Teaching nonviolence: Nonviolence is negotiation

Some say the field of conflict resolution depends upon negotiation. True. Then they teach that civil resistance is what civil society does when unjust rulers refuse to negotiate. True. They teach that therefore teaching from a conflict resolution perspective is mutually exclusive from teaching from the civil resistance perspective. False.

Here is an excerpt from what Dr. King wrote in response to white clergy who criticized him for committing civil resistance in Birmingham in 1963:

"You may well ask: 'Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?' You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth."

In our Conflict Resolution studies we learn from the Harvard Negotiation Project about the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, the BATNA. This is exactly what civil resistance is. Not only do ordinary citizens have the power to change their BATNA during a conflict, good campaigners are as transparent about it as possible, so that the BATNA can be, in some cases, nonviolent deterrent power. A transparent campaign with a robust civil resistance component or potential will also change the BATNA for the ruler, which alters all conflict calculations.

Principled negotiation consists of four basic principles:

~Separate the people from the problem
~Focus on interests, not positions
~Invent options for mutual gain
~Insist on using objective criteria

Principled negotiation, which is one core method we teach in Conflict Resolution, is precisely what a good civil society campaigner incorporates into any civil resistance strategy. While Saul Alinsky may have advocated calling some of the people the problem, Gandhi would not have done so, nor did King, nor Cesar Chavez. OK, Serb nonviolence is an exception, with Otpur youth chanting for Slobodan Milosevic to "Save Serbia: kill yourself!" They used it to emphasize their determination to separate Milosevic from nationalism, and from national pride, and from Serbian self-interest. It seemed to work there.

Focusing on interests rather than positions leaves room for satyagraha but not for duragraha, that is, remaining open to good ideas for collaborative agreements that benefit everyone rather than squatting obdurately on one fixed position is stronger conflict resolution and more adaptive civil resistance. Roger Fisher and Bill Ury are careful to advise against compromising on principle and preparing to collaborate on practically anything else.

This leads to inventing options for mutual gain, and if we ever see peace in Palestine Israel, that is how it will happen. Indeed, that is how almost every successful civil resistance is concluded and how every successful mediation happens. The overlap is tremendous. When civil society is successful at isolating the dictator from his own armed forces, nonviolence can actually be seen not as negotiating with the dictator, but rather with other constituencies, and when all are satisfied that they will gain more than they will lose by working together, change happens.

Insisting on using objective criteria is precisely how recruitment in civil resistance campaigns happens. When police dogs bit African American children in Birmingham, or when the fire department blasted children with firehoses so powerful they would strip the bark off trees, most Americans were galvanized to support the minority struggling with dignity and nonviolence for basic human and civil rights. When nonviolence is the only tactic, it is much easier to frame all campaigns in this exact fashion, a search for what is fair.

So teaching civil resistance can be regarded as a component of teaching conflict resolution, or conflict resolution can be seen as an element in the civil resistance body of theory and set of tools.

Teaching Sharp strategic nonviolence

Gene Sharp is a US political scientist whose original study of nonviolence was from a profoundly personal philosophical pacifist point of view. He spent a year in US prison for refusing the draft to the Korean war in the early 1950s but was determined to understand how armed and unarmed struggle actually worked in order to see how unarmed struggle could be effective.

Some say his key insight is that the structure of power always rests upon the consent of the governed. His influences include 16th century French philosopher Étienne de La Boétie, who posited that all servitude is voluntary, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, who said that India was not taken by the British but was given to them by Indians and then who put those ideas about getting it back into play. Sharp's work has been to produce actual research and theory that explain this notion and provide design patterns for removing tyrants from power.

Since Sharp's original work on this was published in 1973, no serious teacher of nonviolence has omitted his works nor analysis. For many, his often impatient rejection of any discussion of philosophy or religion was unnecessary and even offensive, but what Sharp was doing was staking out new boundaries for the discussion of ruling power and how it is created and destroyed. He viewed all other considerations as distracting and contaminating, a threat to truly understanding his method. This, in turn, set up some resistance to his ideas by those who were more attracted to the philosophy or religious teachings of pacifism.

I believe we are finally seeing that false debate subside, but in its place is the much more sinister new one introduced by an odd bed full of those who seem chagrined that nonviolence can take the place of good old fashioned Marxist-Leninist violence and terrorism plus those who really are despotic and logically fear Sharp's proven theories. These opponents are no longer a friendly batch of pacifists who want to teach love and kumbaya without pesky strategies and political theory; these are intellectual thugs who resort to calumny and traducement and smear tactics that mirror the polemical dishonesty of Fox News, but from the left. If the stakes weren't so serious, the humor would be profound, watching ultra leftists squirm into bed with Ahmadinijad or Mugabe, as if we are supposed to reject the people power in favor of bloody dictators because Gene Sharp has also offered advice to those who didn't like Hugo Chavez's thuggish tactics.

Those who teach nonviolence have a sacred duty to explain this to students. Why? Because teaching nonviolence in some ways is like teaching violent combat. If all you offer is enough to get started, the potential practitioners know just enough to be dangerous to themselves. They cannot defend their adherence to nonviolence if a relatively sophisticated ultra leftist charges them with committing a service to the US empire. It's an easy defense, frankly, but it's one that should be discussed by nonviolent teachers and trainers to prepare students to withstand the inevitable attack.

Yes, Gene Sharp has been called the Machiavelli of nonviolence, but that ignores the unique attribute of strategic nonviolence, which is that the methods mirror the goals, as Gandhi also taught. When Sharp teaches people power, his work is directly responsible for reducing casualties on all sides, and that, for most of humanity, is a worthy goal in itself--and ultimately, we hope, the point of our entire enterprise of nonviolent practice.

PsychoSatyagraha: Teaching nonviolence

How were we thinking about nonviolence back in the day? Gandhi was a saint, right, and that's why he succeeded. End of story. It's all philosophy and religion and Gandhi was known as the Mahatma, the Great Soul, which motivated thousands to join him and--poof--the British left, enlightened.

Ah...not quite.

