This is a cross-post of a blog entry on my site, returngood.com, which focuses on Christian nonviolence.
Adherents of Christian nonviolence are often lazy and scared.
There. I said it.
We are often too lazy to actually read relevant reports and offer nonviolent alternatives in current violent situations. We tend to give pat answers, wring our hands about the difference between "violence" and "force" and walk away.
We are also often too scared of falling flat because we haven’t thought out exactly how a nonviolent method of dealing with real, identifiable badness would play out.
Nonviolent Christians, it’s time we played ball. And we could do a lot worse than to start with al-Qaida (AQ).
Witness Against War, a walk from Chicago to St. Paul to promote non-violence and an end to the war is Iraq, is in its final week.
Dan Pearson, the one who dreamed it up, scouted and planned the route, and coordinates much of the logistics, calls it "a totally worthwhile endeavor." He and Kathy Kelly are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, the Chicago-based group that organized and sponsors the walk.
The drive from Milwaukee, where I had last walked with them, to Pepin, WI, on the Mississippi River, to rejoin them, took five hours. It had taken the walkers five weeks.
As they started Saturday’s trek from Pepin to Maiden Rock, along one of the most spectacularly scenic stretches of river in the country, they had covered 420 miles. When they reach St. Paul this weekend, in time for the Republican national convention, they will have walked nearly 500 miles.
Despite the violent threats of the Israeli Occupation forces to the boats, the two boats with 44 human rights activists protesting the illegal and brutal siege of Gaza have reached Gazan waters.
A main strength of nonviolent activism is that it challenges the opponent with very difficult options, making a violent response by the oppressor less likely. In this specific case, it is clear with the media attention these boats have received worldwide (even some limited coverage in the US) have made a violent response by the Israeli military politically impossible. So despite the threats of the Israeli military to "stop this provocation", it seems the mighty Israeli military has caved to boats filled with rubber balloons for the children of Gaza.
The siege of Gaza, for today, has been broken. This is truly an historic day for the people of Palestine, for nonviolent struggle, for bringing peace to the Middle East.
Below is a repost of an entry on my blog, returngood.com, which focuses on Christian nonviolence. I also posted over at Street Prophets. Feel free to stop in.
Everyone knows that war in general and the Iraq war specifically has meant big money for defense contractors, but a new congressional report puts it in stark relief:
Witness Against War, a 450-mile walk from Chicago to St. Paul for the Republican convention, reached a Wisconsin Army base on Sunday, and 13 walkers were arrested when they tried to enter the base to interact with soldiers there.
Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, who organized the walk, was held on an oustanding 10-year-old warrant for civil disobedience at Project ELF in northern Wisconsin. The others were released and the walk continues today.
This report is from Jeff Leys, one of the walkers who was arrested:
In some ways, much of Kathy Kelly's adult life has been a walk against war. So it was completely in character for her to be walking through Milwaukee Monday, on a 450-mile trek to St. Paul and the Republican national convention.
Kelly, (left) a high school and community college teacher, has repeatedly risked her life and her freedom as an advocate for non-violence. She is now affiliated with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, based in her hometown of Chicago, which organized Witness Against War now making its way across Wisconsin.
For nearly two decades, there was a nonviolent army, an army of satyagrahis, organized along military lines. It was made up of Pashtun people of the then Northwest Frontier of the British Empire, now Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same places where the Taliban remain active today. They were called Khudai Khidmatgars, Servants of God, or Red Shirts because of the color of their uniforms, and were established by Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Badshah Khan, an associate of Gandhi's.
Badshah Khan started building schools for his people, girls as well as boys, in 1910 and by 1930 there were enough graduates to make up the Khudai Khitmatgars. The organization lasted until 1947 when it was outlawed and disbanded by the Pakistani government.
Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, a Man to Match His Mountains by Eknath Easwaran
Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1984/1999
ISBN 1-888314-01-x
Even when I was a child, I've never been filled with anything resembling a swelling sense of national pride when Memorial Day rolls around. Even before I became a Quaker I remember focusing a skeptical, cynical eye upon the rhetoric, the pageantry, and the pomp and circumstance that characterizes this holiday.
