The power of contact in the rehumanization process

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Jasper Van Assche, a professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium, comes to Nonviolence Radio to talk to Michael and Stephanie about his research on the power of contact — direct and indirect — to decrease prejudice and cultivate tolerance and social cohesion within diverse and potentially antagonized groups. ‘Contact theory’ has been shown to lead to harmony and an enlarged sense of a common good, even when there are limited resources and competing interests. In short,cgenuine and meaningful contact with different kinds of people tends to humanize the dehumanized ‘other.” This kind of contact can be difficult to realize, especially where there is long entrenched prejudice and little or no institutional support to bring it about. However, contact itself is simple and readily available to all of us and Jasper’s research will perhaps inspire us to start to build that support within our own communities:

If you’re a policymaker, no matter what level, if it’s just for your local neighborhood or the country or the region where you live, I would try to help people to engage in contact. I think that’s the initial step. We know that there is a barrier. But once we cross that barrier, and we engage, and we have encounters with other people, it has such a strong effect, and it will change the way you look at them. It might change your worldview. It might actually, what we call, deprovincialize you and make you a different person. So, I would definitely advise people that are listening to go out there and help people to have contact experiences.

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Stephanie: Greetings everybody and welcome to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I’m your host, Stephanie Van Hook and I’m here with my co-host and news anchor, Michael Nagler of the Nonviolence Report. And we’re from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, California.

On today’s episode we speak with Jasper Van Assche. He’s a professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium. And he speaks to us about his research on contact theory. It’s a theory that suggests that the more contact that people have, the more willing they are to rehumanize and understand each other, even across their personal differences.

Now, this all seems somewhat common sense, but the research suggests as well that this can be applied to the way that we construct societies and cities and towns. This is important to think about how our spaces are segregated and how we can reintegrate them and to what effect. Let’s turn now to that interview.

Jasper: I’m a social and political psychologist and I work at the University of Ghent in Belgium as a senior postdoctoral researcher, and also as a lecturer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, which is the free university in Brussels, also in Belgium.

My PhD was all about ethnic diversity and its effects on society. And then during my postdoc and nowadays, I focus on integral contact. So, the experience that we can have with people from other social backgrounds. Also, on prejudice reduction, and related themes.

Stephanie: Is there anything in your background that got you interested in these topics in particular?

Jasper: Yeah. From a personal point-of-view, so during my youth, I often had experiences, for example, children of migration background. And I noticed that they were struggling quite a bit.

And actually, my interest in doing academic research that also aids societal change came from my internship in South Africa where I worked part-time at the South African Police Services, and part-time at the University of Pretoria. And there actually saw how both can feed one another, and actually, we need both to make real change. Just in general, the private and public sector can be informed by academic research and its results. But also, vice versa. Some of my research areas come from my discussions, for example, with friends, but also with people that are working with politicians, for example.

The themes, the topics that are important nowadays, they come from both the public, but also from theoretical advancements. And that’s how I see this kind of feedback loop where one informs the other.

Stephanie: Could you talk about the contact hypothesis and what that is and how that works?

Jasper: Yeah. So, the contact hypothesis has been around for quite some time in social sciences. It originated in the 50s with the work of Gordon Allport. And actually, after World War II, he asked himself, how can we reduce conflict in society? He mainly focused on ethnic cultural groups. And then also in the United States, during that time, there was the desegregation of schools. His theory informed the decision-making at that time as well.

And he put forward that, under the right conditions, having positive experiences with people of another social, ethnic, cultural, religious background could improve our tolerance and reduce our prejudice against them. Which, well, this theory has developed, and 50 years later, the vast majority of studies show that it does work.

And there has been a meta analysis, for example, in 2006. A meta analysis is an analysis that looks at all of the studies in the past that have examined the contact hypothesis. Tom Pettigrew and Linda Tropp showed that it has a big effect and is trustworthy and can be confident that it works.

I always compare it to the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. We all know that it’s not a one-in-one relationship. But we do know that smoking increases your chances of having lung cancer at some point. And it’s the same with intergroup contact.

The more experiences we have with others and the higher the quality of those experiences, the more intimate, the more you work towards the friendship that is enduring, the more it will reduce your prejudice.

And that’s actually how we got into the debate, and we tried to put this theory to another test by looking at individuals that are high on threat, for example, but are also high on discrimination. So, we wanted to see, does contact actually work for everybody, or just certain individuals where we notice that it doesn’t work? So, that’s how we developed our own research hypothesis.

Michael: Excellent. I wish you had been in my program when I was teaching at Berkeley, Jasper.

