The propaganda
is a little heavy here, but it still argues forcefully for the rising tide of
non-violent practice which is a true cultural revolution. There are still ample mechanical repairs to
make in the body of the human spirit but the direction is right.
As posted
before, the military dream became uneconomic during the middle of the
nineteenth century when new lands demanded massive investment and sustaining
costs far in excess of the cost of acquisition and any available trivial
revenue. It became almost impossible to
win a war. Today we win a war by exiting
the theatre as quickly as appears seemly.
It is hardly a business adventure.
The military
today in all countries needs to be thoroughly retasked while also retaining
minimal war making ability. Allied
armies of confrontation can be maintained as a deterrent using the top ten
percent of active personnel. In that way
it is easy to dispatch forces to confront any outbursts of barbaric ideology
such as the Taliban.
Militarism and
Violence are So Yesterday: It's Time to Make Peace the Reality
Last week, in our article titled "Armed Drones Becoming the Norm?
At the Crossroads of Robotic Warfare,"
we wrote about concerns that robotic warfare combined with the global "war
on terror" was making violence the quick and easy way to respond to
conflicts. We wondered whether the bloody 20th (and beginning of the 21st)
century could be put behind us and if the time had come to move to an era of
peaceful solutions.
Many factors make this an opportune time to move
toward greater use of nonviolent practices. The most obvious, of course, is
that the United States and the planet can no longer support American Empire and
its endless wars. We cannot continue to spend more than $1 trillion each year on the military and national
security state while the basic needs of our population are not being met and
our domestic infrastructure is crumbling. The empire economy quite literally is
killing us.
And our bloated military is not just killing us and
others around the world, mostly innocent civilians, but it is killing the
Earth, too. This report published by Project Censored calls the US
Department of Defense the worst polluter on the planet. It states: "This
impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse
gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the
air, water, and soil." And that does not include the private military
contractors and weapons industries.
The era of American Empire is coming to an end. The
signs are everywhere. Latin-American countries are no longer tolerating
bullying tactics by the United States. Obama failed in his attempt to attack
Syria. The world leaders at the Asian Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC)
meeting in October did not seem to mourn President Obama's absence at all. In
fact, the failing Trans-Pacific Partnership shows that the United States is no longer in
the driver's seat of the Pacific economy. And even former National Security
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski is lamenting "that American
domination [is] no longer possible because of an accelerating social change.
... "
Brzezinski is concerned that growing access to
information and popular uprisings are making it more difficult for the global
financial elite to control the masses. All around the world, people are
standing up to oppressive governments and destructive practices, and they
are increasingly doing so with nonviolent tools. The newest data show
that nonviolent tactics are not only more popular, but they are also more
effective than violent ones and nonviolent struggle is more likely to
result in lasting democratic structures.
In the book Crises of the Republic, Hannah Arendt wrote, "The chief reason
warfare is still with us is neither a secret death wish of the human species,
nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression ... but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in
international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene." That
is changing. People around the world are putting nonviolent practices to use to
create democratic societies and are employing peaceful methods of conflict
resolution. It is imperative that we reject imperialism and militarism and make
peace a reality.
Creating a
Culture of Nonviolence
We live in a time of transition that some call
the Great Turning. Joanna Macy calls it the "essential adventure
of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining
civilization." The reality is that our resources are declining and we can
no longer operate within a system that demands constant growth and sacrifices
people and the planet for profit as capitalism does.
The Great Turning is a period of maturation of our
species. Biologist Elisabet Sahtouris writes in Earthdance:
Living Systems in Evolution that evolution is not linear but is a
cycle "of unity to individuation, through which arises conflict,
negotiations happen, cooperation is arrived at; and we go to unity again at the
next higher level." If cooperation is not achieved, the species simply
goes extinct.
She compares this process to the stages of human
development. Essentially, humans are in the adolescent phase. Our task at this
stage is cooperation, or as David Korten writes,
to go from "violent domination" to "peaceful partnership."
