism, that will transform another driver to war.

When the safety of our families serves a common security rather than notions of individual security serving the security state, we will finally begin to value true security in peace rather than the illusory security of one people at the expense of another.

When a nonviolent military serves humankind rather than a nation of sheep serving a domineering military, we will have achieved the sustainable result Ikeda and others have worked so hard to reach.

These are visions, of course, that quickly become hard work, undertaken by those who understand that they will be regarded as quixotic at best, and sometimes as dangerous threats. That is why, even when those who favor violence in the name of justice are investigated by the security state, the nonviolent challengers are also investigated, again and again. This is just what happened when the FBI decided to investigate some of the groups who were organizing demonstrations against the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in 2008. Some of the organizers posted photos and videos of molotov cocktails far in advance, possibly not understanding that the FBI and Homeland Security have zero sense of humor about such things. Sure enough, there has been a far-reaching investigation, including the well known pacifists, Catholic Workers. We are used to it.

Yes, some of the organizers of the opposition to the Republicans had expressed admiration for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the FARC in Colombia, as well as the violent Palestinian insurgents. I'm sure some were rooting for the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are using violence to get the US military out of their respective nations. When people do that, they are using this quaint thing called freedom of speech. Is it smart speech? No. Is it speech that will win adherents in America? No. But it is still free, we hope.

We on the pacifist side should be able to organize opposition to war without harassment and intimidation by the state. We want to draw in others to this peace point of view, not drive them away. We think our message of nonviolence is one that could resonate with people and we want, then, to strikingly differentiate our message from anyone who promotes or even permits violence as a method of change.

"But we need solidarity," say those who are more morally flexible about methods. "We want the same thing in the end."

No, we don't. They want a world in which armed force resolves the question. They happily accept our wimpy nonviolent help, but reserve the right to kill others in the name of their goals. We want to be seen as quite different and as committed to nonviolence. We want a world where violence doesn't resolve or manage conflict and we cannot get there by countenancing violence, period.

The means and ends are twinned, intertwined, and inextricable. As a pacifist, I refuse to join with those who use violence. They are not my people and I am not with them, fundamentally. I'd encourage factionalism. I'm a splitter. But I'd join with others who are also seeking change using nonviolence, even if they only use it tactically and strategically, as long as they commit to only nonviolent conduct in the cause for which we work.

That, to me, is how you actually build a movement. It's not by agreeing to act in unthinking coalition with the self-anointed radical fringe. It's by reaching to the majority and convincing them that it is in their enlightened self interest to support the policy change you believe is crucial. When you outreach to them as a nonviolent activist, they are more likely to be drawn in. If they think you are allied with wingnuts who want to throw bombs, they will logically avoid you.

Thus, in the end, those who look like dividers become uniters. Pacifists should divide from those who favor a permission of violence. That will help them unite the majority toward peace, toward a culture that rejects violence at every level.

References

Smith-Christopher, Daniel L., ed., Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions. Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1998.

Pious dedication to rhetoric

"If we are to honor the slain of Auschwitz and every other site of barbarous inhumanity, we must create the consciousness that makes such slaughter impossible"

--Sharif Abdullah (p. xiii).

When a man beats a woman and apologizes tearfully and expects, and gets, her love, her devotion, her heart, her soul, her body and her free labor, is he encouraged to repeat his violent ways or is he being shown gracious, loving forgiveness? Some women argue that there ought to be zero tolerance of such behavior, and they are correct. Some argue that without forgiveness we have no chance for relationship with anyone, since we all make mistakes, and they are correct.

So the challenge, it seems, is finding that line of no more crossing. One side of that line produces relational work, investigation, mediation, new agreements and a fresh but conditional restart. The other side, once crossed, is where forgiveness may still happen but relationships end. She moves out and he doesn't get to see the children again. Enough violence perpetrated leads to this outcome for most rational people.

Now, I'd assert, is the time for us to wonder in our society if the Obama administration has crossed over that line. Drone attacks in Afghanistan increased, thus increasing Afghan civilian deaths in the name of decreasing American soldier deaths--and creating yet more profits for war contractors, two phenomena that are eerily simultaneous in so many cases. Troops are surging into Afghanistan, evoking what foreign troops always have. The British lion limped out, paws full of thorns. The Soviet bear yowled and fled with a snout full of bee stingers. The American eagle is beginning to look like a plucked chicken after failing in Iraq and now failing in Afghanistan.

We are beginning to feel like the family who was rescued from the redneck wife beater by the tough cop, who has now moved in and started beating everyone too. George W. Bush gave us eight years of misery, even though we let him back in our bed in 2004 (some of us who felt particularly repulsed by him were outvoted). Now Obama is beating the tar out of everyone and yet sounds so calm about it as he glances over his shoulder at the Nobel Peace Prize on his desk, being used as a paperweight to hold down the stacks of war contracts for the profiteers of violence. Is he bipolar? Is he in touch with reality?

Are we? We have the rhetoric of peace and the reality of violence, and we seem incapable of looking beyond the left or right choices. What will America do in November? Throw out the Ds and bring in the Rs. The Pledge to America is really a Pledge to Violent People. One minor part is to gun owners--we love you, stock up on more of them--and to war hawks--the only spending that will really go up and up is military. More violence for America and more violence from America. What a great pledge. Frying pan, fire, frying pan, fire, frying pan, fire. Brilliant. BushObamaBushObamaBush.