Kathy Kelly has more than paid her dues in the movement for peace through non-violence, putting herself in harm's way and risking her freedom.
She is the latest endorser of the Iraq Moratorium, a growing grassroots initiative which will be observed on Friday, May 16, as it is on the third Friday of each month. (She explains her endorsement below.)
The co-coordinator of Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Kelly helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end UN/US sanctions against Iraq in 1996. For bringing "medicine and toys" to Iraq in open violation of the UN/US sanctions, she and other campaign members were fined $20,000, which they’ve refused to pay.
Voices in the Wilderness organized 70 delegations to visit Iraq in the period between 1996 and the beginning of the "Operation Shock and Awe" warfare (March 2003). Kelly has been to Iraq 24 times since January 1996.
For those of you expecting a diary with pretty pics of candles or flowers or pics of clean shaven pretty Americans or swarthy, de-constructed Iraqis killed because of this illegal war, I'm sorry. I don't have those.
But I don't need to.
The fact is, you know that this war is the problem.
The WAR is illegal.
Our participation in the war is the moral problem.
Our continued funding of military bombings, of ammunition for troops who kill our name and with our money (or rather, China's money), is the problem.
Today, i went and coached a 9-10 year old ball game. Today, i went to work and put in 8 hours. Today, when i got home i kissed my 3 year old son on the forehead and told him i loved him. Today was a good day for me.
Today, the News Media coverage was all about politics. Today, more Americans probably died in Iraq in a needless war. Today, Osama Bin Laden probably ate well, while some families will never eat together again because of his actions. Today, American Axle employees are still on strike, drawing $150 dollars a week, and gas to get to the picket lines is $3.50 a gallon. Today, more of the polar ice caps melted and somewhere a republican probably called it "junk Science". Today, somewhere in a country with friendly ties to the United States someone was probably renditioned there to be tortured, with the approval of the top officials in this Administration. Today was not so good a day for America.
The spontaneous demonstrations by monks in March seem to have triggered demonstrations across the world in support of religious freedom and autonomy for Tibet.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Martin Luther King, Jr
Mimi Kennedy is an actress and Advisory Board chair of the Progressive Democrats of America. I interviewed her at a conference in Los Angeles, California. She told me that nonviolence is her most important progressive value. She told me the story about having painfully learned the importance of truth and transparency at a young age as well.
is the title of an important piece by his prize-winning biographer Taylor Branch in today's NY Times. And just as this is not the normal time for me to post, so this diary will be somewhat different than what I normally write.
It should be obvious that King has had a profound influence on me, as seen by two of my recent diaries, Thursday's I've been to the mountaintop and Friday's A time comes when silence is betrayal. Perhaps his influence has increased as I have aged, and as non-violence has been an increasing part of my own outlook. And it is with that in mind that I want people to read the piece by Taylor Branch. If you do no more than that, there is no need to read below the fold of this diary. I will be satisfied.
Radio France International is certainly not the mouthpiece of the PRC government. Their April 2, 2008 news included an interview (in Chinese) of an official in the Tibet Exile Government. At first when I heard this I thought it was a cruel April Fools Day joke. But was it?
This election cycle we are going through has fostered pettiness, major immaturity, and major attitudes that are, if nothing else, counter-productive to the general discourse. So let's not forget our sense of humor in the process.
How fast a nation forgets! How painful it is to be brought to a new awareness and filled with hope that things are changing and then see it all fade away as we sink into an even bigger cesspool. I will be 72 next Sunday and to have to witness the things going on in this country today after what went on in the '60s and '70s is heartbreaking. Back then we had a vision of a new America. Martin Luther King was one of the most central figures in creating that vision. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the massacre at Mai Lai How can we be doing it again? What will it take to stop this country from this imperial maddness? How many elections will it take before we actually begin to vote for positive values? I remember the night Martin Luther King was assasinated. I was at the YMCA in Town of Tonawanda, New York playing choose up sides basketball when the announcement came over the loudspeaker. Here's what happened next:
Kelly, (left) a high school and community college teacher, has repeatedly risked her life and her freedom as an advocate for non-violence. She is now affiliated with 
