The question for all those, whether using black bloc tactics or not, who consider adding to the Occupy movement tactics of either property destruction or violence: Do you want the issues of injustice to be talked about, or your bricks? In my own definition, property destruction is not the same as violence—there can be very significant differences between the two. But in this historical-political situation, the impact of either is similar; they give an easy out for people who don’t really want to talk about injustice.

I don’t, however, recommend Chris Hedges’ recent essay, “The Cancer in Occupy,” as a model for how to respond to the black blocs. Demonizing, calling people names, using the giveaway metaphor of “cancer” (I’ve had cancer) is about as far away from effectively opposing a tendency one disagrees with as it’s possible to get.

We have such good models in the tradition of nonviolence. Dr. King, James Lawson, John Lewis and so many others in the Civil Rights movement who had to respond to those willing to advocate violence showed us how to do it. They were themselves mentored by people like A. J. Muste whose largeness of spirit in dealing with defenders of violence went all the way back to the 1919 Lawrence, MA, textile strike.

Dr. King, for instance, famously had a public dialogue with Malcolm X, and I myself was involved in a radio broadcast debate between Malcolm and Freedom Rider Albert Bigelow. But less well-known to the public were the thousands of hours spent by SNCC and SCLC organizers dialoguing with advocates of violence wherever they found them: bars, pool halls, on the street, in church basements.  Bayard Rustin seemed to have unlimited patience in going into the wee hours of the night over whiskey with black comrades who believed the time had come to include violent tactics. Rev. James Orange, a strongly-built staffer for the SCLC, was given the job in the Chicago campaign of winning over the largest and toughest African American gang, the Blackstone Rangers; Jim was beaten up repeatedly by gang members to test his courage and sincerity before he was finally led to the gang leaders who agreed, in the end, to join the campaign and be nonviolent “peacekeepers.”

The issue of the appropriateness of property destruction and/or violence is, like any other aspect of community organizing, not settled by blanket statements or posturing but by getting in there and dialoguing, over and over again.  Advocates of nonviolent action need to learn from the Civil Rights movement and the field of community organizing in this way—there really aren’t any shortcuts.

I personally am as furious as anybody about the oppression that’s dealt out by the 1 percent, and my background as a working class gay person give me plenty of stories I can tell about injustice. But my hope for those now devoting themselves to Occupy is to keep your eyes on the prize. We already have in this country the model provided by heroic African Americans of how to stand up to violence—whether from the police or the KKK—in a way that keeps a city’s or nation’s attention on the real issues.

If, in good conscience, you just can’t stand for what looks to you like ineffective nonviolent struggle, then launch your own campaign with your preferred tactics and see how it works out for you. The public debate between Ward Churchill and me might be useful as you think about strategy. And if anyone else would like to debate me publicly on this subject, let me know.

As a participant-observer who wants the Occupy movement to flourish, this strikes me as an appropriate moment to look back at another social movement that promoted consultation and consenus-building. In the 1980s, South Africa’s United Democratic Front (UDF) helped to end apartheid by empowering existing community-based organizations and developing the leadership capacities of local leaders, some of whom had little or no prior experience as activists. Notably, the UDF inspired and mobilized diverse affiliates without trying to impose one political framework upon them. At this particular juncture, when OWS’s New York City-based leaders appear divided over the question of how much emphasis to place on the GAs and on the general ethos of consensus-based politics, the UDF’s victories seem instructive.

Jeremy Seekings’ definitive account, The UDF: A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-1991, shows that this umbrella coalition that energized a broad swath of people by leading from behind. It gave affiliates ways to withdraw their support from apartheid and from the economic transactions that kept it in place. It knit together a wide range of civic organizations into an unprecedentedly large mass movement. And, like OWS, it promoted participation and consultation. Explains former UDF General Secretary Popo Molefe:

The structures for decision-making within the UDF may have often seemed tedious, but they taught us the importance of consensus politics and participatory democracy. … The regular debate within the UDF on democracy and accountability, the insistence that unaccountable leaders be recalled and the importance attached to criticism and self-criticism served to weaken any potential autocratic tendencies in the “new” South Africa.

Some students of South African politics might argue that the UDF did not go far enough to weaken “autocratic tendencies.” The current ruling African National Congress (ANC) party has launched salvos against free speech while continuing to rely on economic policies that have entrenched the privilege of elites rather than creating the kind of equitable society many UDF supporters envisioned in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the UDF is worth revisiting. For OWS, it suggests that a flexible, open, decentralized approach, one that allows extant groups to affiliate without radically altering their language or abandoning their existing decision-making processes in favor of new ones—namely, those of the GAs—can still succeed at dismantling oppressive systems.

The UDF was launched to build public opposition to hollow apartheid reforms. In a twisted kind of concession to its critics, the apartheid government announced in 1983 that it would create a “tricameral parliament” with separate representatives and separate elections for Indian, Colored (mixed-race) and white officials. Africans were to be governed by their tribal “homeland” governments. The ANC and the UDF rejected all of this. UDF founders, many of whom were church leaders, seized on the state’s obvious divide-and-rule ploy to demand full citizenship rights for all immediately. In 1984, the UDF organized a successful election boycott. Huge numbers of people stayed away from the polls. Relying on the language of human dignity, Allan Boesak announced: “We are here to say that what we are working for one undivided South Africa that shall belong to all of its people, an open democracy from which no single South African shall be excluded, a society in which the human dignity of all its people shall be respected.”

Thinking about the challenges now facing OWS, it seems significant that the UDF’s malleable framework and its emphasis on empowering grassroots organizations helped it become resilient. When visible activists were imprisoned and large public meetings prohibited, the organization rebounded. Indeed, it found ways to use arrests and state repression to its advantage. Some of the UDF’s most successful campaigns, such as consumer boycotts of white-owned stores in the Eastern Cape, were organized with minimal oversight and sometimes no discussion by the national executive. Supple regional networks enabled ideas to be rapidly shared and decisions to be made on the spot. Importantly, identifying with the UDF’s “equal rights for all” slogans did not require structural symmetries in terms of organizational processes.

By 1985, the UDF’s National General Council had revised its working principles to reflect the realization of Mofele and others that the UDF alone could not claim people’s loyalty. Rather than advocating for one model of democracy, therefore, the UDF decided to step back and get behind the people by building up and directing the energies of its diverse affiliate members. According to the revised 1985 principles:

The UDF shall strive towards the realisation of a non-racial, democratic and unfragmented South Africa, and to this end shall: 3.2 act as a coordinating body for progressive community, social, education and other such organisations which subscribe to democratic principles; 3.4 articulate the social and political aspirations of the affiliates of the UDF and their members [emphasis mine].