This is why some of us Just Say No to violence, period. One side sells it and does it and the other side sells a slightly different brand and does it, and they are just two sides of the same coin. BushCheneyRumsfeld was heads, ObamaEmmanuelGates is tails, but it spends the same.

Like some kind of persecuted religious minority, we who hold to nonviolence are unheard, disregarded and laughed at when we actually say something meaningful in public. We tend to feel beaten, hopeless at times, and just look toward living lives that, at the least, cause little harm. At the least, we feel, we aren't adding to the level of violence in the world. At the most, we begin to do what Sharif Abdullah calls for, the creation of conditions that make these barbarous acts unacceptable. This means going beyond rhetoric and creating that new reality, beginning with ourselves, doesn't it?

References

Abdullah, S. (1999). Creating a world that works for all. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Caveat: Conflict industry

The party line, if you like, on nonviolent social change is that it must be entirely indigenous, or it will be criticized as being imported by some imperial outsiders. Those outsiders will always be acting selfishly and with no concern for the people on the ground, without real care for the indigenous populace.

Thus, the Civil Rights movement was branded by the jingoists in its day as communist. The antiwar movement in the 1960s was a tool of the reds. The nuclear disarmament movement was clearly inspired and supported by the Soviets. And just as that was always the case in the US--I was certainly accused of this, at least until I went to the Soviet embassy in 1987 and got arrested for offering nonviolent resistance to their nuclear arsenal--it is the same pretty much everywhere else. The tendency is quite Maoist, Manichean, those who oppose me are in a big conspiracy against me and are all in league with each other, and they are in cahoots plotting to hurt us all.

This is how demagogues manipulate people and it is how wars occur. If I am an elite leader and I want to stay in power and enhance my power, I've learned this lesson on my way up, on my path to power over others. Paint anyone who stands in my way as an enemy of those whom I need to actually fight my battles for me. Call all Muslims terrorists who have the destruction of America uppermost in their minds--and call all who clamor for peace enemies of my country and label them as in league with our enemies.

This is the conflict industry.

Steve Daniels and Greg Walker (2001) warn those who are interested in resolving conflict that there are sometimes those whose "job security as individuals depend more on the perpetuation of the conflict than on some calm, quiet settlement. We call these people the 'conflict industry'" (p. 44).

This is the gun shop owner, the lawyer, the prison guard, the general, and the politician who is the champion of his people. The old joke: Who is the poorest guy in the little town? The only lawyer. Who are the two richest guys in town? The two lawyers, after the second one moves in. The conflict industry is always going to try to capture as much power and wealth as it can. That is why we have a Pentagon that is bloated beyond all recognition or possible value. The military contracts are obscenely profitable and just enough war is quite advantageous to the elites who can keep fear and hate alive, so that we pay our taxes to support it all, so that we vote in the politicians who in turn vote in massive military spending.

Either you're with us, or you're with them. The commies, the terrorists, the fill-in-the-blanks. This bipolar disorder is what defined the Bush regime, just as it defines the role and power of Ahmadinijad and Hamas. It's Hitlerian and it's how demogogues fool us again and again.

The nonviolent, collaborative alternatives, then, are a major threat, and must be branded as inimical to the safety of the average person. The peace movement must be labeled as naive and unpatriotic, a tool of the terrorists. Those who favor gun control or gun bans are stereotyped as enemies of freedom, as sniveling cowards who will welcome dictators. And we see the same sad human tendency elsewhere--those who favor democracy or human rights in Afghanistan are just crusading slaves to the imperialist Westerners. Those who favor women's rights in Gaza are Zionist agents. It's the same dynamic in our human psyche--we offer unthinking loyalty to those who convince us that they are fighting for us, and, oh, by the way, now you should all fight for me, I mean with me, well, under my command, and we can hope to triumph over the forces of the evil enemy.

Sarah Palin knows how to do this quite well. Set up the sense that everyone on 'that side' is persecuting you because you are standing up for the average person. Sound normal--that is, ignorant of world affairs and like the average small town mom with your dysfunctional family and frustrating bureaucracy--and then begin claiming that you have the common sense to know who the enemies are. Make ignorance of our world a point of pride, and complete dependence upon our war machine as a patriotic value, even if it bankrupts us and creates a couple billion more enemies worldwide.

So, on the enlightened self-interest side (aka the nonviolent side) of the equation, we need to figure out ways to resist the labels they attempt to affix on us and we need to find the elites who are doing that and instead label them as members of the conflict industry who are acting not in the public interest, but rather in their own selfish interest and to the detriment of the majority. This should be part of every nonviolent struggle.

References

Daniels, Steve E., & Walker, Greg B. (2001). Working through environmental conflict: The collaborative learning approach. Westport CT: Praeger.