Jasper: Thank you.

Michael: Could you say a little bit more – you mentioned that it’s “under the right circumstances” contact would be helpful in reducing conflict. Could you say a bit more about what those circumstances would be?

Jasper: Yeah. So, in the original hypothesis, there were four conditions that needed to be satisfied. In the meta analysis, Pettigrew and Tropp actually showed that these conditions help. They are beneficial, but they are not necessary, or essential to have a contact effect.

And these four conditions were basically having institutional support. Especially in the United States, that was important because, for example, the government needed to be supportive of the desegregation programs. Otherwise, contact wouldn’t work, and it would actually – or could potentially – have contradictory effects where it would increase prejudice, which is not, of course, what we would like or want.

Another example of one of the key conditions – now I have to dig back into my mind – is equal status. So, also originating back in the 50s, there was a clear – and actually nowadays still – there is a clear difference in the status of certain groups. For example, in the US, whites tend to have a higher status than blacks.

This is also found in Europe, for example, with people without-versus-with a migration background, but also in contexts such as South Africa, to name one. So, if the status is not equal, then contact could not work.

Maybe the best example is back in the days of slavery. There were a lot of interactions between blacks and whites everywhere. But clearly, there was no equal status.

Another condition is common goals. Which means that people – contact works better if you have a common goal to work towards. If there’s a common problem, we need to work together to achieve that goal.

And one of the classic studies that is often taught in introductory social psychology courses is the Sherif experiments, where two groups were created at a boy’s scout camp.

Michael: Oh yeah.

Jasper: Basically – it rings a bell, probably. So, they actually increased conflict between the groups because they had to compete for certain tasks and certain little games that they played. And you saw that actually prejudice toward the other group increased a lot and people were actually very proud of their own group. They had a flag, and they started to identify with that proper group.

At the end of the week there, there was a common task where they had to – I think they had to push a van up the hill. And it was impossible to do that alone with their own group, so they had to work together. And that’s how actually the beneficial effect of working together was even bigger because there was a common goal.

And the fourth condition, if I remember correctly, is cooperation. So, of course, if there’s competition, contact might not be beneficial. But if there is cooperation, it should.

Michael: Yeah. That was the Sherif and Sherif study.

Jasper: Yeah.

Michael: That was – yes, that was so important. My second question is this, Jasper, do you think that the kind of contact matters a great deal? I’m thinking of our age today, where we have so much remote virtual “contact” with people. Does that help as much as actually face-to-face contact? What have the studies shown?

Jasper: Yeah. That’s a very relevant question, especially nowadays, of course. There are different types of contact. And I will try to sum them up in a more coherent way. So, first of all, there’s a distinction between direct and indirect experiences.

As you mentioned, you can have a direct experience with someone. When you meet someone at the bakery, for example, or in school, at work, etc. These types of experiences typically have a larger effect.

But you can also have indirect experiences. For example, online, but also knowing or having a friend, for example, that has a friend from the other group. Or knowing people that have had positive encounters with people of another group, that could also help.

These effects are a little bit smaller, but they’re also significant, which means that they do work. And maybe an example that I can give from my own context. In Belgium, you have two linguistic groups. In the north, Flemish people live, who speak Dutch. In the south, French-speaking people, is where Walloons live.

And because of this, this natural, I would say linguistic border, direct contact experiences are difficult to obtain, especially if you live far north or far south; there’s not much room to meet each other.

But indirect experience, for example, through the media or the political platform, etc., or online as well, these are definitely a possibility. And studies have shown also in our little country that contact experiences, both direct and indirect, can have beneficial effects for these two linguistic communities.

Another difference is, of course, the nature of the contact. This is positive versus negative. And there, something interesting is going on in the current literature. So, about ten years back, there was an influential paper that actually created a sub-theory called, the contact caveat hypothesis, which says that positive contact is more frequent, but negative contact has a stronger effect.

And this hypothesis has been tested a lot. Basically, the initial studies showed that the beneficial effects of positive intergroup contact are lower than the detrimental effects of having negative experiences.

And there’s a rule of thumb basically saying that for every seven positive encounters that we have, one negative encounter should be actually enough to delete all of the beneficial effects.

Nowadays, there’s been a lot of studies across different contexts in the world showing that this contact caveat hypothesis is not entirely true. And usually – and this is also what we found in our analysis – the effects of positive and negative contacts are about equal in terms of size. But of course, they go in two opposite directions.

So, having negative contact experience is never good, but actually having positive contact experiences in the past can buffer against the effects of those negative experiences. Basically, it is detrimental, but it’s not more detrimental than positive contact is beneficial, I would say.

