Nonviolence Radio

Stephanie and Michael welcome three guests this week on Nonviolence Radio. First, they talk to Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh and Steve Chase about their work together in Solidarity 2020 and Beyond. Responding to the isolation and suffering caused by COVID, Solidarity 2020 and Beyond offers hope and support to grassroots activists and organizations, providing them opportunities to network, to learn from each other and to collaborate through webinars and trainings. Solidarity 2020 and Beyond draws on the power inherent in sharing experiences and using them to educate and increase solidarity amongst all those who are striving — nonviolently —  to bring about change for good, wherever in the world they may be. …what we’re trying to do is to be driven by the grassroots activists, extremely flexible to respond to their needs, and not create an organization but realize there are amazing groups out there – Beautiful Trouble, ICNC, the Einstein Institute, Nonviolent Peaceforce, Metta Center, Waging Nonviolence, all the groups that are working on these issues. And African Youth Movement, Africans Rising – we’re very closely connected with them. And just trying to help bring groups together and find ways to do critical learning, research, and really spread the knowledge both to people that are doing the work on the ground as people learn from each other. …for the vast majority of people in the world that are not directly involved, but may be very hopeless right now, letting them know these amazing things are happening, and these amazing courageous people are out there changing the world for the better. It’s not time to give up hope, but really to have a vision for a better future. And that is possible. Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh The inspiring conversation with Katherine and Steve is followed by an equally powerful discussion with Mubarak Elamin, a Sudanese activist supporting the movement in Sudan. Mubarak talks about the astounding strength and courage of the Sudanes people, their determination to stand up for what they need, often risking their lives, working for peace and change: We’re actually learning from the streets of Sudan. It’s amazing, the creativity and how people are committed to – first, they’re committed to nonviolence and peaceful protest – peaceful actions. And the second thing they are doing also, organizing. And the third thing they are doing is also being really media savvy… And they just demonstrate that day in and day out. They’re speaking about, “We’re not out for bread. We’re not out for lower prices of gas. We’re out for our own freedom and to bring about some other high-level values to our life and to our people.” And they’re so determined to do that. So, it’s just really like when you see these, read these stories, it’s just heartfelt. The stories that all of these kids – I will call them heroes and warriors in a way or the other. Mubarak Elamin From all three guests this week, we see the power that comes when we actively listen to and connect […] The post How Listening to Experiences Builds Power appeared first on Metta Center.

Robert Levering comes to Nonviolence Radio this week to talk to Stephanie Van Hook and Michael Nagler about the film “The Boys Who Said No!” and the powerful draft resistance movement that helped to end the Vietnam War. Robert is an executive producer of the film, a position he is well suited to as he himself was a draft resister in the 1960s. In the interview, we hear how Robert worked collectively to refuse the draft, and more, to stand up actively and nonviolently to an unjust and oppressive system …the draft sort of makes it us vs. the government. It’s very frightening just individually to face the government and all the power it has. But the communities that we developed helped to give us the kind of strength that we really needed in order to do that confrontation. I know that I never would have – I don’t know what I would have done. I mean, you never can tell. But it made it really much, much easier to do something as part of a community rather than just simply doing it individually. Robert’s discussion of his work in the 60s reveals how groups like those opposing the war in Vietnam came together with the Civil Rights Movement to create a power that finally ‘overwhelmed’ the US government, pushing it to end the war and change some of its racist policies. We are seeing strong echoes of this kind of collaboration today, as shown in Michael’s nonviolence report at the end of the show: diverse groups dedicated to nonviolence in many different forms, directed at many causes are coming together, joining hands and actively building a better world. Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence. The post How to Escalate Nonviolence appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, Michael and Stephanie talk to Kathy Kelly, life-long nonviolence activist, co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and co-coordinator of the Ban Killer Drones Campaign. This week she discusses her extensive experience in and thoughts about Afghanistan. American intervention, she believes, was — and indeed, continues to be — entirely misoriented, escalating rather than resolving the violent conflicts there. She offers some practical and clear advice on what good and productive involvement might entail, and provides concrete ways we might engage. She also pushes us to reconsider our preconceived ideas, both about the Taliban and ourselves; in doing so we can start to empathize, re-humanize and be less afraid: First of all, I think we need to do what you and Michael have advocated in the Metta Center for a long time. We have to find the courage to control our fears. We have to become a public that isn’t so whipped-up into being afraid of this group, afraid of that group, that we will continue to bankroll efforts to kind of eliminate that group so that we don’t have to be afraid of them anymore. That’s one thing.I think it’s really important to keep on building up our sense of controlling our fears.  A second thing, very practically, is to get to know the people who are bearing the consequences of our wars and our displacement…My young friends in Afghanistan were emblematic of people who wanted to reach out to people on the other side of the divide. They talked about a border-free world. They wanted to have interethnic projects. Only when we truly look at Afghanistan, when we see it and its people in all their rich complexity can we come to a better understanding of what they want and need. Only by actively listening to individuals and groups on the ground will we learn how we might be able to join them in finding ways to resolve conflicts and rebuild. And all this depends on a firm commitment to nonviolence, genuine humility and honest self-reflection: …nononviolence is truth force. We have to tell the truth and look at ourselves in the mirror. And what I’ve just said is really, really hard to look at. But I think that it’s required to better understand who we are and how we can actually say, “We’re sorry. We’re so very sorry,” and make reparations that say we are not going to continue this. Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence The post Bearing Witness in Afghanistan appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, Nonviolence Radio hosts Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, herself a peace activist and committed supporter of nonviolence. Ela was raised in The Phoenix Settlement, an ashram established by Gandhi in 1904 dedicated to the value of self-sufficiency, grounded in a profound concern for the natural world and dedicated to promoting human dignity for all. In this episode, Stephanie and Michael talk to Ela about her life, about the corrosive power of consumerism in our world today, about the importance of actively modeling compassion, decency and kindness, and the crucial Gandhian idea of constructive program: …at Phoenix Settlement, we encouraged people to do their own growing of vegetables and so on. That was one way in which people became self-sufficient. Also, in little skills to make them less dependent on the mainline economy. This is building up your own economic activity so that you become self-sufficient, so that you’re not dependent on the people who are actually exploiting you. That’s the one thing. The second thing is that you are not supporting the exploitative mechanism. By becoming independent or dependent on yourself rather than on these economic giants, you’re making a statement and you’re also showing that, at the end of the day, they depend on us as consumers. And if we stop consuming what they produce, then it makes them think, it makes them reassess what they are doing. That’s one of the ways in which one indicates to people that we are unhappy about the way you are doing things. “Constructive program” emerges as one of the most empowering and effective tools nonviolent activists can use to push back against oppressive forces and set up a more just and peaceful world.  Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence The post Rooted in Nonviolence – Ela Gandhi appeared first on Metta Center.