War crimes

In 2006, 2007 and 2008 nonviolent civil resisters made attempts to block deployment of the Stryker brigades from the Port of Tacoma, Washington. This series of attempts was a manifestation of the port militarization resistance movement, a movement opposing the use of civilian ports by the military. The movement characterized the wars as illegal and claimed a right and duty to offer nonviolent resistance. Media characterized the resisters and their accompanying demonstrators as aggressive, pushy, and guilty of interfering with legitimate troop movements. Hawkish bloggers characterized them as unpatriotic. I think we can now characterize them as prescient and correct.

Now comes news that some of the troops from that Stryker brigade are allegedly engaging in war crimes. A freaked out troop asked his former Marine father what to do about the murders of Afghan civilians his unit was committing. His father immediately tried and tried and tried to get the Army to investigate, with no success, and so more such crimes were committed and now his son is one of those charged in the subsequent murders.

It's so fundamental that the war in Afghanistan, which was a response to a horrific crime of terrorist destruction on September 11, 2001, has now caused so many more crimes that the US will never leave that nation rationally expecting its puppet government, its installed democracy, to survive. And of course the other war that the movement has opposed all along, Iraq, is a loss--a government barely more functional than whatever is happening in Mogadishu--and that one is now widely understood by anyone who isn't immersed in Fox News as predicated upon lies.

Where is our national honor in this? Absent. Politicians and mainstream media cravenly pound it into our culture, our consciousness, and our national conversation that our military is honorable, brave, and that sacrificing a little for them is just what we must do to honor how brave and selfless our troops are.

Army Specialist Adam Winfield wasn't brave enough to confront, or even report (except in a Facebook message to his father) murders he witnessed committed by his squad leader and others at the orders of his squad leader. Indeed, when the father, Chris Winfield, talked to the Army he was told that his son should wait to report it until after he was home from Afghanistan to avoid repercussions. What brave advice, advising courageous integrity. No fear. They are the military, and we are told to excuse them, pay for them, support them, ruin our economy for them, because they are obviously bravely prepared to give their lives for us.

But not brave enough to report murders committed by each other. What a high standard of courage and what a willingness to sacrifice.

What will Patraeus say about this one? What will the White House say? They were quite exercised about some obscure Florida pastor who might have burned some paper, ruefully talking about that offense helping al Qa'ida recruitment. This set of war crimes in Afghanistan burned actual live civilians and left them dead. The conduct of our soldiers is producing endless numbers of recruits to the ranks of terror and this is inevitable. Occupying someone's country will tend to turn them to terrorism and insurgency, religious fundamentalism and internal oppression. They cycle is predictable and violence is not a path to peace.

Violence=injustice

The simplest definition of positive peace--the concept named by Johan Galtung decades ago--is:
Peace and justice by peaceable means.

But that also begs the question, what about when nonviolence isn't working? How can we get justice by violent means?

Impossible.

Impossible? How can I claim that? Cannot violence stop a man from beating a woman? Doesn't violence sometimes stop a group of thugs from hurting innocent people? Who would assert that violence is injustice?

Me. While violence can produce some justice, it always produces some injustice, at least when it's practiced on humans (I am not talented nor panspecies-fluent enough to practice nonviolence with crocodiles, mosquitos, sharks or viruses).
Simply, humans are each precious and unique, with reflective powers and critical analytical abilities. Smashing someone up is not a just activity. Restraining someone is not the same as injuring them. I have no argument with restraining someone who is temporarily insane, nor do I argue against incarcerating someone who is a threat to the vulnerable. Physical restraint does not require wounding or killing.

Some advocate a nonkilling society. That is lightyears beyond what we have now--and it's nowhere near where we should try to be. A noninjuring culture, from education to law enforcement, is a far more justifiable and worthy goal.

Unrealistic?
How realistic is it to think that when we hurt someone that person isn't going to be thinking about revenge?
Winners often completely forget about the conflict--oh, it's done, we won, end of story. We fought that battle, it was decided, and we have an agreement.

And then we reflect. Well, actually, that person did renegotiate later on. Well, I guess that party ultimately attacked us again. Come to think of it, she did leave me. So, I guess their grandchildren did sort of go to war against us.

This is the passive-aggression that psychologists describe and it's going to be there, always. Take away someone's dignity, injure them, and they will be plotting and planning to get back, to show you what it feels like.

That was 9.11.01.

That is a custody battle.

That is take this job and shove it.

That is much of our cycle of violence, and by the time it has spiraled a few times, everyone is absolutely sure that they are operating defensively, even as the other party believes just as certainly that the others are operating offensively. Each party is sure that they are responding, while the other party believes the same about themselves, and that the others are initiating. Is this the root of belief in the afterlife, of who gets to go to heaven or is consigned to hell? Are we so poor at conflict that we give it over to God to judge who was the aggressor and then empower our priests to tell us that we can only engage in a just war, a just violence, justifiable homicide?

Like being a little bit pregnant, which is generally regarded a being a little bit unrealistic, a conflict cannot be a little bit violent and expect the other side to just take it. The perception is always going to be: That violence was unjust.

In those cases, perception becomes reality and there is one escape, which is nonviolence.
This requires unilateral behavior, rising above our normal violent response, however delayed by circumstances. After all, the passive-aggressive behavior is a direct result of a temporary asymmetry in the power to inflict pain and protect against it. Even if it takes generations, the wounded one is waiting, gathering power, planning revenge. Even if it comes out in a different way--even if it means self-injury--the passivity will lead to violence and that violence will, in turn, be perceived as unjust.