In this way, the UDF worked toward one clear negative goal (ending apartheid) and one clear positive goal (a democratic society).

Using what Tom Lodge has called a “capacious ideological umbrella,” the UDF built a national liberation front that easily sheltered divergent groups which might otherwise never have coalesced. Meetings provided liberating spaces complete with camaraderie, rousing speeches, and forms of racial and gender equity as well as autonomous self-rule. Absent were top-down attempts to solicit agreement about what self-governance or social responsibility in South Africa ought to look like or what exactly the state should become.

Like the Occupy movement, the linkages between UDF and the labor unions varied by region and by union. Unlike the Occupy movement, however (at least thus far), the UDF successfully drew distinctive local organizations into its fold. Its sprawling tent accommodated civic organizations, street committees, black student groups, rent-payers associations, ANC supporters, Black Consciousness thinkers, socialists, social democrats, and an upwardly mobile black urban middle class. White university students also assisted the movement by printing pamphlets and making banners, even with constant police surveillance and infiltration of student of groups by the security police.

During a small-group breakout session at the Occupy Wall Street meeting mentioned above, I heard a well-known Brooklyn-based strategist argue that “every revolutionary moment has some kind of political structure.” He seemed to be suggesting that modeling and promoting the GAs ought to remain a major, if not the major, objective of Occupy. Although all historical comparisons are suspect since no two movements evolve in analogous conditions, OWS must learn from the past if it is to succeed. Here the lesson seems to be that decentralization, or what Molefe called “trailing behind the masses,” can still be revolutionary if it unleashes people’s latent desires to transform society. Perhaps OWS should strive for UDF-like flexibility. Without abandoning the GAs altogether, this may be a critical moment for the Occupy movement to think beyond the GAs and to find ways to stretch itself to become more inclusive of other kinds of organizations while also becoming more clear about its positive, constructive goals for the future.

After a spellbindingly rapid series of events in the Middle East in the early months of this year, progress seems to have slowed. The liberal spirit that characterized those nonviolent revolutions appears to be dissipating in favor of old rivalries—as well as the specter that new forms of repression will simply replace their predecessors.

What’s happening now in Egypt and Tunisia—to say nothing of Bahrain and Syria—is also bringing back to the fore worn-out arguments claiming that nonviolent struggle works slowly, while violence is quick. Efficient, even.

This kind of argument is often given as a justification for not taking the time to investigate or learn how to fight with nonviolent struggle. I have heard this view advanced by communists, Baathists, Marxists and radical proponents of armed struggle, despite the fact that, until recently, few empirical evaluations have been conducted to determine whether it is actually true. Considering that Gandhi confronted the British for 25 years after he returned home to India in 1915, and the U.S. civil rights movement took a full decade between 1955 and 1965 to realize legal protections for equality in public accommodations and elections, I can see some anecdotal basis for such scorn.

Yet the past 40 years have seen momentous developments in our comprehension of nonviolent strategic action. Not only can it achieve major political objectives, but it can lead to more stable and equitable long-term results that benefit all parties to a conflict, improve the odds for reaching negotiations, and lay the groundwork for reconciliation. Even so, much of the research has focused on the actual conflict with an oppressor, as opposed to what might follow it. In the Arab world, relatively little information has been available concerning the next steps in moving from dictatorship to democracy. Still, it is clear enough that some seeds for democracy are actually embedded in the practice of nonviolent conflict itself. And, truth be told: this can be slow.

My own experience working for four years at the heart of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the U.S. civil rights movement suggests some reasons for why nonviolent struggle might help in the formation of democratic institutions. One of the first objectives of a nonviolent mobilization must be the building of unity. Rarely does a state of unity pre-exist; it must be created in order to succeed, and this requires some form of democratic decision making.

Although this point requires more study, my personal experience suggests that the process of making decisions is one of the most important keys to unlocking the intriguing tendency of nonviolent movements to yield democratic formations. In SNCC, we tried to make all decisions by consensus—something in the news earlier this autumn with the Occupy Wall Street movement. The achievement of consensus, however, is far from simple. In SNCC it meant discussing a matter and reformulating it until no objections remained. Everyone and anyone present could speak. Participants included those of us on staff (a SNCC field secretary was paid $10 weekly, $9.64 after tax deductions), but, as time went on, an increasing number of local people would participate as well—individuals whom we were encouraging and coaching for future leadership. Our meetings were protracted and never efficient. Making a major decision might take three days and two nights. This sometimes meant that the decision was in effect made by those who remained and were still awake!

When building a nonviolent movement, one cannot order another to take a public stand or break the law. Individuals must decide for themselves whether they are ready to make the sacrifices entailed and pay the penalties that civil disobedience requires. The experience of making such profound decisions, both individually and as a group, cultivates democratic skills and an expectation of participatory processes in future governance. This phenomenon isn’t found in movements that rely on violent tactics.

One of the most thought-provoking findings in Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan’s new book, Why Civil Resistance Works, is its substantiation of an idea that first struck me years ago. While working, teaching and researching in different parts of the world, I’ve looked in vain for examples in which armed struggle or guerrilla warfare led to democratic outcomes, all the while encountering ardent defenders of the refrain that what is taken by violence must be retrieved by violence—including freedom or democracy. I heard this time and again in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. I didn’t, however, see evidence of its validity.

What Chenoweth and Stephan found is that approximately one quarter of the violent insurgencies that they studied across the period of 1900 to 2006, and which ultimately captured power, succeeded. This was, however, a much lower rate of success than for nonviolent campaigns. Moreover, they write, the “conditions in these countries after the conflict ended have been overwhelmingly more repressive than in transitions driven by nonviolent civic pressure.” Remarkably, even the long-term effects of failed nonviolent campaigns are more favorable to democracy and peace than the long-term results from violent insurgencies. In their data concerning 218 violent insurgencies since 1900, democratic governments resulted perhaps 5 percent of the time. In fact, they say that none of the countries that experienced primarily violent uprisings can today be categorized as democratic. Their data show that the stronger and more cohesively the nonviolent civic coalition operates in societies during the years immediately preceding a democratic transition, the more it leads in the direction of freedom and democracy. As far as the rapidity of violent insurgencies, their data show that they retard democracy while speeding the process and likelihood of a return to civil war.