On this episode of Nonviolence Radio, Stephanie and Michael are joined by Kelly Denton-Borhaug. Kelly teaches in the Global Religious Department at Moravian University and has written extensively on issues of war culture, moral injury and the ways that sacrifice can be used as a means to dehumanize and oppress marginalized people. Kelly traces the celebration of sacrifice — so pervasive in America today — back to the Bible, back to Ancient Greece and Rome, revealing the deep roots of this powerful and destructive rhetoric. Her work encourages us to think seriously about the damaging consequences of this kind of thinking and to be aware of how religious language can be misused to support, sustain and normalize a culture of war.  We need, Kelly insists, to listen to the voices of those who have been unjustly pushed into lives of violence and battle. More broadly, we need to push back against this worldview and reckon with the impact it has, not only on soldiers but on all of us, collectively, as human beings. What I would like to call for is for members of the nonviolence community to really become much more sophisticated in terms of seeing these kinds of dynamics and calling them out, calling out the exploitation of the use of sacrificial verses in the Bible and the way that they are used in war culture; calling out the language and the logic of sacrifice, and actually lifting up the destructive consequences of actual sacrificial dynamics that are endemic to war culture. I think that as people who care about nonviolence and who are, frankly, so often characterized as naïve about the world and about the dangers of the world — nonviolent actors — I would love to see them become much more sophisticated about calling out the naivety of those who claim that violence works, and those who unashamedly resort to these kinds of references to religion, to sacralize, undergird, and frankly, conceal the real process and the real consequences of the use of violence. Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence The post No Greater Love? Moral Injury and Sacrifice appeared first on Metta Center.

As we move into the days commemorating the horrific bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we join with activists and scholars around the world who say “no” to nuclear proliferation. What kind of wealth system, what kind of thinking about human life and our shared ecology would pose a fundamental challenge to the nuclear mindset?  We invited Dr. Michael Allen to Nonviolence Radio to offer a short but meaningful “teach-in” about the foundations of Western economic thought in Thomas Hobbes and its revolutionary contrast in the economics of Mahatma Gandhi.  Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence. The post Enough for Everyone appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, Michael and Stephanie welcome Dr. Wim Laven, professor, author, board member of the International Peace Research Association and the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and Editor in Chief of Peace Chronicle magazine. Wim’s work looks at the immense power of forgiveness as well as the very real difficulties involved in the act of forgiving. How does forgiving release us and allow us to move forward? What are the conditions needed for meaningful forgiveness? How can we forgive the unforgivable?  People are figuring out, you know, and being coached by their friends and their family and their spiritual advisors and so forth, that in order to live their best lives, they’re going to have to release some of these injustices, despite the fact that it’s completely unfair, right? Like police departments pulling over people just because of the color of their skin or just because they’ve profiled them to match descriptions of whatever prejudicial bias they would like to monitor. But being angry about it, staying angry about it, is having harmful consequences. In that capacity, the police officer is just following orders and we know that just following orders has been used as a defence about some of the most heinous crimes in history. But it really is. It’s the system or the structure that’s creating those outcomes. I don’t know how much the student is aware that what they’re doing is forgiving the racism in America, but I do know that they are aware that if they stay angry, then they’ll be unemployed. And they’re finding ways to get over that – at least to the degree that they’re able to function, you know? It’s challenging stuff. I think that there are some people that would say that that’s not really forgiveness. I would. I do. I think that I’ve learned a lot from my students sharing their experiences and their practices for how they get through the critical injustices in the world. Wim’s work with students in prison and all over the world illuminates the way in which forgiving plays an essential role in helping individuals to release anger so that they can live more freely and fully. At the level of society, Wim shows how forgiving can work to dismantle power structures that allow for, even encourage cruel, unjust and violent actions. Forgiving is not easy, but it is a powerful force which, when harnessed, allows for deep and lasting transformation. Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence. The post Forgiveness: Its challenge and necessity appeared first on Metta Center.

Nonviolence and utopian thinking go hand in hand, or so argues Safoora Arbab on this week’s episode of Nonviolence Radio. Utopian thinking is about what is possible, not what is impossible, she posits, and when coupled with nonviolence, we have both a roadmap and a means for achieving a more balanced and inclusive political identity. The goal may be “ever receding” as Gandhi said, and yet, without the clarity that utopian thinking can provide, nonviolence cannot fulfill its higher capacity to engage with long-term systems’ transformation.  Michael Nagler begins the show with his Nonviolence Report for the week.  Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence. The post Utopias and the Political Imaginary appeared first on Metta Center.