It's a losers' game.

Learning how to gather different forms of power that preserve everyone's dignity and gain equality--in short, learning how to gather and use nonviolent power--is the only escape in this earthly life. It is the ultimate realism.

The fourth path: Nonviolence is mediation

Yesterday I co-mediated a conflict that had reached that fateful point of three-way choice: does it descend into violence, does one of the parties surrender to save the relationship, or does the relationship end? Fortunately, the parties (eight of them) all chose the fourth path, mediation, which is the nonviolent alternative.

The descent into violence is self-explanatory.

The abject surrender of one party is analogous to structural violence or negative peace, that is, peace for the sake of peace, with a sacrifice of justice and respect.

Ending the relationship is not violence but neither is it nonviolence.

Mediation is one of two of the strongest nonviolent alternatives.

The other is highly skilled assertion. This is for the rugged individuals who are talented and trained and can handle the abuse that often accompanies such initiatives. It works for those who possess the self-confidence and competencies to stand up to any party, no matter how asymmetric the power relationships, and assert rights and the expectation of respect in a manner that also cares so well for the other's rights and respect that the assertions are not so threatening that they elicit a defensive escalation of conflict. Some people seem capable of doing this at all times. Some of us can do this sometimes, and there are those of us who have falsely believed we could do this under all circumstances. Most of us cannot.

All mediation is, in a way, is the inclusion of another party into the conflict negotiation environment, another party whose role is simply to help keep assertions from becoming aggression, and to help reframe situations so that no one feels that they are required to surrender. The mediator is on hand to help carve a line of sight toward a workable arrangement so that the benefits of the relationship between the two parties can continue in some fashion and the highest costs can be lowered. Mediation can stop or avert violence, structural violence, and the sad end to a relationship that has benefitted both parties (or in the case of yesterday's mediation, the eight parties in the room).

We gained or saved a great deal for the parties as we worked together, and the costs were quite low to all parties. This is the same dynamic as nonviolence, that is, we learn to wage conflict without the high costs of violence but with many of the gains we hope for. One of the big differences, of course, is that social conflict nonviolent struggle is transparent whereas mediation must remain confidential.

So, I cannot prove to you that the mediation was a success, but the track record of mediation is a good one, and it replaces the high-cost, zero-sum adversarial methods without creating more victims along the way. It is not a method for those who wish to wage conflict in a triumphal, winner-take-all manner and it cannot produce the revenge that some seem to need, but, like nonviolence, it saves everyone from destruction and is based on respect for all. And it gives you a glow for the rest of the day...

Nonviolence is high maintenance

Last night I went to the first Annual Genevieve Nelson Nonviolence and Economic Human Rights Award. I was inspired enough to purchase more decks of meal tickets to give to my students, but troubled by the tone of the performers, both Mic Crenshaw and Good Sista Bad Sista.

Genny Nelson founded Sisters of the Road Cafe more than 20 years ago on the principles and practices of nonviolence. This has informed and indeed provided the foundation for her personal, public, and political activism since the beginning, since before the founding of the Cafe, when she was a young Catholic Worker, living with the poorest Portlanders in her own house. The Catholic Worker philosophy was begun with Dorothy Day's adherence to the values of pacifism and working to serve the poor and concomitantly offer nonviolent resistance to militarism. Genny has always lived those ideals remarkably faithfully. She has lived her entire adult life as a person making an income that would be meager for a single person, but she also had two children. Sisters always decided to employ more people rather than pay a few well, a decision that many nonprofits do not make.

She created a place of nonviolence, where people would find safety, solace and respite from the harsh life of the street and a nutritious meal for very low price indeed. The 50 meal coupons I bought were just $2 each, a true bargain in our $5.50-cup-of-designer-coffee world. I give them to students, which opens space for us to discuss Sisters and its mission and how they might get involved. I tell them that if there is any Portland institution that is putting the principles of nonviolence into play, it's Sisters.

But now I'm worried about the need to maintain those principles. Calling them operant and living them are two radically different propositions. For her health, Genny had to retire and immediately the tendency to undermine the principles of nonviolence began to reverse the ethos she built for 30 years. Violent people began to edge closer to the Cafe and soon were doing drug deals right in front of the big plate glass windows. That atmosphere crept into the Cafe, with more threats, more blustering, than ever. Staff, lacking the charismatic and immensely respected presence that Genny provided, began to put out the word that they were not going to limit themselves to a nonviolent response to violence. Rather than an a priori assumption that leads to creative development of committed nonviolence, the new environment at Sisters is more of a debate about whether or not to maintain that value.

This was made evident in the entertainment choices for the ironically named Peaceroots ceremony. Good Sista Bad Sista did physical punching and chopping motions during their poetry to show their aggression and anger. Mic Crenshaw, at an event nominally dedicated to nonviolence, went out of his way to proclaim, "I'm not a pacifist," and then alluded to what he would do when his "back is against the wall."

