The house at 1730 MLK in Berkeley that the Metta Center has been settling into and fixing up for almost one year now has a new addition! It’s our new sign, lovingly crafted by local artisan Bill Denham, who formerly resided in the cottage next to the Metta house. When we first moved to 1730, last October, Bill was an instant member of Metta’s extended family, inviting us to join in the monthly poetry readings he hosted in the garden between the two houses. Over the path leading into the garden was a hand-carved wooden sign reading “Take hope, all who enter here”—a nonviolent reversal of Dante’s famous warning. We instantly recognized a kindred spirit!

A woodworker and printer by trade, Bill hand-carved the intricate cedar sign over a period of months. It now hangs over our front porch, welcoming all who enter to join our growing nonviolence community.

Now that’s swadeshi!

Dear Metta Community,

May this find you grounded in peace and gratitude as we prepare together for the transition to a new decade, one full of promise and potentiality for the continued movement toward an ever-more-nonviolent future!

We are writing today to update you on the status of our Metta Mentors Nonviolence Mentorship program for the year 2010, and to ask for your support and advice.

Metta Mentors: the 2009 Mentees!

As you may know, the Mentors program is one of Metta’s most successful and concrete projects. The feedback from our former mentees and partners affirms that participation in the program can be a life-changing experience. As one of our 2009 mentees wrote,

“I wanted to formally thank you for what was easily one of the most transformative summers of my life. …I have realized how much room there is for change within myself. I have learned to approach problems differently than I used to, and I am getting better at recognizing the needs and fears of others and responding accordingly.”

Metta Mentors is changing lives. Nevertheless, after three incredible summers, we find our program for the first time without funding for the coming year, as our previous funder has discontinued its grantmaking activities. Thus, we are now searching for creative ways to put this unique program together for summer 2010. Fortunately, what we lack in conventional currency, we have in abundance in the forms of social capital, creativity, and passionate belief in the transformative power of nonviolence education!

And as we have told a number of people recently (including a few potential participants who have already requested applications for the 2010 program), we are dedicated to putting on the program this summer, with whatever resources we have, in whatever size and shape we are able to make it, and to make it even more thoughtful and transformative than it has ever been.

Fortunately, we already know that our program expenses will be lower this year, as we have made some changes that will allow us to be more efficient with our resources. (Please see the P.S. for more information about these new developments.) But we know that you — our amazing, supportive community and network — can help us to find even more creative solutions to fill our needs, and so we are asking for your help! Below are three ways you can be of great help to us as we plan for a successful 2010 program:

1. Fund a Mentee

If you are interested in contributing funds to support a future leader of the nonviolent paradigm (aka “mentee”), or if you know of other potential funding sources, please let us know.

The numbers are simple: with $2000, we can provide a mentee with a living stipend for the ten weeks of the program. With $1000 (maybe less), we can provide a travel grant for an international student. The international component of the program is a unique and important one, and we would like to continue to invite international students to our program, if possible.

Note that these are the only donations we are soliciting for the program – support that will go directly to the mentees to cover their expenses. This is a transparent donor-to-recipient project, so please consider supporting an idealistic, young future peacemaker with even the smallest amount if you are able!

You can easily donate any amount via the Metta Center account at Network for Good. Be sure and tell us that your donation is specifically to support Metta Mentors, so we can allocate it correctly.

2. Provide room and/or board for a mentee.

Our mentees are thoughtful, considerate, smart, and dynamic young individuals from the US and abroad. Any offers of room and/or board would radically decrease their cost of living, and thus, our stipend costs. Please let us know if you are interested in hosting a mentee, or know someone who would be. We would be happy to provide references of people who have hosted mentees in the past.

3. Tell us about any other ideas you have for supporting the program.

There is so much inspiring, rippling, community-nurturing work being done today that there must be ways for us to run this program outside the box of conventional funder-grantee relationships. We believe in the currency of shared values and shared passion for nonviolence, and want to explore it! If you know of any ways we might receive travel support through other agencies, or thoughtful ways to experiment with social media, gift economy, or other means of social- or pay-it-forward technology, please let us know.

