A fascinating science commentary in the New York Times by Natalie Angier about plants' will to survive:
The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their
keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to
changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that
plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar —
the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can
dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight
collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze. [read rest of article]
Ira Chernus, Professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has written an introductory book on the history of the idea of nonviolence
in the United States. American Nonviolence: The History of An Idea is now available
from Orbis
Books and is also available free online.
Chapters include: The Anabaptists; The Quakers; William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolitionists; Henry David Thoreau; The Anarchists; World War I: The Crucial Turning Point; Mahatma Gandhi; Reinhold Niebuhr; A. J. Muste; Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Barbara Deming; and Thich Nhat Hanh.
Fromtheir Web site: Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history. Now
it’s your turn to take the same journey in moral reflection that has
captivated more than 14,000 students, as Harvard opens its classroom to
the world.
In this twelve part series, [Michael] Sandel challenges us with
difficult moral dilemmas and asks our opinion about the right thing to
do. He then asks us to examine our answers in the light of new
scenarios. The results are often surprising, revealing that important
moral questions are never black and white.
This course also
addresses the hot topics of our day—affirmative action, same-sex
marriage, patriotism and rights—and Sandel shows us that we can revisit
familiar controversies with a fresh perspective.
Facing History and Ourselves used a "Talk of the Nation" episode as the centerpiece for a lesson plan about bystanders to violence. We typically discuss this in the first session of the Class of Nonviolence and come around to it again towards the end.
Another good resource for this topic is the Phil Ochs song, "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends":
Got new software yesterday -- Anagram Genius is the program Dan Brown used to concoct the anagrams in Angels and Demons and now we have it as well. It's first workout was to conduct a learning activity about the Nobel Peace Prize. Barack Obama receives his on December 10, providing a great opening for discussion. Twenty-one US citizens have received the prize since its inception in 1921 and this worksheet challenges the student to unscramble anagrams of their names.
I didn't include the three US organizations who received the prize. Here they are: Is ill-mannered top banana contaminating? Poisoner terrifies connivently enchant wrathful paranoia. I'm an infected, mesmeric eviscerator.
The first sheet of the handout just includes the anagrams. The second sheet has biographies of the 21 recipients, plus an answer key at the bottom. If this is done as a class exercise, you can chop off the answers, if you prefer, and hand them out later. Download the PDF of the Anagrams HERE.
If you are facilitating the Class of Nonviolence, this exercise would make a nice accompaniment to the session on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 (his Nobel lecture makes good reading!) It could also be used with the session on Gandhi, who did not receive the prize. The Nobel Prize Organization has a lively article about Gandhi on their Web site. A good class discussion could be: Should Mohandas Gandhi have received the Nobel Peace Prize? Why or why not?
And the answers to the anagrams above are:
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (1997)
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985)
American Friends Service Committee (1947)
Engaging, transforming and transcending conflict often involves creative thinking. We can train our brains to “think outside the box.” One way is by solving puzzles. Any puzzle will do— anagrams, suduku, crosswords— or brain teasers. We've come up with a one page handout that includes 27 brain teasers. Play with the letters & numbers to find a common word or phrase. Here's an example:
EEEEEEEEEEC
You can download a PDF file of the handout HERE. If you are facilitating the class of nonviolence, handouts like these can be given to the people who show up early. Or, they can be incorporated into the class itself. In the session on Gandhi, for example, we often hand out a sheet of optical illusions to illustrate that there can be more than one version of "truth."
The answer to the puzzler above, by the way, is Tennessee. Ten E - C. Get it?
This slide show is from Victoria Pynchon's Settle It Now Negotiation Blog, and is based on a presentation by Dr. Ken Cloke, Conflict Revolution: Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism. (I recommend expanding the slide show to full screen to view it properly.)
In Lesson 5 of the Class of Nonviolence, on feminism, peace and power, we typically discuss power relationships; the diagram on slide 26, power, justice and decision making, is an interesting expansion on the "power wheels" that we typically use to launch our discussion of power. Good information here about social change, negotiation -- good info!
Sr. Rose Pacatte wrote a great article for the National Catholic Reporter on how to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall through movies. Her blog is a great source for current films that can often be used to teach peace and Justice.
The 8th and final session of the Class of Nonviolence is about violence and animals. This article from the New York Times covers the new scientific field of "pig cognition." It says in part:
"Even in domesticity, pigs have retained much of their foreboar’s
smarts. Dr. Byrne attributes pig intelligence to the same evolutionary
pressures that prompted cleverness in primates: social life and food.