How does the way that we live contribute to a nonviolent society? As the pace of society speeds up, fewer and fewer people are finding fulfillment in the promise of a world that is based on advancing technology, consumerism, and depersonalization. Yet there are pockets of nonviolence-oriented people around the world who are experimenting with community life as a solution to our society’s ills. While this does not mean that there will not be any conflicts (remember, conflict is natural–violence is not), or that the experiment is perfect (for Gandhi, all was an experiment, a learning opportunity), it is precisely in community living infused with high ideals like those of the nonviolent path, that we can see ourselves and our human potential more clearly.  In this episode of Nonviolence Radio we speak with Tim Anderson, a full-time resident of a nonviolence-oriented community in the South of France, founded by Lanza del Vasto, an Italian follower of the Gandhian path.  In the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler makes the radical case for restorative justice because of the impact of retribution on the human psyche and our societal development; and Stephanie shares an article from Waging Nonviolence by Robert Levering about Daniel Ellsberg’s conversion to nonviolence, and a press release from the Shanti Sena Network on their upcoming gathering, to which all are invited! Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence. The post Simple Living Rooted in Nonviolent Ideals appeared first on Metta Center.

Renowned Palestinian activist and humanitarian Mubarak Awad on nonviolence, his activism, and insights for action as the conflict in Israel-Palestine continues to smoulder. The post A Palestinian’s Journey to Nonviolence appeared first on Metta Center.

The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi goes well beyond the Indian Freedom Struggle. He has influenced countless movements and struggles for freedom and democracy around the world, decolonization struggles, including the civil rights movement within the United States. We speak with P. Anand Rao who is a professor of Communications and Digital Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I reached out to Rao to see if he could talk to us a little bit about what research he’s done into this connection between Gandhi and the civil rights movement. And also, how it ties into the legacy of James Farmer. I also happen to be an alum of Mary Washington. So, I was very excited to find on a listserv that I’m a part of, M.K.Gandi.org, that a professor from Mary Washington wrote a piece for his local newspaper about the influence of Gandhi on the civil rights movement. As I started to reflect back, I remembered there was a statue right across from the building where I studied philosophy (the Classics, Philosophy and Religion department) of a great Civil Rights leader, James Farmer. And I thought, “Well, maybe it isn’t unlikely that a professor from Mary Washington would be speaking about the civil rights movement and Gandhi, given that there’s actually a deep legacy between the University of Mary Washington and the civil rights leader, James Farmer. Read the transcript at Waging Nonviolence. The post Gandhi’s Influence on Dr. James Farmer appeared first on Metta Center.

Nonviolence is happening all over the world, though it’s underreported in the mass media. The Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler will give the news in nonviolence, events, and analysis which might even inspire you to take action where you live. 00:23 Intro 00:55 Master of Sustainable Peacebuilding Course 01:36 Third Harmony Screening in Jalgaon 02:06 Meta Peace Team Trainings 03:18 Campaign Nonviolence workshops 03:38 Stephen Zunes Sudan’s 2019 Revolution 04:41 Digital Nonviolence Talk 05:28 Housing Solution Summit 06:12 Votercade for John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Day 06:46 Protests of Berlin’s repeal of “rent cap” 07:43 People’s Choice Communications 09:11 First Global Scientist Rebellion Play Global Scientist Rebellion – civil disobedience at Downing Street 10:06 Diana Wilson – hunger strike 11:42 Coal Miners Union transition 13:31 Women Protection Teams in South Sudan The post Nonviolence Report April 28, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

00:42 Chauvin Verdict 01:35 Healing Our City — Darnell Moore for Ma’Khia Bryant 07:58 “Madman with a Sword” analogy 08:39 Restorative Justice 09:18 Nonviolence and the case of the extremely ruthless opponent 10:56 Resources 11:02 Free Bystander Intervention & De-escalation Trainings 11:29 For Goodness Sake: Music for the Nonviolent Future 12:11 Planned Actions for Campaign Nonviolence Action Week 12:45 Rivera Sun’s Upcoming Events 12:55 Sustaining Peace Project 13:20 Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony 13:50 Indigenous Youth Arrive in DC to Tell Biden: Stop Dakota Access and Line 3 Pipelines 14:36 Defend the Sacred Alliance 15:40 Music by Eliza Gilkyson The post Nonviolence Report April 23, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

“Share the Day” – this is a translation of a greeting from the ocean world of Shora which was a world created by Joan Slonczewski. She’s a science fiction writer and professor at Kenyon College. This is from her 1986 novel, A Door Into Ocean. The book describes a society of people who are committed to nonviolence at a very, very deep level – and not just an emotional, sentimental kind of ‘do no harm’ nonviolence, but one that is a really deeply transformed view of what it means to be human. And with that, what’s really at stake when we turn to or away from the nonviolent path. Read the transcript at Waging Nonviolence. The post A Door Into Ocean appeared first on Metta Center.

