Last night at NYU’s Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, on the south side of Washington Square Park, Jacob George and Brock McIntosh spoke on behalf of Iraq Veterans Against the War about their experiences in Afghanistan, both as US Army soldiers and, most recently, as members of a Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegation.
They said a lot of good stuff. But one part that especially stuck out for your Waging Nonviolence correspondent was how McIntosh responded to a question about the prospects for nonviolence education both in the US military itself and among Afghans. He’s uncommonly optimistic about the latter, and he’s in a good position to know. Currently a conscientious objector in the National Guard, he has been spending the past year or so attending the best nonviolence trainings he can find, as well as making contacts among Afghans interested in fostering a culture of powerful nonviolence in their country.
[audio:BrockOnAfghanNV.mp3]
Download [4:34, 2.1MB]
Note, among much else, his mention of the impact of recent WNV contributor Maria Stephan‘s book Civilian Jihad.
You can also watch the whole event, complete with Jacob George’s banjo performance, here: