Violence & nonviolence

My general feeling is that this kind of question can't be faced in a meaningful way when it's abstracted from the context of particular historical concrete circumstances.

Any rational person would agree that violence is not legitimate unless the consequences of such action are to eliminate a still greater evil.

Now there are people of course who go much further and say that one must oppose violence in general, quite apart from any possible consequences. I think that…

The Scottish Centre for Nonviolence in Dunblane has closed after ten years of existence. Scotland and the peace movement have lost a unique resource for nonviolent education and networking. Camouflaged by woodland trees, the Centre was situated in a prefabricated building, tucked behind Scottish Churches House, the Scottish Churches Ecumenical Conference Centreat Dunblane Cathedral.

During my time as a local peace activist, I will remember it as a special space, with a powerful…

b>From 28 April to 6 May, the LaUnf (nonviolence) network of Iraqi peace activists organised a second “Week of Nonviolence”, this time at 13 locations, reaching 7300 people all over Iraq. Sites included, in the north, Irbil, Kirkuk, and Mosul; in the south, Basra and Fao; and Baghdad in the centre.
PNspoke to Ismaeel Dawood, a key support person for the LaUnf network, in his capacity as Iraq worker for the Italian activist NGO Un Ponte Per... Baghdad (A Bridge to... Baghdad…

“Salam”, the Arabic word for peace, is both a friendly greeting and the goal of the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT) in Iraq. “Salaam is not just a greeting... it is the goal.” The heart of Islam is nonviolent, and the “God (Peace) within” gives MPT the courage to work in Iraq without fear so MPT can continue the important work.

The idea for a Muslim Peace- maker Team developed in January of 2005. It was inspired by the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) that have been active in Iraq…

I had two misgivings about this book before I began to read it. Both turned out to be unfounded.

The first was that, since I have read my fair share of nonviolence books, I feared that it would all be repetition. Cortright starts the book with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, but not with the ordinary biographical stories of their lives. Rather he uses them as vehicles to explain the secret of non-violence, together with today's scholars and his own opinions. It works very…

Several years ago I was involved in an intensive period of peace campaigning. I protested at Faslane, blockaded an arms factory, disputed with directors at the BAE Systems shareholders' meeting, trespassed at the nuclear submarine base at Barrow, and vigilled outside the DSEi arms fair.

These were exciting and challenging experiences, but I came away from them with growing doubts about the peace groups I had worked with. How did the methods we adopted actually contribute towards…

Last week, I made my first trip to South Lebanon since the war began. Having travelled a fifth of the world, and been present during “wars” in Iraq, Palestine, and New York, I can honestly say that I have never seen such complete devastation in my entire life. The only thing that even comes close are the pictures I've seen from World War II. Much of South Lebanon simply lies in ruin.

This wasn't a war against Hezbollah, with some collateral damage on the side. This was a war against…

Ever felt so righteously outraged at the state of the world, the greed of the corporations, humanity's insane militarism, the fact that we are killing the planet (etc) that you considered blowing shit up? Well, that's what Ann Hansen found herself doing across Canada in the early 1980s.

Damaging nuclear weapons components manufacturers, porn chains and electricity substations, carrying out burglaries and car thefts (they needed explosives, guns and getaway vehicles for their actions…

At the end of December I attended the international Celebrating Nonviolence conference in Bethlehem, representing the War Resisters' International and our new Nonviolence Programme.

This was my second time in Israel-Palestine; the first time I visited they had me waiting for three hours in the airport for “security” reasons, so this time I was a bit nervous of what was going to happen, especially after hearing the news about the three international activists who -- hoping to attend…

An important part of nonviolence is respect for the sanctity of life and the rejection of behaviour that humiliates or degrades other humans.

People all around the world make nonviolence a part of their life, work and activism, yet it is a minority who extend the practice to include animals.

Concurrently there are people who campaign for the right of animals not to be mistreated whilst seeming to ignore the same abuses when they are used against people.

I believe that…

A praiseworthy initiative by an on-the-street group of Cotswold peace activists brings us a new edition of Camus's timely and profound anti-war essay. A world famous French essayist and playwright, Camus first contributed his assessment of the world outlook in 1946 to the Parisian resistance newspaper, Combat, to which he had been an underground contributor during the Nazi occupation.

The New York magazine Liberation, the foremost US advocate of nonviolence during…

This collection of essays and speeches by India's award winning writer ranges across the world on many important issues from globalisation to AIDS.

Roy's acceptance speech for the USA Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom urges her US audience to remember their history of brave resistance. She speaks as “a subject of the American Empire” when she says the change has to begin in America. She calls on its citizens and says, “The only institution more powerful than the US government is…

This multifunction CD from the Peace Pledge Union uses a browser based system for navigating through the material.

Contents are divided into nine sections, including: quotations; racialism; war and peace; civil disobedience; the movement & black power; violence & nonviolence.

The disc also includes sources and a comment on the famous “I have a dream” speech and lists books by and about King. It also offers speeches - in print and with some video and audio extracts -…

There are many possibilities forcivilian intervention in conflicts. Today the UN, the OSCE,and even NATO, speak of the importance of civilian personnel in complexpeace-keeping missions.

Most industrialised countries have cre-ated conflict resolution budget-lines, and even the World Bank is concerned with”conflict prevention”. However, at the same time they all insist that in case ofviolence, there needs to be a military presence to protect the civilians. That hasbeen the ideology…

This offering from Peace Direct uses personal narratives to celebrate and give voice to a very different type of hero: individuals who have taken the frequently traumatic decision to reject the path of conflict in favour of the often more difficult but ultimately far more fulfilling route of active peace-making.

The subjects of these fifteen accounts would not characterise themselves as heroes, and it is this humility that gives the book much of its force. The stories are told with…