As a National Peace Academy (NPA) partner, the Metta Center for Nonviolence is excited to share information with you about the National Peace Academy’s 2^nd annual Peacebuilding Peacelearning Intensive (PPI) that will take place this summer in Burlington, VT from July 17-23, 2011.

Most importantly, the National Peace Academy is pleased to extend a 50% tuition discount to friends and supporters of the Metta Center who wish to attend the PPI.

The PPI is a one-week immersion learning program for people who wish to create significant, meaningful and sustainable change in their communities.  The PPI provides a holistic introduction to the theory and practice of peacebuilding and engages participants in cooperative learning experiences, including the preparation of a peacebuilding project proposal to take back to their organization, workplace or community. The program supports the development of the full spectrum of knowledge, skills and capacities of the peacebuilder – inner and outer, personal and professional.

Space is limited, so please apply today!  You can find more information and the application here.

To receive the friends of Metta Center tuition discount please enter the following code when applying: 07META11.

This course will give participants a grounding in principled nonviolence, which Gandhi called “the greatest power mankind has been endowed with.”  Students will be exposed to an inspiring vision of this power and its many applications, and familiarize themselves with its logic, history, and potential future.  

Click here to register

Instructors will explain carefully the basic principles of active nonviolence (‘what makes it tick’) and laws of its operation as worked out by Gandhi in his fifty years of experimentation with that principle in almost every walk of life. Then, in the more active or interactive part of the series, participants will get practice in analyzing current events from a nonviolence standpoint and finally design their own project to apply nonviolence to a selected problem.  One session will be devoted to “the state of the art:” new developments since Gandhi and King, with emphasis on the contributions of history and science.  At all points we will keep in mind the needs of educators, whether they have prior familiarity with the subject or are new to it (like most of us). 

Learning goals 
In addition to the capacity to understand and explain nonviolence to others, and to analyze past and current events from a nonviolence perspective, students will be poised to carry out their  “experiments with truth” in their own lives, personal and political.  Special attention will be paid to the needs of educators who wish both to conduct a more nonviolent learning experience and to introduce nonviolent history, logic, and theory as subject matter in various courses.

Additional Information
A course syllabus will be provided upon registration.  Venue details and directions will also be provided.

Eight years ago, on March 19, the United States led the attack on Iraq. This year, on that same date, US forces, in conjunction with those of other countries, embarked on an aerial assault of another Arab country, Libya.

The American Friends Service Committee is appalled by the countless deaths, the untold suffering, the displacements of people, and the physical destruction in Libya. We pray for those who have already lost their loved ones through violence, whatever may be the source.

Our long experience in the Middle East and Africa, along with our Quaker witness for peace, compels us to speak out about the crisis in Libya. We deplore the violence and killings inflicted by Qaddafi’s government on its citizens, as we abhor the actions of any government that places their own self-preservation above the well being of their people. However, our revulsion does not justify violence, or war.

Our experience has shown the futility of challenging violence with violence. We have seen that history has proven time and again that war and violence do not bring about justice or a lasting peace. Instead, they always take a terrible toll on civilians. This is why, as a Quaker organization, we advocate for nonviolent social change.

We support the people of Libya as they struggle to protect their human rights and to transform unjust social and political systems in their country. We note that in Egypt and Tunisia, remarkable change has been achieved in a short time with minimal violence or outside intervention. Recent history shows how nonviolent approaches can prevail to overcome extraordinary oppression. Unlike military action from another country, these approaches serve the people over the long term.

In addressing the serious issues of international peace and security, we urge the use of non-military methods by all involved. In this case, the international community has not exhausted the available nonviolent alternatives to protect the people of Libya. The significant resources required by the chosen course of military intervention could be better used for intense diplomatic and political efforts to alleviate the crisis.

We believe that it is morally unacceptable to allow military tactics to lead our response to human crises. The current foreign military assault on Libya is a step in the wrong direction, one that may lead the country to further instability, human suffering, and protracted violent conflict.

We therefore ask:

The Libyan government to end all violence against its own citizens and to fulfill its obligation to protect its citizens.
The coalition forces, including the United States, to cease the air bombardment and military involvement in Libya, and renounce any intention to impose regime change by force.

The United Nations, the African Union, and the Arab League to increase diplomatic efforts to engage all parties to the conflict in dialogue, to support an immediate ceasefire, and to find political solutions that serve the needs of the Libyan people.
All parties to allow full access for humanitarian agencies to provide urgently needed assistance to internally displaced people, refugees who fled to neighboring countries, and the tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Libya. We urge that emergency assistance and protection be extended to all in need on the basis of humanitarian principles and not on the basis of political criteria or military objectives.