Wild pigs live in long-term social groups, keeping track of one another
as individuals, the better to protect against predation. They also root
around for difficult food sources, requiring a dexterity of the snout
not unlike the handiness of a monkey." [whole article]
Looking for more about animals? Some good stuff in the New Yorker:
Hear Them Roar: A brief about Spain granting some apes human rights and a roundup of current books about animal rights. Swingers: Bonobos are celebrated as peace-loving, matriarchal, and sexually liberated. Are they? Birdbrain: The woman behind the world’s chattiest parrots.
This is a resource provided by the Voices Education Project. It is a complilation of writings, music, drama and art inspired by the work of Lucy Dougall in her book War and Peace in Literature: Prose, Drama and Poetry which Illuminate the Problem of War. Here's what you'll find (click on the word "contents" in the menu):
On October 24, Austin, Texas will host the 10th annual march to abolish the death penalty (2-5 pm on the southside steps of the Texas State Capitol, 11th & Congress, Austin.) It's a good time to explore this issue, covered in the 7th class of the University Essays for the Class of Nonviolence with 5 excellent readings.
Over the past few months that peaceCENTER has published three new anthologies about the death penalty:
Capital Ideas: 150 Classic Writers on the Death Penalty, from The Code of Hammurabi to Clarence Darrow, Susan Ives, editor, with a foreword by Joan Cheever Learn More & Buy
End of the Line: Five Short Novels About the Death Penalty, Susan Ives, editor. Includes: The Last Day of a Condemned Man, by Victor Hugo; Lois The Witch, by Elizabeth Gaskell; The Dead Alive, by Wilkie Collins; Billy Budd, by Herman Melville and The Seven Who Were Hanged, by Leonid AndreyevLearn More & Buy
Death Sentences: 34 Classic Short
Stories About the Death Penalty. Susan Ives, editor, with a foreword by
Jay Brandon and an afterword by Roger C. Barnes, Ph.D. Learn more & buy.
These three books are more about public philosophy than public policy. They explore who governments decide to kill, how they justify these decisions and the effect of state-sanctioned killing on society.
There's really not an ideal place to discuss Columbus Day in the Class of Nonviolence, although it fits best in lesson 7, where we generally talk about war. Instead, take advantage of the day itself to discuss alternative views of Columbus. Several good books that can be added to a library or curriculum are:
Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus: What Your History Books Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen. This colorful 32" x 21" poster includes artwork and writings from primary sources on the early history of the
Americas, perspectives of people who were here first, and analysis
of historical myths.
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, also by James W. Loewen, covers both the arrival of Columbus and the first Thanksgiving.
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. More than 90 essays, poems, interviews, historical vignettes, and lesson
plans reevaluate the myth of Columbus and issues of indigenous rights.
Rethinking Columbus is packed with useful teaching ideas for
kindergarten through college.
"Distributive justice is not only a central issue of moral and political philosophy, but also an object of common-sense moral reasoning. Everyone is sensitive to the question of his/her share of the common good. Even those who get the best piece of the social pie are in need to justify the actual model of distribution. It has become a truism that most people (especially in the transition countries) experience their own social position as "unjust", relying on certain intuitive principles of distributive justice." from the Distributive Justice Web site
This is an incredible site, online since 2001, that engages you in the theory of distributive justice, via a game (depicted below), forum, newsletter, mailing list, interviews and a solid discussion of the various theories of the field. The site hasn't been updated in a while but it is an excellent introduction to an important topic. Be sure to read about the theory and play the game.
We would use this in lesson 3 of the Class of Nonviolence, when we discuss Dorothy Day and poverty, especially with the essay "Poverty and Precarity."
My peaceCENTER colleague Rosalyn Collier roped me into dinner and a movie, the movie being "Strictly Ballroom," a 1993 Australian film about ballroom dancing. "Not at all my cup of tea," I complained. "You love it. Trust me," she countered. She was right.
Scott, a young competitive ballroom dancer, is inspired to improvise in a rumba competition. His elders are incensed: "There are no new steps," grimly admonishes the head of the dance federation. His teachers lament that if everyone could make up steps they wouldn't need teachers and where would that leave them? The theme? A life lived in fear is a life half-lived. The film is funny, beautiful, sad, uplifting and thought-provoking.
Strictly Ballroom would be an eccentric yet appropriate film to show along with lesson 7 of the Class of Nonviolence, where we discuss civil disobedience. Although the disobedience isn't exactly of the civil variety, the message is the same: conscience has precedence over the rules.
The Interactive Media Lab at USC
is developing Walden, a game that simulates the experiment in living made by Thoreau at
Walden Pond in 1845-47, allowing players to walk in his virtual
footsteps, attend to the tasks of living a self-reliant existence,
discover in the beauty of a virtual landscape the ideas and writings of
this unique philosopher, and cultivate through the gameplay their own
thoughts and responses to the concepts discovered there. [read rest of article]
In the Class of Nonviolence we read Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" in lesson 7, and such a game would, of course, fit in well there. It would also complement lesson 8, where we discuss nonviolence and animals, but also usually talk about caring for the earth. His message of living simple and close to nature fits in well here. Can't wait until it's released!
