Can nonviolence be a tool for change, even in the midst of war and extreme violence?

La Onf (“No Violence” in Arabic) is a network of Iraqi civilians and civil society organizations who are working together use nonviolent action to bring peace to Iraq. La Onf was established in 2005 by a group of activists in Baghdad. This year they are organizing their third annual Week of Nonviolence, with nonviolent actions taking place throughout Iraq starting on October 10. The work of La Onf was featured in the documentary Masalla, Activists in Iraq. La Onf’s website is entirely in Arabic, but more information can be found through the Peaceful Tommorows site. You can also see images from the 2007 Iraqi week of Nonviolence on this page and on this page at the site of Un Ponte Per, and Italian group who is supporting La Onf.

Metta Center for Nonviolence Education is excited to offer a unique opportunity to support nonviolent action in Iraq!

La Onf, which means “No Violence” in Arabic, is a network of Iraqi civilians and civil society organizations who are using nonviolent direct action to resist the war, factional violence, and corruption that is threatening to destroy their country.

Their work is ongoing, but each year they also promote a “Week of Nonviolence” during which nonviolent actions are scheduled to take place in locations throughout Iraq. The third annual Week of Nonviolence began in Iraq this October 10, 2008 and will continue through this Friday October 17th.

Earlier this year, Metta Center was approached by one of the founders of La Onf to provide support for the training of nonviolent actors. Specifically, Metta founder and president Michael Nagler was asked to lend his perspective to a list of questions being discussed within the La Onf network. These questions address the special problems faced by those engaging in nonviolence in Iraq, and in war zones generally. Metta Center has produced a 20 minute video of Dr. Nagler answering these questions.

Here’s what our Iraqi friends need:

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Joshua Kaplowitz wrote a haunting personal account for the City Journal of his experience a 5th grade Teach For America teacher at a school in the “other half” of Washington, D.C.

Here’s a choice quote:

My optimism and naiveté evaporated within hours. I tried my best to be strict and set limits with my new students; but I wore my inexperience on my sleeve, and several of the kids jumped at the opportunity to misbehave. …

On a typical day, DeAngelo (a pseudonym, as are the other children’s names in this and the next paragraph) would throw a wad of paper in the middle of a lesson. Whether I disciplined him or ignored him, his actions would cause Kanisha to scream like an air-raid siren. In response, Lamond would get up, walk across the room, and try to slap Kanisha. Within one minute, the whole class was lost in a sea of noise and fists. I felt profoundly sorry for the majority of my students, whose education was being hijacked. Their plaintive cries punctuated the din: “Quiet everyone! Mr. Kaplowitz is trying to teach!”

Ayisha was my most gifted student. The daughter of Senegalese immigrants, she would tolerantly roll her eyes as Darnetta cut up for the ninth time in one hour, patiently waiting for the day when my class would settle down. Joseph was a brilliant writer who struggled mightily in math. When he needed help with a division problem, I tried to give him as much attention as I could, before three students wandering around the room inevitably distracted me. Eventually, I settled on tutoring him after school. Twenty more students’ educations were sabotaged, each kid with specific needs that I couldn’t attend to, because I was too busy putting out fires. …

To gain control, I tried imposing the kinds of consequences that the classroom-management handbooks recommend. None worked. My classroom was too small to give my students “time out.” I tried to take away their recess, but depriving them of their one sanctioned time to blow off steam just increased their penchant to use my classroom as a playground. When I called parents, they were often mistrustful and tended to question or even disbelieve outright what I told them about their children. It was sometimes worse when they believed me, though; the tenth time I heard a mother swear that her child was going to “get a beating for this one,” I almost decided not to call parents.

If you’re not used to it, calling a student’s parents can be the most terrifying experience imaginable. This is compounded when the purpose of the call is to “tell on” the student – “I wanted to let you know that Deangelo was throwing wads of paper in class today…” It’s only natural that, if the parent perceives that the issue is teacher-vs-student, it quite rapidly becomes either teacher-vs-student+parent (the parents are mistrustful, etc.), or, even worse, teacher+parent-vs-student (“going to get a beating for this one”). The nonviolent teacher must take the incredibly tricky step of making the issue not about punishment, but about working together to help Deangelo learn to calm himself down when he’s agitated – and to expect better of himself. But after all, they’re just kids. Many adults lack the self-control to sit in a classroom for hours learning things they’re not interested in without getting even a little agitated – it’s unreasonable to expect this of our children. But hopefully it’s a skill that can be taught; and what better age to learn than childhood?
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Education is just a means. If it is not accompanied by truthfulness, firmness, patience and other virtues, it remains sterile, and sometimes does harm instead of good. The object of education is not to be able to earn money, but to improve oneself and to serve the country. If this object is not realized, it must be taken that the money spent on education has been wasted.
–Mahatma Gandhi [Indian Opinion, 9 March 1907 (CW 6, p. 361)]

If the purpose of education is to improve one’s eligibility for employment, then we run into a problem, because the purpose of a degree is to out-compete one’s peers for a well-paying job.  You see, there’s competition built right into the value system.  This has reached a point in our culture where an activity does not have value for us unless it is ‘competitive’.  If you can’t be better than other people at something, why do it at all?  It’s a ridiculous notion, but it’s built into our culture.  Math can no longer be a hobby alone, as it was for Descartes or Fermat – instead we have nationwide math competitions.  We have large-scale, high-profile competition in nearly every sector of academia, in video games, in sports, in workplaces, in relationships, and even music, poetry, filmmaking.

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