Tikkun is one such voice–and has been since it began 25 years ago. Even more so it deserves your support for this particular event, because Tikkun will be giving one of the Tikkun awards to Judge Goldstone, the courageous South African jurist whose report on Israel’s human rights violations during its assault on Gaza in Dec. 2008 and Jan. 2009 was embraced by the peace and justice movements around the world and in Israel, but condemned not only by the government of Israel and the American Jewish establishment, but also by the US Congress and the US State Department.

When Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner announced that Tikkun would be extending this honor to Justice Goldstone in Berkeley, his house was attacked by right-wing Zionists and some of them may be
picketing or even disrupting when Tikkun acknowledges Goldstone for the good he did for humanity in his UN reports of Rwanda, Bosnia and Gaza.

Tikkun needs and deserves support from those of us who recognize that in giving this award, Tikkun has once again distinguished itself as one of the most courageous progressive voices in the U.S.

To register for this incredible evening, go to www.tikkun.org/celebrate or call 510 644 1200

Beyond Forgiveness: Reflections on Atonement

Healing the Past, Making Amends, and Restoring Balance in Our Lives and World

Guests of honor include editor Phil Cousineau and these eminent activists, spiritual leaders,

doctors and philosophers who have each contributed to the book:

Huston Smith           Jacob Needleman

Stephanie Van Hook

Michael Nagler     Rabbi Michael Lerner     Rev. Heng Sure

Richard J. Meyer       Diane Hennacy Powell

Douglas George-Kanentiio

Wednesday, February 2, 2011
6:00 – 8:00 p.m. The David Brower Center

Hazel Wolf Gallery 2150 Allston Way Berkeley, California 94704

Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome. This event is free.

R.S.V.P. to: Stories@BeyondForgiveness.org

Advance Praise for Beyond Forgiveness:

“If we harbor thoughts of violence or hatred, or seek revenge or retribution, we are contributing to the wounding of the world; if we transform those thoughts into forgiveness and compassion, and then move beyond them to actually make amends or restitution, we are contributing to the healing of the world. This timely, powerful and compassionate book helps show us the way.” — Deepak Chopra

“Beyond Forgiveness is an inspiring, practical and compelling book, relevant for our times….a profound and provocative book that has us ponder where we might need to forgive ourselves and others; and to look at atonement and what it ignites in the human spirit.” — Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., author of The Second Half of Life

“Let this book open your heart…. The good and brave stories being told here, like the monk’s tears on the head of the sullen teenager (that open this book), like James O’Dea’s tears in the metro reading Thomas Merton (that close it), will give you courage…” — Coleman Barks, author of Rumi: The Big Red Book

“Beyond Forgiveness is in a league of its own— potent and capable of moving hearts, minds, and even the legal system itself. This critically important book blazes new trails beyond social justice to atonement (at-one-ment), which is the taproot of reconciliation and true peace.” — Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money

Beyond Forgiveness shows how acts of atonement—making amends, providing restitution, restoring balance—can relieve us of the pain of the past and give us a hopeful future. Share your own story at www.beyondforgiveness.org.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BeyondForgiveness

Facebook Invitation: www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=114239118648214

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Beyond_Forgive

More about Beyond Forgiveness : www.wiley.com/buy/9780470907733

Reply to this e-mail if you are a member of the press and would like a review copy.

Instructors may reserve an evaluation copy here:

http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470907738,descCd-description.html

Thanks to: The Metta Center for Nonviolence Education, Jossey-Bass, Link TV’s Global Spirit, Dharma Realm Buddhist University, Beyt Tikkun

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Stories@BeyondForgiveness.org

www.facebook.com/beyondforgiveness

www.twitter.com/Beyond_Forgive

Share your stories! www.beyondforgiveness.org

Find out here, hosted by Voices for Creative Nonviolence’s Kathy Kelly in Afghanistan.

Constructive programme is the wing of nonviolence often missing from war demonstrations and is recommended by the Metta Center. This includes identifying and working on the institutions which will replace the war system, such as unarmed civilian peacekeeping groups as alternatives to armed military intervention.

We welcome papers from the fields of political theory, peace studies, social movement studies, cultural studies, aesthetics, art history and gender and women’s studies on the topic of non-violence. The conference will explore four themes: the ontological, historical, practical, and aesthetic aspects of violence and nonviolence.