The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 926 active hate groups in the
United States in 2008. Only organizations and their chapters known to
be active during 2008 are included. All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or
malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable
characteristics.
This is a very cool and useful interactive map that tracks not only hate groups but also reported incidents.
Want to be a better person? Commune with nature. Paying
attention to the natural world not only makes you feel better, it makes
you behave better, finds a new study to be published October 1 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. [read article]
We'd probably use this material in the first session of the Class of Nonviolence, where we discuss the nature of violence and nonviolence. It would also slot nicely into the 8th and final session; although the main topic in noviolence and animals, we usually expand the discussion to include the relationship between nonviolence and the environment. Here's a video summarizing the study results:
Democracy is not a spectator sport. Using dramatic and musical
performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday
Americans, THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up
for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the
bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice. Narrated by
Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling books, A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History, THE PEOPLE SPEAK
illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our
society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted. Their Web site includes a video trailer and a classroom study guide.
The peaceCENTER has recently published two more book, "End of the Line: five short classic novels about the death penalty" and "Death Sentences: 34 Classic short stories about the death penalty." Both are available from Amazon.com.
It would benefit and uplift every student of nonviolence to read Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener (1853) and Benito Cereno (1855.)
Bartleby, a law clerk, answers every unwelcome request with a calm “I would prefer not to.” This resistance disconcerts his boss, who frets, “Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises.[. . .] This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do?"
As Cesar Chavez said, “Nonviolence is saying no to everything that is humiliating.” Bartleby practiced nonviolent resistance before it even had a name.
In Benito Cereno, an American ship captain is unable to see what to him is unthinkable and impossible: that the slaves are in charge of a troubled Spanish ship. He misinterprets every action, every gesture, every word that is spoken to conform to his ingrained understanding of how the world works, and he is wrong. It is a disturbing and enlightening short novel.
We're working on a new peaceCENTER book, End of the Line: Five short novels about the death penalty, which includes Herman Melville's Billy Budd, another excellent book that helps us think in new ways about that ambiguous place between law and justice. It should be ready for publication sometime next month. What classic literature do you find illuminating in terms of peace and justice?
Yikes! It's been a long time since this blog was updated. We've been busy working on editing new peaceCENTER books. Visualize Whirled Peas: vegan cooking from the San Antonio peaceCENTER is now available on Amazon.com. It includes 116 recipes that will help you create peace, salad, compassion, potatoes, community, and soup. We discuss the relationship between food and nonviolence in Session 8 of the Class of Nonviolence.
Mia Farrow has embarked on a 21-day fast to “show solidarity” with the people of Darfur. "I'm just an actress. I'm not presuming anybody will care whether I starve to death or whether I go on a long hunger strike or what. But it's a personal matter. I can't be among those that watch - and I honestly couldn't think of anything else to do," she said. Both Farrow herself and the media sometimes call her action a fast and at other times a hunger strike. Is there a difference?
The type of fast that Farrow has embarked upon is often called a “political fast” to distinguish it from medical fasts (to cleanse the body of toxins, prepare for a medical procedure, lose weight) and religious fasts (Ramadan, Yom Kippur, Lent. . . .) Both fasts and hunger strikes involve abstaining from food. Insofar as its purpose is to draw attention to a cause and to rally the support of the faithful by jeopardizing the health and perhaps life of a beloved public figure, a fast has much in common with a hunger strike.
The difference, I think is subtle but important and perhaps best examined by looking at Gandhi’s fasts (he went on 17) and the fasts of Cesar Chavez.
Gandhi described four reasons for fasting: (1) To express his own deep sense of sorrow at the way those he loved had disappointed him; (2) To atone for the misdeeds of the people he lead; (3) A last-ditch attempt to stir deep spiritual feelings in others and to appeal to their moral sense and (4) to bring quarreling parties together.
He also defined when fasting was appropriate: (1) Fasts could only be undertaken against those people he loved; (2) fasts must have a concrete and specific goal, not abstract aims; (3) The fast must be morally defensible in the eyes of the target; (4) the fast must in no way serve his own interests and (5) the fast must not ask people to do something they were incapable of, or to cause great hardship.
Gandhi said about fasting:
“Fasting is an institution as old as Adam. It has been resorted to for self-purification or for some ends, noble as well as ignoble.”
“A complete fast is a complete and literal denial of self. It is the truest prayer.”
“A genuine fast cleanses the body, mind, and soul. It crucifies the flesh and to that extent sets the soul free.”
“What the eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner.”
“My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.”