Richard Gregg (pictured) was inspired to visit and learn from Gandhi in India in the 1920s. He was a social philosopher who really began to translate Gandhian nonviolence into practical, explicable social organizing and conflict management models. He thought about the psychological aspects, calling what Gandhi did 'psychological jiu-jitsu', that is, using the power of the oppressor against himself, allowing the hatred and violence to expend themselves with far less harm than if those tactics (the oppressor's strength) would have been countered with similar but asymmetrically weaker hatred and violence. Gregg really influenced the western analysis of why Gandhian nonviolence might work.

Gregg's 1934 germinal work, The Power of Nonviolence, is still a classic, and the second edition, in 1960, included a foreword by the young Martin Luther King, Jr. Gregg also integrated the swadeshi philosophy in his own life, moving to a farm with Helen and Scott Nearing (pictured), who were quite influential in the nascent self-reliance movement in the US. Gregg coined the term voluntary simplicity and staked out an early claim toward our slowly developing notions connecting war to resource conflict to consumerism to ecological care to urban dependency to injustice. We are still learning this basic system of interlocking causes and effects.

Teaching nonviolence is Sisyphean, not for sissies

Colman McCarthy was a nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post for more than 25 years. Now he devotes most of his time to teaching high school kids, and anyone else, nonviolence. His lesson plan, including a variety of readings, is available online. It is a great starter for any student of nonviolence, skewed mostly toward the philosophical side of understanding nonviolence, but with enough strategic material to bring the student forward in a somewhat integrated manner. He offers that freely to all and is also an adjunct for the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at American University. His curriculum is available and is used in community settings. Indeed, Peaceforce Oregon chapter leader Terri Shofner just concluded a nine-month community class, Adventures in Nonviolence, using McCarthy's materials.

How advantageous would it be to our cultural appreciation of nonviolence if McCarthy's teachings could be syndicated? When students get to military age, to voting age, they are so saturated and immersed in a war culture and the assumptions that culture carries that nonviolence is either never considered or simply waved off as (one of my students put it in a paper I read just this morning) "naive and immature." What if the cultural assumptions at least included nonviolence as a logical alternative to violence, so that our nation would not be regarded as weak if it put aside its arsenal of destruction and picked up the tools of civil society organization and mobilization instead?

I am asked, periodically, to guest lecture in high schools. I do so freely, as a volunteer, whenever I'm asked. The reactions are predictable. Most kids look at me with great incredulity. I know I'll need a few more sessions with them to make serious progress, but I give it a go. I can tell how they've been enculturated and I can tell what their teachers have been doing. Some student groups are fairly receptive, some are mildly interested, and some seem disinterested or even hostile. I can tell I've entered a war culture when I step into a US public high school.

Those who teach war get students totally prepared by our culture to slide right into the curricula without question. This is how we manage our international and transnational conflicts. We threaten, we arm, we base around the world, we have horrific weapons at the ready 24-7 on and under the seven seas and in more than 150 of the world's 192 nation-states on approximately 1,000 bases. Of course. This keeps us free and prosperous. These assumptions may not come with numbers but they are ubiquitous, the air that young intellects breathe, the soil from which their thoughts grow, the water from which their wisdom flows. Violence feels so natural to us.

(photo of vase depicting Persephone supervising Sisyphus)

We need more Colman McCarthys, willing to roll that rock of nonviolent education up the hill of the war system with youth year after year, giving them a new culture to try on, showing them new paths around the mountain to a new way of being, of waging conflict, of running their lives and steering our country. Each new crop of young ones comes soaked in the war system that makes the task of McCarthy--and the rest of us who teach nonviolence--truly Sisyphean. We begin at the bottom each time.

Over the generations, fed by great experiments and more education, the hill won't be so steep, nor so high. If we are good enough at this, we will change the slope of the war trainer from the long downhill slide, easy and frictionless, to an unscaleable cliff face--which, since Sisyphus himself was a killer, is some kind of cosmic justice. A global alliance of teachers of nonviolence can change the world.

Teachers of nonviolence

Who teaches nonviolence? This short look at a short list at some of the most accomplished scholars and practitioners is woefully incomplete. I've tried to highlight some who feature at least one of the following characteristics:
1. Research--conducts it, knows it
2. Practice--has done it, does it
3. Forward thinking--integrates philosophical and strategic
4. Charismatic--excites students
5. Mentoring--guides students who then do wonderful things

Gail Presbey teaches at the University of Detroit Mercy. She writes: "My favorite part about teaching you: Your openness to new ideas and experiences. When I pose philosophical ideas, you are interested and willing to debate them. Also, when I ask you to go into the community for service, you take up the challenge." She travels the world and engages in both research and practice, both of which inform her teaching.

Barry Gan Barry directs the Center for Nonviolence at St. Bonaventure University. He edits Acorn, the journal of the Gandhi-King Society, and co-edits Peace & Change, the journal of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the Peace History Society. He is co-editor of Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, 2nd edition. His students love him.

Erica Chenoweth is a researcher into strategic nonviolence at Wesleyan University in Middleton, Connecticut. Her work is at the edge of the field of determining what methods of struggle work under what conditions producing what results.

George Lakey is a professor and researcher at Swarthmore College. He was a founder of Training for Change and has trained thousands of nonviolent activists and community leaders over the decades. George brings long years of activism to his teaching.

There are many more professors, but also many nongovernmental organizations train nonviolent actionists who will do accompaniment, civil resistance, interposition and other forms of nonviolent action. As we educate, we introduce new social norms and that is how they change. I am so grateful for these tireless teachers and the hundreds of others who labor at offering humankind another method of conflict management.

Teach nonviolence: Early efforts

On December 5, 1987, a meeting was convened at the University of California-Irvine. Representatives of 23 peace studies programs attended and many others expressed their strong support for the initiative. This meeting explored the needs of peace studies programs, agreed upon the necessary steps toward meeting those needs, and formed The Peace Studies Association.