A short abstract (max. 200 words) of the paper should be sent by March 31st 2011 to:

Olivia Guaraldo

olivia.guaraldo@univr.it

or

Lorenzo Bernini

lorenzo.bernini@univr.it

“Understand and Challenge the Military Industrial Complex at 50″

January 14-16

Guilford College, North Carolina

More Information Here

The Fellowship of Reconciliation is hosting delegations to Iran in the hopes of strenthening integrative ties between our two nations.

This is a fantastic opportunity for nonviolence in the movement.

If you are interested in joining a delegation, please consult this flyer.

Please contact Metta if you join a delegation!

Es-salaam aleikum,

Dear friends,

It is with great emotion and humility that I am delivering this speech to you.

As this is my first visit to your land and country, let me pay homage to your people, from the very bottom of my heart. It is unanimously recognised that civilisation originated in Iraq. The whole of mankind has inherited from your ancestors a culture that inspired other later  civilisations all over the world. The first cities were built in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. Writing was invented on the shores of the rivers Tigris and Euphratus. This is how your civilisation played a major role in the history of mankind.

Sadly enough, and now for many years, talking about Iraq has only been talking about the war in Iraq. As you well know, what people watching  television see are only images of fire, blood and death. But behind these images there is such suffering, anguish and pain striking you, body and heart.  What is admirable is that all this suffering, anguish and pain have not destroyed your hope for building a liberated Iraq, liberated from every kind of oppression.

When I told my friends in France I was invited in Iraq to take part in a non-violence forum, they expressed their utmost amazment. They could hardly believe me. They could not imagine that women and men in Iraq were courageous and audacious enough to think about nonviolence. I then tried to explain them that within Iraqi civil society there were women and men determined to organise themselves in order to confront the challenges in Iraq and put into practice the values and methods of nonviolence.

As you well know, never and nowhere is violence capable of bringing human solutions to the unavoidable conflicts which divide and oppose human beings, communities, people and nations.

Never and nowhere, is violence the solution. Always and everywhere, violence is the problem.

Never and nowhere, does violence untie the knot of conflict. Always and everywhere, it only tightens it.

Never and nowhere, does violence bring justice. Always, anywhere, violence intensifies injustice.

Never and nowhere, does murder establish peace. Always and everywhere, murder feeds revenge. Endlessly.

Never, nowhere, does violence lead to victory. Always, everywhere, violence is defeat, drama, trouble, tragedy.

Everybody pretends to defend his own cause. But killing a man is not defending a cause, it is only killing a man. And this is a perversion of any cause.

Never, nowhere, does violence keep its promises of offering tomorrows of joy. Always, everywhere, violence brings days of tears.

Therefore, in this early 21^st century, the challenge for women and men of goodwill is about being clever enough to think up a solution to the problem of violence. It is precisely for investigating this solution, taking into account the possibilities offered by the strategy of nonviolent action, that you decided to organise this forum.

Therefore, the challenge is about deconstructing the ideologies of necessary, legitimate and honorable violence that arm feelings, brains and fists. The ideologies of murder. The ideologies of death.

Therefore, the challenge is to construct a philosophy of nonviolence. A philosophy of life. A philosophy of hope. A philosophy that provides the practical wisdom necessary for taking action.

Time has come to re-think nonviolence.

Time has come to think nonviolence.

A history of nonviolent resistance with all its noble acts does indeed exist. It is a history written by women and men who refused to accept the injustice that offended their dignity and trampled their freedom and who were capable of imagining  means of resistance other than those of  deadly violence. Many times, their non-violent struggles proved effective. With their naked hands, they managed to disarm their enemies. Sadly, their history is unrecognized, ignored, hidden. Through the distorting prism of the ideology of violence, we collectively remember only the history of armed revolutions and deadly wars. It is therefore important that we remind ourselves of this history of nonviolent struggle and make it our own.

If we consider that all violence, no matter how just or holy the cause, hurts and bruises the humanity of the one who suffers it as well as the one of who exerts it, how can we justify the use of violence when looking for truth? Violence is real, concrete, objective in many situations, and may sometimes appear necessary, but it is never true, as violence always perverts the relation  between man and man, because it is always bearing death.