These performers have all the rights in the world to call for violence. It's their performance. But who chose to line them up for this event? Who is deciding to send a mixed message about nonviolence on the one hand and using violence on the other? These are decisions that need review. As Genny lies in a hospital bed trying to outlive her heart attacks and diabetes, people are giving her awards and then breaking her heart with an increasing erosion of the core of her philosophy and practice.

Nonviolence isn't easy and it doesn't maintain itself. It takes an enormous amount of work, work that Genny did for decades. Who will take it up now at Sisters? The answer is either, a) everyone on the staff, from Executive Director to dishwasher, or b) not enough of them.

There is no more robust institution of structural nonviolence in Portland, Oregon than Sisters of the Road Cafe. Its future may be prosperous and program-heavy, but will it actually promote systemic change, as Genny always did? Or will it erode into just another nice social service organization? Or will it become more open to a so-called 'diversity of tactics,' welcoming those who struggle with violent rhetoric and the threat of violence? This is not known now, but there are troubling signs. Pacifist anarchist Ammon Hennacy had a great answer to Mic Crenshaw and the self-proclaimed radicals who proudly proclaim that they are ready to use violence when their backs are against the wall--which is exactly where the backs of those who use nonviolence have always been, from the struggle to get the British out of India to the nonviolent liberation movements in Zambia and Ghana, to the Civil Rights movement to the Filipinas up against the US-supported Marcos regime, to the Velvet Revolution facing the Soviet war machine to Serb kids up against the bloodiest European dictator since Hitler, and on and on. When your back is against the wall is when the nonviolence actually matters. Hennacy said being nonviolent between wars is like being a vegetarian between meals. We will see what the community and the Sisters leadership decide about Genny's legacy.

Banners in the next war

How do you sell a war to Americans? War journalism does it; peace journalism describes it.

Six ‘screens’ that need to be passed before the public will condone the US
use of force:

• rogue leaders
• evidence tying them to heinous crimes
• non-military means exhausted
• military allies (to share the risk and cost)
• a visionary objective (e.g. turn an enemy into an ally or bring
  long-term peace to a region)
• early non-military intervention (Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005, p. 97).

.
In our recollection of how the US got into Iraq, we can recall all these screens being shot out and we were left with a straight drain toward bloody war. Saddam was rogue and his crimes were well known and real. We led a decade of sanctions and frustrating attempts to inspect all weapons sites. While George Bush had no interest in a tough UN battle to to produce a coalition, he did have NATO and thus allies. And his vision of democracy was a solid sell. Finally, we can even go back to his Dad's administration for early non-military intervention, when sanctions were attempted in the fall of 1990. Presto--war permission granted.

Our work, if we hope to stop these campaigns, is to get investigative and loud but with heavily bolstered arguments. We cannot begin with hyperbole and hope to prove it later, and I say this as someone who has done that, in error. We do need to support those who get on the case immediately and who can get their findings in front of the public in a timely manner, so the discussion is affected before the invasion, not merely noted well afterward with the usual empty vows that we won't get fooled again. From the apocryphal but functionally accurate William Randolph Hearst request and guarantee to Fredrick Remington, the photographer in Cuba in 1898, "You furnish the pictures; I'll furnish the war," to Ellsberg-documented Vietnam lies to the Colin Powell pack of lies and distortions to the UN justifying the invasion of Iraq, we are duped too quickly and easily.

When they get it wrong and we go to war, we need to learn that we are dealing with government, and it's corporate-driven, war system government that makes obscene profits from their lies, so they will do it again. And again. It's literally pathological and we need to wake up to that and steel ourselves to firmly reject it. The track record of the war system is worse than the most congenital liar and in fact it was more than a minute ago that Aeschylus noted that the first casualty in war is truth.

The Who really did hit a timeless nerve with these lyrics, taken from Won't get fooled again:

And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

References
Lynch, Jake & McGoldrick, Annabel (2005). Peace journalism. Gloucestershire UK: Hawthorn House.

Behavior problems

Nonviolence is about behavior. It's also about philosophy, morals, and survival, but primarily, a nonviolent approach to conflict indicates likely courses of action as a struggle proceeds.

“Conflict behavior occurs in a specific interaction content and is best described as a means by which each party proposes to achieve its goal” (Bercovitch, Kremenyuk, & Zartman, 2009, pp 8-9).

Technical nonviolence--I didn't smack you in the mouth so I am therefore nonviolent--is an inferior and far less effective approach to demonstrating intended conflict behavior. Snarling, name-calling, and blustering often seem to indicate a readiness to switch tactics. Going negative can persuade your opponent that, if he loses, you will crush him or at least take away his power to control his own life and destiny. Watching the current race for governor in Hawaii shows some of these lessons, as we see the Democratic primary attacks by candidate Mufi Hannemann backfire. After sending out a flier branding his opponent, Neil Abercrombie, as not racially diverse enough--including direct comparisons of their respective wives' names to indicate that Abercrombie married a haole--a white woman--and that Hannemann married a woman of Japanese descent, Hannemann's campaign was essentially forced to apologize for the tone after many expressed disapproval. Indeed, Martin Luther King, Jr., identified the spirit of aloha with the spirit of nonviolence, and the story of how that happened is illustrative of this principle. When Civil Rights workers were being murdered in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, Hawaii's Rev Dr. Abraham Akaka sent leis to King and the other leaders, who wore them the next day as they brought that spirit into the confrontation.