In the western hemisphere we have a good example of how mobilizing and sustaining a popular movement of nonviolent action may go hand in hand with forming civil-society institutions and sustaining democracy: Chile. The “days of protest” that started in 1983 forced General Augusto Pinochet to concede ground to a nascent opposition. Mild concessions brought about what the Chileans termed an “opening,” and as the 1988 plebiscite on his presidency approached, Pinochet yielded still further to the pro-democracy movement to make the vote appear fair and enhance his international standing. The whole process took years for Pinochet to hand power to a democratically elected president in 1990, but since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship, the country has sustained a robust process of economic, social, and political reconstruction.

Today, fears for the outcome of the Arab Awakening often derive from the uncertainties facing countries where a coherent and coordinated quest for democracy had long been impossible. Tyrannical leaders and their international sponsors and allies wanted weakened civil societies that could not check their power.

It is extremely doubtful that political, economic and social conflicts in the region will disappear. Yet how people engage with each other in the presence of discord can change. What has been accomplished by the pro-democracy movements in the Arab world is no trifling matter. For instance, former U.S. First Lady Rosalynn Carter reported of the October elections in Tunisia, “This was as peaceful and calm an election as I have ever observed.” However slowly, and through whatever difficulties, there is little doubt that the Middle East is being transformed for the better. And the new leaders will learn that, should they fall short, nonviolent uprisings can recur on their watch.

Why, one might ask, is it located in Costa Rica?

To make a long story short, Edgar Cardona, minister of security in the junta that ruled Costa Rica from May 8, 1948, to November 8, 1949, proposed the abolishment of the armed forces as a permanent institution. In December of 1948, the head of the junta, José Figueres Ferrer, later president of the country, declared that a nation that was not rich could not simultaneously afford good education, health care, and a military. The funds dedicated to the armed forces should instead be destined for education, Figueres said in a speech, and in a symbolic act handed the key for a military fortress to the minister of education. In November 1949, a new constitution recognized the ideal of “changing rifles into notebooks.” This perspective of valuing education over militarization has become part of the national memory and aspiration, to be materialized in UPEACE.

In 1976, a rancher named Cruz Rojas Bennett promised the aspiring president, Rodrigo Carazo, a donation of forested areas of his farm for a university dedicated to peace studies, on the condition that the institution would eternally protect what was the last virgin forest in Costa Rica’s central valley. It was approximately 15 miles southwest of the capital San José, in the coffee-growing highlands at El Rodeo, Cantón de Mora. Rojas Bennett was partly motivated by a fear that environmental degradation worldwide had become akin to a war against nature. After his untimely death, the Rojas Bennett family gave 303 hectares, and 100,000 additional trees were planted on what is now the main campus.

By September 27, 1978, under President Rodrigo Carazo Odio, Costa Rica proposed the creation of the University for Peace at the General Assembly of the United Nations. Finally, on December 5, 1980, the 35th General Assembly approved Resolution 35/55, formally creating UPEACE. Its charter, approved by the General Assembly’s founding resolution with no opposition, calls upon UPEACE to

provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace … to stimulate cooperation among peoples, and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress in keeping with the noble aspirations proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations. To this end, the University shall contribute to the great universal task of educating for peace by engaging in teaching, research, post-graduate training and dissemination of knowledge, … through interdisciplinary study of all matters relating to peace.

The new university was to be a U.N. treaty organization, although receiving no funding from the world body, and it retains autonomy and academic freedom.

UPEACE took possession of the land donated by Rojas Bennett in 1981, placing it under protection as he had intended. Aided by the educator Robert Mueller, and with support from UNESCO in Paris and the U.N. University in Tokyo, the new university began with its first degree in media and peace. Its first donor was the industrialist Ryoichi Sasakawa of Japan.

The study of peace is inherently multidisciplinary, since no discipline can address its numerous components. Fifteen disciplines may need to be at the table for serious study. How then to help lessen the obstacles and overcome threats to world peace and progress?

Today, UPEACE offers 11 master’s degrees in fields ranging from environmental security and peace, to gender and peacebuilding, to international law and human rights. Each of these programs explores the trends and forces that give rise to violent upheaval and discord, all in an attempt to push through the limitations in existing theory and practice. Students come from 52 countries, and the faculty is similarly diverse. Teaching with me this month is Jan Pronk, for instance, who formerly held governmental ministerial portfolios for The Netherlands in defense, development, and environment, and was head of peace operations in Sudan. A new distance learning program is allowing people across the world to work toward master’s degrees online. This is one of many ways in which the university is a global institution, not limited to its Costa Rican base.

The UPEACE Africa Programme—based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—does not have students per se. It works with academicians from the continent’s 800 universities and some 26 institutes for peace studies. These are people who want to develop their capacity to respond to the clamor of the young who want to learn how to build more peaceable societies. With assistance from The Netherlands, in 2002–2003 consultative missions visited instructors in 50 universities in 15 African countries, and met with 500 nongovernmental institutions. (I was privileged to be part of the team.) As observers in my classroom this year I’ve had senior fellows in the Great Lakes Programme—instructors in Burundian and Ugandan universities. Junior fellows from Kenya and Zambia are taking my course, preparing to teach upon their return. In addition, Canada’s International Development Research Centre assists the Africa Peace and Conflict Journal, which gives voice to African practitioners and researchers while offering African perspectives on international issues.

On the other side of the planet, this year more than 1,800 young people under 30 years of age applied for 30 slots in the Asia-Pacific Leadership Programme, which is supported by the Nippon Foundation. The Bank of Brazil recently brought staff to the campus and then to New York City for a short course.

My own course at UPEACE in nonviolent transformation of conflict is always a two-way street for me, as we study the extensive history, theory and methods of nonviolent action. In class we’ve heard a firsthand account of the 2007–2009 Lawyers Movement in Pakistan, which succeeded in reinstatement of the chief justice through nonviolent action by barristers, students and human rights activists. Another student has been telling us about the continuing impact of the national nonviolent movement that deposed Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 in the Philippines. From Tiananmen Square to Tahrir Square, we examine failures and vulnerabilities of nonviolent movements as well. Some students arrive with skepticism about civil resistance, which they have heard disparaged as a solely Western phenomenon, and they are intrigued to learn that both Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. formulated their thinking based on active study of nonviolent struggles occurring contemporaneously in Africa, and that if anything knowledge moved from East to West.