One early peace studies program was at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, a Quaker school. The academic major was launched in 1974 and has several tracks, none of which include the word nonviolence, and one of which is "Religion and Pacifism." The base and tilt of that program is the tradition of pacifism based on the Quaker Peace Testimony of 1660, which in many ways was the recognition of the dangers of trying to mix politics and religion. While the 1660 document was clear on pacifism, it also removed Quakers from their controversial role that had earned them so much oppression when founder George Fox allied himself with Oliver Cromwell and then Cromwell lost power. The identification of pacifism rather than nonviolence in many ways is adaptive for the Quakers but it made the introduction of the notion of strategic nonviolence into curricula somewhat harder. Indeed, while the core of the Earlham Peace and Global Studies program requires a 100-level "History and Theory of Nonviolent Movements" course, there are no other courses in the current major with the word nonviolence in them and "Marxism" is actually required in two of the tracks. Pacifism, not nonviolence, is the clear focus.

On the other hand, the first peace studies program established in the US, in 1948 at Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana, has been in evolution toward understanding movements at the curricular level since at least 1971 with its launch of Nonviolent Social Change, (newsletter dove logo) its newsletter devoted to understanding nonviolent movements. Ken Brown (photo: Kenneth Brown) and others have been the heart and soul of that evolution. They have helped students who wish to be a part of various mass nonviolent movements (at the School of the Americas protest, photo from Manchester College Peace Studies files) and they integrate their Church of the Brethren religious pacifism roots with a strong study of strategic nonviolence.

Another welcome initiative was the Plowshares Collaboration between Goshen College, Earlham College and Manchester College peace programs, though in the long and multipronged set of mission items the word nonviolence never appears.

Pacifism as an individual spiritual witness has marked the historic peace churches for more than 400 years. Entraining Gandhi's theories and practice of mass liberatory nonviolence has been much more recent, but it has happened far more seriously just in the past few years, as the early work of Gene Sharp has begun to bear fruit and shows its robust value. This slow incorporation of a more flinty-eyed idealism has been the result of Sharp's ongoing work and that of his many excellent proteges, many of whom have their own mentees and schools of thought and praxis.

Teaching nonviolence

(Nonviolence teachers, mother and daughter)
Students are skeptical about nonviolence when they come into class. They usually leave convinced that nonviolence is the most adaptive method of conflict management. How does this happen?

First, we come to understand nonviolence as a way to fight for respect without engendering the massive consequences that using violence usually brings. No one needs to prove they can beat up Mr Nonviolence. In fact, when I was in prison, one fellow came over to my cot in the middle of the gang room and, towering over me, looked at me scornfully and said, "I'm going to knock out your fucking eye. What are you gonna do with your nonviolence?" I paused and thought to myself (as the rest of the room grew so silent you could hear breathing), this would be a wonderful time for my creative nonviolent response to work. Finally I said, 'Well, that would be mean of you and I'd reserve the right to see you catch another case.' That message was quite confusing. The room held its breath for a minute and then came a twitterlaugh from one or two guys. Then the big guy hulking over me laughed. We were friends from then on. I broke all the rules and rewrote them in the moment. I cared for his face and mine, literally, and it worked (thank goddess).

Second, we learn that it is the only possible chance for a win-win outcome. When you use violence against violence, there will be one winner at the most, and often two losers. At least with nonviolence you have a chance for a win-win.

Third, we learn that, when we use nonviolence, at least we aren't contributing to the level of violence in the world. We can control our own behavior and no one else's. (Las Madres braved the Pinochet regime and helped bring it down without harming anyone) If we aren't adding to the violence we remove at least that reason for anyone else to be violent.

Fourth, it becomes clear that the success rates of nonviolence are superior to those of violence. The empirical comparative studies are becoming fairly overwhelming in their cogency and robustness. In any given conflict, bet on the nonviolent side and it is your best bet. (Otpur in Serbia, where 'powerless' students prompted the end of the Milosevic dictatorship) You may not always win, but it will be more than half the time. With violence, you are lucky to collect a quarter of the time.

Fifth, the costs of violence are becoming better known and are huge, to the ecology and economy, to all other enterprises, and to the well being of the masses of people. (Che Guevara was in on one successful violent revolution that brought in decades of a military government and he advised many unsuccessful attempts, such as this one in Congo)

Sixth, the beneficiaries of violence are now understood and identified. They are the owner class, the military officers, the war profiteers and those who can extract the wealth--human and natural resources--of conquered regions. People on the ground, the regular people, do not benefit. They pay.

Finally, the factors in transforming conflict from destructive to constructive are more well known each year as peace research identifies and exegetes them for us. The numbers and qualities of the tools in our chest are far more mastered than ever. Nonviolence is no longer about saving our spiritual butts. It's about winning.

Clothes down the occupation: Gandhian freedom fashion

Gonsalvez, Peter (2010). Clothing for liberation: A communication analysis of Gandhi’s swadeshi revolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