Nonviolence shows the opponents you intend to convert that they have a better future working with you to solve problems. The affect you assume reveals--or at least seems to convey the impression--that you are collaborative and not exclusive. Certainly when South African black leadership kept portraying post-apartheid South Africa as a multi-racial society it was conducive to negotiating an end to apartheid, whereas the images of a bloodbath and whites in flight caused that system to tend to hang on to power. Those contradictory behavioral images were in contest for years and the mixed results show that.

This doesn't mean that some adversaries won't have to account for their behaviors when you are successful with your nonviolent struggle. Certainly any actual crimes require some disposition, some process, but even that is made far less odious when you wage your struggle with nonviolence. It might be said that Archbishop Desmond Tutu really brought the spirit of aloha to that process with his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which gave other nonviolent campaigns the model. See? Only the most egregious high ranking criminals will be charged and incarcerated. It was the alternative to the Nuremberg trials, where the criminals were hung in the aftermath of violent conflict. Imprisoning a perpetrator may seem retributive, but when Saddam was hung, that only told the next dictator that it was crucial to hang on to power by all means when the forces threatening you are violent. Augusto Pinochet, on the other hand, eventually went out without a murmur, as he was given a golden bridge over which he could retreat. Had Chileans been violent, he would likely have used much more violence to desperately attempt to hang on to power long after he ceased to be legitimate in the eyes of his citizens.

Our behavior in conflict is like investment. Good in, good out. Bad in, bad out.

References
Bercovitch, Jacob; Kremenyuk, Victor; & Zartman, I. William (Eds.) (2009). The Sage handbook of conflict resolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Behavior problems

Nonviolence is about behavior. It's also about philosophy, morals, and survival, but primarily, a nonviolent approach to conflict indicates likely courses of action as a struggle proceeds.

“Conflict behavior occurs in a specific interaction content and is best described as a means by which each party proposes to achieve its goal” (Bercovitch, Kremenyuk, & Zartman, 2009, pp 8-9).

Technical nonviolence--I didn't smack you in the mouth so I am therefore nonviolent--is an inferior and far less effective approach to demonstrating intended conflict behavior. Snarling, name-calling, and blustering often seem to indicate a readiness to switch tactics. Going negative can persuade your opponent that, if he loses, you will crush him or at least take away his power to control his own life and destiny. Watching the current race for governor in Hawaii shows some of these lessons, as we see the Democratic primary attacks by candidate Mufi Hannemann backfire. After sending out a flier branding his opponent, Neil Abercrombie, as not racially diverse enough--including direct comparisons of their respective wives' names to indicate that Abercrombie married a haole--a white woman--and that Hannemann married a woman of Japanese descent, Hannemann's campaign was essentially forced to apologize for the tone after many expressed disapproval. Indeed, Martin Luther King, Jr., identified the spirit of aloha with the spirit of nonviolence, and the story of how that happened is illustrative of this principle. When Civil Rights workers were being murdered in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, Hawaii's Rev Dr. Abraham Akaka sent leis to King and the other leaders, who wore them the next day as they brought that spirit into the confrontation.

Nonviolence shows the opponents you intend to convert that they have a better future working with you to solve problems. The affect you assume reveals--or at least seems to convey the impression--that you are collaborative and not exclusive. Certainly when South African black leadership kept portraying post-apartheid South Africa as a multi-racial society it was conducive to negotiating an end to apartheid, whereas the images of a bloodbath and whites in flight caused that system to tend to hang on to power. Those contradictory behavioral images were in contest for years and the mixed results show that.

This doesn't mean that some adversaries won't have to account for their behaviors when you are successful with your nonviolent struggle. Certainly any actual crimes require some disposition, some process, but even that is made far less odious when you wage your struggle with nonviolence. It might be said that Archbishop Desmond Tutu really brought the spirit of aloha to that process with his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which gave other nonviolent campaigns the model. See? Only the most egregious high ranking criminals will be charged and incarcerated. It was the alternative to the Nuremberg trials, where the criminals were hung in the aftermath of violent conflict. Imprisoning a perpetrator may seem retributive, but when Saddam was hung, that only told the next dictator that it was crucial to hang on to power by all means when the forces threatening you are violent. Augusto Pinochet, on the other hand, eventually went out without a murmur, as he was given a golden bridge over which he could retreat. Had Chileans been violent, he would likely have used much more violence to desperately attempt to hang on to power long after he ceased to be legitimate in the eyes of his citizens.

Our behavior in conflict is like investment. Good in, good out. Bad in, bad out.

References
Bercovitch, Jacob; Kremenyuk, Victor; & Zartman, I. William (Eds.) (2009). The Sage handbook of conflict resolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Peace is the way

A. J. Muste was rumored to have coined the phrase, "There is no way to peace; peace is the way." In other words, bombing to achieve peace won't get you peace.

Gandhi stressed that the means and the ends are inseparable. If we want a nonviolent world, we cannot get there by supporting invasion and occupation, nor even "lightly armed peacekeepers," as we often hear UN troops described.

