Parenting for nonviolence

There is a new fascinating video, Better This World, available online, with many themes that relate directly to the formation of a violent terrorist from a young person who is given some good values in a vacuum by parents who offer platitudes but no emulative examples and leave the young person to find those examples elsewhere. The results are tragic.

Two young men from Midland, Texas, are the central characters of an incidence of domestic terrorism, a plot to build and detonate bombs in the 2008 Republican convention in Minneapolis. They went to prison and clearly wanted to do this.

The mother of one of them tells us that she taught him to stand up for his beliefs. She also tells us that, "I'm not political. I really don't care about that." The father says that he taught his boy to stand up for those who are vulnerable. He did not show or teach him how to do that.

Who will take over from the parents when they bring the children this far? Mass media will serve up movies that show how to handle bullies--nearly 100 percent of their 'solutions' are violent. The military, affirmed to mythic proportions by society, will teach youth how to accomplish defense of democracy, human rights, and how to stand up to tyrants. Children are saturated in the violent methods and they seldom get serious instruction from parents or teachers of the preferable alternatives, the nonviolent commitment and skill sets. So, as the film also shows, the politico heavies from left or right are also ready to more seriously instruct idealistic youth how to engage in conflict--you go straight to what the enemy understands. that is, violence.

Finally, in the US, the FBI is all set to finish off the process for any who have been convinced that the violent methods might be for them. Whether it's a young Somali American angry at the US militarism killing Muslims--as we saw in my town, Portland, Oregon, last Christmas season--or young men from Texas who want to stop US attacks on others overseas, the FBI responds to ideation with entrapping provocation and enabling operational support.

The lesson, I think, is clear. It is not only not enough to give children as sense of anger at injustice and a notion that they should do something about it, it is clear that parents and teachers (yes, even kindergarten teachers, though Ann Coulter has labeled them 'useless public sector workers') will either teach children the methods of nonviolent conflict practice or risk losing them to the terrible practices of the far left, the far right, or the religious zealots, and then into the clutches of the FBI. The boys in this film were regular kids from normal American homes. The caveats should be obvious. Teach your children well; nonviolence is both an imperative value and a set of competencies every child can learn. As a peace educator, I can report that those who engage in violence--either military veterans or former inmates--enroll in my classes quite often, trying to find more appropriate methods that they were never taught before. I'm happy to try, but these methods are best taught beginning at infancy.

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.

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.