Maybe a final word on intergroup friendships – because that’s a kind of different form of contact because it’s more intimate, it’s more long-lasting. And these types of experiences have been shown to have even bigger effects.

So, the biggest contact effects are typically found with friends. Having friends of another group is actually the best way to reduce your prejudice. Not only towards the individuals in your friend group, but also towards their whole category. And even there are so-called secondary transfer effects of these contact experiences.

Also, these beneficial effects can transfer to other groups as well. These can be other religious groups, for example, but also unrelated groups such as, let’s say, refugees coming into the country.

Michael: Fascinating. Are there studies which correlate the effective stereotyping and contact? Isn’t it true that there are correlations` between, or differences between the stereotypes and the degree of contact or the mode of contact? In other words, if you’re predisposed to see people from another group in a negative light, you will tend to notice negative characteristics or characteristics which you regard as negative and vice versa?

Jasper: Yeah. That’s a very, very valid argument. And it’s partly confirmed in research. So, it is true that there is a correlation between all sorts of personality and ideological attitudes or crates that are related to prejudice or so-called prone to prejudice personalities. I’m thinking of authoritarian dispositions, but also being less open-minded, etc.

Typically, there is a negative correlation with the reported positive intergroup contact. Which means that they say that they have less frequent encounters, less positive encounters – more negative encounters, so these – their predispositions kind of also have an effect on the way they look at the contact experiences.

Moreover, there’s a big, big effect of these predispositions on avoidance of contact. And I think that’s the crucial part here. Often, it’s quite easy to avoid people that have a different background in your life. And we notice that people that are prone to prejudice are kind of good in that.

And actually, in studies where we have looked across time, we have shown that ironically, if for example, neighborhoods become more ethnically diverse, people with a majority background that are prone to prejudice, over time, will actually develop more intergroup encounters, more positive, but also more negative.

And why is that? Because they kind of – they’re fairly low and fairly good at avoiding contact, but at some point, it is just inevitable. And then they kind of go with the flow and engage with other groups. And in the long run, this could indicate – studies still have to investigate that – that a diverse society where there is a lot of intergroup contact could actually be a tolerant society as well.

But you’re right that these kinds of attitude, where we also focus on, for example, people that are very threatened by immigration or by diversity, this can hamper engaging in contact. But if these people do engage in contact, then we tend to find similarly high effects, or similarly beneficial effects.

So, even for those that are, for example, highly threatened or those that are highly authoritarian, those that are less open to new experiences, if they engage in contact, they also show a reduction in prejudice and an increase in positivity and an increase in trust, etc.

Stephanie: It seems like a difficult topic in a way because we wanted it to hold promise for conflict resolution and nonviolence, but without what you said of the importance of – without institutional support, how are contacts going to be able to negotiate those differences and their prejudices?

So, can you give any examples of times when there wasn’t institutional support and neighbors, people were able nonetheless to come together through their own, building kind of alternative institutions or alternative moral force to whatever larger state institution there was? Was it a positive influence in contact?

Jasper: So, this factor is – let’s say a factor that could boost contact effect, if the government or the institution support having contact experiences, but it’s not essential. So, even, for instance, studies in South Africa, during or just after the end of apartheid, they showed that if, for example, blacks and whites came together, the effects of contact were there, and they were reducing the prejudices towards each other and actually increasing the intentions to reconcile with one another into kind of reconcile with the past as well.

Of course, in these studies, they also show that people still like to avoid contact. There are these very interesting studies, and they have been done in, for example, one of the most popular beaches in Cape Town where hour after hour and day after day, people took pictures, like screenshots from a drone, of those beaches and they – each time highlighted where people were sitting.

And then they made like an average of all of those pictures showing that whites and blacks, but also other groups such as Asian South Africans, kind of liked to sit with one another. Nowadays, they are free to choose which side of the beach they would go to, but they kind of chose to stick with their own kind.

Which is also found, for example, in the UK in a school cafeteria. There, they showed that the Asian and non-Asian kids kind of had their own little spaces in the cafeteria, if you aggregate over time, for example, where people choose to sit down to have their lunch.

So, it is a challenge. And if you talk about moving beyond past violence and having a harmonious society, I think one of the biggest things that could hamper having these contact experiences, a natural tendency – it’s called, the homophilia principle, where you go with your own group. And it’s easy to avoid having experiences with other groups. But once we do, they’re very beneficial.