We recognize that we are living in an interdependent world, and that success for every one of us is rooted in our compassion and willingness to work together toward a common goal. Please help us to see what we may be missing so that we can continue to give this gift to our mentees, to the community organizations that they serve, and to the world!

In writing this letter we assume that you are familiar with the Metta Mentors program and all that it offers. If you would like to know more about the program, please visit the program pages on this site, and feel free to contact us with additional questions or comments at info@mettacenter.org.

With great challenges come great opportunities. This time of transformation can be an opportunity for us at Metta to be even more thoughtful and transparent about our needs, to find unexpected solutions, and and to put together a program that more effectively reflects who we are as an organization — a group passionate about living nonviolence in every moment, experimenting with Truth, and serving the world creatively as dedicated satyagrahis!

Thank you so much for your support and solidarity. May we all vow to live nonviolently in the present as we work together to create a nonviolent future.

In gratitude,
Shannon Wills, on behalf of the Metta Team

P.S. A note on past and future program planning:

Metta Center ran the Metta Mentors program last year at a cost of $32,000, which included living-expense stipends ($2000/ea) for twelve mentees and two co-facilitators, travel grants for our four international mentees, rental of program and event space, and minimal expenses for transportation, food, printing, etc. This year we have already secured $4000 for the program — enough to fund two mentees –and are waiting to hear back from several family foundations to whom we have applied for supplemental funding.

This year our program expenses will be lower, as we will host the weekly mentee gatherings in our new office space on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley. Whereas we were required to rent space last year to house the gatherings, we can now offer the program in-house, which will also contribute to a tighter-knit community between the mentees and the Metta team (though we were already quite tight-knit last year :)

In order to further lower expenses, we are ready to take some obvious cost-saving steps, such as lowering the number of mentees we can accept, reducing or eliminating travel grants (not a favorite option!), accepting more local students with fewer financial needs (also not favored as it discriminates against those with fewer financial resources), and utilizing volunteer hours however possible. We are also considering facilitating the program completely in-house, thus eliminating the need for facilitator stipends.

Some of these changes may actually increase the effectiveness of Metta Mentors in 2010, increasing the community quotient, the gratitude quotient, and the creativity quotient that are all the driving forces of the program in the first place! In our fourth year of the program, Metta Mentors is well-established and positioned to be even more efficient with the resources we have — and do so without detracting from our other projects (click here for a description).

A final note on our dedication to the continued life of the program:

One thing we hope to do this year is record elements of the program, and create an online course version of Metta Mentors that can be shared with the world community the way we have done with Michael Nagler’s nonviolence courses.

The in-house program is already reaching people around the world as a result of the ripples spread by our nearly 30 previous mentees, and we hope it will continue to do so for many years to come. But to preserve and share the model so that the ripples can be consciously replicated by others who wish to undertake it, we wish to give the gift of an online program that will live beyond our walls and beyond our needs for local funding. Whatever happens to the Berkeley-based Metta Mentors program, we will preserve the theory, the documentation, and the model for generations of change-makers to come!

We are so pleased to invite you to stop by our lovely new office on — yes! — 1730 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Berkeley (betw. Francisco and Delaware).  Our phone number and emails remain the same but we have much more room and can have meetings of our own.  The front room will soon serve as a Nonviolence Resource Center for the Community.  We have already held a film screening there (see the attendees, from a recent hope tank) and a visit from two Iraq veterans on a bicycle tour across the U.S.

It gives us great pleasure to note that Rick Stein, owner of Just Carpets in San Rafael, has donated a beautiful new carpet for the main, office room.  We have also received a full set of kitchen ware — and our own copy of the long lost documentary, Mahatma Gandhi, Prophet of the Twentieth Century, which Michael considers the best of its kind.  It had fallen from view for forty years until its recent rediscovery by an Indian researcher.  Help us housewarm! While we get ready for a party for you, here are things that we could still use:

• a microwave
• a small couch
• folding chairs
• the services of a good electrician!
• …and of course, your company.

On September 24th, called to direct action by university faculty, workers and students, thousands walked out of the classrooms, offices, and labs at the University of California, Berkeley. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder on Sproul Plaza, in numbers not seen for decades. Our message bears repeating: “Whose university? Our university!”

