By Mubarak Awad
Recently, our wonderful volunteer intern supervisor, Jules Slater, shared their pride at the impressive young leaders serving this semester as interns with NVI. Meeting them gives me hope. If you haven’t already seen this page, I encourage you to check it out.
Below, I share some of the important video production work our interns are already doing at NVI.
For years, I urged Michael Beer to update my friend Gene Sharp’s seminal work cataloging 198 Nonviolent methods. Since then the world has changed dramatically with innovations such as the internet and so much more shaping how people express themselves. Michael has just published a book with more than 350 NV tactics. Please watch this short video where our new intern Dassie Spivack interviews Michael about why he wrote this book. The funny thing is he doesn’t even mention that I told him to.
Next we share an exciting clip from Jamila Raqib, Gene’s successor, who tells how he started collecting NV Tactics and why he stopped at 198. He could have easily rounded up to 200, but he always knew this was unfinished work that should be expanded as the field grew. So for all those who somehow get the impression that Gene’s work was written in stone, please watch this clip made by NVI intern Cam Sephehri.
As you know, NVI believes that the world is facing a series of interrelated crises and that nonviolence is the most effective response to many of them. We also are convinced that nonviolence doesn’t just happen, but is greatly enhanced by knowledge of Tactics and by NV Training. Check out this video of former intern and volunteer Annalisa Bell explaining how to use our NV Tactics database.
In addition to spreading the word on the power of nonviolence and Tactics and Training, the other main part of our work at NVI is serving as a backbone organization of the global nonviolent movement. We provide fiscal sponsorship to a variety of cutting-edge groups we believe in deeply. Below, please see new videos produced by Dassie and Cam raising up the work of Holy Land Trust, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence and Solidarity 2020 and Beyond.
Finally, I was proud to be in conversation with my cousin Jonathan Kuttab and NVI’s Co-Director David Hart during the recent bombing of Gaza. While the bombs are not falling now, conditions remain unacceptable. We ask for your help changing the conversation and thus building a better future. We recorded our full conversation and present it below along with several shorter clips you might share with others as an introduction to this ongoing and wholly preventable human-caused crisis.
If you value this work, please donate to help us expand our impact on this beautiful and broken world.
Nonviolence International is excited to once again welcome our amazing partner, Solidarity 2020 and Beyond. We are grateful for the opportunity to work closely with them and invite you to join us at our second co-sponsored public event. Along with our former partner, the amazing Waging Nonviolence, we are hosting an important webinar on religion and nonviolent action.
How can people of faith contribute to nonviolent initiatives for peace, human rights, and sustainability?
About This Event
Some people of faith support oppression, division, and violent conflict, but many others are searching for ways to make a positive contribution to broader movements for rights, freedom, and justice through the practice of peacebuilding and nonviolent resistance. In this interactive webinar. co-sponsored by Solidarity 2020 and Beyond, Waging Nonviolence, and Nonviolence International, participants will interact with moderator Fr. Vedran Obucina, and panelists Pastor Daniel Chay, Elizabeth Kanin Kimau, Ahmadullah Archiwal, and Benjamin Lutz, in order to explore the latter option. The two key questions to be addressed are how can peacebuilders and civil resisters reach out to sympathetic religious people to build stronger coalitions for positive change, and how might people of faith make useful contributions to such nonviolent initiatives?
Moderator
Fr. Vedran Obućina is a Croatian political scientist, theologian, and a priest in the Orthodox Old-Catholic Church, engaged in religion-based peacebuilding in the Balkans, Caucasus, and Middle East. He is a PhD researcher at the University of Regensburg (Germany), IEP Ambassador, Rotary Peace Fellow from Chulalongkorn University 2020, and co-founder of Solidarity 2020 and Beyond.
Panelists
Pastor Daniel Chay is a founder and Senior Pastor of the New Life Church of South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2019, he was a participant in nonviolent action trainings in Burma and Indonesia. Since 2001, he has worked on building and organizing the Christian Churches Peace Network in Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. He also has promoted interfaith dialogue in those countries among Christians and Buddhists to encourage solidarity and collaborative nonviolent initiatives. He is a member of Solidarity 2020 and Beyond's Global Grassroots Action Network.
Elizabeth Kanini Kimau is a Kenyan Grassroots Peace Builder. She is the founder of Horn of Africa Grassroots Peace Forum (HAP-Forum). She has twelve years’ experience in building a culture of peace in regions fragmented by prolonged inter-ethnic violence (Northern Kenya and South Sudan). In her peace work, Kanini focuses on capacity building for grassroots people who are affected by violent conflicts to be agents of their own peace. Currently she is a PHD student at Centre for Nonviolence in Durban University of Technology (South Africa).
Ahmadallah Archiwal is an Afghan scholar-activist who has written books and manuals on nonviolent action and conducted several Nonviolence and Civic Mobilization trainings for grassroots activists across several provinces of Afghanistan including Kunar, Khost, Kabuk, Kunduz, and Paktia. His research speciality is on nonviolent campaigns from the Islamic world, including the Khudai Khidmatgar movement that was waged in today's Khyber Pakhtonkhwa by Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan.