Stephanie: So, in a way, this research can help people as individuals who hear this and realize that they can move out of their comfort zone and initiate contact with other groups as a way of starting to break down more – greater societal barriers. Is there any evidence that when you witness another individual doing this, that you’re more inclined or?

Jasper: Yeah. So, some experimental studies have invited people to watch a video of, for example, two people of different backgrounds having a positive experience. And that shows to be beneficial, to have an effect compared to a control group, for example, that was watching a nature documentary.

So, these things work. We have also conducted a study with colleagues in Italy where we used a series that was playing at the time, where there was a lot of intergroup contact experience, both positive and negative. And we showed those to the participants. And then another group was shown, for example, experiences between people of the same ethnic cultural background.

And there, you could also clearly see that watching positive intergroup encounters reduces prejudice. And this was even found a month later, for example, when we assessed people’s attitudes again.

So, even a direct contact, for example, is difficult to obtain or unwanted or unlikely, then still, these indirect encounters can work or can be beneficial too, indeed.

Michael: I want to run something by you, an observation that I’m not sure is correct. I just wonder what you think of it. And that is the number of groups, identifiably different groups, that are in conflict, can make a big difference. The worst situation is when a group, the mélange, is perceived as a duality. I’m basing this on a comment that I read from an Indian farmer in Punjab, who said that, “For years and years in our villages there was absolute peace because there was complete diversity.”

You know, you could recognize seven or eight different religious commitments. And then somehow when it all became dualized, as Hindu and Muslim, then the ‘versus’ comes in, and then the hostility flared up out of control. Is that something that you think has been recognized in the studies? Or what would you think of it?

Jasper: Yeah. Personally, I haven’t done research looking at the amount of groups and its effects on, let’s say, intergroup harmony. I can imagine, and often it’s more of a reality that the more groups there are, the more complex and nuanced the effects will be.

And I think researchers often make the mistake of dichotomizing between, for example, blacks and whites or between majority/minority or advantaged/disadvantaged. And this duality doesn’t always reflect the complexity that there is. And even if you look at, for example, in the Western European context to immigration, there is a big difference between where those immigrants come from.

I know of one study conducted in Switzerland that looked at valued versus devalued immigrants. And there there was a different effect. So, Switzerland is quite diverse, but it has – in its diversity, it has a lot of groups that are welcomed actually because they contribute to the economy, or they’re expats or whatnot.

And they showed that actually this type of diversity doesn’t necessarily increase conflict or doesn’t necessarily increase prejudice, but it’s the unwanted diversity, so to say, that basically drives the negative effects.

So, I think there’s a lot more to do both theoretically, but also in our research about this to develop this hypothesis even further to see within those different groups. Also, if you talk about religious diversity within the different denominations that are there, where do we find the effects?

And for example, is it true that having contact with someone from a different religious background transfers not only to your attitudes towards people of that background, but also to different religious groups. That would be something that, I think, has been done, but not to an extent that we can have conclusive answers for.

Michael: Well, as a fellow academic, Jasper, you’ll recognize where this question is coming from because if you ever had any experience teaching undergrads. And that is, is there a non-technical literature that’s available to the public that communicates some of these very important findings?

Jasper: There are a few journals that are specifically targeting first year university students in social sciences.

One name that comes to mind, Current Directions in Psychological Science. That’s a very interesting journal because these articles are also quite short. So, in 3-4000 words you actually have a gist of an overview of what the field has been doing and where it’s going at the moment. So, I think I would definitely recommend that.

Stephanie: Have you done any studies in, or seen any stories or studies in Israel/Palestine, as an example?

Jasper: I think that’s – because of the segregation in that society – one of the examples of a context where direct encounters are difficult. And if they are, then they’re often rather negative or in, let’s say, a situation of unequal status.

So, I’m thinking of the checkpoints where people from Palestine have to go through if they want to enter, for example, to go to work in Israel. So, that’s a thing that’s a typical situation where intergroup contact might not be that beneficial.

There is some research being done on contact in that context, particularly, from both sides, actually. I know of some work by [Name] who’s working in Palestine, but also some people in Israel, such as [Name], if I pronounced his name correctly, are doing research how these experiences of contact can change the way the Israelis, for example, identify. But also, the way they look at the conflict narrative, if and how they would see a resolution of the problem over there.

Stephanie: And then what about in any studies taking place in the conflict in Ukraine?

Jasper: Yeah, that’s a tricky one as well. Since the start of the invasion, I don’t know of any studies being done there on intergroup contact experiences. It’s also hard, I think, nowadays to collect data from both sides.