Nonviolence is a matter of faith, no matter how much empirical evidence we amass to show its efficacy, because hypotheticals can always be posited to demonstrate how naive and callow it is to have such simpleminded ideas. In the end, we either go with a nonviolent approach to conflict and we figure it out or we eventually say, well, I guess we'll have to make this exception and that exception. Once we do, our potential adversaries will not trust our commitment to our putative method, and who can blame them?

So our very faith in nonviolence is part of what makes it strategic; when we reduce the fear of physical attack on the opposition we make our own people more safe, which is exactly backward from what many assume about nonviolence, and they have their own points too.

"Well," they might assert, "what about the guileless Native Americans who were so badly abused when they offered nonviolence and hospitality to the English and Spanish who came across to plunder? So much for friendliness and nonviolence."

Good point. Just two comments in response.

One, Native Americans had no reported strategic plan to bolster their hospitality. Should they have? Of course not; they had a culture and in their context, what they did was quite adaptive and effective. They simply were up against an alien force--undocumented at that.

Two, Gandhi hadn't taught humankind that there was a strategic nonviolent response to injustice and violence. All our violent responses pre-Gandhi were all we knew as a species; either violence or surrender.

For those who are pacifists, violence never works as a fallback, as a last resort, or as "when all else fails" plan. This is a major challenge to those who claim pacifism, and there are no guarantees; on the other hand, where are the guarantees with the violence of police, of missiles, of 'defensive' arms? In every violent contest, there is at least one loser and often the Pyrrhic nature of violent victory really creates two or more losers.

In the end, we hope, we can continue to amass a growing success rate with nonviolence so that peace will become the default setting, at least human-to-human. Humanizing ourselves and all others is the first step toward victory with our opponents, creating partners where there used to be adversaries.

Democracy, power and listening

What is required to fix our democracy here in the US? Yes, it needs fixing. It is violent and unsustainable, polarized and broken into warring worldview cantons, where even a simple and clearly sensible thing like eliminating a few points in special hoggish tax cuts for the obscenely rich during a time of general impoverishment is fought against tooth and nail--fought against successfully. There is a great deal of posturing, pronouncing, proclaiming and pontificating, but when is it quiet on the right or left? When does the listening come in?

One of my favorite books of all time is Barbara Kingsolver's brilliant 1998 novel, The Poisonwood Bible, a novel about which many college courses and doctoral dissertations might be written. It is about Congo in the time of transition, just before and just after liberation, Lumumba, and how the cultures and the powers revealed themselves to each other in new ways as they found themselves and asserted deeper identities. It was a time when the imperious missionary was making his last doomed stand, about to be swallowed up by an indigenous populace weary and angry at the monumental arrogance of Euro and US cultures. Kingsolver chose the perfect time, the ultimate vehicle, to transmit timely and timeless lessons about respect, comparative government, and the real relational forces that make it all healthy or in their absence produce sickness.

At one point, more than 300 pages into the intricate, engaging story, the village headman, Tata Ndu, finally confronts the overweening hubris of the missionary, Nathan Price, who hasn't listened to anyone since arriving in Congo.

Tata Ndu seemed calm and unsurprised by anything that had happened. "A, Tata Price," he said, in his deep sighing voice. "You believe we are mwana, your children, who knew nothing until you came here. Tata Price, I am an old man who learned from other old men. I could tell you the name of the great chief who instructed my father, and all the ones before him, but you would have to know how to sit down and listen. There are one hundred twenty-two. Since the time of our mankula we have made our laws without help from white men."

He turned toward the congregation with the air of a preacher himself. Nobody was snoozing now, either. "Our way was to share a fire until it burned down, ayi? To speak to each other until every person was satisfied. Younger men listened to older men. Now the Beelizi tell us the vote of a young, careless man counts the same as the vote of an elder."

In just two paragraphs, we can draw lessons about the care and nurturing of our collective autonomy, our own indigenous ways, our ability to be agile and nimble and work well with others, and our value, each of us, to the survival of the whole. When will we turn the corner?

We are too big. Humankind is now about seven billion. That has become too crowded, and when I can learn the quotidian affairs of far too many of them in our internetted, twittering world, I am overwhelmed by irrelevant minutia even as I strive to develop and maintain respect for all. The Poisonwood Bible tells most directly about one family in one village in the outback of the Congo basin, with countless lessons that flow like the great river through it all.

We cannot impose our way of life--something we presume is the best and for a long time seemed to be the most desired--on the world. We have lost it ourselves. We are no longer at the top of the snake pit with the rope, deciding which poor souls to save. We are now in the pit and we rely on everyone else, just as they rely on us. It is long past time to unburden ourselves and the world of our cultural superiority baggage that is so heavy and so useless.

Nonviolence is our hope; it requires listening skills beyond what most of us have, and there is one way to learn them: practice. When we give it we will get it.

(Kingsolver in her natural habitat)

Negotiation is nonviolence

More strategic nonviolence practitioners are finally beginning to make the clear connections between nonviolent action and negotiation--both are pieces in what some simply call constructive conflict. Even some of the skills overlap, but they are not identical, certainly. For instance, as Gandhi showed, the best strategic nonviolent planners and executors of a strategic campaign designed to elicit, at last, an invitation to the negotiating table, those planners and actionists do not necessarily make the best negotiators. Gandhi came back from the 1931 Roundtable negotiations in London with results that vastly disappointed his fellow leaders and it was another 17 years until freedom.