The connection of homespun cloth—khadi—to India’s liberation is well known. But the progression of Gandhi’s increasingly radical dress and the communication elements and effects are documented and evaluated in Clothing for liberation: A communication analysis of Gandhi’s swadeshi revolution by Social Communication professor Peter Gonsalves (Salesian Pontifical University, Rome). For scholars of semiotics, social movements, nonviolence and Gandhi, this is a welcome addition to the ever-growing oeuvre of Gandhicentric analysis.
Gonsalves organizes his analysis in five sections. First, the overview and amazing statistics of Gandhi’s prolific output as assembled under the initial order of Nehru into the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, the sweeping blockbuster (or at least wheelbarrow buster) of 100 volumes of Gandhi’s writings, averaging 500 pages each. From his study of this and of other Gandhi scholars’ analysis, Gonsalves concludes that Gandhi “was convinced that only a communication strategy that was methodologically planned, hermeneutically relevant, creatively symbolic, morally disciplined, geographically extensive and founded uncompromisingly on satya [truthfulness] and ahimsa [nonviolence] would succeed” (p. 2).
Second, Gonsalves examines Gandhi’s fashion evolution through the lens of the theories of Roland Barthes, French cultural analyst, structuralist and semiotician. Key to this set of connections is the synthesis and illumination of the structuralist approach as “its fundamental tenet lies in its attempt to study not just the elements of a whole, but the complex network of relationships that link and unite those elements” (p. 50). In a cascading exegesis of what Gandhi’s choices denoted and signified, we see clothing communicating at several interlocking levels to a wider and wider cross section of India’s masses.
Third, Gonsalves turns to the tools and theories of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner for a view of the diachronic socio-psychological implications of the symbols Gandhi grew, from his political thinking about swadeshi to his definitional social drama. Gandhi spinning and Gandhi wearing fewer and fewer items of clothing drew him closer to the masses and his careful communication of that produced a nonviolent one-two punch that surprised an empire.
The British Government considered Gandhi’s switch from politics to social work just another new obsession. Only in 1930, when it became evident the khadi campaign was a part of a larger political struggle against the Empire, did the Government wake up to the consequences of Gandhi’s symbolization. But by then it was far too late to stop the rivers of men and women in white khadi walking courageously to manufacture salt at Dandi on 6 April 1930. Moreover, salt, a new symbol of freedom from the English yoke, was born (p. 82).
Fourth, Gonsalves directs the lights of symbolic interaction theory as offered by Erving Goffman to scrutinize the coherence and ever-sharpening resolution of the rhetoric and performance of Mohandas Gandhi. How did Gandhi conceive of his people as performers in his epic battle and how did he prepare and deploy them? How did his self-assessment coincide with his intentions for his nation? His first series of great battles was internal, waged concomitantly to the social struggles. “His desire to bring his exterior self in line with his interior principles was far from easy. It took him nearly 33 years” (p. 96).
Finally we come back ‘round to Gandhi himself to his unique ‘approach to symbolization.’ As he rejected the symbology that had been coopted to oppress his people he discovered his own symbols, drawing deeper, from the ‘bottom of society’ (p. 125) to an overarching purity that was irresistible and motivational to people supposedly noted for their fatalism and acceptance of poverty and oppression. As he shed accoutrement, he came into sharp focus to the millions in hundreds of thousands of villages, eliciting their loyalty based on identification with a champion, their hero.
Using western scholarship to evaluate Indian messaging is instructive, offers welcome connections, and is simultaneously suspicious, though the foreword by Keval Kumar asserts that the more worn path of identifying Gandhi’s clothing choices in the context of the spiritual evolution toward the Hindu sanyasi is inadequate. What Gonsalves gives us are the nonverbal communication theoretical elements that can see the fabric of Gandhi’s strategies synthesizing the spiritual, political, strategic and communication master into his holistic liberatory leadership over decades.
There are some hints at why it took so long for the liberation of India despite Gandhi’s national leadership and abilities to rouse the nation. For example, his decision to call off the huge hartal [stop work] and satyagraha struggle that began in 1921 and had made such amazing progress. On 22 February 1922 a crowd of approximately 2,000 in Chauri Chaura burned 22 police to death and Gandhi not only fasted five days in penitence for his self-perceived role in prompting the mob, but called off all protest, was promptly arrested and charged with sedition 10 March 1922, and essentially challenged the British judge who next presided over Gandhi’s trial to either resign the bench and join the struggle or sentence him to the maximum. Judge Broomfield played his part, acknowledging Gandhi’s special status and then indeed sentencing him to six years. Violence—historically regarded as the quick way to win—set back Gandhi’s efforts again and again. Despite his astonishing communication abilities, he was either forced to—or was too fast to—shut down campaigns when any violence broke out anywhere.
Gonsalves contributes a firm piece of scholarship to the study of Gandhi’s life and how he became the message. Just as “there is no way to peace; peace is the way,” (attributed to A. J. Muste) Gandhi’s very appearance became his message. His semiotics of struggle were remarkable in that they enmified no one, just poverty and oppression, while appealing to everyone, including those called enemy by others, to feel the friendship in seeking truth and nonviolence. His words are measured by the hundreds of thousands and ultimately his nonverbals were quite important and can be seen in just a few small but highly important symbols, from his scant diet to his scant clothing. His stage presence to his people and the world is exegeted deeply in this valuable volume.

Agents in our midst

The military at your peace meeting? You look around the room and wonder, which one of you is an agent of the US military sent to gather intelligence on your peace group, and possibly attempt to convince you to commit violence? The scraggly guy--he might be deep undercover. The white-haired grandmother who claims she was active in the 60s (back when lots of police and some military were infiltrating groups and urging them to 'get radical' and start bombing or at least throwing bricks)? Probably the earnest young woman dressed all in black.

"Another lawsuit filed in January by Hildes — and which Honig says is being closely monitored by the ACLU — involves members of an anti-war group in Olympia. They allege that a civilian employee of the Force Protection Division at Joint Base Lewis-McChord infiltrated their group. His identity was revealed through a public-disclosure request.

The employee has since been outed as a 'professional informant' on a website. That individual and his civilian boss are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Piek, the base spokesman, said the Army has opened an investigation into those allegations and that he could not discuss them further. He declined to discuss the employee, saying that the man's work was 'sensitive.' A telephone message left at the man's home was not returned Tuesday."
--Mike Carter, 'Activist spied on? Man wins settlement," Seattle Times, 5 May 2010

The courts are making a few rulings on the government's decision that dissent is illegal--protection against which the military arrogates unto itself endlessly. "You should thank me for defending your rights to your idiot opinion" is a common refrain heard by anyone who has the temerity to critique anything the military does.

Indeed, this is the fundamental flaw in the idea that militarism promotes democracy. It is used to crush democracy and to undermine it. No democracy is tolerated within the military--it is pure command and control--and that is part of the rationale for the Posse Comitatus Act. It's a bit like Gene Hackman's ship commander of a thermonuclear missile-carrying submarine in the film Crimson Tide: "We're here to preserve democracy, not practice it."