Benjamin Lutz is the Director of Communications and Operations for Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI) a global organization and network of mediators that support international peacebuilding efforts through effective mediation. He is also an IEP Peace Ambassador and a Rotary Positive Peace Activator. Furthermore, he is currently a Ph.D. student in Religion/Reconciliation/Peace at the University of Winchester focusing on interfaith dialogue efforts in Oman and Lebanon.
All paid tickets will help support the webinar co-sponsors.
If inspired by their work, please consider making a donation.
Who We Are?
Why Did We Start?
What Are Our Goals?
We want to build people power and mobilize effectively to fight for change to create a world that is more equal, just, peaceful, and provides dignity for all.
Visit their website to learn more about their organization
Inspired to Give to Support this Vital Work - Donate Here
An Update from NVI Canada’s Director:
Located off of Canada’s Pacific Coast, Vancouver Island is home to a selection of the dwindling old-growth forests in the northern hemisphere. These untouched forest ecosystems have been under exploitation since the arrival of non-First Nations and as a consequence, few remain. Activists have now blockaded for more than 320 days Protecting Vancouver Island's Ancient Temperate Rainforests on Pacheedaht and Dididaht Territories.
In spite of the courageous work of our activists, there have been more than 222 arrests in the past 28 days of police action by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
One week ago, First Nations, who hold a traditional title to the area, called for a deferral of logging in key areas in Fairy Creek and the Central Walbran.
Despite this announcement, large-scale logging could still occur in old-growth forest directly adjacent to Fairy Creek and in parts of the Central Walbran not included in the deferral. Therefore, the forest defenders and blockade remain in place as police action against our nonviolent protections continue.
Above Photo credit: Logging truck photographed on the road in central Vancouver Island on 25 May 2021 by Lorna Beecroft.
For more on the log read: The Mystery Behind a Photo of a Logged Old-Growth Tree
Forest defenders are clustered under the banner of the Rainforest Flying Squad and made up of affinity groups and individuals banding together to maintain a blockade to halt further cutting of the last remaining old-growth forests. In turn, they have been supported by thousands of other concerned British Columbian citizens who have brought out material support, contributed financially, or organized sympathetic demonstrations in other parts of the province.
They also receive support from many provincial and national civil society organizations such as Nonviolence International Canada, which has offered support in the training of legal observers that serve as witnesses to the mass arrests as well as on the ground training in de-escalation techniques for tense encounters between protestors and loggers.
Above photo credit: Blockader removed / Rainforest Flying Squad
To learn more about NVI Canada click here.
Nonviolence International welcomes another exceptional partner, Solidarity 2020 and Beyond. We are grateful for the opportunity to work closely with them and invite you to join us at our first co-sponsored public event. Along with our former partner, the amazing Waging Nonviolence, we are hosting an important webinar on Afghanistan.
Our webinar will focus on historical grassroots activism and nonviolent campaigns and movements in Afghanistan and potential for use now.
This interactive webinar is co-sponsored by Solidarity 2020 and Beyond, Waging Nonviolence, and Nonviolence International and will feature Jamila Raqib, Zaher Wahab, Kathy Kelly and Stellan Vingthagen, with Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh, as moderator. Based on Afghan history and context, as well case studies in similar countries, the panelists will share their perspectives on the history, present, and future of root causes of violence, grassroots organizing, peacebuilding, everyday resistance, and strategic nonviolent action in Afghanistan. Webinar participants will also have ample time to contribute to the discussion and ask questions of the panelists. Together, we will increase our knowledge of the recent past and current situation in Afghanistan and how people can build agency, locally-led campaigns and action for change, and counter violence and build a thriving peaceful community and country in the future. This webinar will also be relevant to other nonviolent activists in countries facing violent conflict and serious human rights abuses trying to create inclusive, just, and equitable societies.
Panelist Bios:
Jamila Raqib is a specialist in the study and practice of strategic nonviolent action and the executive director of the Albert Einstein Institution, which works to advance the research and application of nonviolent action worldwide. For more than 15 years, she worked closely with the late Dr. Gene Sharp, the world’s foremost scholar of the field of strategic nonviolent action. She was born and raised in Afghanistan and most recently traveled to Jalalabad spending time with family and the community in 2019.
Zaher Wahab is an Afghanistan academic who served as senior advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan 2002-2006 and as a visiting researcher-professor in a master’s degree program for teacher education faculty from Afghanistan’s 16 teacher training colleges 2007-2010. Between 2002 and 2012, he spent about four months annually in his home country, while teaching at Lewis and Clark College in the United States. He then moved back to full-time and founded two MA programs at the American University of Afghanistan.
Kathy Kelly is a US peace activist and author who made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul. She and her companions in various peace team delegations believe that where you stand determines what you see. Kelly lived with families in Baghdad throughout the 2003 Shock and Awe invasion and during the first weeks of the U.S. occupation. Kelly is now campaigning for an international treaty to ban weaponized drones.