Regrettably, one country that pronounces itself indispensable for and committed to democracy and the pursuit of peace—the United States—has never given any funds to support this practical, global educational organization, which prepares specialists to build peace in their home countries around the world. Lessening the obstacles and overcoming threats to world peace and progress needs less lip-service and more concrete contribution to institutions like this, ones that are preparing world leaders to be principled as well as pragmatic.

While Discover Chicago is a class that meets weekly during the fall term, it kicks off with an intensive Immersion Week, where students traverse the city by public transportation and begin to get engaged.

Joyana Jacoby Dvorak, Lorena Shkurti and I are team-teaching “Nonviolent Chicago” this quarter. When I mention the name of this class to most people, they often react with startled laughter: “Chicago… nonviolent?” Violence is pervasive in this city—I recently wrote about a dimension of this reality on this site—but there is a growing web of programs and organizations that is slowly forming a culture of nonviolent options. By some counts, as many as 300 peace and nonviolence organizations are at work in this city.

In their first week in college, twenty-two students got to know seven of these organizations on Chicago’s South, West and North Sides: Voices for Creative Nonviolence; the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation; the White Rose and Su Casa Catholic Workers; the South Austin Coalition; The Peace Corner; and the Vincent and Louise House on DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus.

During this jammed week together we developed a deep appreciation for the commitment and passion that these often quite different entities share for making things whole.

We were riveted, for example, by Precious Blood’s restorative justice program that uses the peace circle process to bring victims of violence and perpetrators together in the South Side’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. A person convicted of killing a man while driving drunk 10 years before spent nearly two days in a peace circle here with the surviving family members. This experience of safe truth-telling, while painful, opened the door to healing and transformation for the participants. Similarly, the center uses this process with youth in the area. Precious Blood is part of a pilot project with the Inglewood neighborhood courts that refer cases to it for victim-offender reconciliation rather than the traditional criminal justice process of conviction and incarceration. The power of Precious Blood’s work was especially driven home to us by the stories two young people shared with us whose own lives have been changed by immersing themselves in this challenging and powerful work.

The Peace Corner, in the South Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, is also dedicated to offering youth an alternative to violence. Stung by dramatic job losses over the past several decades—unemployment stands at 70 percent—South Austin is wracked by severe poverty and inequality. The Peace Corner is open to all, including those with criminal records who have no other place to turn, and members of different gangs that, outside this space, are often at war. Here they can hang out, use the computers, work on homework, and play sports.

In the same neighborhood, the South Austin Coalition organized peace brigades (patterned on organizer Elce Redmond’s experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq and other parts of the world) for preventing youth violence before it starts. The coalition is also heavily involved in building campaigns to get energy assistance during Chicago’s fierce summers and winters to Austin’s low-income residence and to demand job creation. Redmond also described a campaign to deal with the massive potholes in the area. When the city over and over again failed to address the problem, members of the coalition decided to fill the potholes themselves. The action garnered widespread media attention—and the city was out the next day to finish the job.

We were also deeply moved by the White Rose Catholic Worker, eight young people living together who are actively involved in nonviolent resistance (including Witness Against Torture and work along the US-Mexico border), hospitality, and sustainable living, including organic farming, a compost toilet, and a brood of chickens in the backyard.

Another highlight was our afternoon with Kathy Kelly and company at Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which has focused on peace and justice in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were mesmerized both by her many stories of compassionate nonviolent action and the commitment of the group to simple living. Toward the end of our session, we were invited to move into circles and participate in a “pieces of the truth” exercise, where every person played six conflicting roles on the US war in Afghanistan and then debriefed the experience of understanding more clearly a range perspectives, even if they are not one’s own.

Over the course of a week we got a taste of a few projects, organizations and movements trying to build a more nonviolent Chicago and a more nonviolent world. Not only did it sharpen our own awareness of nonviolent options, it also nudged us to suspect that a culture of nonviolent change is being built right in front of us—all we need to do is actually open our eyes.

Inspired by this glimpse of Nonviolent Chicago, I wonder this: what if we developed a project called “Nonviolent Earth” which, through websites, blogs, crowdsourcing and all our old-fashioned means of communicating (including speaking face to face!) we began to identify the emerging (if often still unnoticed) infrastructure of a nonviolent world? For example, within a Nonviolent Earth site each continent, nation, region, state, province, city could be identified as “nonviolent.” (So, for example, Nonviolent Chicago would be nested in Nonviolent Illinois, Nonviolent US, and Nonviolent North America.)

People and organizations everywhere could fill in the information (and real-time videos, reports, and tweets). Slowly, or not so slowly, we would be treated to a much more comprehensive understanding of what exists and what the gaps are. Even more importantly, we would find our allies and (strengthening existing networks and sites working in this direction, like Waging Nonviolence) connect the dots even more clearly to build movements for change the planet sorely needs.

Just a thought, as I savor the powerful, invisible network of agents of change we experienced this week—and that exists all around this wounded and sacred world.

The entire social fabric of Afghani society has been torn apart as a result of, first the war between the United States and the Soviet Union, between 1979 and 1989, and then the U.S. war against the Taliban and now al-Qaeda. There are civilian casualties reported almost every day—the vast majority of whom are women, children, and the elderly—as a result of U.S. bombs and drones. This violence exceeds and parallels the violence unleashed by the Taliban on the Afghanis.  We read about these casualties in the media, but I do not see any mobilization by major U.S. feminist organizations to demand an end to this calamity. This silence stands in sharp contrast to the vast public campaign organized by the Feminist Majority in the late 1990s to oust the Taliban. I am often asked by American feminists what they can do to help Afghan women. My simple and short answer is: first, convince your government to stop bombing them, and second urge the US government to help create the conditions for a political—and not a military—solution to the impasse in Afghanistan. It is the condition of destitution and constant war that has driven Pakistanis and Afghans to join the Taliban (coupled with the opportunistic machinations of their own governments). Perhaps it is time to asses whether diverting the U.S. military aid toward more constructive and systemic projects of economic and political reform might yield different results.

Mahmood also discusses her debt to Talal Asad, whom I interviewed, also for The Immanent Frame, earlier this month.

When a country is shaken by violence, most people expect it to react in kind with force. We’re certainly reminded of that now, as we in the US approach the tenth anniversaries, respectively, of the 9/11 attacks and the hot-on-the-heels launching of the War on Terror. So what about the most recent act of terrorism in the news—Anders Behring Breivik’s rampage in Norway?