The lawsuits to defend our peace promotion are a good thing because they go a long way toward uncovering the facts. Again and again they reveal that the ones who advocate violence are quite often infiltrators--agents of the police or military. Why? Two reasons, leading to a third.

First, get a group to commit an act of violence and public sympathy vanishes. The relationship is fairly direct and quite quick. "Oh, they are throwing stones at the military? Well, that is stupid and no better than military violence."

Second, get the group charged with violent crimes and drain their resources as you wreck their reputation. They will be hiring lawyers, serving time and have no real effect on the issue they originally protested.

Finally, as the group realizes they are infiltrated, they develop a security culture that finishes them off. They are suspicious of each other, trying to hedge their communications and they withdraw from new recruits, acting much more in secrecy and with decreasing democracy themselves. They become dysfunctional and marginalized.

How do groups resist this?

Be nonviolent. If you commit to nonviolence they may watch you and even make agent provocateur attempts that will fail and they will lose interest.

Be open. Draw bright lines around personal privacy, but open the group's decisionmaking process to all. This gives the agents a voice, which they may try to abuse, but transparency and nonviolence are natural concomitants and can weather these attempts when maintained.

Be democratic. If one strong personality attempts to rule a group but the group maintains its spirit, tone, and philosophy, the internal strife of a group is limited and within tolerable bounds. If we cannot be democratic we cannot logically advocate for it.

This is not anarchical. Even though I love Dorothy Day, I cannot fully commit to anarchy, and even though she identified as an anarchist, she really wasn't in many ways. Someone fasting in Rome to convince the Catholic bishops of something is buying into their version of command and control and only trying nonviolently to persuade them, not to truly engage in anarchical spirituality.

And Jim Lawson noted well that you cannot just do whatever at a demonstration and expect it to be effective. He advocates a 'fierce discipline.' The way we decide what our spirit and tone will be is democratic and even by consensus quite often, but when we take to the field we need to commit to conduct with Lawsonian ferocity. Indeed, that is how we overcome the agents in our midst. If our discipline is rock solid for nonviolence, they cannot erode it and they will learn that.

Once in a while they learn it so deeply they defect. Jack Ryan was an FBI agent assigned to monitor our various movements and he eventually quit to become a Catholic Worker himself. Bring 'em on.

Jumbo shrimp, clean war, oxymorons arise!

"The C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan, which was accelerated in 2008 and expanded by President Obama last year, has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Washington in part because it was perceived as eliminating dangerous militants while keeping Americans safe.

But the attack in December on a C.I.A. base in Afghanistan, and now possibly the failed S.U.V. attack in Manhattan, are reminders that the drones’ very success may be provoking a costly response."
--Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, New York Times, 6 May 2010

Killing people will provoke a longing for retaliation. This goes on until everyone's dead, someone decides unilaterally to stop, or the parties are convinced by wiser minds to talk it out until they can come to an agreement on going forward without further violence. That is history and that is part of what we know from both fields of Security Studies and Conflict Resolution. Most of us in the field of Conflict Resolution seem to actually internalize this without exceptionalism and we tend to challenge our own democracies to in fact develop those wiser minds. But Security Studies is catching up to our work in that regard and passing us by in some ways. In fact, some of them are so good we'll just have to take their work straight into our field as the next generation of knowledge about nonviolence as a far more adaptive response to violence. Sometimes it takes a brilliant scientist with 10 research assistants in a research center at a university to empirically show us what we should have learned in kindergarten.

The work done by Erica Chenoweth, Maria Stephan and others is quite exciting. Indeed, Chenoweth runs a longitudinal and expanding study on the outcomes and factors of conflict management methods called the Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research at Wesleyan University in Middleton, Connecticut--just 40 miles from where the New York SUV bomberwannabe lived. Her work is breaking out of old worn models, braving and paving new examinations of the contextuals of conflict in history and presently.

Her work is bringing her to the clear conclusion that nonviolence is the most adaptive response to conflict, whether you are a power party or a weak party. The only questions revolve around your skill, your connections, your ability to rouse support, and what you can bring to the table. Bringing bombs will earn bombs back. When that is the formula for nation-states and there is no moral or ethical consideration, violence works quite well, as history shows us, especially for the elite powers who can insulate themselves from any backlash.

But ethics erode in the face of violence. The descending spirals produce fewer moral considerations until you have a system that believes drone attacks are a superior method of engaging in conflict and the other side, deeply offended by the killing of civilians by airborne machines, resort to contemptible methods like those of bombing suspect, Faisal Shahzad, the 30-year old from Pakistan, where the drones have killed more and more civilians in past months.

So humanity again chooses: the model of Erica Chenoweth--complex but clear nonviolence--or Faisal Shahzad--an eye for an eye. One vision, one darkening nightmare of blindness for all.

Shazad is lucky; he won't have to live with himself as murderer, because his carbomb failed. Instead, in all likelihood, he will be valorized by his Taliban mentors as a warrior for the poor and oppressed. He will spend some time incarcerated and we can hope for his rehabilitation.

What about the rest of us? Will we show future Shazads that the American people are opposed to the violence that is killing Pakistani children with Predator and Reaper drones launching Hellfire missiles at them (test photo of Hellfire attack shown) with no risk to the US military pilots who are sitting playing their deadly video game literally thousands of miles away? Those "pilots" are immune from danger while the ones at risk are just American citizens who happen to wander by when the next evil plot unfolds. Thus the Taliban believes it is closing that circle--you kill our kids and our mothers and yours are next. Evil for evil.

Is this how we should plan for our future? Nonviolence has so much to teach our government and our people. I am so glad Chenoweth's former partner in this research, Dr. Maria J. Stephan, is now in the US State Department. I hope she can help them understand and mend their ways.

Making the meeting: cross cultural conflict

How can you practice nonviolence with someone whose conduct makes you confused and uncomfortable? It is quite hard, and indeed, not accurately reading the meaning of someone's words and gestures usually means it's hard to trust that person.

A rudimentary example is personal space. We in the US believe that expansive spaces mean freedom and that is what we stand for. When people with whom we may disagree get too close we are uncomfortable and indeed our perceptions of what they mean moves from assertion to aggression.

