About
Waging Nonviolence is a source for news, analysis, and original reporting about nonviolent activism, as well as for discussion of the theory behind it. These stories often go overlooked by the mainstream media, yet people are using nonviolent strategies and tactics all around us in response to the most pressing challenges—and reshaping our world in the process.
Why “Waging Nonviolence”?
Practically speaking, it’s the alternative to the more commonly (and regrettably) used phrase “waging war.” Anecdotally, it’s the title of a book that was one of Gandhi’s possessions at the time of his death. It’s also the focus of this blog: the use of nonviolent methods—from strikes and mass protests to art and reflection—by people around the world every day in their struggles for justice, often under the most difficult of circumstances.
Defining nonviolence
We consider nonviolence to be an active struggle for peace and justice by the only means worthy of the goal. It rejects the use of force that injures an opponent physically, mentally, or spiritually because, as Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote shortly before his death, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.”
Approaches to nonviolence
King and Gandhi believed in the basic moral superiority of nonviolence, which is an approach that scholars today describe as “principled nonviolence.” “Strategic nonviolence,” on the other hand, recognizes nonviolence as simply the most effective method of resistance to injustice. With its emphasis on tactics and results, it is often a natural complement to the moral and spiritual emphasis of the principled approach.
Discussion
It’s through conversation that we come closest to the truth. Gandhi spent his life perfecting methods of nonviolent action, which is why he titled his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. “Far be it from me to claim any degree of perfection for these experiments,” he wrote. “I claim for them nothing more than does a scientist who, though he conducts his experiments with the utmost of accuracy, forethought and minuteness, never claims any finality about his conclusions, but keeps an open mind regarding them.” We try to do the same when writing about other people’s experiments with truth and invite others—including activists, scholars, students, and critics, as well as those just discovering nonviolence—to leave constructive comments and submit posts of their own.
Getting involved
If you would like to contribute to Waging Nonviolence please look over our submission guidelines.
Classroom guide
Here are some tips for teachers and professors interested in using this site in their classrooms.
Internship Announcement
We are looking for an intern with research and writing skills, an interest in social justice, and experience with online media. Read more to apply.
Editors:
Eric Stoner is a freelance journalist based in New York and an adjunct professor at St. Peter’s College. His articles have appeared in The Guardian, Mother Jones, The Nation, Sojourners and In These Times. He is on the national board of the War Resisters League, and the advisory board of the Center for Peacemaking at Marquette University.
Bryan Farrell is a New York-based writer, covering topics that range from the environment and climate change to foreign policy and militarism. His work has appeared in Mother Jones, The Providence Journal, The Guardian, The Nation, In These Times, Plenty and Earth Island Journal. Visit his website at BryanFarrell.com.
Nathan Schneider writes about religion, reason, and violence for publications including The Nation, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Commonweal, Religion Dispatches, The American Prospect, and others. He is also an editor at Killing the Buddha. Visit his website at TheRowBoat.com.
Columnists:
Frida Berrigan serves on the Board of the War Resisters League and is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus.
Ken Butigan is director of Pace e Bene, a nonprofit organization fostering nonviolent change through education, community and action. He also teaches peace studies at DePaul University and Loyola University in Chicago.
Mary Elizabeth King is professor of peace and conflict studies at the UN-affiliated University for Peace and a Rothermere American Institute Fellow at the University of Oxford, in Britain. She is the author of The New York Times on Emerging Democracies in Eastern Europe, A Quiet Revolution, Freedom Song, and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. During the U.S. civil rights movement, she worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. (no relation), in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Her website is at maryking.info.
Vanessa Ortiz is Founder of In Women’s Hands. She is formerly Sr. Director of Civil and Field Learning at International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.
Some of our contributors have included:
Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., teaches Peace Studies at Prescott College, and is the Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. His most recent book is the co-edited volume Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).
Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University, where her areas of expertise include quality of democracy, political development, nonviolent struggle, civil resistance, and political communication and media. She is also an analyst and consultant on nonviolent action, with special emphasis on the Iran and Burma cases. Dr. Boaz is also a contributing writer and adviser to Truthout.org and associate editor of Peace and Change Journal.
Anna Brown teaches political science and is the Director of the Social Justice program at Saint Peter’s College, Jersey City, NJ. She is a member of the Kairos community, Witness Against Torture, and the Garden State-Los Amates (El Salvador) Sister Cities Program. She can be reached at: ajbspc[at]comcast.net.
Erica Chenoweth is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. She is co-author, with Maria J. Stephan, of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (2011). She hosts the blog Rational Insurgent and is on Twitter at @EricaChenoweth.
Ladd Everitt is the Director of Communications at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a volunteer with the D.C. Crisis Response Team, and a neophyte practitioner of non-violence.
Adam Federman, a 2003/2004 Russia Fulbright Fellow, has written for The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, Earth Island Journal, Gastronomica, Counterpunch, and Adirondack Life. He was a 2010 Middlebury Environmental Writing Fellow.
G. Simon Harak is a Jesuit priest with a doctorate in ethics. He currently is the director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking.
David Hartsough is a Member of San Francisco Friends Meeting. He is married, is a father and grandfather, Director of PEACEWORKERS and Co-founder of the Nonviolent Peaceforce.
Kathy Kelly is the co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and the author of Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison (2005).
George Lakey is Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. His eighth book is Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners (2010).
Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post columnist, directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington D.C. He teaches at Georgetown University Law Center, American University, the University of Maryland and two public high schools.
Simon Moyle is a Baptist minister and non-violent educator and activist with Pace e Bene Australia. He works at Urban Seed, a Christian organisation working with some of Melbourne’s most marginalised people.
Michael Nagler is Professor emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley, where he co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. He is also the founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and author of the award-winning Search for a Nonviolent Future.
Gene Sharp is Senior Scholar at the Albert Einstein Institution, which he founded in 1983, and the author of numerous books on strategic nonviolent conflict and its potential for acute conflicts, including The Politics of Nonviolent Action, From Dictatorship to Democracy, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, and most recently Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle.
Maria J. Stephan is a strategic planner with the U.S. Department of State and co-author, with Erica Chenoweth, of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Formerly she served as director of policy and research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and American University. She has also been a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