To accomplish this, we will have to shift from a militaristic society to a
culture of nonviolence. This will have to be done with intention.
If we look around us, it is easy to recognize the
ways that militarism is ingrained in our culture. It is prominent in the games
that our children play, especially video games, in television and movies and in
the clothes they wear. Children as young as 12 years can attend residential
programs that simulate basic military training. Members of the military are
treated as heroes everywhere we go. At the airport, they are invited to board
the plane first and walk across the red carpet as the "premier"
members do. At sporting and cultural events, they are given special
recognition.
To counter this deep indoctrination, we will have to
be more honest about the role of the military. General Smedley D. Butler, one
of the most decorated generals of all time, called war a racket.
He said. "I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to
major-general. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a
high-class muscle-man for Big Business for Wall Street and for the bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."
We will need to develop new cultural entities,
practices and institutions that teach and promote peace and nonviolent
practices. We will need to
recognize people who contribute to building a more just society as the ones we
want to emulate. In addition to the usual people that we think of such as
teachers and nurses, we will need to include those who feed the hungry in areas
where it has been declared illegal, who stand in solidarity with homeowners who
are facing eviction and who lock themselves to heavy machinery to prevent
mountaintop removal for coal, pipelines for tar sands and hydrofracking for
methane gas.
Recently, we spoke to three people who are actively
engaged in building the culture of nonviolence: author-activist-actor Rivera
Sun and Stephanie Van Hook and Michael Nagler of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.
Sun uses fictional characters to teach the principles of nonviolent resistance.
In her newest book, called The Dandelion Insurrection, she uses "fiction to project ahead just
around the corner of today" and tell the story of "the transformation
we are going through." The Metta Center provides tools, books and
educational events to teach nonviolence.
All three incorporate stories into their work.
Storytelling is an integral part of transformative organizing. We all see the
world through the lens of the stories we tell ourselves. Stories are so
important to us that when people are presented with facts that conflict with
their story of the world, they are more likely to reject the facts and insist more strongly that their story is
the truth. Our decisions are largely made at the emotional level, and so
stories that reach our emotions can begin to shape our worldview in a new way.
Sun studies strategic nonviolence and nonviolent
struggles. She incorporates important concepts and themes into her stories. She
breaks the concepts down in a way that is easy to understand and remember. For
instance, in The Dandelion Insurrection, the phrase "Be kind, be
connected, be unafraid" is repeated throughout the story. To hear our
interview with Rivera Sun, click here.
The Metta Center provides a movement tool called
the Roadmap Compass. It serves the goals of providing a strategy in a
way that is also easy to comprehend and shows how the different components of
the movement are connected. The top one of the six sections of the Roadmap is
"New Story Creation." Nagler says that if we "formulate the
story in a way that is non-threatening" and we each start telling the story
in a similar way, then we will reach a tipping point. The Roadmap Compass is an
interactive tool that facilitates communication between people who are working
on specific areas such as food security, renewable energy or nonviolent
conflict resolution.
Practicing
Nonviolence
As we learn the principles of nonviolence, we can
start putting them into action in our daily lives. Van Hook reminds us that it
is as easy as slowing down enough to make some connection to the people we
encounter such as when we go to a store. She adds that we can employ nonviolent
tactics when a conflict arises. The first step is to recognize the humanity of
the other person by making eye contact.
Van Hook coordinates the Shanti Sena Network of peace teams based primarily in the United
States and Canada. Specifically, the peace teams are composed of people who
work in communities to use "nonviolent ways of resolving conflicts without
the potentially violent intervention from 'law enforcement' or the
military." In the words of Gandhi, this is a form of constructive program
- building alternative systems to replace the old systems that no longer serve
us.