Like Gandhi, Cesar Chavez was willing to sacrifice his own life so that his work would continue and to ensure that violence would not be used. In 1968 Chavez went on a water-only, 25-day fast. When asked about his motivation for fasting, he said, “A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is also an act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more. The fast is finally a declaration of non- cooperation with supermarkets who promote and sell and profit from California table grapes.”
Chavez fasted again in 1972 for 24 days, and in 1988 for 36 days. Speaking again about his motivations for fasting, Chavez said that farm workers everywhere were angry and worried that would not be a victory without violence. He fasted to prove that is was possible to win without violence. He said, “We have proved it before through persistence, hard work, faith and willingness to sacrifice. We can win and keep our self- respect and build a great union that will secure the spirit of all people if we do it through a rededication and recommitment to the struggle for justice through nonviolence.”
Turning specifically to the problem of pesticides, he continued "The evil is far greater than even I had thought it to be, it threatens to choke out the life of our people and also the life system that supports us all. This solution to this deadly crisis will not be found in the arrogance of the powerful, but in solidarity with the weak and helpless. I pray to God that this fast will be a preparation for a multitude of simple deeds for justice. Carried out by men and women whose hearts are focused on the suffering of the poor and who yearn, with us, for a better world. Together, all things are possible."
We would discuss fasting in lesson six of the Class of Nonviolence when we discusses Gene Sharp's list of 198 methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion. Sharp identified three types of fasts. The fast of moral pressure is undertaken to persuade a third party (St. Patrick fasted to urge the Irish king to deal fairly with the slaves, for example.) The hunger strike is considered coersive, especially when it is threatened to the death, which could cause civil unrest. The third type of fast Sharp calls the Satyagrahic fast, which requires spiritual preparation and is intended to convert an opponent.
Here is a video about Mia farrow's fast. What do YOU think?
Seventy-two years ago today, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, on April 26th, 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was carpet bombed by Fascist Italian and Nazi German forces. Three-quarters of Guernica was destroyed, and as many as 1,600 civilians were killed. The Spanish Republican government had commissioned Pablo Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at Paris International Exposition in the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. Guernica, an 11 ft tall and 7.8 25.6 ft wide canvas, was installed in June. Picasso’s Guernica can be a springboard to a larger discussion about the tragedy of war, which we usually cover in lesson seven of the Class of Nonviolence.
The peaceCENTER has two videos that go into immense detail about Picasso’s painting. “Pablo Picasso’s Guernica” (Kultur, 1999, 45 minutes) is only available on VHS. It is part of the “Discovery of Art” series and although dry, is thorough and informative. Easier to find – and much livelier – is the Picasso episode in Simon Schama's “Power of Art” (BBC, 2007, 1 hour.) We’ve just ordered a third film – “Treasures of the World- Guernica: Testimony of War,” (PBS Home Video, 1999) that we have been eager to review.
This 9-minute video is an excerpt from “The Bombing of Gernika: The Mark of Man.” It includes a strange and compelling animation at the beginning, plus interviews with three survivors of the bombing.
The death penalty has been added as lesson seven in the new 16-week “university” Class of Nonviolence. There are many good documentaries on capital punishment, but these two online videos would work well with this lesson. The first is an hour-long TV program hosted by the Harris County, Texas Green Party. In a classroom situation it would be useful to show the 9-minute documentary produced by Irish television that is embedded starting at minute 3:50. It tells about the European Union’s efforts to put pressure on countries, including the US, to abolish the death penalty. The second video is a lecture given by Sr. Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking” speaking at Utah Valley State College.
A widow, having a young son, and being possessed of a handsome fortune, had given a promise of marriage to two magi, who were both desirous of marrying her. "I will take for my husband," said she, "the man who can give the best education to my beloved son." The two magi contended who should bring him up, and the cause was carried before Zadig. Zadig summoned the two magi to attend him. "What will you teach your pupil?" he said to the first. "I will teach him," said the doctor, "the eight parts of speech, logic, astrology, pneumatics, what is meant by substance and accident, abstract and concrete, the doctrine of the monads, and the pre-established harmony." "For my part," said the second, "I will endeavor to give him a sense of justice, and to make him worthy the friendship of good men." Zadig then cried: "Whether thou art the child's favorite or not, thou shalt have his mother."
This is an excerpt from Zadig, a comic novel by the French philosopher and poet Voltaire (1694-1778), one of the major Enlightenment intellectuals who prepared the way for the French Revolution. Zadig, ou La Destinée, ("Zadig, or The Book of Fate") (1747) tells the story of Zadig, a philosopher in ancient Babylonia. Most of the problems Zadig faces are thinly disguised references to social and political problems of Voltaire's own day.
The Class of Nonviolence is not, I think, a class about learning facts and memorizing lists but rather one of developing a sense of justice. Voltaire and his clever little alter-ego, Zadig, got it right.