Meanwhile, in that person's culture, personal space may be quite small. They may be a tactile sort, trying to come close to reassure you of their basic good intent by moving close in, possibly even touching you. For many Americans, by this time all the warning bells are going off in our brains. Danger! Enemy! Imminent Attack!

The basics of intercultural conflict management begin with intercultural communication, which relates to intercultural literacy.

Some cultures are monochronic, time-driven, nearly obsessed by arriving and departing on time. They tend to feel as though anyone practicing time management in any other way is disrespecting others.

Some cultures are polychronic, and a 9 a.m. meeting means morning, which means before lunch, and if necessary, lunch can be later. If a person from such a culture is meeting with someone from 8 a.m. and the 9 a.m. meeting is going to begin, they often have an impossible task of stopping the 8 a.m. meeting. They tend to feel that ending something abruptly is a sign of disrespect. The people at the next meeting will understand--if they are also from a polychronic culture.

I think it's interesting that it's all derived from respect, from the desire to save face for everyone involved.

When a person from a monochronic culture arrives in a polychronic culture, some adjustments help. When a colleague of mine was involved in the peace process in Nicosea, in Cyprus, an American negotiator arrived in town, gung-ho and making dates to talk to everyone. He set up several meetings. Everyone insisted on meeting in cafes.

The American arrived punctually and no one else was there. He waited and waited and after 15 or 20 minutes decided he must have made an error, and left. This happened several times with different people and groups of people.

By the end of his first two weeks, who do you suppose had the reputation as the no-show? Yes, the American. Everyone else came to the meetings, arriving and enjoying coffee and conversation while waiting for the new guy, who never showed--since he had already left, increasingly frustrated with the no-show Greeks and Turks. They always met at coffee shops for exactly that reason; might as well have a good time while waiting for everyone to arrive.

The real peacemaker becomes culturally literate and operates in the cultures in which she finds herself. I saw Dimitris the Greek peace radical do this when he introduced the brand new Turkish-Greek Student Association at Portland State University, where I teach. The room was packed. The 7 p.m. start time had come and gone by half an hour. Finally, a Turk and a Greek stood by the podium. Dimitris drew up his five-foot-seven figure with his sparkling friendly eyes and said, "Thank you for your patience. We're starting a little late. It's cultural."

Everyone laughed because he didn't say it was Greek nor Turkish, just, It's cultural. Thus, he used the polychronic similarity to bond everyone to each other and make all sides instantly relaxed, either sharing an element of identity or appreciating his note that the Turks and Greeks shared it and were such good peacemakers themselves. It was a simple, brilliant declaration.

When I worked with tribes I learned about this and thought I had it well understood. So when my fellow peace and justice organizer scheduled us for a meeting to plan a walk around Lake Superior to honor the memory of Walter Bresette, I said, well, we realistically can help in two ways, neither of them major. Let's let the people from around this lake gather in the morning and we'll show up just after lunch, when they finally stop socializing and get down to business.

We showed up at 2 p.m., which is when I thought the 9 a.m. meeting would actually get underway in earnest, discussing the actual logistics. Turns out when we walked in the last of the important people had just finally arrived from Ontario and they were about to have lunch. Good lesson! They had spent all morning and early afternoon gathering, catching up, being respectful of the long journeys everyone had made. If we had been operating on the American mainstream model it would have been business at 9 a.m. and it would not have allowed for the knitting of the social, tribal, familial fabric so necessary to a culture so beaten down for so long.

Learning about another culture before experiencing it is a faster path to peaceful relationships. Contextualizing responses that seem odd helps to appreciate responses that might otherwise be offensive and alienating. This is all part of nonviolence, if we seek success with it.

Oil: Trust us

The victims of the oil spill deserve our protection. The potential victims of Big Oil include all children and all creatures. We have a responsibility to them all. (photos of Alexa and of a little sea turtle)




In northern Wisconsin, we were told by the United States thermonuclear navy that they had contemplated all the environmental concerns of their Extremely Low Frequency command facility. They filed their Environmental Impact Statement. EPA had no further questions.

We did.

Our peace and environmental group, Stop Project ELF, worked hard to convince the Attorney General, Bronson LaFollette, to take action, and he did. He filed suit in federal court on behalf of the citizens of our state and our staff in Michigan (where the command system was expanding) persuaded the Marquette county prosecutor to join the suit. The federal judge scheduled a trial, which happened in 1983, and the ruling came out January 30, 1984: enjoin the US navy from further construction in Michigan and from the massive upgrade in Wisconsin. The ruling was almost 70 pages of evaluation of the evidence and the rationales for it. The trial had included testimony from the world's top experts on both sides. We went nose-to-nose with the US navy and won.

Then they went nuclear. They went to the Appellate panel in Chicago, a court far more military-obedient than federal judge Barbara Crabb. The Chicago court lifted the injunction with a two-sentence verbal ruling that invoked the dread words that every environmentalist knows when they deal with a military or oil facility.

National security.

Behind that cloak lurks the most dire violations of environmental law, civil rights abuses, money laundering and waste and direct theft from taxpayers imaginable. Legions of citizens fighting for environmental law, eventually joined by the US Congress and the President, created the National Environmental Policy Act and all its sequelae, such as the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and so forth. All that hard work in our democracy is largely impotent when dealing with DoD or Big Oil. Even the Congressional response to these abuses, the Federal Facilities Compliance Act, has been largely neutered by war.

"In an exploration plan and environmental impact analysis filed with the federal government in February 2009, BP said it had the capability to handle a "worst-case scenario" at the site, which the document described as a leak of 162,000 barrels per day from an uncontrolled blowout — 6.8 million gallons each day" (AP report)

We have a systemic problem that relates to our judicial branch of government at the highest levels. The courts, especially the Supremes, are poor at protecting the environment. They undercut democracy more often than they strengthen it. The will of the people to protect the basis for our lives--the very water and air and soil that sustains each and every life-affirming activity that is the foundation of our sustainable economy and our natural health--that will is ignored and flouted by our courts and this oil spill is part of that problem. Industry shills have manipulated both our media and political environments, making us hostile to regulation of industry, and we suffer every day from this.