Each skill bank is complex and variable. What about the related third set of competencies for mediation, another nonviolent role, at least potentially? A mediator's approach can often increase the effectiveness of a nonviolent campaign by greatly equalizing the power at the negotiating table. Indeed, that is one central role of the mediator, to preserve the dignity of all parties at all times so that honest and productive negotiations can happen. If one party feels disrespected and devalued, the negotiations are in danger.

Dr. Andrea Bartoli, a native Italian directing, teaching and researching at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, has looked closely at the ways that nongovernmental organizations have conducted mediations toward transforming destructive conflict to constructive conflict. He describes three basic styles that these mediators have taken.

“Communication facilitation: a strategy in which the mediator simply facilitates the process of conflict resolution, which is fundamentally driven by the involved parties themselves; refrains from intrusive techniques; offers physical space for meetings; and opens channels of communication.
Procedural: a strategy characterized by a mediator’s substantive contributions to the peace process by not only convening and setting the agenda, but also influencing the outcome by making suggestions and conceiving of an effective process.
Directive: usually identified by the tendency of mediators to use their own power to broker an agreement that, while possibly being the best of all possible outcomes, is achieved by a certainly degree of pressure leveled by the mediator” (Bartoli, 2009, p. 393).

When a nonviolent struggle reaches that maturation point, then, of engaging in negotiation with the more powerful party--or the party with official power, as opposed to the irregular but demonstrably real civil society power--the choice of a mediator is crucial. Most nonviolent campaigners would benefit most often from the procedural style of mediation, if such a powerful but non-intrusive mediator could be found.

The facilitator is fine, if that is all that can be obtained, but often that style of mediation tends to allow the usually more sophisticated power to control the agenda more effectively. Further, those mediators seem loathe to offer their wisdom, when they could counsel the negotiators from the nonviolent campaign to avoid pitfalls that almost certainly doom the talks--pitfalls that are often invisible to inexperienced negotiators, such as excluding certain parties from talks, as was done in Oslo, virtually guaranteeing the eventual erosion and collapse of any agreement.

Again, the directive style is acceptable quite often, if that is the only choice of mediator, but those mediators sometimes have their own agendas, even if they try to disavow that. Directive mediation can produce more agreements that have fairly short shelf lives, once the parties are out of the room and back to reality. Further, directive styles, while occasionally achieving a lasting agreement, can simply substitute one power player for another and engender resentment in the grassroots who struggled hard to get to the table and don't feel as if they are now being heard by the one who is supposed to be mediating. Who wants a Henry Kissinger mediating when he has his finger on the trigger and his bosses sent him with instructions to achieve an outcome favorable to them?

But the middle path, the procedural approach, can bring resources that help further the likely transformation of a conflict by equalizing the field yet not making substantive demands on any party. The best procedural outcomes involve mediators who help construct an informed process that tends toward fair results and a valid, long-lasting agreement. It's best if any agreement is essentially a robust umbrella under which authority further sets of minor agreements can be reached, sometimes involving the mediator, sometimes just the parties negotiating in good faith with each other. The procedural mediators help formulate the process but are not wedded to an outcome, which means they have no agenda other than the creation of an environment in which excellent agreements might be fashioned. So, for instance, you have a Johan Galtung, who isn't there to mediate in a hands-off fashion, just allowing parties to stumble, nor is he looking to bring home some position favorable to the Norwegian government. He can be quite powerful procedurally and even possibly bring promises of aid and cooperation to the parties who can proceed in good fashion. This is the style, usually, that will most effectively aid a negotiator from civil society challenging the state or a corporate interest.

References
Bartoli, Andrea (2009). NGOS and conflict resolution. In Bercovitch, Jacob; Kremenyuk, Victor; & Zartman, I. William (Eds.). The Sage handbook of conflict resolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. p.p. 392-412.

Military economic index: Peace conversion

Percent of US federal discretionary 2011 budget that goes to military: 52

Total 2011 federal discretionary budget, in $billions: 2,945

Total 2011 US military budget, in $billions: 1,398

2011 US military spending, excluding Veterans and other past war expenses, billions: $876

Jobs created per $billion spent on:

military=8,555

construction=12,804

health care=12,883

education=17,687

mass transit=19,795

US unemployment rate: 9.6

Unemployed US workers, in millions: 14.9

Total 2009 world military spending, in $billions: 1,531

US percentage of world military spending: 46.5

Additional jobs created per $100 billion shift from military to:

construction=424,900

health care=432,800

education=913,200

mass transit=1,024,000

total=2,794,900

Military budget, excluding VA and other non-DoD military, after shifts, in $billions: 476

Finally, what if just $100 billion more were shifted to creating minimum wage, high-benefit jobs for many remaining unemployed Americans? That would create at least 2 million more jobs, and a total of almost five million of the 15 million unemployed Americans would be back to work with a still-massive military budget of $376 billion, more than in 1998.

We need bold thinking, fast action and we need it now.