The Class of Nonviolence, alas, does not address the environment directly – we typically stuff environmental issues into lesson eight, which is about animals. Another approach could be to look at the life and works of Edward Abbey, an author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues. He fits in well with lesson seven, on civil disobedience. Abbey’s Desert Solitaire has been called “The Walden of the Southwest"; we read Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” in this session. Abbey's most famous novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, centers on a small group of eco-warriors who travel the American West attempting stop uncontrolled human expansion by committing acts of sabotage against industrial development. To this day, eco-sabotage is called "monkeywrenching.” and the practice can be used to begin a discussion about whether destruction of property can be nonviolent and morally acceptable. According to IMDB, a film of this book is scheduled for release in 2010 – about time! The first of these two videos is a short intro to a 2007 documentary about Edward Abbey, A Voice in the Wilderness, available for purchase from Canyonlands Natural History Association; you can watch the entire film for free online at Green Treks.
A Peace Media Clearinghouse launched this morning, a joint project of the US Institute of Peace Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding and the Georgetown University Conflict Resolution Program. You can find documentaries, films, shows, podcasts, songs, video games, and other multimedia about peace and conflict management; use them in your work as educators, trainers, practitioners, policy makers, or students; explore a wide range of topics, such as conflict prevention, nonviolence, post-conflict reconstruction, refugees, child soldiers, rule of law, religion, climate change and terrorism and search for multimedia by region, country, media type, and issue area. It looks like they have about 400 resources — many of them free — cataloged to date. This promises to be an incredible resource for those who teach peace.
With all the coverage of tea parties it is an excellent teaching moment to talk about the revolutionary roots of the real Boston Tea Party and initiate a discussion about whether Britain could have been removed from the American colonies nonviolently. (This is one of Colman McCarthy’s discussion questions in lesson 6 of the Class of Nonviolence.)
There are several (relatively) new resources that discuss this very question. “The Real Revolution: The Global Story of American Independence” by Marc Aronson (2005: Clarion) makes a brilliant connection between the tea grown in India and taxed in Boston, a foreshadowing of the military-industrial complex described by Eisenhower almost 200 years later.
Mark Kurlansky’s “Nonviolence: 25 lessons from the history of a dangerous idea” (2007: Modern Library) .covers the nonviolent prelude to the American Revolution in chapter IV. It’s also available as an audio book, and this chapter is on disk 3, tracks 11-19 (or 3k-3s, depending on how your CD player reads the disk.) It’s 11 pages, just over a ½ hour of audio.
Ray Raphael wrote “A People’s History of the American Revolution" (2001: Perennial) tells the story from the view of the common people. The Boston Tea Party is covered in Chapter 4. Raphael’s web site has middle-high school lesson plans for each chapter.
To bring this right up to date, Thom Hartmann's essay, "The Real Boston Tea Party was an Anti-Corporate Revolt" can be read on Common Dreams.org.
This 3-minute Schoolhouse Rock video about the causes of the Boston Tea Party is fun and accurate.
Snag Films has hundreds of free documentaries, including the series "Women on the Frontline," from the TV news program. Each in this series is 12 minutes: the one shown here is about women in the Congo, where rape is a weapon of war. It would be a good supplement to lesson five of the Class of Nonviolence, where we discuss feminism, peace and power. Full length documentaries are also available: the selection is awesome.
On the American RadioWorks website you can listen online, download, or read the transcript of a story about a young American soldier, Sergeant Gray, who served in the Iraq war for a year, but died a strange death once he got back from Iraq. The story details his mother's search for the cause of death of her son, and learns that Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which he developed from abusing Iraqi prisoners, was the likely culprit that caused his death. There are also photos and stories of other U.S. soldiers who were involved in the treatment of Iraqi detainees. We typically discuss war in lesson seven of the Class of Nonviolence, and this insight into the hidden and human cost of war is important to address. I learned of this site from the Internet Scout Report, a wonderful weekly mailing list out of the University of Wisconsin that has scoured the Internet for the best (mostly) educational sites since 1994.
The 16-week “University” Class of Nonviolence contains a Darrow essay, “Resist Not Evil,” an early argument for restorative justice rather than the more typical vengeful justice. A temptation would be to augment this essay by showing a video clip from “Inherit the Wind,” the excellent play based on the Scopes Monkey Trial, but this does not get to the heart of Darrow’s philosophy about justice. The perfect video is of Henry Fonda’s one-man show, “Clarence Darrow,” which was filmed for TV in 1974 and is available from Kultur Films for less than $20. It is a brilliant production (I saw him perform it in London) that covers the Haymarket trial, Big Bill Haywood, the Pullman strike, the Pennsylvania coal miners, the bombing of the LA Times and defense of the McNamara brothers, the Scopes trial, Leopold and Loeb and the Ossian Sweet trial, a landmark in the civil rights movement. The chapter called “Chicago Justice” includes Darrow's views on the death penalty: it would also go well with lesson seven of the Class of Nonviolence. The 81 minute video is neatly divided into segments of less than 10 minutes each and any one of them would work well in a class.