In the past, I think, that intergroup contact was quite common, especially at the border where it’s happening now, because there were also a lot of friendship and family ties. Or from what I hear, there’s a lot of people from the east of Ukraine that still have relatives living in Russia and vice versa.

So, because of the shared background and history that they have, now being enemies must be quite weird or awful. And if you think, for example, of direct contact that’s virtually possible nowadays, or it will be negative if you hold a gun towards another person.

On the other hand, indirect contact via media, for example, will also rarely be positive. We all know of the way, for example, Russia is now portraying Ukrainians. And you briefly mentioned rehumanization. I think there they’re specifically dehumanizing the other group to justify the violence against them.

So, all of these signals are actually not what intergroup contact should be about. They are only reinforcing negative use of the other group. So, it’s hard there to think of contact as one of the, let’s say, tools to come to a solution just because it’s so difficult to engage in nowadays.

Stephanie: You know, I’m actually thinking back to the question in Israel/Palestine. We spoke with someone named Ali Abu Awad. And we interviewed him for a film we did called The Third Harmony. And Ali Abu Awad is a Palestinian activist, had been imprisoned. He said he never had contact with an Israeli actually until he – or I guess a positive contact with an Israeli until he was in his 30s. And they were brought together into a group. And this Israeli woman was crying, and he was crying. They were both grieving the loss of family members of the conflict.

And he said that that moment of contact actually changed the whole direction of his life because from then he realized that this Israeli woman was human like he was. And then he ended up becoming an activist working toward a solution that humanizes Israelis and humanizes Palestinians at the same time. So, it was really – that’s why I think contact theory holds so much promise, too.

Jasper: Yeah. True. True. That’s an excellent example. And I think if we take the time to get to know the other group, and especially if you listen to these witnesses, then these stories are very powerful, and they can actually change the whole way you look at society, or the way you look at the other groups.

I agree with you. That’s a very promising strategy and I think it would especially help for people that are, for example, very threatened or for people that feel that they themselves or their group is discriminated against quite a lot. For them, having these positive encounters will be very beneficial.

Stephanie: I’m also thinking about groups that do something called Third Party Nonviolent Intervention. And I wonder what you think about this. So, a group like Nonviolent Peaceforce is one example. They work with an international group of peacekeepers who are able to use nonviolent strategies when they’re invited into a conflict situation, to come and try to hold space for groups who are in conflict, to be able to come together and have somebody listening to both sides and creating mediation spaces. They do a number of things, including psychological support.

But I wonder too, if it could be the case that contact with this group of internationals that are invited into the conflict also helps to reduce the prejudice between the two groups themselves because they’re getting the experience first of reducing their fear and prejudice of this external group in some way.

Jasper: Yeah. Indeed. I think this neutral party could facilitate the initial contact which might be a bit rusty or people might be hesitant to engage in these, for example, discussions. So, I think it could really help. Maybe it’s also a start for getting Russians and Ukrainians back together on the table to talk, because I think they definitely would need a neutral moderator, so to say, that could help to facilitate the initial intergroup contact again. Yeah.

Michael: That ties together with what I was saying earlier, I think, about the fact that a duality tends to produce conflict where a multiplicity might not. So, just to be a third party – yeah, go ahead.

Jasper: Yeah. Indeed.

Michael: I wanted to share briefly an experience. I don’t usually move in these circles, but a friend of mine’s father was a vice president of Pan American Airlines. And they had a British team and an American team. And they were not communicating. Things were not going very well at all.

And so, he invited both of them to a joint meeting at some kind of a resort area in the US, Aspen, or something like that. And after a week of chatting together, having meals together – of course, this was quite an important bonding experience, they went back to their respective places and were able to resolve all of these difficulties. It was quite dramatic.

Jasper: Yeah. No. I can concur with that because a lot and literature or studies in work psychology look at, for example, mergers between firms or organizations where two teams, like you say, from different countries have to work together.

Initially, it tends to create problems or tends to create the group dynamic of us versus them. But if you really bring them together – and it’s funny that you mention food because in our lab in Brussels, the doctoral students of 20 years ago published this study how sharing food is a very, very, let’s say, beneficial way to promote and smoothen the contact experience because it’s something that is really important.

And I think you’ve also been to academic conferences. If you network with other academics, it’s also easier with a bit of food.

Stephanie: Well, it also makes me think of the challenge faced by activists who want to make people sympathetic to their cause, but if they enter into a polarized discussion by using polarizing means such as, you know, aggressive protest actions, for example. So, it could end up leading to negative interactions with that group and greater stereotyping of who those protesters are. Does that resonate with you at all?

