Violence & nonviolence

Violence & nonviolence

Violence & nonviolence

3 September 2001Comment

Carlo Giuliani was a young man killed by another young man: a conscript policeman who was travelling in a vehicle which was being attacked by protesters during the G8 protests in Genoa. In so many ways his death was inevitable – not the death of him personally, but of one or more protesters taking part in mass and chaotic action against the dominant political and economic institutions, set against the repressive and violent response of the forces of “law and order”.

This is not to ignore or condone the sometimes random and violent actions of some activists and police infiltrators. The expressions on the faces of the police who witnessed Carlo Giuliani's death should remind us of their intrinsic humanity, and that no-one should be on the receiving end of a rock, a petrol bomb, or a fist. However, this “violent 'anarchist' thuggery” – as it has been described – shouldn't divert us from the massive, overwhelming violence that millions of people experience…

3 September 2001Comment

In recent months, Genoa, Gothenburg and Quebec have seen mass protest against globalisation—timed to coincide with the formal meetings of the G8, EU and the Americas trade talks. We reprint a discussion article written after the Quebec protests by US-based activist and author Starhawk, which presents ideas for moving the eternal violence/nonviolence debate forward into new territory.

I had a hard time coming back from Quebec City. I know because, almost two months later, I still have the map in my backpack. In part it was exhaustion, tear gas residue, and the sense of having been through a battle in a war most of my neighbours are totally unaware of. But deeper than that is my sense that something was unleashed in that battle that can't be put back: that underlying the chaos, the confusion, the real differences among us and the danger we were in, was something so tender…

1 January 2001Feature

Was UNAMETs mission in East Timor an example of an unusually large, unusually well-resourced nonviolent intervention? If so, it presents interesting dilemmas, and perhaps some lessons, for the nonviolent movement, argues Maggie Helwig.

On 5 May 1999, the United Nations and the governments of Indonesia and Portugal signed an agreement to hold a consultation as to public opinion, in East Timor, about Indonesia's offer of special autonomy for the territory.

The rather byzantine agreement, the result of Kofi Annan's seizing upon an impulsive remark of Indonesian President Habibie, who in an unguarded moment had said that if the Timorese didn't want autonomy he would let them just go was in fact a thinly-disguised vote…

1 January 2001Feature

What were the hot topics nearly fifty years ago? We travel back in time and take a peek at interventions 1950s style  

MP urges UN peace force for Arab-Israeli border

In a letter to the Manchester Guardian last week, outlining several methods whereby the United Nations might police the borders between Israel and its Arab neighbours, Henry Usborne, MP, has called for the use of a corps of 10,000 unarmed men. He advocated the use of an unarmed cosmopolitan corps of some ten thousand men under General Burns to be recruited on a voluntary basis by the UN Secretariat. This would be a UN peace force equipped only…

1 January 2001Feature

Small-scale peace teams have played an important role in supporting local groups and facilitating dialogue between divided communities. Robert Sautter reports on the work of the Balkan Peace Team in Kosov@.

I can speak both Serbian and Albanian, but which one I use sets me on one side against the other. There is no place for me here, I do not belong. As she finished speaking these words, Mersiha, a young Slavic Muslim from Prishtina, looked at me intently and demanded to know what the Balkan Peace Team was doing to address the tenuous situation in which she and individuals from other minority communities throughout Kosova are existing.

Kosova may have faded from the headlines, but…

1 January 2001Review

Pluto Press, 2000. 266pp. ISBN 0 7453 2569 0, £9.99

In writing this book, former PN editor Howard Clark has drawn on his close involvement with Kosov@ for over a decade, and with nonviolent theory and action for several decades. Fascinated by a remarkable movement, he hoped to assist in the prevention of war (“Why was the war most warned about not prevented?” p213).

Clark provides a minutely detailed account of these unique developments throughout the decade up to the eruption of extreme violence of 1998-9. Using a wide…

1 January 2001Review

Spark M Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, Hawai'i. Paperback, 369 pp. ISBN 1 880309 11 4. Distributed by University of Hawai'i. Press, Honolulu, Hawai'i.

Is there a nonviolent alternative to military intervention in those situations which cry out for some kind of international response? In Bosnia, for example, or Kosova,or Rwanda? This is the main challenge which has led to recurrent attempts to undertake cross-border interventions and to establish a permanent peace brigade or “peace army”.

The attempts to date have met with varying degrees of success depending in part on the kind of situation being confronted and the methods adopted…

1 January 2001Feature

Can the international peace movement create a nonviolent peace army in the image of Gandhis ideas of shanti sena? Building on decades of small-scale nonviolent interventions and the work of peace-teams, the Global Nonviolent Peace Force are developing ideas on a grand scale. Donna Howard explains.

We agree then, that the war system has to be taken apart. Trident by Trident, military by military, resource by resource. It is we who must do it, with our hammers and bolt-cutters, our court cases and treaties, our letters and votes, our non-payment of war taxes. With these same hands and hope we must simultaneously build a viable and compassionate alternative to those killing sanctions and NATO bombs. The Global Nonviolent Peace Force proposes to do just that, by offering energetic and…

1 January 2001Feature

In this personal reflection on his work with Christian Peacemaker Teams, Jamey Bouwmeester laments paradises lost.

Standing on the wharf, an Esgeno'petitj community member looked out at the water of Miramichi Bay, out at the buoys that mark the community's lobster traps. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like, she said and paused. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if we could fish in peace. If we didn't always have to look over our shoulders to make sure the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) arent there. This could be a beautiful place.

In my mind I'm transported halfway across…

1 January 2001Feature

Julia Guest reports from the West Bank city of Hebron on the work of the Christian Peacemaker Team and the philosophy behind their approach to nonviolent interventions.

She's just coming home from Ramallah, she's been away, you have to let her through explained Anita, with her Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) armband and hat, a signal of her role as interventionist. The two soldiers did not look convinced, their sole purpose, to maintain curfew. No one can go now argued the young Israeli, and as if to add reason to his statement he added Anyway they are not human, you saw on the TV. Implying the lynching in Ramallah of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF)…

1 January 2001Feature

Former peace team member Kate Witham challenges us to examine the gender dynamics of nonviolent intervention, arguing that feminist-pacifist interventions may differ because they recognise the links between masculinity, militarism, patriarchal domination and war.

Send in 1000 grandmothers, sang Holly Near, in response to Natos bombing of Yugoslavia wonderfully inspiring idea and perhaps not as bizarre as it sounds. Its certainly not a new suggestion, although as women's nonviolent interventions are seldom discussed you'd be forgiven for thinking so.

I am particularly talking about grassroots nonviolent action that either occurs or impacts across national borders, aiming to prevent violence or assist social change. Firstly I want to share…

1 January 2001Feature

Why intervene?

Why intervention? Let the Bosnians sort it out for themselves! How many times did we hear variations on that sentiment, usually but not always by people trying to justify the destruction being done by the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb armies and the militias?

The easy pacifist answer to that challenge (I know, because I frequently made it myself) was that something had to be done, short of military intervention, or else the calculated hatred we were seeing in that small region of Europe…

1 January 2001Feature

Using the example of Peace Brigades Internationals work in Colombia, Luis Enrique Eguren discusses the significance of the role of international observers in the protection of local people working in conflict.

Civilian third party interventions are one of the new paths currently being explored for transforming conflicts and keeping and building a sustainable peace, beyond the traditional diplomatic and strategic interventions (and also beyond their traditional objectives). But this new path goes into uncharted territory, and we still have to ask ourselves some key questions in order to gain a sense of direction and, as a result of this process, learn directly from our experiences.

One of…