On Public Radio’s “Selected Shorts” yesterday Diana Ivey read Saki's short story “The Toys of Peace":
"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London morning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about children's toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about influence and upbringing." "In the view of the National Peace Council," ran the extract, "there are grave objections to presenting our boys with regiments of fighting men, batteries of guns, and squadrons of 'Dreadnoughts.' Boys, the Council admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . but that is no reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, their primitive instincts. At the Children's Welfare Exhibition, which opens at Olympia in three weeks' time, the Peace Council will make an alternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of 'peace toys.' In front of a specially-painted representation of the Peace Palace at The Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It is hoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which will bear fruit in the toy shops." "The idea is certainly an interesting and very well-meaning one," said Harvey; "whether it would succeed well in practice --" "We must try," interrupted his sister; "you are coming down to us at Easter, and you always bring the boys some toys, so that will be an excellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. . . (read the rest of the story online)
Saki (real name: H.H. Munro) was a British writer who died in battle during World War I. This story would be a good conversation starter in the first lesson of the Class of Nonviolence, where we read Alfie Kohn’s essay, “Human Nature is Inherently Nonviolent.
Yesterday I noted that I find the two “War and Peace” extracts in the 16-week “University” Class of Nonviolence uninspiring: neither useful for the study of nonviolence nor interesting when divorced from the magnificent novel. Yet, it would be absurd to assign Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” at 1,300 pages (give or take a few), as a class reading. In search of an alternative, I started reading his short stories and found them delightful, relevant and SHORT.
All of them are didactic—containing little life lessons—and many start with an introductory Bible verse. Two are about the death penalty, one about interfaith dialog, a few about greed and several about forgiveness. The story that Tolstoy called “Where Love Is, God Is” was made into a 27-minute claymation video in 1977 and is popular for children in Christian Sunday schools, “Martin the Cobbler.” I’ve put together a little booklet of eleven of Tolstoy’s stories. The collection includes: Three Questions; How Much Land Does a Man Need; The Candle; God Sees the Truth, but Waits; The Coffee House of Surat; The Grain as Big as a Hen’s Egg; Little Girls Wiser Than Men; Esarhaddon, King of Assyria; Where Love is, God Is; Too Dear! and A Spark Neglected.
There is one Tolstoy essay in the 8-week Class of Nonviolence, the intriguing “Patriotism or Peace,” in which Tolstoy proposes that the two are inherently incompatible. In the 16-week “University” Class, there are five more. At the San Antonio peaceCENTER, we have always scheduled two hours for each session and, to be frank, I’d be hard-pressed to discuss Tolstoy for two hours based solely on these readings. Two of the Tolstoy extracts—“Napoleon” and the two-page extract from “War and Peace”—are dense unless you are really, really into 19th Century military history.
I’ve started the search for the perfect film clip to show to add some bling to this lesson. Yesterday I watched the King Vidor / Dino DeLaurentis 1956 interpretation of “War and Peace,” starring Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, Henry Fonda as Pierre and Mel Ferrer as Prince Andrei. The first half of the more than three-hour-long film is a stinker: a clunky period piece. This was the “peace” part of the film, covering the time roughly from the Battle of Austerlitz (1805) until Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. It got better in the second, “War” half of the film. I would reluctantly recommend scenes 23 (Napoleon’s Army Decay) and 24 (The Animal Runs) as the most meaningful – it’s about 15 minutes of film.
Prior to these scenes, the Russian commander, Field Marshal Kurtuzov, decides to allow the French to take Moscow unopposed. His generals argue that honor demands defense of their sacred city; Kurtzov counters that if they try they would lose their army, Moscow and, ultimately, Russia. As the Russians strategically retreat into the interior, they set fire to everything left behind. The scene opens with Napoleon realizing that he cannot sustain his Army without food or forage in the ruins of Moscow: he decides to return to Poland and begins his 550-mile trek on 19 October, in bitter wind and heavy snow. The Russians celebrate. By the time he crosses the border on 14 December, Napoleon’s Grand Army of 450,000 is depleted to a rabble of fewer than 40,000 starving, frostbitten survivors.
One other clip is interesting. At the very beginning of Scene 16 (Eve of War) there is a fleeting minute or so of a church service where the priest prays for God’s support in defeating the French. We can imagine Napoleon attending a similar service where his priest utters similar prayers to the same god for the defeat of the Russians.