Perhaps the Tea Party and the Pentagon--so excited about the use of violence to protect themselves and our national interest--could stand at the Louisiana shore and shoot all their bullets at the oil. Bomb it, fire all the rockets at it. Unload their clips into the roiling oil waves that will schlump up over their boots, over the sands, up into the marshes, and kill off the ecology. These people have one tool and that tool, violence, is how they maintain control over the world's oil.

Turns out that Oil Bats Last. NO ONE has control of the oil. It has control. We gave it control.

Our peace house, Whitefeather, is car-free. Yesterday, Terri turned over her leased car to the dealer and that was the end of a period when our community had a car parked in front of it. We've been car-free before; no one here had a car when Rhoda sold her Prius a while back and Terri planned to go car-free a month after moving in with her daughter, Alexa. We've reclaimed the parking spot at the top of the driveway by building three garden beds and a fire pit. (photo of Alexa's flower bed as she hugs a baby blueberry bush) We are reclaiming the short driveway now with plantings and a walk and bike trail. We purchase green electricity from PGE that comes not from oil and nukes and coal (and our Citizens Utility Board tells us that is genuine). So we hope we are removing most of our support for Big Oil.

Poor Louisiana and its citizens along the coast will not be able to reclaim their ecology with some vegetable and flower beds. Big Oil is ruining it for a long time to come. And Big Oil has convinced our government that we don't see what we see. Obama defends more offshore drilling. The courts allowed the BP EIS to stand.

If we want to replace our oil and war economy we will have to reclaim our democracy and never let go. Our children deserve nothing less. We just celebrated Earth Day, two days ago was Arbor Day, and a week from today is Mothers Day. All these symbolic days can offer opportunities for us to do the work for peace and the Earth that will make them meaningful again.

May Day! Mayday! Mayday!

The White House, in the person of spokes Robert Gibbs, said, in reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that threatens to outspill the Exxon Valdez, ""In all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last."

I expect that kind of irresponsible comment from a Big Oil spokesman like Dick Cheney or George Bush. I did not, I admit, see this craven level of anti-environment, pro-oil, proud-to-be-ignorant bias coming from the Obama White House. It totally reminds me of one of my favorite Lilly Tomlin lines, "I try to be cynical, but I can't keep up."

It is May Day, the day to join the green root of pagan and Earth-loving Beltane celebrants with the red root of the honor-the-workers day. Adding the khadi-white root of Gandhian mass nonviolence makes the day part of the peace calendar, which is what the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre has done in my hometown of Minneapolis for the past 35 years. (pictured here on May Day in Powderhorn Park)

Indeed, I remember one day in spring holding the door for massive Buffalo and Eagle and other puppets so the Heart of the Beast puppets could crash the appearance of James Watt in Minneapolis. We went in and were thrown out, but I was proud to be associated with my friends in their Beast personas. James Watt was the Reagan appointee to the Department of Interior, which may as well have been called the Department of Despoliation under his two-year tenure, 1981-1983.

The abysmal record of Watt was one we hoped would never be repeated, but Obama's record on the environment is shaping up to challenge even Watt and even the neocon oil shills appointed by G.W. Bush.

Time to reprise the Heart of the Beast and celebrate May Day like my buddy Terri, who is getting rid of her car today. That is the kind of real liberty that Gandhi was talking about; freedom to breathe better air, freedom from war over oil, freedom for the millions of birds and fish who won't be killed by future oil spills if enough celebrate like Terri is, and the independence of riding the bicycle, still the most efficient form of transportation over land ever devised. Gandhi would have included it in his Constructive Program were he organizing today. Indeed, Gandhi wrote about simple living and self reliance, independence and workers' rights in his volume, including this passage:

"Ahmedabad Labour Union is a model for all India to copy. Its basis is non-violence, pure and simple. It has never had a set-back in its career. It has gone on from strength to strength without fuss and without show. It has its hospital, its schools for the children of the mill-hands, its classes for adults, its own printing press and khadi depot, and its own residential quarters. Almost all the hands are voters and decide the fate of elections. They came on the voters' list at the instance of the Provincial Congress Committee. The organization has never taken part in party politics of the Congress. It influences the municipal policy of the city. It has to its credit very successful strikes which were wholly non- violent."

Let's work to make next May Day the vision of peace and clean water instead of this nightmare accepted by too many Americans from the top down.

War flags and peace pennants

Flags have long served as symbols, good and bad, violent and nonviolent, attacking and defending. They are just cloth and yet will inspire people to kill, die, charge, flee, and stand ground in noble sacrifice.

In many ways, the flags of Mozambique and India stand as polar opposites, the one with a deadly weapon on a background of red signifying blood, and the other with a wheel signifying the laws of Ashoka the peace ruler. In other ways, even those flags are similar.


"The flag of Mozambique was adopted on May 1, 1983. It includes the image of an AK-47 and is the only national flag in the world to feature such a modern rifle.

The original flag of the FRELIMO, the leading political party in Nigrossa, also had green, black, and yellow horizontal stripes separated by white fimbriations. In the hoist was a red triangle. The black, green, and yellow were derived from the flag of the African National Congress, used in South Africa. On independence the colors were rearranged to form the national flag, in rays emanating from the upper hoist. Over this was a white cogwheel containing the hoe, rifle, book, and star that appear on the present flag. The flag was altered in 1983; the colors were arranged in horizontal stripes, and the star of Marxism was made larger. Proposals for a new, non-partisan flag have been introduced. Green stands for the riches of the land, the white fimbriations signify peace, black represents the African continent, yellow symbolizes the country's minerals, and red represents the struggle for independence. The rifle stands for defense and vigilance, the open book symbolizes the importance of education, the hoe represents the country's agriculture, and the star symbolizes Marxism and internationalism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Mozambique)

The Indian national flag is a horizontal tricolor of deep saffron (kesaria) at the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom in equal proportion. In the center of the white band is a navy blue wheel which represents the chakra; it represents the wheel on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka. Its diameter approximates to the width of the white band and it has 24 spokes. The design was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on 22 July 1947 and first unfurled on 15 August that year of independence.