I was struck by a comment left here at Waging Nonviolence the other day by Susanne Kromberg, who wrote, “I am a Norwegian who is vainly trying to get The New York Times to cover the passive resistance that has sprung up in Norway as Norwegians under good leadership decide to demonstrate that only love is powerful enough to overcome hatred.” I didn’t know Susanne personally, but I wrote to her and asked to hear more.

Susanne, it turns out, is a Quaker (and Quaker blogger) currently living in Seattle, where she’s a hospital chaplain. As a way of coping with the attacks on her home from far away, she explained to me, she has been collecting news of how people have been reacting to Breivik’s atrocities in Norway, much of which has been ignored in the US media. Instead, the focus of American journalists has been on how the country has supposedly “reignited” its immigration debate and has been “reassessing” its relatively measured policing policy—implying that things are moving in a bellicose direction. Yet, as Susanne wrote in a poignant letter to the New York Times Public Editor:

I have read more stories than I care to about “innocent”, “idyllic” and “naïve” Norway in the last week. What evidence is there to support that opinion?

My best guess is that any response that doesn’t involve increased security measures and weaponry seems naïve to [reporter Michael] Schwirtz. He appears not to recognize that people can be thoughtful as they choose another strategy to combat violence.

While Susanne hasn’t yet had time to collect all the evidence she’s been gathering into a single piece of writing, she has been continually posting it in Facebook status updates. In the spirit of our recent “Texting from Madison” series, I thought I’d share (selected, but uncensored and unaltered) some of her recent posts to give a sense of the courageously nonviolent responses to this attack mounted by her fellow Norwegians:

July 22

07:39 terrorism finds its way to Norway. apparent car bomb blew up outside prime minister’s office building damaging bottom three floors. PM is safe, no word yet on how many others dead or wounded. aauugh.

11:36 right now the mayor of oslo is saying we’re not going to allow fear to take a hold, because then we would have handed the victory to the terrorists.

11:38 prime minister now saying the same thing. violence will not frighten us and we will not allow anyone to try to intimidate us out of legal political activity

11:39 Muslim leaders in Norway swiftly condemned the attacks. “This is our homeland, this is my homeland; I condemn these attacks and the Islamic Council of Norway condemns these attacks, whoever is behind them,” said Mehtab Afsar, secretary general of the Islamic Council of Norway.

12:58 Norway made a conscious decision not to heighten the protection for politicians and other public figures after attacks elsewhere in Scandinavia. “We see it as a key political value in itself not to have that kind of militarized society,” says Iver Neumann, research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).. “Whether we can still afford such an open society, is now up for debate.” Yes, Norway is at a fork in the road. I hope we don’t change much.

14:07 Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg: “Our answer is more democracy, more openness to show that we will not be stopped by this kind of violence. At the same time we shouldn’t be naive, we should understand that violence can attack our society – we’ve seen that today.”

July 23

18:54 on a per capita basis, Norway lost twice as many people as the USA did on 9/11, according to a story in The Atlantic.

July 24 

09:14 I have seen more grown men cry on Norwegian TV the last three days than in my entire life up to now. That includes the King of Norway and Prime Minister.

09:15 so grateful that they model the appropriate behavior: grief, not vengeance.

11:43 “On Monday the perpetrator of the horrific attack on innocent Norwegian citizens will be given the opportunity to explain his actions in an open court. He has written in his “manifesto” that he will use the courtroom as a propaganda tool… Close the doors to the hearing. He wants to have open doors so that the recording can then be shown on TV stations worldwide.” from the event “Steng doerene.”

15:39 “If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create.” Stine Renate Håheim, survivor from Utoeya, in an interview on CNN

July 25

01:30 Wow. We learned today that Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s step-brother was one of those who was killed on Utøya (he worked as security officer and was among the first to be killed). It blows my mind that the Royal family, with the media’s help, chose not to reveal this information until today. I’m thinking they wanted to ensure that no victims be singled out as “special” lest it detract from national mourning.

July 26

16:09 Crown Prince Haakon and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre at a mosque in Oslo to express their sadness that Muslims were erroneously blamed for the attacks on Friday. The imam confessed that he also made the same wrong assumption. The Lutheran bishop of Oslo, Ole Christian Kvarme also participated.

16:12 I should point out that they apologized on behalf of everyone who made that mistake – Norwegian authorities did not themselves entertain any theories despite media pressure to theorize.

22:00 All 7 political parties and their youth groups have been flooded with new members this past week – all of them, across the entire political spectrum in Norway.

22:33 A Facebook poll in Norway reveals that 80% oppose the death penalty. I wish I had comparison numbers, but my guess is that opposition to the death penalty has increased after events on 22.7.2011.

22:37 ‎10,000 Norwegians have joined a Facebook support group for the killer’s mother, acknowledging that she is suffering too, encouraging her to accept the love we offer.
next day at 07:49 Update: 38,000 have joined

23:44 I cried watching a video snippet of Norwegians gathered at the Islamic Mission Mosque in Oslo to remember the Norwegians who died last Friday. The imam and those interviewed talked about how proud they were to be Norwegian. Notice how many times I said “Norwegian”? The emphasis was on this shared identity.

July 27

20:09 The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation has decided not to provide coverage of the upcoming Norwegian Rifle Championship (July 30 – August 6).

20:23 I am SOOO grateful to the Crown Prince, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Lutheran Bishop for going the World Islamic Mission Mosque for a memorial event yesterday!

July 28

08:40 Opponents of a multi-faith center at Stiklestad have dropped their objections.

08:45 Askøy Mayor Knut Hanselmann (The Progressive Party, the political party that opposes immigration to Norway) says the consequence of the terror attacks must be that Progressives stop claiming that immigration destroys Norwegian culture. Instead, they will focus on use of resources.

09:00 The Hacker group Anonymous is encouraging people to download Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto, make playful editorial changes and publish the altered version. They hope that, in the end, no-one will know what the original manifesto said – and prevent ABB’s manifesto from becoming the permanent legacy he was hoping to create. (Dagbladet 28.7.2011) I confess to having mixed feelings about this proposal, but finally come down on the side of opposing making changes – that would be censorship and is not compatible with democracy.

19:08 I have been wondering what it is like for Norwegian soldiers bombing Libya and soldiering in Afghanistan to hear our Prime Minister and other Norwegians going crazy over how the only way to respond to violence is with love. Ahem.

23:01 Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg just said in an interview that one of the things that gives him joy now is that he sees people hugging each other everywhere he goes.

23:23 Life is beginning to return to a regular rythm in Norway (not “normal”). Just listened to a fascinating discussion on whether Norwegians would have chosen the route of love and civility in response to hatred if the killings had been done by a Muslim. The responses varied, but everyone agreed that we were lucky not to have been tested in that way.

July 29

13:23 There’s a facebook page in support of the Norwegian killer’s lawyer, commending him for serving the principles of democracy by ensuring his legal rights are honored: 46,000 supporters. Then there’s a facebook page for those who don’t think any lawyer should agree to represent the killer: 7 supporters.

July 30

07:17 Norway is bringing its F-16s home. No more bombing Libya. Apparently the decision was announced to the press on 7/22, before the killings, but it didn’t make it into the papers because everyone’s attention was on the killings. The reason given was “Mission accomplished” – Gaddafi’s ability to haarm the civilian population is dramatically reduced.

July 31

14:48 Secondly, [Verdens Gang] has been doing the “aren’t Norwegians wonderfully loving” coverage for 10 days. After 10 days, they do an “aren’t Norwegians bigots?” story. How about we do more nuanced writing all along, rather than alternating between worshiping and reviling people. No-one is all hero (not even Gandhi or MLK), no-one is all villain (not even ABB).

14:58 Despite the crisis in Norway last week, Norwegians sustained or may even have increased donations to relief agencies that support those who are starving in Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa.

18:51 Anders Behring Breivik’s father has said he wishes his son had committed suicide. His mother does not wish to see him. A facebook group has sprung up in support of the parents. It has 70,000 members.

19:45 Although some Norwegian Muslims were harrassed in Oslo last Friday (before everyone knew that the terrorist is a Norwegian), many Muslims now say that “ethnic Norwegians” are going out of their way to smile, acknowledge, engage, encourage.

20:05 Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, right wing blogger and Islam critic, says the anti-Muslim rhetoric that pre-dates 7/22 is now “unusable” and he acknowledges that the hard line that he and his colleagues took could contribute to “crazy people running amuck”.

20:11 Grocery store chain Coop has stopped selling violent computer games as a gesture of respect to those whose loved ones died on 7/22.

22:06 NRK tv reports on a poll showing that 26% have a more positive view of multiculturalism now, 9.3% more negative, 49.1% are unchanged. Researchers caution against reading too much into it, as many may just be trying to distance themselves from Ander Breivik’s actions.

August 4

07:20 Erna Solberg, leader of Hoeyre (Conservative, pro-Israel party) says attitudes towards Muslims in recent years are reminiscent of the ways Jews were treated in the 1930s.

07:25 I: Whenever Anders Behring Breivik’s picture appears on the front page of a newspaper, ordinary customers are increasingly turning the papers around in the displays, so his face is hidden. Journalists and editors are pleading with people not to do that, as they consider it a form of censorship.

II: But regular people don’t think ABB should be rewardedfor his acts by having his pictures everywhere, and they want survivors of the trauma to be free to enter public spaces without seeing the face of the killer.

What is wrong with this picture?

After all, it looks like a typical photo of world leaders making decisions for their countries. That is precisely the problem. What’s wrong is the total absence of women—at the table, in the room, and, as a result, from the agenda at this meeting and too many meetings like it.

I worked with the United Nations in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2010 with women human rights defenders. Since coming back to the US, I am aware of the urgency in public calls to end our military involvement in Afghanistan, which means increasing pressure to negotiate with the Taliban for a political power sharing deal. Yet, I also hear in the back of my head the voices of Afghan women, who have warned all along, Don’t wager human rights, especially the fragile ones of women, for the sake of political expediency in striking a peace deal.

The photo portrays a three-way summit on June 24 hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart, President Hamid Karzai. The goal of the meeting was to discuss “concern over a rising lack of security, extremism and terrorism,” and the need for “cooperation to combat these phenomena.” The day following the photo, Presidents Zardari and Karzai attended an international anti-terrorism conference, again hosted by Ahmadinejad. Also present was Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur, where rape was used rampantly as a weapon of war.

As the Obama administration and President Karzai’s government undertake talks-about-talks to engage the Taliban, how many women will be at that table? Afghan women have expressed concerns that “behind the scenes” peace deals are already taking place. While women have fought to be included in public processes (they hold 9 of the 70 seats of the Afghanistan High Peace Council put together by Karzai last year), they are consistently locked out of the “old boy networks” of male world leaders where decisions are being made that will have vital consequences on the lives of women and their families. That is the problem the photo makes clear. Right now, the Afghanistan peace process is proceeding without the participation of women.

In 2000, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325, obliging all UN member states to promote and protect women’s meaningful participation in peace and security processes. Yet, UN Women’s research has found that in 24 peace processes over the past two decades, women formed less than 8 percent of negotiating teams—and, as a result, women’s needs and concerns are almost entirely missing from the resulting agreements. A study of 585 peace agreements concluded between 1990 and 2010 found that just 16 percent referred to women at all—only 3 percent had a reference to sexual- or gender-based violence.

When women are at the table, their concerns are more likely to be addressed.  Their perspectives on human needs, peacebuilding, and reconciliation can be included. Their experiences can add to the understanding of the impact of war and everyday violence in communities, homes, and families—and therefore increase the likelihood of an authentic, lasting, and just peace.

Afghan women have been making this argument for years. Last week, 11 women human rights leaders were in Washington DC to meet with policy makers at the White House and in Congress. They pushed for the inclusion of more women leaders in peace talks to end the war in their country. They insisted that they are capable of contributing despite real—and at times tragic—risks to women who enter public life in Afghanistan.

The women repeated their message on PBS NewsHour a day before President Obama announced an accelerated withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. None of the women rejected negotiations with the Taliban out of hand—indeed, they suggest that such direct dialogue could be beneficial. Yet, they pointed to a situation more complicated than simply talking to the Taliban when it comes to the security for Afghan women. Wazhma Frogh, from the Afghan Women’s Network, said:

[the] Taliban are not the only threats to the women of Afghanistan or to all the people of Afghanistan. I have seen warlords who have raped women on the streets. We have seen people who have taken our lands. We have seen people who have done more damage.