As students assemble, set the scene by playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, written in honor the Battle of Borodino (7 September, 1812.) This version is by The Berliner Philharmonic, under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.
Tomorrow I start watching all 7 ½ hours of Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1967 “Voyna i Mir,” which promises to be better (it won the Oscar for best foreign film.) I’ll let you know.
Many years ago the peaceCENTER developed a teaching tool called “The Great Peace March,” an illustrated timeline of peace and justice history, that we can hang on the wall, project on a screen or play as a bingo-type game. It begins with the first recorded practitioners of civil disobedience, Shiprah and Puah, the midwives who refused to kill the newborn male babies of the Hebrew women. (Exodus: 1-2, c. 1350 B.C.E.) Another instance of early Jewish resistance was not recorded in the Bible but rather recounted by the historian Josephus (pictured). We would invoke this example when we study Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience in the Class of Nonviolence.
Sedition of The Jews Against Pontius Pilate by Flavius Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews
But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.
The Civil Rights Movement is often taught as if it was a purely southern phenomena and the Class of Nonviolence, by looking at civil rights through the lens of the life and works of Martin Luther King, Jr., does little to dispel this. I heard Thomas Sugrue, a University of Pennsylvania history professor, interviewed on C-Span’s Book-TV. (You can watch the 47-minute interview at the Harvard Bookstore online.)
He caught my attention when he started talking about Levittown, PA, a city just seven miles from my hometown of Trevose. When built in a rural beet field in the 1950s, Levittown had restrictive covenants, forbidding owners to sell their homes to African-Americans. (“In metropolitan Philadelphia,” he writes, “between 1946 and 1953, only 347 of 120,000 new homes built were open to blacks.”) The story of how the first Black family moved in – and was harassed until they moved out – was ugly and fascinating.
Then he started writing about Trevose. The Linconia and Concord Park subdivisions were just around the corner from my house. Linconia was built as an all-black community in the 1920s, when Trevose was still a rural retreat where city folks built summer homes along Poquessing Creek. Concord Park was a deliberate social experiment, the first planned integrated suburban community in the country. I never set foot in it, although it was less than a half mile from my front door. As Sugrue points out, these connected neighborhoods were isolated by geography, wedged between the Reading railroad tracks, the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a cemetery. He didn’t mention that they were also politically separated from “my” part of Trevose: in a different township and a different school district. We used different libraries, played on different sports teams, went to different schools. I didn’t know this history of my own hometown; neither did my brother, who still works in Trevose. (I scanned these four pages of the book for him – and you.)
“Sweet Land of Liberty” opened my eyes and knocked some of the Yankee arrogance out of me. At almost 700 pages, Sugrue’s book is too big and dense to be assigned as a class reading but it is essential background for anyone who teaches the civil rights movement.
Last night’s César Chávez Interfaith Service at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church ended, as always, with a rousing sing-a-long of “De Colores,” the anthem of the United Farm Workers of America. The first time someone attends a César Chávez (or Hispanic History Month) event can be awkward, as everyone but YOU seems to know the tune and the words. The same happens at Martin Luther King (or Black History Month) celebrations, when hundreds of voices join confidently in “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Everyone but YOU. . . or at least it seems that way.
Here are YouTube videos of both songs. Practice in the privacy of your home or classroom. “De Colores” is sung by Raffi and is a little sappy, but the music and lyrics are clear and easy to follow. A more authentic version is available as a RealAudio file from Labor Notes, with glorious music by Los Lobos. If you need the words to either song, download the San Antonio peaceCENTER's PDF-format song sheet.
This is the week in San Antonio when we celebrate the life of César Chávez, the labor activist and civil rights leader, born on March 31, 1927. The events here started last Thursday with a mayoral proclamation and ends next Saturday with the 13th annual César Chávez March for Justice. Tonight I am one of the people offering a reading at the César Chávez Interfaith Service at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church at 6:30 pm (yesterday there was a mass at the San Fernando Cathedral) and Thursday José Antonio Orosco, author of “César Chávez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence” and director of Peace Studies Program at Oregon State University, will be speaking at Our Lady of The Lake University at 7 pm (I’ll be there!)
"All my life, I have been driven by one dream, one goal, one vision: to overthrow a farm labor system in this nation that treats farm workers as if they were not important human beings. Farm workers are not agricultural implements; they are not beasts of burden to be used and discarded. That dream was born in my youth, it was nurtured in my early days of organizing. It has flourished. It has been attacked."
And here are a couple of short videos about Chavez and the United Farm Workers of America. The first video includes Lila Downs' most beautiful interpretation ever of Woody Guthrie's song "Pastures of Plenty" and the second is a 7:34 minute mini documentary from the DVD "A History of Hispanic Achievement in America."
