Violence & nonviolence

Violence & nonviolence

Violence & nonviolence

1 June 2004Feature

Between 1969 and 1977 Paul Watson was involved in the groups and actions that would spawn Greenpeace International. He was one of the relatively small number of people who participated in early sea-actions against nuclear testing, whaling and seal hunting.

It is fairly common knowledge that the Greenpeace co-founder and “life member number 7” left/was pushed from (depending on who you read) the organisation as it began its journey towards becoming the respectable face of…

1 April 2004Feature

Non-violence as a strategy has been practised throughout the Israeli women's peace movement since the founding of Women in Black in early 1988, one month after the first Palestinian Intifada broke out.

The Women in Black movement began as a small group of Israeli women carrying out a simple form of protest: once a week at the same hour and in the same location--a major traffic intersection in Jerusalem--they donned black clothing and raised a black sign in the shape of a hand with…

1 April 2004Feature

Before you get stuck into reading this thematic section on nonviolent action in Israel/Palestine, we thought it important to point out some inconsistencies in language that you are about to discover.

Firstly, we have not altered, attempted to standardise, or drawn any specific political inferences from the way in which contributors have described geographic locations in the region. Peace News house style attempts not to make any implicit comment on the “solution” to the…

1 April 2004Feature

The “Apartheid Wall”, intended to be about 350 miles long and which confiscates 60% of the occupied West Bank's land and encloses numerous communities in several enclaves or Bantustans, is being built at great speed. Already almost 100 miles have been completed in the north and south West Bank and in the Jerusalem area.

Salfit in the north West Bank and Budrus in the West Ramallah district, are two places in Occupied Palestine where women and girls are playing a strong role in…

1 April 2004Feature

“Can you dance your tragedies? Can you dance your dreams? If you are Palestinian, you almost have no choice but to try doing both, for if you do one without the other, you choose to indulge in obsessive victimness or naive illusion” [From the introduction to El-Funoun's latest production]

On 9 March 2004, El-Funoun will celebrate its Silver Jubilee. For a quarter of a century, El-Funoun has indeed danced some of the Palestinian tragedies and dreams, challenges and ambitions. But…

1 April 2004Feature

I spent last summer as a volunteer on the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. Participants in this World Council of Churches initiative spend three months living in the region to try to learn more how the conflict affects ordinary people.

On a day-to-day basis we were monitor-ing violations of human rights and international law, providing protection by our presence, and supporting both Israelis and Palestinians in their non-violent acts of resistance to the…

1 April 2004Feature

As a Palestinian dance choreographer working in the midst of conflict, I am often asked: what is the rationale of your artistic engagement under the circumstances?

If “engagement” with something is interpreted in a passive sense, as a mere relation to that thing, then the question implies a certain degree of volition in deciding whether or not to relate to issues of conflict and trauma. I personally do not think that in a situation of conflict artists have a choice of whether or…

1 April 2004Feature

In January 2004 Rudi Friedrich met Gush Shalom activist and member of the Refuser Parents Forum Adam Keller at his home. A few days earlier five refusers, Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Noam Bahat, Adam Maor and Shimri Tzamaret were sentenced to prison terms of one year by a military court - after more than 14 months' detention already - for their refusal to “serve” in the Occupied Territories. Rudi asked Adam to discuss the situation and relevance of the refuser movement.

RF: How…

1 April 2004Feature

It is January 2004, the sun is shining and it feels like a warm day in Jerusalem. We are starting our journey early in the morning, to meet up with Ghassan Andoni from the Palestinian Centre For Rapprochement Between People, based in Beit Sahour. He has invited us to come to Bir Zeit, a Palestinian University close to Ramal-lah, where he is a professor of physics.

Ramallah is not far away from Jerusalem, just 20 kilometres. The town is located in the occupied territories and can…

1 April 2004Feature

The principal focus of non-violent campaigns in Israel-Palestine is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip. However, given the lack of symmetry between the situation of the Israelis (the occupiers), Palestinians (the occupied), and outsiders, actors from these different parties cannot apply similar roles and methods of intervention.

In this article, I will follow the categorisation offered by Amos Gvirtz, founder of Israelis and Palestinians for Nonviolence…

1 April 2004Feature

Bernard Shaw once said, “If you break a nation's nationality, it will think of nothing else but getting it set again. It will listen to no reformer, to no philosopher, to no preacher, until the demands of the nationalist are granted. It will attend to no business, however vital. Except the business of unification and liberation.” 1

Many Palestinians have conducted a non-violent campaign against the Israeli occupation, on the personal, NGO, political party, community…

1 December 2003Feature

In 2001, German nonviolent-anarchist newspaper graswurzelrevolution began an ambitious media solidarity project with Turkish antimilitarists. The editors of the project reflect on the challenges and outcomes to date.

"The periodical graswurzelrevolution is the main voice of grassroots democratic activists." - Ralf Vandamme, social scientist. 1

"The group that has most consistentlytried to build a social rhizome and that comes closest to anarchist ethics is ...Non-violent Action. It is not by coincidence that this group's newspaper, amagazine with a relatively wide distribution, is called graswurzelrevolution…

3 June 2003Comment

Writing from Pakistan, Beena Sarwar believes that violence has become a part of our daily discourse, internalised and accepted as a norm - dictating terms in the region, justifying increased military spending and reducing the pressure to seek other options.

The most dangerous form of violence in South Asia is arguably the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It colours the statements made by the leaders of both countries and strengthens the extreme right wing in both countries, which feeds off and thrives on the fanaticism of its counterparts next door.

The rhetoric of war, whether it is made by George Bush, Ariel Sharon, Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Pervez Musharraf, gives the cue to these elements to indulge in more violence,…

3 June 2003Comment

With yet another pause in the Northern Irish peace process, Rob Fairmichael puts forward the case for nonviolent responses and "democratic insurrection".

The recent impasse on re-establishing the institutions of local government in Northern Ireland raises many questions, among them the goodwill of both the republican and unionist communities.

The postponement of elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, until at least the autumn, is a disappointment, particularly as the normally volatile summer period is nearly upon us. It is usual to seek to blame one side for such an impasse, and, while there can be some point in this at times, it…

1 June 2003Feature

Syngman Rhee fled his homeland as a 19-year-old in 1950 and found himself at the heart of the US civil rights movement in the Sixties. Here he speaks about his work for reconciliation between North and South Korea.

I was born and raised in Pyong Yang, now the capital city of North Korea. At that time, the early 1930s, the Korean people were under Japanese rule, which brought us great suffering and pain. It created a deep sense of hostility and enmity towards the Japanese. The cooperation between Korea and Japan, as co-hosts of the soccer World Cup, shows that there is always hope of reconciliation between former enemies.

Soon after our liberation from Japanese occupation at the end of the…