Jasper: Yes. I think there’s a lot to say about what we label a collective action. And normative versus non normative collective action. It has an interesting link with intergroup contact because if you look at it from the perspective of an advantaged group, having a lot of positive encounters will increase their willingness to support collective action.

For example, white Americans supporting Black Lives Matter or even going on the streets, for example, as an ally. But from the other side, there is research looking at the disadvantaged groups. And there, we find this so-called ironic effect, that having a lot of intergroup encounters diminishes your willingness to engage in intergroup contact.

And it actually makes you think or makes you not see that there is still, for example, inequality. There is still differential treatment of your group compared to the other group. And these effects are small, but they’re there. So, it’s something to take into account that – there’s this very, very interesting dynamic between having contact experiences. And at the same time, then fighting for the rights of your group and how you will do that. Do you do it in a peaceful way or in a more violent way, for example?

Michael: Yeah. And we consistently find that when you choose a more nonviolent method, it helps to rehumanize you in the eyes of the opposition party.

Jasper: Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine that, indeed.

Stephanie: What would be your recommendations, based on your research, for anybody out there listening who wants to build a more peaceful world, what would you suggest?

Jasper: If you’re a policymaker, no matter what level, if it’s just for your local neighborhood or the country or the region where you live, I would try to help people to engage in contact. I think that’s the initial step. We know that there is a barrier. But once we cross that barrier, and we engage, and we have encounters with other people, it has such a strong effect, and it will change the way you look at them.

It might change your worldview. It might actually, what we call, deprovincialize you and make you a different person. So, I would definitely advise people that are listening to go out there and help people to have contact experiences.

Stephanie: Beautiful. Thank you so much.

You’re at Nonviolence Radio and we’ve been listening to an interview with Jasper Van Assche from the University of Ghent in Belgium about contact theory.

Nonviolence Report

Let’s turn now the Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler.

Michael: Greetings everyone. This is Michael Nagler and this is the Nonviolence Report for the beginning of September 2023.

And I’d like to start off today’s report a little bit unusually with the last part of a poem. It’s a poem by Cesar Chavez. And these are the last two quatrains of it.

“Let us remember those who have died for justice, for they have given us life. Help us love even those who hate us, so we can change the world. Amen.”

On September 17, coming up soon, there will be a march. A fairly major march in New York to end fossil fuels. It’s going to take place right in Manhattan. And some chapters of the Third Act, the organization that was founded by Bill McKibben, among many others, will be participating. And Bill McKibben’s comment is, “We’ll get more of a sense then about whether the impossible heat will carry political consequences.”

So, many groups are involved, and this call will be to ask President Biden to stop fossil fuel extraction before the 2024 election. This is an issue that affects not only violence toward the Earth, but because of the way the extraction industry operates. It’s violence of different kinds, among many different communities. So, that would be a consummation devoutly to be wished. And it could change history at that election in 2024.

In Kentucky, Representative Hal Rogers snuck some language into the House Appropriations Bill which would fast track the construction of a 1400 bed federal prison. Ironically, they would put this on former mountaintop removal sites in eastern Kentucky. And it would cost half a billion dollars.

So, this language aims to approve federal correctional institution, Letcher – that’s the area in Kentucky – within 30 days. A dangerous precedent because it would bypass the environmental review process and end up stripping citizens of their constitutional rights to provide public comment on the proposed legislation, leading to what they call, “An unneeded federal prison.”

So, if this language remains in that final legislation, it has the potential to bar community input on federal projects like this in the future. One of the groups opposing it is called Building Communities not Prisons. I really like that title. Building Community, not Prisons. It’s a coalition of people who oppose the construction of the correctional institute and demand better options for their county and for the communities of color that are always most impacted by mass incarceration. A grievous problem throughout our country, incidentally.

A secondary issue with this prison, it’s also not unexampled throughout the story of mass incarceration, is that here, inmates would be far from home and loved ones, making visits very difficult, especially for poor people.

Now, here’s another problem that’s reaching very high proportions that we need to somehow cope with. There are nearly 600,000 homeless people across the US. There’s been a big surge since the government began tracking this data in 2007. So, if you look at a major city like Los Angeles where there’s a lot of homelessness, the homeless populations have increased almost 10% from last year. Of course, it was made a lot worse by the pandemic.

So, there’s an organization called Advocacy to Alleviate Homelessness. They have done the research and presented us with the following data. This is on the costs involved. They figure, the Advocacy to Alleviate Homelessness, figures that it would cost over $20 billion to end this crisis.