History bears testimony – and everyday’s experience confirms it : “truth”  becomes a justification for violence if it is not rooted in the necessity for nonviolence, in the “principle of nonviolence”. If truth does not demand the refusal of violence, there will come a time when violence will naturally appear as a legitimate means for defending truth. Only the recognition of the exigence of non-violence makes it possible once and for all to challenge the illusion, carried by all ideologies, that it is necessary and just to use violence for defending truth. Using violence as a mean to defend truth, is holding a position where truth cannot exist.

It is important to underline a principle essential  to the strategy of nonviolent action: to reach a rightful goal, rightful means have to be implemented. Contrary to what is asserted by the ideology of violence, a rightful goal does not justify using unjust means. In reality, it is exactly the contrary that happens: unfair means make a cause unfair. Who wants peace or justice has to use fair means and peaceful means.

The truth of nonviolence is not made out of a dogmatic knowledge which becomes a instrument of division and opposition between human beings, but it proves itself in a practical wisdom which drives intelligence and will towards imagining, through the conflicts themselves, ways of reconciliation and peace.

Mankind will certainly not address the challenges we confront these days if we do not fit in with Gandhi’s intuitions. He is inviting us to examine the traditions of the former times we have inherited – either philosophical, religious or political  – and to become  conscious of all the ways our different cultures have been complicit with the empire of violence. We will then understand how urgent it is to develop a true culture of non-violence. What is threatening peace, everywhere in the world and within each of our societies, are the ideologies based on discrimination and exclusion- be it nationalism, racism, xenophobia, religious fundamentalism, or any economical doctrine based  on profit only – and which all are linked with the ideology of violence. What threatens peace in the end is not conflicts, but the ideology which makes people believe that violence is the only mean to solve conflicts. It is this ideology which teaches contempt for others and hatred for enemies; it is it what arms feelings, desires, brains and fists. It is it what makes man become a tool of murder. Therefore it is it which has to be fought.

Facing the tragedy of violence, facing its inhumanity, facing its absurdity, facing its inefficiency, has not the time come, realistically, if not wisely, to become aware of the evidence of nonviolence?

The “no” of nonviolence is not a no of negation: the point is not denying the reality of violence. The “no” of nonviolence is not a no of resignation: the point is not about resigning to the injustice of violence. The “no” of nonviolence is a no of resistance; the point is about resisting violence.

At the heart of each of our cultures, there is the requirement of nonviolence which gives every human  being dignity, majesty and nobleness. Each of our cultures is invited to discover this requirement  which has been buried by the cinders of the ideology of violence. Each of our cultures is invited to build a philosophy of nonviolence and to dialogue with the other cultures to express the unity of mankind. Each of our cultures will give its own colour to this philosophy which will be expressed in the rainbow of non-violence, annunciator, in the middle of the darkness that covers the world, of a new dawn.

Violence can only destroy bridges and build walls. Non-violence invites us to destroy walls and build bridges. Sadly, it is more difficult to build bridges than walls. Wall architecture does not ask for imagination: following the law of gravity is enough. Bridge architecture asks for more cleverness: you have to overcome the power of gravity.

The most visible walls that separate people  are the walls made out of concrete which damage geography and divide the land which should be shared.

But there are  walls too within the hearts and spirits of men. These are the walls of ideologies,  prejudices, scorn, stigmatization, rancor, resentment, fears. The most dramatic consequence of violence  is building walls of hatred. Only those who , whatever their side, are clear-headed, clever and courageous enough to deconstruct these walls and build the bridges that will give people, and communities the capacity to meet together, know one another, talk together and start to understand one another, only they will preserve the hope that gives meaning to the future of mankind.

In the days of weariness, violence can appear as a fatality. In reality, it is a fatality all handmade by man. It means that all people together, with their bare hands, can deconstruct it.

When organising this  first Iraqi forum for nonviolence, you invited all those who believe in nonviolence as an alternative means for changing Iraqi society. My friends, I do not doubt all the work you will achieve during these days will give you the opportunity to take steps forward on the path to peace, democracy and justice. Let me assure you, I am very happy to be aside you, taking part in this exciting adventure.

My friends, our societies are sick of violence, the world is sick of violence, mankind is sick of violence. But violence is not a fatality. If we are willing, nonviolence can cure mankind from this sickness of violence. We will then be able to leave as a heritage to our children the hope of nonviolence, so that they can live at last in a brotherly world. In a brotherly world, at last!

Thank you for your attention.

For details of the Upcoming June 11-14 NSP conference in Washington, D.C., including the impressive roster of speakers, go to this link.