00:00 Nonviolence Radio – Hollaback! 08:59 Five D’s of Bystander Intervention 33:20 Trainings. Webinar with Michael Beer at ICNC. NV Tactics Social Media and More Tool Kit Nonviolent Tactics Database Submissions Webinar at James Lawson Institute Michael Beer – Civil Resistance Tactics of the 21st Century Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods 36:27 “Restless as Mercury” 38:04 Yellow Finch Blockade of Mountain Valley Pipeline 39:52 Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly 42:39 MLB All-Star Games Moved From Georgia 44:17 Judge Throws Out Charges Against Activists 45:31 Fairy Creek 46:18 Total Protest 48:38 Military Coup in Myanmar Maria Stephan’s article in Waging Nonviolence The post Nonviolence Radio April 9, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

How Hollaback! is Creating a Culture of Community Accountability and Mutual Respect: An Interview with Emily May. In the two weeks immediately following the Georgia attack that killed 8 people, 6 of them Asian women, over 40,000 people signed up for trainings in bystander intervention with an incredible organization called Hollaback! They’re really leaders in the world of bystander intervention as a tool to end harassment, teaching a framework known as the “Five Ds” (Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, and Direct) which many groups who do similar work borrow from them. According to Emily May, Hollaback!’s Co-Founder and Executive Director,  “It’s something that all of us can do to take care of each other when harassment happens that slowly but surely chips away at the institutions that underlie it – the institutions of racism and sexism and homophobia that allow it to proliferate to the extent to which it has.” She adds, however, that bystander intervention is only one piece of the solution, noting that we have to also turn to restorative and transformative justice, and “solutions we haven’t even imagined yet.” I had the opportunity to speak with May from her Brooklyn office for Nonviolence Radio about showing up for community, the 5 Ds, why they don’t recommend calling the police, the power of sharing our stories (they have an App for that!), and the importance of ‘resourcing’ organizations like Hollaback!. Read the transcript at Waging Nonviolence. The post Bystander Intervention is only the beginning appeared first on Metta Center.

00:38 Jain Studies — Teaching Peace 01:20 Greta Zarro – Organizing 101 01:53 Anniversary of “Breaking Silence” 02:29 Kazu Haga – Fierce Vulnerability 03:49 Michael Beer – Civil Resistance Tactics of the 21st Century 05:00 BLM in Birmingham 06:36 Annova LNG 07:24 Herring Protectors 08:24 Canadian fighter jet protests 09:58 Myanmar 11:43 Tulsa Massacre of 1921 13:43 Maria Stefan’s article in WNV The post Nonviolence Report April 02, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, Nonviolence Radio welcomes Mary Hanna from Meta Peace Team, an organization that has for 28 years been dedicated to using nonviolence to de-escalate conflict, both in our everyday lives and in larger political situations. In speaking to Stephainie and Michael, Mary focuses on the remarkable power of Bystander Intervention and the creativity involved in harnassing it. Bystander Intervention, simply put, is about making sure that a person who feels threatened by another does not also feel alone:  Here’s the thing, I think, that’s really important at the bottom line: if you’re trying to intervene as a bystander, you might not succeed. But the victim or the target is going to remember not only being targeted, but whether somebody tried to stop it. And it will feel less traumatic to somebody who knows they were not alone, who knows that somebody tried to help them, than it will if they felt abandoned to that targeting. Bystander Intervention asks us to be active witnesses when we see someone who is vulnerable. Rather than providing a set of rigid rules to apply to any given conflict, Bystander Intervention calls on us to act creatively so as to “break that energy connection between the people who are potentially perpetrating violence, and the person that they’re trying to do that to.” This interview gives some concrete examples of just what such creativity might look like as well information for those who want more to learn more about this effective nonviolent strategy. Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence. The post Tips for Bystander Intervention appeared first on Metta Center.

In this episode: Zero Emissions Economy Saferworld Public pressure on utility companies Protests in Haiti Military coup in Myanmar Skills Practice Hour Third Harmony Peace and Popcorn ICNC Webinar with Michael Beer Pace e Bene trainings Department of Peace A Business Plan for Peace GNAD makeover Sakae Kato The post Nonviolence Report March 17, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

Music by Nimo Patel This week Nonviolence Radio revisits a 2018 interview with Yasmin Maydhane and Carmen Lauzon from Nonviolent Peaceforce, an organization dedicated to effective nonviolent conflict resolution. Yasmin and Carmen talk about their work doing unarmed civilian protection in South Sudan and the Philippines, respectively. They share inspiring stories about the power of entering into dangerous conflict areas unarmed, but committed to helping communities entrenched in violence to uncover their own solutions, based on their own wisdom and traditions. Nonviolent Peaceforce sees unarmed civilian protection as a way to allow conflict ridden communities to regain the knowledge and power that they’ve always had, and to use it to bring about and sustain peace. The entire UCP principle is about resiliency. It’s about enhancing community or in-house protection strategies, monitoring strategies, general life stock. Like how have you always taken care of your community? And how do we use that and make it better? We are not the ones who suggest how to improve these things. We let the community tell us how they want to improve things. And we do that with them because we live with them. I mean we live in the same places that they do. We eat the same food that they do. We are with them 24/7 which means we get to see if they don’t like something or they want something changed, we also at times can see why they want that. If we agree or don’t agree, either way, that decision is not ours. The decision is the community’s. The whole point of UCP is to engage with the community so that we, as humanitarian workers, U.N. agencies, you know, are no longer needed. The community is self-sufficient so as to be able to take care of themselves. And they are.  Transcript is archived at Waging Nonviolence The post Security Without Violence appeared first on Metta Center.

The Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler for March  5th, 2021.In this Episode — 01:01     Digital savviness 01:48     DC Peace Team Capitol Report 02:27     Meta Peace Team going to Israel-Palestine 04:47     Basic Training for UCP 05:09     Peace and Justice Studies Association https://www.gppac.net/improving-practice-webinar-series 06:25     Nonviolence International webinar 08:21     Myanmar protestors killed 09:47     Principled Nonviolence 10:08     Obstructive program Constructive program 10:34     Abdul Ghaffar Khan — My Life and Struggle 12:06     Pace e Bene workshop 13:16     Glossary of Civil Resistance 14:18     Ecuador’s Green Movement Victory 14:45     Peace Alliance 15:44     Restorative Justice Workshop 16:07     Stories From the Front Line 17:01     Protests in Myanmar 17:39     A dilemma action 18:21     Line 3 Pipeline 19:15     Institute for Local Self Reliance 19:57     Life Affirming Economies The post Nonviolence Report March 05, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, after the Nonviolence Report. Nonviolence Radio broadcasts a recording of a speech from the keynote from the Association for the Contemplative Mind in Higher Education’s 2017 conference by Dr. Fania Davis. As the founder of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, a legal scholar, and a decades-long activist in the civil rights anti-racial violence, anti-apartheid, Black liberation, women’s, prisoner’s, peace, socialist and anti-imperialist movements, Dr. Davis talks about the power of restorative justice — as opposed to retributive justice — to heal and bring together communities fractured by violence, racism, fear and rage.  What is restorative justice? It is a worldview, rooted in indigenous principles, and a theory of justice that emphasizes bringing together everyone affected by wrongdoing to address their needs and responsibilities and to heal the harm as much as possible. To heal the harm as much as possible. It is a worldview rooted in indigenous principles and a theory of justice. Our prevailing justice system is based on a Roman notion of just desserts. If I do harm, the scales of justice become imbalanced and the only way to rebalance is to do harm to me.  Restorative justice invites a paradigm shift.  The three questions retributive justice asks are, “What rule was broken? Who broke it? And what punishment is deserved?” The three questions restorative justice asks are, “Who was harmed? What are the needs and responsibilities of everyone impacted? And how do all impacted come together to address needs and responsibilities and heal the harm? By drawing on her strengths as both a (wisdom, spiritual) warrior and a healer, Dr. Davis has helped bring about massive changes in the Oakland public schools. The use of restorative justice practices has raised graduation rates, drastically decreased the numbers of suspensions and absences and is starting to loosen the tight grip of racism on the education system and our society. The possibility of genuine healing depends on making space — creating a circle — where every voice matters and every voice is heard. The post Nonviolence in the Justice System appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, Michael and Stephanie talk about reparations (and more) with UC Berkeley professor emeritus, Charles Henry, who is also the former president of the National Council for Black Studies and former chair of Amnesty International USA. In 2007, years ahead of his time, Professor Henry wrote a book on the issue of reparations, Long Overdue. The Politics of Racial Reparations. Reparation, Professor Henry reminds us, is about repairing and thus is far more than a financial transaction; it cannot be tidily achieved with a one-off check intended to close definitively the chapter on hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination. Rather, reparation is intimately linked to restorative justice — the need to recognize a wrong done, to listen to voices expressing pain and anger and suffering, to atone and finally to find a sense of closure that all parties can feel. Ultimately, Professor Henry says, reparations can lead to rebuilding of community in such a way that the desire for vengeance is diminished and fear can be replaced by hope for a more just and loving community, one where people know they belong: Instead of retribution what we want is restorative justice. It’s the kind of thing that Martin Luther King talked about when he was asked about violence, and when you’d have discussions of KAMU and others. Vengeance or retribution only leads to more violence. King, when he talked about colonialism, he would say, the objective of African Americans is not to separate in a separate colony or to kick whites out of the country as in colonial Africa, but to live in the same country. To reconcile with white Americans — and to have that, you need restorative justice not retribution. If we think, as Professor Henry suggests, of reparations as a process instead of a payment, it can become the basis for an ongoing, dynamic, harmonious relationship with our history and with each other. Find the transcript at Waging Nonviolence The post The Politics of Reparations appeared first on Metta Center.

Michael Nagler gives the Nonviolence Report for February 5, 2021. In this episode:00:31 President Biden ending support for the war in Yemen.01:17 10-point Plan for peace president. 1:56 The end of private prisons by the U.S. Justice Department2:23 Overturning the Muslim ban. Rejection of KXL pipeline. Rejoining of the Paris Agreement.3:54 Stephen Zunes article5:07 Truth and Healing Council 6:18 Virginia abolishes the death penalty6:41 Farmers Struggle in India8:51 Gene Sharp’s 198 methods for nonviolent resistance 9:38 Coup in Myanmar10:41 Peruvian doctors go on hunger strike to protest pandemic stress Resources:14:02 ICNC  — Civil Resistance Struggles course15:28 Course on Restorative Justice 15:53 Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative 16:34 Ecoleaks 17:22 Campaign Nonviolence Pledge 17:49 What the Anti-Coup Campaign Taught Us 18:08 Is sabotaging fox hunts nonviolence? Learn more The post Nonviolence Report Feb 5, 2021 appeared first on Metta Center.

Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and International Studies at University of San Francisco, joins Michael and Stephanie on this episode of Nonviolence Radio to talk about how the coup attempt on January 6 reveals some remarkable and genuinely hopeful forces growing inside our democracy. Rather than fear and outrage, Professor Zunes encourages us to take heart in the effective and well-planned nonviolent response by many activists to the angry protesters. This response was not spontaneous, indeed for months various groups and organizations offered targeted trainings on a range of nonviolent methods — and activists clearly learned some key strategies necessary for effective nonviolent action: “You have this combination of people who have shown a willingness to hit the streets and a willingness to be willing to face arrest and to engage in massive noncooperation. There was one thing that was really important about these trainings: it emphasized the importance of noncooperation that underscores what Gene Sharp and a lot of other people – Gandhi and so many other people that I’ve talked about before – governments are only as strong as people’s willingness to cooperate.” The nonviolent response on January 6 to the violent challenge to the American democracy could only have happened given a growing commitment to nonviolence, one that we have every right to expect will continue should greater threats emerge in the future. And it is precisely this commitment that, with effort and dedication, will allow us to listen better and come together as citizens who may disagree on this or that policy, but ultimately care deeply about each other as human beings. Find the Transcript Here at Waging Nonviolence The post Coup vs. Nonviolence appeared first on Metta Center.

This week’s episode of Nonviolence Radio pays special tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. on the 92nd anniversary of his birth. Michael begins by going over some nonviolence news, covering events in the US and abroad. He highlights the urgent need to listen, to see each other — whatever our different beliefs — as fellow humans, all of us in need of a sense of belonging to a meaningful world. This is followed by a recording of a speech given by Dr. Clayborne Carson of the MLK Institute at Stanford University in 2017. Dr. Carson turns to the life of Martin Luther. King Jr., recognizing not only the ‘mountaintop moments’ but the valleys he faced and courageously strode through. Dr. Carson calls upon us to remember King’s bigger vision which embraced not only civil rights in the US, but human rights across the globe. “So what I would suggest is that when we go back and look at Martin Luther King’s question, “Where do we go from here?”, that it’s very possible that gaining citizenship rights has made us very complacent about human rights. We are secure and very happy in our rights as Americans in terms of citizenship because those are the rights that we expect our government to protect. But there’s a realm of rights which is constantly being evolved in the world. A realm of rights that belongs to people as people. And it’s those rights that serve as a standard for citizenship rights. As we expand — what is our ideal for what rights should be?– that comes when we look at Martin Luther King. It’s very clear that his ideal for what rights should be is not grounded on a piece of paper, it’s not grounded on a constitution, it’s not grounded on law itself. It’s grounded on Christianity, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the prophetic tradition, the notion of justice.” The post “Where Do We Go From Here?” appeared first on Metta Center.

“… the ecofeminist option is a third option. Neither extinction nor escape. We stay here on this earth and protect her. That is the work we’ve done. That’s the work that we are called to do, and that’s the revolutionary work of our times. We know the earth is living and all ancient cultures recognized Mother Earth.” — Vandana Shiva This week’s episode of Nonviolence Radio is a recording of a talk given by Vandana Shiva, environmentalist, activist, author, and scholar. For decades, Shiva has been advocating — nonviolently — for sustainable agriculture, for the rights of small farmers, for biodiversity, for women. She calls for a shift not only in the way we grow and distribute food, but a radical change in the way we understand our relationship with the earth. While the environmental crisis we face today has led many to seek to escape (for instance, through space travel) or become pessimistic, convinced of our species’ imminent extinction, Shiva sees a third possibility: ecofeminism. The post Vandana Shiva ‘Neither Extinction nor escape’ appeared first on Metta Center.

Dr. Jude Currivan — cosmologist, futurist, planetary healer and author of the new book, The Cosmic Hologram — is this week’s guest on Nonviolence Radio, and she ‘illuminates’ for listeners (and readers) a new perspective from which to understand the cosmos. This perspective captures the essential unity that permeates every level of existence, from the atomic, to the personal, to the galactic. With Michael, she traces the idea of cosmic unity back to ancient spiritual traditions and then returns to modern science, which is now (re)discovering the same wisdom. The meaning and unity that is the foundation of all being impacts not only scientists and scholars, but each of us in our everyday lives, “We are waking up,” Dr. Currivan says, “to literally remembering that we are inseparable. One of the things with that though is the emphasis on unity-in-diversity — because unity is not about uniformity. It’s this incredible gorgeous, wonderful radical diversity of expression.” Understanding that each of us is a unique expression of a bigger oneness or whole can explain the grounded and joyous feeling of loving and being loved, it can help to motivate our meditation practice, and perhaps most importantly, it can fuel our desire to work — nonviolently — to improve and transform the world.  The post Nonviolence and the Cosmic Picture appeared first on Metta Center.

In this episode of Nonviolence Radio, Michael Nagler interviews Mel Duncan, the co-founder and Director of Advocacy and Outreach for Nonviolent Peaceforce, a world leader in unarmed civilian protection. Mel represents Nonviolent Peaceforce at the United Nations where the group has been granted consultative status. Nonviolent Peaceforce provides direct protection to civilians caught in violent conflict and works with local groups on violence deterrence in a variety of conflict areas around the world. Mel speaks of the powerful work the Nonviolent Peaceforce has accomplished in conflict areas around the globe by identifying 77 best practices to prevent violence, protect civilians, saving lives, and promoting peace through the unique tool of Unarmed Civilian Protection. The post Nonviolent Peaceforce: Defending Democracy appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, Michael Nagler moves out of his seat as co-host on Nonviolence Radio to take the place of interviewee. Stephanie asks Michael about the course of his life — which could well be three or four lives! Michael was a professor of Comparative Literature and Classics at UC Berkeley and co-founded its Peace and Conflict Studies Program, he also co-founded and continues to act as president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, and just this last year, he directed a film, The Third Harmony. In this interview, Michael speaks about his deep belief in the power of nonviolence and the way that principled nonviolence can help us to emerge from the spiritual crisis we’re facing now: “I feel that in the present age, the way we have to come to grips with the perennial struggle between good and evil is around the lens of nonviolence. That’s the way that it becomes most meaningful to us. That’s the way that the rubber hits the road in terms of our policies and our behaviors. And that’s the way that we can most efficiently orient ourselves to decision-making. We can ask ourselves, Is this decision violent? In other words, Is there a selfish element which will benefit one party at the expense of another?” In all his work, whether as an educator, an author, a director, Michael has been a passionate advocate for nonviolence and his efforts to reveal and celebrate its power has been a source of inspiration for many. The post Our Spiritual Crisis appeared first on Metta Center.