Now, between you and me, listening to the Nonviolence Report, that sounds like an awful lot of money. But let’s just take a look at how the present administration is spending money. $43 billion on military aid for Ukraine, $10 billion on federal stimulus to boost already militarized police – a problem we’re not touching on in this report – and $80 billion on public prisons and jails. So, that’s four times what it would take to end homelessness and keep a lot of people out of those prisons and jails.

Now, let me share with you three items of various kinds that I’ve gotten from our friend Rivera – Rivera Sun. She points out that in the 1500s, in Italy, a salt tax boycott was organized by regions that had been brought under the control of the papal states.

Now, this is quite a good piece of history for us to think about, given the fact that the Salt March and the Salt Campaign was really the pivoting point in Gandhi’s Freedom Struggle. But as a minor result, saltless bread is still considered a regional dish in those parts of Italy.

Also, in Ireland – ancient Ireland had a practice of the hunger strike. And that was acknowledged under Brehon law as a means of compelling a stronger party to justice. So, nonviolence goes way, way back there. And it’s quite likely that every town, city, and corner of the globe has a bit of nonviolence history hiding in plain sight. “And wouldn’t it be wonderful, Rivera points out, “if someone could collect all those stories?”

Of course, we’ve made good starts with the Global Nonviolent Action Database and similar research that’s coming out of Nonviolence International and other organizations. But this makes me think of the Chipko movement in the Himalayan regions of India, especially I think it was, around the state of Uttarakhand, where women in particular, went out and hugged the trees. Chipko being regional Hindi for hug. They hugged trees to prevent them from being chopped down, cleared for making tennis racket handles and things like that.

And then it was discovered that in the Middle Ages, a large number of women committed suicide to prevent the king of the area from doing exactly that, from clear-cutting their region. And in a little while, I’ll be sharing with you a story of a Moroccan woman named, Lady Aziza. But I want to continue with these three items.

So, another one is called, “No War 2023: Resisting war and militarism.” And I’m happy to say that Metta is one of the endorsing organizations. It’s a World Beyond Wars online conference. And it’ll be three days of speakers and presenters, workshops, and discussions on the theme this year of nonviolent resistance to militarism.

Finally, “People, Power, Peace: When Civil Society Stops War.” On November 8, Rivera will join Portland State University Professor Tom Hastings to offer a virtual talk on how everyday people have stopped war – or at least stopped a way. Contrary to common view, wars are not always prevented by diplomacy. Sometimes societies raise up and stop them or keep them from breaking out. And sometimes it’s just individuals.

And now here’s where I want to get to Lady Aziza. So, it’s not just colossal figures like the Buddha who single-handedly can stop a war. But this woman stood between two armies in North Africa in the middle of the 14th century. She was called Lalla Aziza, or Lady of Goodness. She lived in a safe area up in the mountains of Seksawa, came out of that safe region into the harsh plains of Marrakesh to confront a – well, I would call him a warlord, by the name of al-Hintati, who was a powerful general who was bringing all of Morocco under his control with military means, of course.

And here’s a direct quote from al-Hintati, “She spoke of God’s demands for justice, the pull of the good and the wrong of harming God’s creatures. And so, with her words, she turned back 6000 men who were bent on conquest.” Hintati goes on to say, “She answered me before I could ask anything of her. I was not able to counter her argument to reject her requests.”

So, to move onto another major problem in the US this time. Again, a related problem, and that is gun violence. There is a sobering thought here that I want to share with you to remind us of the importance of our work. Here’s a quote, “Since the beginning of the year, there have been more than 475 shooting massacres in the United States.” This is data collected by the Gun Violence Archive.

If this pace continues, this year will see more mass shootings than in the three years prior – 2019 to 2022. But we are seeing the beginnings of some kind of solution. For example, the counties that hosted a rally for President Trump in 2016 actually saw a 226% increase in hate crimes. But it now seems that that trend is reversing. “Americans are beginning to reject hate” is a statement that you find in the reports.

Pastors, in particular, are speaking out against hate. And while it’s premature to say that the era of racism and hate is over, it does seem from national radio and TV call-in shows that America has begun a much-needed healing. And here’s a curious angle. There are two entertainment events that seem to have helped this change.

One, is the film “Barbie,” which is a great surprise to me. I had no idea what was going on in this film, and I just assumed it was sexist. And the other is Taylor Swift’s tour because she spoke out against hate. And that is really part of a long tradition where entertainers use their popularity, their presence, their authority to say something good, something useful.

And another encouraging beginning of a solution are gun buybacks. In Houston, Texas recently, 1400 weapons were bought back from citizens. And one organization that’s particularly active in this area is the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. And I mention them also because they’re looking for a new executive director. So, if you’re interested, get in touch with Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and tell them we sent you.