Now, in defense of our university, in defense of public education, and in defense of our community, we’re opening the doors—and opening the books! As the Daily Cal reported on Monday, many campus libraries are being forced to close on the weekends due to budget cuts. We aren’t only losing our study space; major staff layoffs across the UC system mean that people are also losing their jobs. These libraries are the symbolic heart of the university. And the university will simply not survive if its heart beats only six days a week.

In response to this attack on education we are calling a “study-in” On Friday, October 9, at 4:30 pm in the anthropology library in Kroeber Hall. On this crucial weekend before midterms, when the doors of many campus libraries are supposed to close, we will say NO! We will stay, we will keep the doors open—and we will study for our midterms.

But we want to be clear that we’re not “taking over” the library. We are actively consulting with staff to ensure that the library and its contents remain safe and our “cleaning commission” will make sure that we leave things are in even better order than we found them. We have considerable support from university faculty, who will be present to offer teach-ins and facilitate dialogue during the study-in. Together, we’ll be reclaiming our libraries as a creative space for learning and teaching the issues we face during this budget crisis.

By taking this action, we are stepping up to our responsibility not only as members of this university and this campus, but also as Californians—as the owners of the university—to have an earnest discussion coupled with strategic planning on what we want public education to look like.  And we already know what public education doesn’t look like: the UC administration.

So let us be very clear that the “real problem” isn’t just the elected legislature in Sacramento, but the unelected UC administration. The Board of Regents is an undemocratic body, directly appointed by the governor and not subject to university oversight. UC President Mark Yudof has invoked “emergency powers” to systematically ignore the input, demands and alternative proposals of faculty, students, and staff. At Berkeley, Chancellor Birgeneau hired consulting firm Bain & Company for the hefty sum of $3 million, to “streamline” the “business” of public education and concentrate even more power in the hands of the UC senior administration.

And let us not forget that privatizing our university has been on the UC administration’s agenda for years. Student fees have increased by over 300 percent in the last decade. In 1993 the faculty/senior manager ratio was 2.5:1, this year it is 1:1. This increase in senior management has added an estimated $791,981,440 to overall UC expenses. In 2004 a different (also overcompensated) UC President signed a compact promising to seek private funding to enable the state to continue defunding the University. While overall University funding is slashed, the UC administration continues to be richly rewarded for its oversight of these cuts.

The purpose of our walkout was to take power back from the UC administration, by shutting down the university and waking us up to a common cause. On Friday, we’ll be pulling an all-nighter to reopen a part of the university that has been closed to us. So we ask all students to join us—study for your midterms and transform the UC at the same time!

LETTER of a graduate student to the Chair of the Anthropology Department at UC Berkeley

Dear Prof. Joyce,

We haven’t had the chance to meet personally yet, but I’m a first-year Ph.D student in sociocultural anthropology. I’m also one of a number of students from various departments who has been working to organize a “study-in” this Friday through Saturday in the anthropology library. This Friday afternoon, prior to the library’s regular closing time, students, faculty, and staff will gather in the library with the intention of keeping it open from Friday until what used to be the closing time on Saturday.

I want to be clear that we’re not “taking over” the library. We’re in the process of consulting with staff to ensure that the library and its contents remain safe and in the same order we found them. Our decision to take action to keep the library open stems from a recognition of the immense value of this space and of the staff that tends to it, as well as its symbolic status as the heart of a thriving research university.

The university cannot survive if its heart only beats six days a week. This weekend — the crucial weekend leading up to midterms — students have been told that they can’t access their libraries. While the purpose of the walkout was to shut the university down in order to wake the people up, the purpose of this study-in will be to open up a part of the university that has been locked away from the students and the people of California.

We hope to create a space that is both conducive to studying and writing papers, as well as a creative space for learning and teaching about the issues we face during this budget crisis. It is our responsibility not only as members of this university and this campus, but also as Californians — as the owners of the university — to have an earnest discussion coupled with strategic planning on what we want public education to look like.