Stellan Vinthagen is Professor of Sociology and the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he directs the Resistance Studies Initiative. He is also Editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies, and Co-Leader of the Resistance Studies Group at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has participated in numerous nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served a total of more than one year in prison.
Moderator Bio:
Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh is the founding director of Solidarity 2020 and Beyond. She is an expert on peace building, social justice movements and strategic nonviolent action. She has traveled to 75 countries to provide training and education, capacity building, and solidarity with grassroots activists. She is a Rotary Peace Fellow and previously director at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Peace Brigades International-USA, and Commission on the Status of Women. Katherine has been a consultant for the Global Fund for Women, Women Peace in Afghanistan, and the Afrikan Youth Movement, and worked in Palestine/Israel.
This webinar is a fundraiser to raise funds to go directly to the field to grassroots Afghan groups organizing for the rights of Afghan women, youth, and minorities. Ticket prices are set to raise these funds and additional donations are greatly appreciated for this very important work!
NVI Co-Director, David Hart, recently published a piece on this topic on Tikkun.
Please see more about Solidarity below.
If inspired by their work, please consider making a donation.
Who We Are?
Why Did We Start?
What Are Our Goals?
We want to build people power and mobilize effectively to fight for change to create a world that is more equal, just, peaceful, and provides dignity for all.
Visit their website to learn more about their organization
Inspired to Give to Support this Vital Work - Donate Here
In this short clip Mubarak Awad gets to the heart of the issue reminding us of our shared humanity.
Jonathan Kuttab reflects on the importance of hope in hard times.
They've got a great deal more to say.
Please share this clip, watch the entire conversation, and take action to help build true and lasting peace with justice.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness...What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction...And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." -- Howard Zinn
And, still we celebrate those who are lighting candles of hope even as we must curse the darkness.
At NVI, we know that we are not condemned to live in a state of perpetual violence.
Let’s raise up a vision of a better future and a nonviolent path to get there.
Below we list a variety of powerful resources shared with us by our partner the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.
In these hard times, we hope you will take inspiration from the wonderful ongoing vital work of our partners.
They deserve our active support.
Hebron International Resource Network
https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/our_partners
(Below the current resources, please see a collection of our relevant videos on this topic featuring these partners.)
Please take this quick step - sign our petition and then dive into the imporant material below.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness...What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction...And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." -- Howard Zinn
This webinar was an inspirational discussion between Michael Beer, author of the book Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century and Director of Nonviolence International, and Jamila Raqib of the Albert Einstein Institution. These two, facilitated by Véronique Dudouet of the Berghof Foundation, presented on the relevance of this book and its content, personal experiences with some new tactics, and fielded questions from the audience. The NVI Tactics Database was also highlighted and its use was demonstrated by NVI volunteer Annalisa Bell.
Time stamps:
Véronique Dudouet - 0:00
Michael Beer - 2:37
Annalisa Bell - 21:50
Jamila Raqib - 30:24
Barbara Wien - 42:07
Discussion - 45:30
Our NVI series themes for 2021: The world is facing a series of devastating interrelated crises. Nonviolence is the most effective answer to many of them. We must not become frozen in fear, but instead moved to action. History has proven that powerful people’s movements can make what once seemed impossible become inevitable. Again and again we have seen that when people rise up together and declare they see a path out of the darkness, the world can change in deep and lasting ways. We often seem so small and the problems seem so vast. At Nonviolence International, we proudly declare that the world can be better than it is today and it is up to us to direct that change.
Panelists:
Michael Beer has just published an important new book and wants to be in conversation with you about it and our interactive online database of NV Tactics. Michael has been Director of Nonviolence International since 1998. He is a global activist for human rights, minority rights and argues against war and casino capitalism. He has trained activists in many countries, including Myanmar, Kosovo, Tibet, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Zimbabwe, and the United States. He is a frequent public speaker on nonviolence and has been broadcast on CSPAN, CNN, and other major media outlets. Michael is the co-parent of two children with his life partner, Latanja.
Jamila Raqib serves as the Executive Director of the Albert Einstein Institution. Jamila joined the Albert Einstein Institution in 2002, focusing on the promotion and distribution of writings and translations, on the technique of nonviolent struggle and its potential in acute conflicts worldwide. In 2009, she collaborated with Dr. Sharp to create a new curriculum titled Self-Liberation: A Guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression. The publication is intended to provide in-depth understanding of nonviolent struggle to individuals in order to enable them to develop effective strategies for their struggles. Since its publication, it has been translated into Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Italian.
Facilitated by:
Véronique Dudouet, Senior Researcher and Program Director at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin, Germany. Véronique has been coordinating participatory action research, training, and policy advice activities on resistance and liberation movements in transition’ since 2005. Her current research interests include transitions from armed to unarmed insurgencies, the role of external actors in nonviolent resistance, negotiation and third-party intervention in asymmetric conflict, inclusive post-war governance. As a scholar-activist, she has been involved in several anti-war and nonviolent campaigns, including as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Palestinian territories. She also carries out consultancy projects for various civil society organizations, state and international agencies (EU, OECD, UNDP).