The commitment to revolutionary violence symbolized in the Mozambique flag may have meant to instill pride in the hearts of Mozambicans or terror in the hearts of all who meant harm to the nation. It hasn't made too many friends; brandishing weapons and literally waving them symbolically to the world is not the most inviting gesture.

On the other hand, the flag of India is not the flag Mohandas K. Gandhi wanted. He preferred one with a different wheel, a charkha, not a chakra. The charkha was the spinning wheel Gandhi said was the song of independence for his nation, literally spinning up economic self-sufficiency by eliminating the entire industrialized manufacturing loop by which Indian cotton was sent to the mill towns in England or to English-owned mills in India to be made into cloth that would then become English clothing to sell back at high prices to increasingly dependent and impoverished Indians. Gandhi's swadeshi campaign was meant to free India in spirit, in economy, and politically. He saw khadi--homespun cloth--as the cloth for fashion and for the flag.

His choice of colors was meant to signify the communities of diverse India, with the various weakest ones (numerically) represented by white, at the top. Then came the green of Islam and, at the bottom, meant to offer support and protection for all, was red of Hinduism. He wanted the flag to be homespun khaddar (Gonsalvez, p. 75).

Instead, after great debate, the charkha was replaced by the Dharma Chakra, the Wheel of Righteousness, taken from the rule of Ashoka, who rose to power in a series of bloody wars in the 3rd century BCE and then decided that he wanted to rule in peace and nonviolence. Gandhi's means and ends were identical; Nehru and others were almost a flip of that, since they used Gandhian nonviolence to attain independence and immediately made sure that India was defended militarily, even starting a totally unnecessary war with China 15 years later.

The preferences of other major communal leaders of the time were also illuminating. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a thoroughly rich and sophisticated Westerner in dress and manner, despised and rejected khadi as coarse and common. B.R. Ambedkar, the Dalit leader, rejected khadi because to him it symbolized Hindu oppression of his people (even though Gandhi specifically honored Dalits, fasted for their equality almost to the death, and stayed only with them in some Indian cities). V.D. Savarkar was a Hindu nationalist and he rejected khadi for its inclusivity; he wanted an all-Hindu nation. Thus these three leaders--all of whom Gandhi routinely praised and attempted to befriend (photo of Gandhi and Jinnah)--opposed his brand of freedom struggle for their own identity reasons. Gandhi rose above all of them but they conspired in their own way to bring him down. Jinnah succeeded in partition and one of the Hindu nationalists assassinated Gandhi. Ambedkar maintained his sour opinion of Gandhi, even though it is patently obvious Gandhi achieved more to end Untouchability than Ambedkar or any other individual ever has.

Semiotics and symbology are just representations, but can work powerfully in conflict and can reveal endlessly that our human brains are sometimes too big for our own good. From culture to culture, we create these signs that produce love, hate, fierce protectiveness, hubris, violence, devotion and mass insanity called war.

For me, the Earth flag, Gandhi's khaddar charkha flag, or various versions of pace (peace) flags are the kind of peace and inclusivity signals I like. Humble and welcoming, universal and borderless, these flags say it best.

References
Gonsalvez, Peter (2010). Clothing for liberation: A communication analysis of Gandhi’s swadeshi revolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Mozambique

Nonviolent energy

The approval of an offshore windfarm in Nantucket Sound near Cape Cod is a welcome step to those who are deeply angered by the oil spill from an offshore rig near New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite ill-advised objections from Not-In-My-Backbay 'environmentalists' and tribal members from two local tribes who have a stronger historical claim but no real argument aside from that, the project is going forward. It presages more such large wind developments and that is to the good.

We are not likely to invade a country to secure more wind for our multinational profiteers. We are not likely to see seabirds or shorebirds threatened by massive wind spills. Simply put, wind is a nonviolent choice, harnessing a natural and endlessly renewable resource that can sustain all of us without significant environmental problems.

I seldom disagree with tribes, but in this case I do. I strongly suspect that their objections might relate to a common problem experienced by tribes--disrespect. In the field of conflict resolution, this is a predictor of a poor process and even if no one actively or overtly disrespected the tribes in this particular case, it is likely that two factors contributed to the strong perception of disrespect.

One, history. Tribes not only had their land stolen, they were subsequently treated with disregard, disrespect and often quite overt racism and blatant imperiousness. All tribal members carry this collective memory that has lasted since contact and the Cape Cod tribes thus carry almost 500 years of this identity.

Two, our command and control decisionmaking process as a society usually brings in significant stakeholders long after some basic decisions have been made. There is no decisionmaking process worse than sham inclusivity or ersatz democracy. The field of environmental conflict is rife with examples of the ill-advised nature of such a system and the bumpy process it produces.

So to the tribes who opposed this, I say I'm sorry. Environmentally, there is no anthropogenic activity free of some impact and offshore windfarms have some small perturbance guaranteed. Even desert solarfarms change things, but when we look at the results of coal, nuclear, oil and other sources of energy, anyone with a modicum of sense would choose a windfarm. (pictured is the Vindeby wind farm, one of many offshore Denmark).

Obama approved more nukes and more offshore oil and gas drilling. This is just one of many of his 'Obamanations.' When we consider those poor decisions and then the windfarms on or offshore I hope we have the rational ability to support the one that doesn't involve war on humans or nature. Indeed, with enough solar and windfarms, we could generate enough electricity to power our new generations of all-electric cars and really start building a peace ecology instead of our current war system.

Someday, perhaps, we will have an actual national discussion about these crucial matters and we will, for once, feel consulted. Such a process could serve to also mitigate our political bipolar disorder by achieving a civil discourse that trumps the current national spectacle of the two party breakdown. All these common sense developments would serve us well and would bring us much closer to a society based on nonviolence.