Frogh also explained how people are driven to insurgency by the Afghan government itself:

It has no capacity in providing people with access to justice. So, a 13-year-old girl raped with 13 police, 13 men which—police officers among them, what do you expect people—like, the father of that girl says, I will blow myself up in a suicide attack, blowing up a government entity.

Negotiation tables most often include armed actors, who may be able to end the war but are little-equipped to bring the peace. As long as peace talks privilege those with arms—and those who derive their power from armed conflict—women and other nonviolent members of civil society will be excluded. The resulting “peace” deal too often redistributes power among a small group of armed actors, rather than creating a sustainable process that can establish a society based on justice, accountability, and inclusivity. History has shown that the end result is a recurring cycle of violence. Rangina Hamidi, a peace activist from Kandahar, spoke on PBS NewsHour about the tenuous gains Afghan women have made in the past ten years. She appeals:

Please, do not let Afghanistan fall back to the years of civil war, to the years of injustice and inhuman acts against all sectors of society, most especially women. So, for once, let’s listen to the women and take their suggestions seriously.

As the US and Europe scramble for an exit strategy out of Afghanistan, they will need a way to claim relative success after 10 years of war. Isn’t it time to look to Afghan women as agents of change and brokers of authentic human security? Peace requires this, and Afghanistan deserves this.

Given the extensive negative media coverage of Yemen since the botched Christmas airplane bombing, and our focus on a military rather than humanitarian response to the country’s plight, I was happy to catch this video on Al Jazeera English a couple days ago. It tells the story of Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Marwani, an amazing peacemaker in Yemen.

The founder of Dar al-Salam (House of Peace), an organisation that aims to bring feuding tribes together and to end revenge killings, al-Marwani travels around Yemen unarmed acting as a peace negotiator.

[...]

As a youth he was attracted to extremism and violence, but over time, as he took advice from clerics and read a range of books, including the Bible, his views began to change.

[...]

His daily work involves negotiating a truce between warring tribes or trying to negotiate the release of a kidnap victim, meeting government or international representatives, organising workshops or plays, and dealing with the administration and promotion of his organisation.

[...]

Al-Marwani expects to die on a peace mission long before his country sees peace but his young son is preparing to one day take on his father’s role – it will probably be a lifetime’s work for him too.

To read the article that accompanied the video, click here.

To watch Part 2, click here.

NS: How is the FOR’s religious identity evolving today?

MJ: We’re forced to ask ourselves what it means to do peacemaking in an interreligious—or even a secular—world. There’s quite a bit of anxiety among many people, who are asking, if the community consciously opens itself more broadly to humanists and avowed atheists, what confidence do we have that we will share basic values in common? But you can argue, I think, that atheism or agnosticism or humanism are as much religions as any denomination or sect in terms of having an identifiable set of values and, eventually, sets of rituals that shape how people think about and act in the world. A lot of what we struggle with is simply a matter of words. I love Charles Taylor’s arguments about the emergence of the secular age. We’re also reading Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld’s very nice new book, In Praise of Doubt. Doubt lies at the heart of the practice of pacifism. You can never know, ultimately, how you’re going to respond when confronted by violence. Absent a total conviction or confidence that you’ll act nonviolently, can you characterize yourself as a pacifist? Part of the conversation that we’re having, also, is about how doubt can create the space for being more accepting of more people.

Read more at The Immanent Frame.

Venezuela would be one of few countries to impose an all-out ban on the “manufacture, importation, distribution, sales and use of violent video games and bellicose toys.” The proposed law would give Venezuela’s consumer protection agency the discretion to define what products should be prohibited and impose fines as high as $128,000.

As the article goes on to explain, the government’s reasoning sounds downright Gandhian, and it goes much beyond a simple ban:

The Venezuelan bill would mandate crime prevention classes in public schools and force the media to “implement permanent campaigns” to warn against the dangers of violent games. Another provision requires the government “to promote the production, distribution, sales and use” of games that teach kids “respect for an adversary.”

The very next lines, however, makes one suspect that perhaps the Chavez administration might not be the best teacher of this lesson:

Some 2,000 people marched across Venezuela’s capital Saturday to protest what they call widespread persecution of Chavez’s opponents.

“It’s a bit ironic that supporters of Chavez, who persecutes his political opponents, want to teach our children the need for respect,” quipped Tomas Sanchez, an opposition lawmaker who broke ranks with Chavez.

While I don’t believe such outright censorship is necessarily the right approach, crime prevention classes (or, rather, conflict resolution classes, to take a more positive approach), which teach “respect for an adversary,” sound like a worthwhile option. Simply enacting a ban will likely fan a black market. Somehow minimizing the demand for such things, however, offers some hope.

Mixing a class like this with a violent suppression campaign can be a fraught proposition—witness the failure of D.A.R.E. anti-drug programs in the United States. The government became so fixated on drugs that students adopted that fixation and drug use didn’t decline for people who took those classes. Much better, of course, is to offer a range nonviolent alternatives, both to drugs and violence, including a more vibrant and demanding community life, employment, and positive role models. Perhaps most of all, though, the government needs to practice what it preaches.

Ready to do something about it? Starting in a few days, leading up to Gandhi’s birthday, NP is organizing a “12 Days of Peace” campaign as a way for people to take part in the struggle for peace. Each day, there is something you can do, in coordination with others around the world:

Monday, Sept. 21
Celebrate United Nations’ International Day of Peace by working a day for peace – donating all or a portion of your day’s wages to a non-profit, non-governmental organization seeking to foster nonviolent peacekeeping worldwide.

Tuesday, Sept. 22
Sign the Peace Alliance’s petition to create a Department of Peace with a cabinet level Secretary of Peace on the presidential staff (www.thepeacealliance.org).

Wednesday, Sept. 23
Write a blog post and/or a status update on Twitter and Facebook noting that you are marking The 12 Days of Peace.

Thursday, Sept. 24
Re-establish and re-connect with a past friend, relative or colleague with whom you’ve had conflict.

Friday, Sept. 25
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, and/or a letter to your Congressperson expressing support for nonviolent, unarmed peacekeeping in conflict zones worldwide.

Saturday, Sept. 26
Visit a community park with your friends and family for a picnic or gathering in celebration of peace and harmony among those closest to you.

Sunday, Sept. 27
Conduct a prayer for, or meditate upon, peace.

Monday, Sept. 28
End your day by enjoying a piece of music that demonstrates peace to you, such as “Imagine” by John Lennon or “Peace on Earth” by U2.