We have already garnered considerable support for this action. Approximately twenty faculty members have voiced interest in the study-in, and are currently deciding how they may best get involved. That includes members of this department who have offered teach-ins.

It is my personal hope as a new member of the Anthropology Department, that we — students, faculty, and staff — will have a visible presence at this weekend’s study-in. It is, after all, our library. I invite you, Prof. Joyce, along with the whole faculty, to support our efforts, to encourage your GSIs offer midterm study sessions the library, to join us, to offer teach-ins either inside the library or in front of it — to participate however you see fit.

If you are interested in holding a teach-in on the budget or related issues, please let me know of your availability before 10:30 pm tonight, when I will be working out the schedule. We are currently working on arranging childcare outside of the library if it will be helpful.

Thank you very much. I hope to see you this weekend.

As Pancho said in the ‘Hope Tank‘ discussion this morning, this is not India’s or U.S.’s, it is humanity’s holiday.  Yet so few of us humans are aware of it.  If we were, we would be well on our way to a nonviolent future.  That is the work of Metta, and many of us around the world: to make humanity aware that it has a brilliant, nearly untapped potential, a cause fully worthy of our life.  Our booklet, Hope or Terror, is available to download on this site as a gift we are giving to the Earth Community; and we are here to work with you and offer you opportunities to work with us in liberating that potential.

Like many, I have been taken aback by the coarse violence — and effective organization — of the backlash against President Obama’s proposed healthcare package.  The lying, shouting, and disruption of what might have been reasoned debates bodes ill for the political culture, and hence the political destiny, of this country.  During the neoconservative hysteria that boiled up around the Presidential ‘election’ of 2000, John Updike commented from the UK, “America has entered another of its phases of historical madness; but this is the worst I have seen.”  Until now.

I don’t want to be a part of the shameless name-calling that’s going on — everyone is calling everyone else a Nazi, it seems — but the contrived ‘populist’ character of the disrupters, fed by and feeding into the ‘faux News’ messages that play on their fears with shameless and endlessly repeated lies does, after all, recall the frightening resonance of the brownshirts in the street with the cynical propaganda from above that became the frenzy that swept Germany into World War Two.  I hope I am exaggerating.

Even if the purpose of the present uproar were good — say, a saner immigration policy or a trimmer military — we would have to be appalled by what it’s doing to our political discourse.  This I do not think is exaggeration: a struggle is going on for the soul of America.

It’s hard to predict what the voting outcome will be on the issue itself; but already there are some lessons to learn from this shock — and there may even be a way out.

The first lesson — and it may not be obvious or particularly welcome to some of us — is that the truth is not limited to, or guaranteed by, a given demographic.  Some of the obstreporous people in the town halls are carefully planted “astroturf” and shills of insurance companies — that story is coming out steadily now — but there is no question that ordinary people, or what we idealistically called in my youth “the people,” are among those disrupting those town hall meetings across the nation.  It was community organizing and the skillful use of new technologies that got President Obama elected, but it now looks as though the same political methods and technologies can be used to neutralize his presidency.  As one commentator said recently, we are seeing Saul Alinsky turning into a right-wing fanatic.  So the lesson is, to repeat, that it’s not about whom you organize or how you collect their views; it’s about what are those views.  Gandhi organized a nonviolent revolution (mostly) from below; but long before him William Penn had crafted one from above, from his own governorship.  Likewise, there can be oppressive regimes, or oppressive just-plain-folks.  Everyone has an ego, and everyone has a sense of compassion, has access to reason.  It all depends on which of these principles you rouse, not whom you rouse them from or by what means.

A second lesson is, while this is a particularly shocking manifestation, we have long been living in a culture that pushes reason off the margins of discourse.  Partly this is inevitable in a culture of advertising, for advertising by definition has to suppress reason: it has to make you buy things you don’t need, so it has to rely on impulses, urges, and mob psychology in the sense that most of the desire that’s whipped up by advertising is imitative.  You don’t buy things because they make you happy, really because you or other people will think you’re happy.  If we thought about what we really need we would probably buy a tenth of what we buy now, to the great relief of the planet.  So advertising (and we see more than 3,000 commercial messages a day, on average) has to prevent you from doing that — or any other — thinking.