“What they’re most scared of is mass noncooperation. And when mass noncooperation is organized and strategic and targeted well, it has shown again and again that it can protect democracy and challenge authoritarianism.” – Hardy Merriman How can we defend and support our democracy, which feels so vulnerable as we head into this election? What are some concrete actions that we — even those of us who are non-experts and non-activists — can take to strengthen ourselves and empower each other to choose the next president fairly? This week, Nonviolence Radio explores these questions and others with Hardy Merriman, president and CEO of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and coauthor of Hold the Line: A guide to defending democracy. Based on almost two decades in the field, Hardy uses his experience to offer us concrete, practical advice about just what we can do now to stand up for our Constitution and protect the principles it rests upon. “What I’m telling people” Hardy says, “is that, when we think about what might Trump do or what might his allies do, that’s speculation. The real question in the next 20 days is: what can we do?” And in fact, there is quite a lot. We need not be overwhelmed, we can bring about change if we learn some basic tools of nonviolence that have been proven to be effective, time and again, both here and abroad. Working together, we can ‘hold the line’ and ensure that the upcoming election reflects true democracy. The post Hold the Line: A guide to defending democracy appeared first on Metta Center.

This week, in addition to Michael Nagler’s Nonviolence Report, Stephanie shares an interview with Josef Woldense, assistant professor in the Department of Africa Studies and African American Studies at the University of Minnesota, also affiliated with the Political Science Department. Professor Woldense analyzes the lack of trust that characterizes authoritarian regimes, and the way it makes a leader vulnerable to a coup: the authoritarian may hold the power, but in exchange he/she can trust no one, thus mutiny is a constant threat. A strategy used by authoritarian rulers to protect themselves from mutinous coups he calls “shuffling.”  Shuffling, Professor Woldense explains, is best thought of as “a technology. What it does is it recognizes that the fuel for cliques to form is people being in close proximity to each other, having an opportunity to get to know each other. Shuffling disrupts that process: as people are getting to know each other, but before that relationship matures, what you do is you divorce people from one another by essentially having them move into different parts of the regime. They’re still part of the government, but they never get a chance to get too close to each other.” While this may help to solve the clique/coup problem, it also seems inevitably to preclude the possibility of experts — no one has time to acquire the experience needed to be competent in any government role! Thus shuffling tends to undermine the aim of a well-run regime. Professor Woldense explores these issues in their own right and also shares the way he explains this complex dynamic to his students through a role-playing game that places each one in a position where action must be taken despite the fact that information is limited.  The post How to Prevent A Political Coup appeared first on Metta Center.

Author Sumbul Ali-Karamali comes to Nonviolence Radio this week to talk about her latest book, Demystifying Shariah: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Not Taking Over Our Country. Together she, Stephanie and Michael discuss the true meaning and rich history of Shariah, a term which is often profoundly misunderstood and misportrayed in mainstream media. Far from being a rigid set of religious rules which violently challenge our most basic human rights, Sumbul Ali-Karamali reveals Shariah to be a source of compassionate guidelines to be continually interpreted and reinterpreted, an evolving understanding of Islam itself, which is “meant to be flexible and adaptable according to culture and time.” The post Demystifying Shariah appeared first on Metta Center.

Professor Ron Hirschbein, founder of the War and Peace Studies Program and the Peace Institute at Cal State Chico and Professor Amin Asfari from Wake Tech College join Michael to talk about the motives and drives that generate conspiracy theories. What are some of the deeper causes that lie behind recent attacks on Jewish and Muslim communities? How might the internet galvanize individuals to commit violence against “others” in a way that traditional media did not? Together, Amin, Ron and Michael consider the powerful (and often destructive) desire for fame and recognition, the parallels between COVID and conspiracy theories, the search for life’s meaning and the insidious objects of addiction. The post Conspiracy memes as a Public Health Crisis? appeared first on Metta Center.

Renowned activist Winona LaDuke reflects on the power of an earth-based economics in a moment on our planet that is known in indigenous circles as ‘the time of the seventh fire.’ She asks the question, what are YOU going to do right now to heal our relationships with life, and are you going to choose the path of regeneration or destruction. Her talk comes to us from the organization, Slow Money. In part 2 of the show, we hear about how kids defy their parents by wearing masks, how basketball players show up in solidarity for Black lives, and how a leader clinging to power and position for 25-years in Belarus is on his way out, all in the Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler. The post Toward an Earth-Based Economy appeared first on Metta Center.

“If racism is a way of life for some; activism has to be the way of life for the rest of us.”  ~Amisha Harding. We talk with Atlanta-based activist Amisha Harding about transforming grief and trauma with connection and nonviolent action and her organization, Courageous Conversations for the Collective. Then we hear from two participants of the Reparations Procession taking place in the East Bay, Oakland, California with information about what and who it is for, and how you can get involved in reparations work. Want more? Michael Nagler’s Nonviolence Report for July 31, 2020 is here. Extra show resources: Transcript Courageous Conversations For the Collective Facebook Reparations Procession Go Fund Me Page Instagram: @reparationsprocessionFacebook: @reparationsprocessionTwitter: @rp40days#reparationsprocession The post Courageous Conversations & Actions appeared first on Metta Center.