To get involved, people can begin by signing
the Peace Draft. To start, the only requirement is a commitment to
deepen one's study of nonviolence. Van Hook describes the beauty of the Peace
Team is that there is something for everyone to do no matter their
circumstances. If a person cannot participate actively in conflict resolution,
they can serve other functions such as providing education or support.
Conflict resolution is a growing field. Schools as
early as the elementary level are starting to incorporate conflict resolution
into their curriculum. And
international peace teams are being used in areas of violence and armed
conflict. One group that does this is Nonviolent Peaceforce. Its teams are invited by communities to provide
assistance in resolving conflicts and protection.
Conflict is complex. A violent approach to conflict
resolution only has one tool – domination through force. The nonviolent approach
has multiple tools. And instead of being imposed from above, the tools are
chosen by the community that is affected. The Peaceforce does not take sides in
a conflict. A large part of the Peaceforce's work is listening to communities
to understand the particular complexities of their situation and then applying
common-sense approaches. Van Hook writes in more detail about the Nonviolent Peaceforce in South
Sudan.
Currently a US-based peace team from Veterans for Peace is in Palestine, where
it is building relationships with the Palestinians, who are trying to protect
their land from the encroaching Israeli settlements. On its second day, it
accompanied local villagers into an Israeli settlement and started playing
soccer. When the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) arrived, the athletes invited the
young soldiers to join them in the game. The Veterans for Peace spoke to the
IDF about their experiences of being in the military and realizing that the
wars they were fighting and the orders they were following were wrong. They
hoped to develop connections with the IDF and to facilitate awareness of their
shared humanity.
Violence is a
Sign of Weakness
In her 1969 essay "Reflections on Violence," Hannah Arendt wrote that "Power and
violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent."
She explains that power is derived from the support and consent of the people.
When those who are in power are compelled to resort to violence, it is a sign
that their power is disappearing. She adds, "Power springs up whenever
people get together and act in concert, but it derives its legitimacy from the
initial getting together. ... "
One aspect of the Great Turning is moving from a
hierarchical/patriarchal society in which people see themselves as separate
from each other to a society that is non-hierarchical in which people feel
connected to each other. Violence was acceptable in the old worldview because
it was felt to be necessary and effective. That is no longer the case. Not only
is violence destructive, but when we harm others, we cause harm to ourselves.
At the heart of the practice of nonviolence is the
recognition that we are all connected and that we are stronger when we work
together and through consensus. Van Hook and Nagler emphasize that being
connected does not mean that we are the same. At the surface level, people are
different, and that diversity is appreciated. But inside, we are related to
each other.
Nagler tells the story of a gay pride parade in
Michigan in which a member of a local neo-Nazi group started harassing people at
the event. Somebody broke a bottle over his head and peace team members quickly
moved in to protect him and bring him safely to an ambulance for care. The
man's partner was so touched by their actions that she said something along the
lines of, "I used to hate you people, but now I believe that the same
blood runs through all of us."
It's time to stop glorifying war and violence and
replace them with greater knowledge and practice of nonviolent techniques. It
is possible to do. The "Cross-Legged Strike" is one example that occurred in 2006 in a
very violent area of Colombia, the city of Pereira. Men in the city joined
violent gangs because they believed that it made them more sexually appealing.
In response, their female partners decided to teach them otherwise by creating
a popular campaign to withhold sex because they preferred to have their
partners alive for themselves and their children. The campaign included a
popular rap song calling for the men to give up their weapons.
We must similarly act to build a popular cultural
campaign against violence. As American Empire declines, we must show the world
that we are ready to join the global society as a partner rather than a bully.
Our aggression is a sign of weakness and will no longer be effective against
the rising tide of nonviolent resistance. Let's begin in our communities to
make to peace a reality.
To hear Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers' interview
"Building a Culture of Nonviolent Resistance for Democracy" with
Rivera Sun, author of the newly released book The Dandelion
Insurrection, and Stephanie Van Hook and Michael Nagler of the Metta
Center for Nonviolence, click here.
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