Now, how do we get out of all this?

As far back as 1954, psychologists Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif conducted a classic study called the Robbers Cave Experiment. They created two separate groups of twelve-year-old boys and had them do competitive sports and other competitive activities at a summer camp in Oklahoma.  Taking the names of “The Rattlers” and “The Eagles,” the groups’ hostility to each other soon reached unsafe proportions, at which point the Sherifs started to place before them what they called “superordinate goals” — tasks that both groups had to carry out together, like haul a “broken down” truck back to camp (the scientists had removed the distributor cap). When the boys worked together in this way it quickly reversed the polarizing effects of the competition. By the end of the experiment both groups insisted on riding back to town in the same bus.

We are not hurting for superordinate goals!  The destruction of the earth’s capacity to sustain life will do nicely. Imagine if we could all pull together to tackle this enormous problem.  We could save life on earth — and find a way to talk civilly to each other about real issues in the process. But I would urge that we also work on a second problem: violence. That ‘superordinate’ problem underlies all the rest; as Vandana Shiva said, ‘if we stop the pollution in people’s minds they will stop the pollution of the environment.’  One powerful way to do this is to get violence out of the media; and while we’re waiting for that to happen, get the media out of you. Just stop watching it.  Neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni told me recently that knowing what he knows about the human nervous system he opined that if we could only stop all the violence in the media for one week “it would never come back.”

That may be an exaggeration, but it’s certainly a pointer to the right direction.  If we act civilly toward one another, even those who hold dangerously irrational notions, and stop putting our precious minds at the disposal of big, commercial interests, both the brownshirts and the insurance companies will find themselves with little purchase on our political culture.

Translation:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Dear Friends,

We are a group of professors, students and activists of nonviolence who work with nonviolent movements and we would like to extend to you our solidarity and encouragement for your struggle. Based on our experience, we would share the following thoughts with you at this critical juncture:

Your cause is just. Despite the blackout, people all over the world are following your struggle and our hearts are with you. To have a just cause and courage are the two main requirements for a nonviolent movement, and you have both.

What you have done already is to open up a bridge between the people of Iran and the people of America and many other parts of the world. Your protest has created an emotional bridge with people everywhere — for who does not love freedom? — and shown us in the West in particular that many, many Iranians are just like us, and not the hardliners our media have often portrayed you to be. This is a great achievement that has already changed history.

This is a critical hour. History has shown repeatedly — even your own history — that success will come in exact proportion to your ability to remain nonviolent under even extreme provocation. Gandhi insisted that apathy and cowardice are the worst forms of violence. You have moved far beyond apathy, and cowardice. But now you can take the greater step of maintaining nonviolent discipline. This will not only help you keep the support of world opinion behind you but will make you stronger and — in the end — much more effective. Hatred can dislodge oppressors, but it cannot build freedom. Remember the great discovery of Martin Luther King:

Our movement caused no explosions of anger . . . It controlled anger and released it under discipline for maximum effect.

How to do this. Nonviolence does not mean standing idly by when women and children — or anyone else — are being attacked. It does mean doing everything possible to prevent such attacks on innocent people and if absolutely necessary intervening even with force to protect them. We do not seek out such situations, but if we suddenly find one we are justified in putting our bodies in the way of harm to protect others and in extreme cases, if there is no other way, using force on would-be attackers. If we can do this without fear or hatred, or more realistically, to the extent that we do it without fear or hatred, we are being nonviolent. However, remember that this applies only in emergencies.

How not to do it. Nonviolence definitely does not include:

• targeting individuals, even Basiji, for harm. The cardinal principle in all nonviolence is that we are never against persons, only against injustice. In an important hadith, the Prophet (pbuh) told his companions to help everyone, even an oppressor. When asked, ‘How do we help an oppressor?’ He replied, “”By preventing him from oppressing.”
• using hateful, inflammatory language. “Death to the dictator” should never be said. As far as possible, it should never even be thought. Hate dictatorship, not dictators or their minions.
• Chanting slogans may help to create a sense of community, but after a while that energy would be better “harnessed,” as Martin Luther King found, “for maximum effect.” A night of silence — not imposed, but self-imposed as a matter of discipline — can give a sense of more power than a night of shouting.