If someone offered you a free trip to Egypt, would you go? Would you be afraid? Tarek Mounib made this offer to Americans struggling with deep cultural biases, and documented their transformation experiences in Free Trip to Egypt. He joined Nonviolence Radio to talk about the work of healing divides. Then we turn to a talk from the Metta Center archives from Michael Nagler on the basics of nonviolence…a great refresher and reminder of the deeper dynamics at play when we engage with nonviolent energy. The post Free Trip to Egypt appeared first on Metta Center.

On this episode of Nonviolence Radio we share a timely talk on building bridges from john a. powell, director of UC Berkeley’s Otherness and Belonging Institute (formerly: Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society) from the 2019 Otherness and Belonging conference. Introducing him is Tony Iton from the California Endowment.  Michael Nagler, UC Berkeley emeritus professor and President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, responds to powell and offers his regular Nonviolence Report. The post building bridges and belonging appeared first on Metta Center.

Often when we think about nonviolence, we think of practical strategies and techniques: How does one organize an effective sit-in or march? What is the appropriate language to use when addressing someone with whom we are in conflict? And indeed, understanding — and practicing! — these tactics are essential. However, nonviolence goes much deeper than this, it is, according to Kazu Haga, “a principled way of life and how we view the world.” This week on Nonviolence Radio, Stephanie and Michael talk to Kazu Haga, author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm, to learn about his life, his own path to nonviolence, and his current work in creating Beloved Community with the East Point Peace Academy. Kazu Haga reminds us that we all have the potential to do harm, to act cruelly — we all get lost. But this is not cause for despair. Rather, recognizing this part of our common humanity unites us, provides us with the very foundation that allows us to choose nonviolence as a way of life The post Kazu Haga on the everyday duty to practice nonviolence appeared first on Metta Center.

This week’s episode of Nonviolence Radio brings Paul K. Chappell in conversation with Michael and Stephanie. Paul is now the Peace Literacy Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the author of the “Road to Peace” book series, but as a West Point graduate and a veteran of the war in Iraq, he is in a unique position to explain how the power of nonviolence exceeds that of traditional forms of military power. The post Paul K. Chappell on Nonviolence and Peace Literacy appeared first on Metta Center.

The work for peace begins when we are ready to try another way of resolving our problems. Matthew Legge, Peace Program Coordinator for the Canadian Friends Service Committee talks about his findings in his new book, ‘Are We Done Fighting?: Building Understanding in a World of Hate and Division’. The post Are we done fighting? appeared first on Metta Center.

Who was Barbara Deming and why do we need her wisdom today? The post Barbara Deming: Her Message Today. appeared first on Metta Center.

“The Green New Deal is a good idea,” people say, but “how are we going to pay for it?” There are many ways. As Executive Director of Nuclear Ban US, Tim Wallis has offered a special report, From Warheads to Windmills, on how to pay for a Green New Deal through an ambitious plan to de-nuclearize our world. It’s a practical approach that should be on the table given the dire urgency presented to us by our climate crisis. Followed by the Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler.  The post Warheads to Windmills: An interview with Tim Wallis appeared first on Metta Center.

What happens when a government decides to protect only some of its people? We talk with Sana Alam and Prashant Nema about the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA), The National Register of Citizens, and the nascent protest movement in India it gave rise to; and what the true nature of this deep national controversy is. People around the world are rising up together in protest of this bill to protect the rights of Muslims and non-caste Hindus, and to get involved we all need to help spread the word. Interview followed by the Nonviolence Report with Michael Nagler.  The post India Rises Against Modi’s Bill appeared first on Metta Center.

A show on winning! Why have politics become like a sports match and how can we overcome this dynamic? The post Triumph! Winning! And why it matters. appeared first on Metta Center.

We promote the power of nonviolence worldwide across the airwaves. Tune in. The post Nonviolence in Action appeared first on Metta Center.

Yoga is more than poses we do with our bodies to stretch. It’s more than expensive studio memberships and yoga gear. It is, as described in the classical Hindu text, The Bhagavad Gita, “skill in action,” a path to recognizing our deep interconnectedness and healing our divides. Listen to insights from Michelle C. Johnson on the power of radicalizing yoga practice in order to invite the hard work of social justice onto our mats, and into the rest of our lives. (Even if you don’t do yoga, this show is for you.) Followed by Michael Nagler’s Nonviolence Report. The post Skill in Action: The Yoga of Nonviolence appeared first on Metta Center.

Were you part of a climate action? Daniel Hunter wrote a manual on climate resistance for 350.org to help strategize for what's next. The post I was part of a climate action. Now what? appeared first on Metta Center.

It's nuclear disarmament week, so we ask: Do nuclear weapons make us safe, and should we care about them? We hear from Anna Ikeda from the Office for UN Affairs of Soka Gakkai International. The post Do Nuclear Weapons Make Us Safe? appeared first on Metta Center.

We all have unconscious bias and we all have work to do to become aware of, and unlearn it. It’s a life-long effort, and like any effort in nonviolence, it can be done with strategy and an open-heart toward the people involved.  For over 21 years, feminist activist and scholar Sally Eck has been leading workshops on “interruptions,” and “calling-in.” She offers empowerment, tools, and strategy for interrupting oppressive attitudes and language. Listen in here for her interview and the Nonviolence Report, news from the world of nonviolence with Michael Nagler. Transcript available here. The post Call-In: Interrupting Oppression with Strategy and Heart appeared first on Metta Center.