There was a wicked tyrant; and the god Indra, assuming the shape of a hunter, came down upon earth with the demon Matali, the latter appearing as a dog of enormous size. Hunter and dog entered the palace, and the dog howled so woefully that the royal buildings shook with the sound to their very foundations. The tyrant had the awe-inspiring hunter brought before his throne and inquired after the cause of the terrible bark. The hunter said, "The dog is hungry," whereupon the frightened king ordered food for him. All the food prepared at the royal banquet disappeared rapidly in the dog's jaws, and still he howled with portentous significance. More food was sent for, and the royal storehouses were emptied, but in vain. Then the tyrant grew desperate and asked: "Will nothing satisfy the cravings of that woeful beast?" "Nothing," replied the hunter, "nothing except perhaps the flesh of all his enemies." "And who are his enemies?" anxiously asked the tyrant. The hunter replied: "The dog will howl as long as there are people hungry in the kingdom, and his enemies are those that practice injustice and oppress the poor." The oppressor of the people, remembering his evil deeds, was seized with remorse, and for the first time in his life he began to listen to the teachings of righteousness.
This is another story about a tyrannical ruler, this time from the Buddhist tradition, again gleaned from Upton Sinclair’s “The Cry for Justice.” This morning’s Parade Magazine included its annual assessment of the world’s worst dictators: Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe; Omar al-Bashir, Sudan; Kim Jong-Il, North Korea; Than Shwe, Burma; King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia; Hu Jintao, China; Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Iran; Isayas Afewerki, Eritrea; G. Berdymuhammedov, Turkmenistan and Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya. I wonder: where is the ravenous dog that will not stop howling until the oppressed are given justice? Of course: It is my fate to be that "woeful beast," hungry for justice, who howls without respite, shaking the very foundations of power.
This is another page from Upton Sinclair’s “The Cry for Justice.” We would use it near the beginning of the Class of Nonviolence, probably in the sessions on Gandhi, King or Day, as it adds a Muslim perspective to the discussion of justice, power and empathy.
Rebuking a Tyrant By Sa’adi
In a certain year I was sitting retired in the great mosque at Damascus, at the head of the tomb of Yahiya the prophet (on whom be peace!). One of the kings of Arabia, who was notorious for his injustice, happened to come on a pilgrimage, and having performed his devotions, he uttered the following words: "The poor and the rich are servants of this earth, and those who are richest have the greatest wants." He then looked towards me, and said, "Because dervishes are strenuous and sincere in their commerce with heaven, unite your prayers with mine, for I am in dread of a powerful enemy."
I replied, "Show mercy to the weak peasant, that you may not experience difficulty from a strong enemy. It is criminal to crush the poor and defenseless subjects with the arm of power. He liveth in dread who befriendeth not the poor; for should his foot slip, no one layeth hold of his hand. Whosoever soweth bad seed, and looketh for good fruit, tortureth his imagination in vain, making a false judgment of things. Take the cotton out of thine ear, and distribute justice to mankind; for if thou refusest justice, there will be a day of retribution.
"The children of Adam are limbs of one another, and are all produced from the same substance; when the world gives pain to one member, the others also suffer uneasiness. Thou who are indifferent to the sufferings of others deservest not to be called a man."
Abū Muṣliḥ bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, known by the pen name Sa’adi, was a Persian poet, c. 1184-1291. In the unsettled conditions following the Mongol invasion of Iran, he wandered through Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, India and Central Asia. For thirty years he sat in remote teahouses late into the night and exchanged views with merchants, farmers, preachers, wayfarers, thieves, and Sufi mendicants, preaching, advising, learning, honing his sermons, and polishing them into gems illuminating the wisdom and foibles of his people. He had many western admirers: Pushkin, Goethe and Emerson quoted him. A poem by Sa’adi is carved into the entrance of the Hall of Nations in the UN building in New York:
Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain.
I enjoy Joan Baez’s essay, “What Would You Do If?” in lesson seven of the Class of Nonviolence. Written as a dialog between Joan and "Fred," it starts off, “What would you do if someone were, say, attacking your grandmother?,” modeling with humor and clarity the give-and-take we have with people baffled by our commitment to nonviolence. (The 16-week “University” Class has an entire session on Baez.) Many young people are not familiar with her music, so here are a couple of videos. The first (1966) is of Joan singing "With God on Our Side" and the second is Joan and Bob Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind."
Upton Sinclair published an updated version of his 1915 anthology of social protest literature, “The Cry for Justice,” in 1963. I’m glad he did, because it gave him the opportunity to include Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 Inaugural address, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I was struck by how fresh and current it is. If President Obama had delivered this speech two months ago at his own inauguration, he would have had to change only a few words. Here is how Roosevelt addressed the financial crisis of his time:
“And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.
“Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
“True, they have tried. But their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.”