Now, I’d like to share a couple of other resources. In India, there is an organization called, “The Gandhi Research Foundation,” which we visited several years ago. A major library and resource center for everything in Gandhi’s legacy, started by a well-known and very well off Jain family.

So, they’re having a winter school, again, in 2023 to 2024 on Gandhian nonviolence and peace. So, the aim of it is nothing short of re-envisioning a socially and ecologically viable life. So, leading scholars and practitioners of nonviolence, peace, and sustainability will be there, and they’re hoping to provide a perspective which would help participants deal with the challenges confronting society around the world.

Now, if I may, I’d like to end up with a bit of a personal note. I say this because I have family members from Nicaragua. And I have been hearing, and probably you have also, almost nothing but bad about Nicaragua and Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, making it out to be the typical story of a revolutionary who became an autocrat when he came to power.

Now, I’m happy to say now this was probably, at least in part, a part of US propaganda. I fail to understand why, but our country has been against the progressive developments in Nicaragua ever since President Reagan, who was truly obsessed with Nicaragua and claimed that soviet communism had taken over the country and would be shortly afterward invading us.

So, today – and this item comes from Popular Resistance, their leadership actually visited Nicaragua, and they say there’s a lot we can learn from Nicaraguan people about how to organize, resist, and build a multicultural society based on participatory democracy empowerment and healing the Earth. They have an organization of workers which is similar to the famous MST in Brazil.

And they talk about – there’s a group called Sanctions Kill, and they recently had a delegation, and they provided a glimpse into the powerful work that ATC and other organizations are doing. But there’s much more to know about the programs and how they could be translated into our work here to hold our government accountable and transform our society. Why not?

One note that’s particularly relevant for our report. And that is that after the Contra war, it was the ATC that facilitated a reconciliation process between people who fought on both sides. So, today, Sandinistas and former Contras live and work side by side in many communities and belong to the same cooperatives.

When I was in Nicaragua, my understanding of what was going on was not quite that granular. I didn’t see that. But I did see that the Contra war had left a tremendous, traumatic mark on that country. So, if the ATC is facilitating a reconciliation process, not unlike, I suppose, the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa, that is a very important and very useful step forward. In fact, their motto is, “We are globalizing the struggle. We are globalizing hope.” So, that is that portion of the news that I’d like to reshare with you today.

But I’d like to close with the five principles or suggestions that we make at the Metta Center which will enable each of us, empower each of us, to make our best contribution to change towards a nonviolent world.

So, here are our five steps. You’ll find them in our film and on our website. The first is to exercise extreme caution about what you expose yourself to in the mass media. I think sometimes we don’t understand that an image of violence or even an image of disrespect by one person to another has an impact on our psyche, even though on a conscious level we say, “Oh, that was just a joke,” or, “I don’t believe it,” or, “That’s not affecting me. So, many studies have shown that exposure to images of violence are harmful.

Second, we now have freed up a lot of time. You’re not watching the media anymore. So, spend that time learning everything you can about nonviolence. It’s a very scientific fascinating theory, a very rich history, and a lot of thinking that can be done about its applications going forward.

Thirdly, we recommend – and this is very personal – but we have done it to great effect ourselves. And we like to recommend that people look around for a suitable spiritual practice. Even if you’re not damaging your consciousness with the mass media, there’s a lot of damage that’s already been done. And for many, many other reasons. Getting a sense of who we are, getting a sense for human dignity, that comes from a practice like meditation.

Fourth, our culture and a very large increase in population worldwide has tended to depersonalize us. So, we can overcome that by being very personal in all our relationships. Have a pleasant word to say with the person at the toll booth when you’re going across the bridge, and so on.

Finally, when you’ve done all of this, which would really be a significant preparation, then the time has come for you to assess where your best strengths and weaknesses match up with the needs of the world. I guarantee that you’ll find a place where you can make a really good contribution.

Good luck everyone until our next program.

Stephanie: This has been another episode of Nonviolence Radio. We want to thank our Mother Station, KWMR and to everyone who makes this show possible, including today’s guest Jasper Van Assche, to Michael Nagler for his Nonviolence Report, Matt Watrous, Annie Hewitt, Sophia Pechaty, to Brian Farrell over at Waging Nonviolence who helps syndicate the show and its transcript. Thank you very much. To all of our syndicator stations at Pacifica Network, thank you very much. If you’re looking for an archive of the show, head right on over to NonviolenceRadio.org. And so, all of our listeners, until the next time, please do take care of one another.