Tuesday, Sept. 29
Watch the 18-minute film Civilian Unarmed Peacekeeping: Building a Nonviolent Peaceforce, documenting the social and economic benefits of unarmed civilian peacekeeping as trained Nonviolent Peaceforce workers seek to create a safe space for peace within conflict areas. View at: http://tinyurl.com/n7xvl9.

Wednesday, Sept. 30
Spend time with your children and family discussing the social and healthful benefits of practicing peace among their friends and community.

Thursday, Oct. 1
Plant a rock for peace. www.plantingrocksforpeace.org

Friday, Oct. 2
Celebrate Gandhi’s birth anniversary – and the U.N. International Day of Nonviolence – by borrowing Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth – from your local public library.

If you’re interested in taking part, let us know. We’d love to hear about it, and we’d be happy to be your blog of choice for September 23′s activity. Send in your experiences and we’ll post them.

My present travels in Costa Rica with the photographer Lucas Foglia, through a sequence of chance connections and exaggerated truths, landed us the opportunity to be in the press section at today’s meeting between (Nobel laureate) President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica and the two contenders for the presidency of neighboring Honduras. We understand our work here more under the auspices of art than plain reporting—to the point that we ultimately thought more about the press corps gazing upon the performances than the content of the acts themselves, whose Spanish we couldn’t fully understand anyway.

This was the scene: reporters gathered in a cordoned-off half-block of street in front of Arias’s house, with all their thick wires, cameras large and small, questions, computers, recorders, hook-ups, makeup, grumbles, and banter. There was a stage set up at the front of our pen, by the entrance to the house, surrounded by potted plants and guarded by tourist police in white shirts armed only with the friendliest-looking of clubs. Most press stayed all day, mainly waiting from morning through evening. We arrived in mid-afternoon. Not long after, at the back of the press area, on the opposite site of the press section from the prepared stage, a cluster of protesters arrived, bearing flags and banners in revolutionary red, shouting familiar slogans. There was a charge to the rear, pulling correspondents from their posts at the presidents’ stage. I joined.

Dozens of bored reporters finally had something to do, fixing their lenses and microphones and adrenaline on the passionate ones making so much noise through their loudspeakers. Against militarism. Against the powers that be and their inexhaustible corruption. One dressed as Che. An effigy burned. I let my voice recorder take in a speech from one of the ringleaders, far too fast for me to understand. I took too many pictures that have already been taken before in countless places, at countless protests. My hope was to find somewhere its unique vitality, doubtlessly somewhere, awaiting its capture by a sympathetic observer who could make this event really exist by recording it, by broadcasting it, by turning it from what it was to what it represents.

On the other side, the large, immovable cameras still awaited the presidents. They fixed on an empty stage, or on the door from which these men would emerge.

Will this sacred dissent be heard over the decorous speeches, I wondered? They were loud. We, among our cameras and our wires that ran under us like roots in a forest, were huddled between two competing performances, each competing for its presence in the final ontology of that moment. According to research I’ve seen in cognitive science, while people may be able to talk abstractly about the possibility of simultaneous things, “in fact” (says the science) no—in the intuitive processes of human minds, only one event can happen at any given time and be an event, fully. As gatekeepers of event-ness in media culture, the cameras adjudicated a contest of two events, one on either side of the street.

Each had its violence, each had its peace. On one side, a gracious act of conflict resolution among the heads of inevitably murderous states (even, one way or another, military-less Costa Rica). On the other, a riotous cry for an end to injustice and bloodshed.

But I should have expected what happened. Well in time for the actual arrival of the men, as I listened to (and recorded) a long speech about the tragedy of politics from a Honduran photographer, the protests calmly faded away. I didn’t see if it was police or simply being finished that did them in, though I suspect some eerie combination of the two. The air was clear and quiet for, not too long after, the arrival of the powerful.

We stayed only for the appearance by Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the Honduran coup, flanked by Arias. Micheletti spoke—something about elections and the rule of law—but I watched Arias intently. He has a wonderful expression on his face, apparently always. So sad, so stern, so mournful. Whatever he is, for whatever it could possibly be worth, he does look like he carries all the suffering of the world in his expression, as one perpetually in the presence of futility, either right there before him or, at least, during a fleeting moment of progress, in the corner of his eye.

But I don’t know if that’s worth anything at all. I didn’t even get a good picture of him. And I still have to read all the papers to figure out what’s (really, factually, politically) going on, and who I think is on the brave side of right and peace and justice, which is the only peace. On the evening Costa Rican newscast, it goes without saying, only one of the two performances appeared. Only one event, apparently, really happened.

(Photos and video are mine, not Lucas’s, by the way.)

In his own words:

Cartagena, who worked as a streetworker at the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, had once been a gang member, in and out of jail for years. He finally turned his life around and became a respected force for peace and justice in the community. Says the Institute’s website:

In recent years, he was recognized by law enforcement and community organizations as a skilled mediator and valuable partner.  A gifted public speaker and storyteller, he was sought after as a speaker in nonviolence trainings.  He testified before Congress on gang intervention strategies and has worked with professionals in Connecticut, Guatemala, Massachusetts, Detroit, Michigan and Portland, Oregon on ways to curb youth violence.

In the early morning of May 31st, Cartagena was killed in a car accident on I-95 in Providence.

Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) is pleased to share today the release of Mr. Umar Jaleel, an NP international civilian peacekeeper working on Basilan Island in the Mindanao region of the Philippines who was kidnapped from the NP residence by a group of armed men on Friday, Feb. 13.  Jaleel is alive and is currently en route to medical facilities.  He was released today at 1245 UTC.  Jaleel was released through negotiations between a spokesperson for the captors and NP, with the assistance of local contacts supported by the provincial administration.

[…]

The release was accomplished nonviolently and without payment of ransom.

NP is an important experiment in using trained, paid peacemakers in conflict situations as an alternative to armed troops. Jaleel exemplifies their interfaith, intercultural approach:

Jaleel, an experienced Sri Lankan peaceworker and a Muslim, is widely admired and respected in the area of Basilan, where he is working. He began working for NP in 2004 in Sri Lanka to resolve disputes among communities in the Trincomalee district of Sri Lanka. Last October, he was asked to begin working in the Philippines to help improve Muslim-Christian relations and support local peace organizations and structures of peace to consolidate peace processes.  His efforts helped to strengthen the role of local civil society organizations and peace advocates in monitoring a fragile ceasefire between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and various armed groups on the island of Basilan.