Let us turn to some of those proven methods.

In a strike it is very important to not only be against something, but also for the alternative you desire. Often this takes the form of Constructive Programme, where the people perform for themselves the services that the regime is providing — or withholding. For example, in Mexico when protestors were boycotting a major bread-baking corporation (the largest breadmaker in the country and a key financier of the fraudulent elections in 2006) the women began baking bread on their own, which developed into a grassroots industry (Pan Mi General).

This can also take the powerful form of parallel institutions: schools, clinics, the media, or other services that are under the control of an undesirable regime can be substituted by the people themselves, as was done in Palestine during the First Intifada.

Finally, it is very important to create community throughout your efforts, as in part you have done by forming small groups, we understand, during massive protests. These communities will form the backbone of a more democratic society.

Despite the crackdown, you should not be discouraged.  We want to assure you of our heartfelt support and encourage you to continue going forward and to be nonviolent to the greatest extent possible. As Martin Luther King said, “unearned suffering is redemptive.” Our greatest wish is that you would not have to suffer at all, but if you must endure further suffering, know that if you do so without retaliating, as the Pashtuns did so conspicuously in the Northwest Frontier Province in the 1930s, and if you have a well-thought-out strategy that uses constructive methods wherever possible and obstructive methods where necessary, you must eventually succeed, not only for yourselves but for the world.

…at a rally on June 17:

Translation:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“We will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witness to the truth as we see it.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. Never dehumanize anyone. Try to understand the real needs of your opponents. Always remember that they are human beings too; in fact the more you respect your opponent as a human being, the more effectively you will be able to change their unjust ways — and defend your own ideals. Harm no one: your struggle is with the problem, not the person. Violence begets violence: “Hate can never overcome hate, only love can do that” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) Never harm another’s dignity — or accept harm to your own. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” (MLK, Jr.) Indeed, the power of nonviolence is that it offers everyone a way back to dignity. A Tagalog word for their ‘people power’ in the Philippine uprising of 1986 was alay dangal, ‘to offer dignity.’

2. Your means are your ends. If your thoughts, words, and actions are nonviolent to the greatest extent possible the result will always be positive. As Gandhi said, “violent revolution will bring violent independence.”

3. Patience. An Arabic word for nonviolence is sabr ‘patience.’ Patience with insults you must endure, patience to contain your anger (or fear), patience because in nonviolence the results of your actions may be far off. In nonviolence it is often possible to lose the battle but go on to win the war. And the real ‘win’ we are reaching for is to win over the hearts and minds of even the most opposed. At the same time, know that there is always a solution that will benefit all parties: the way to help an oppressor, as the Prophet said, is to prevent him from oppressing.

4. Constructive Program. In between protests & boycotts, know what programs you can carry out to create the relationships you want to see in your community. You can ‘cooperate with good’ and ‘non-cooperate with evil’. Having both ready and knowing when to emphasize which approach gives great power. In general, be constructive when you can, obstructive when you must. In this connection, do not rely over much on things or tactics that are only symbolic. Be concrete, constructive, compassionate. Create parallel institutions to replace the ones you overthrow — before you overthrow them. It will be easier!

5. Localism. Gandhi called this “swadeshi“. First solve the problems that you are closest to, both geographically and as an individual, before getting involved in the struggles of others. If you focus your efforts there you will find that your circle of influence expands.

What is this power? Some call it love in action; Kenneth Boulding, a peace scholar and activist, called it integrative power. By whatever name, this is the power employed in nonviolence – that when applied to social change can awaken the conscience of an entire people, gain civil rights for an oppressed minority, free a nation from imperialist rule. Through the Metta Mentors program we hope to offer a transformative experience to young aspiring change-makers and equip them with the most powerful force, the weapon of the brave: nonviolence.

What it is
The Metta Mentors program is a 10-week, paid mentorship in Berkeley, California that:

1) pairs students of nonviolence with local partner organizations for practical, social change work, while

2) offering regular guidance from Metta in order to help participants learn about the principles of nonviolence and its effective application to social change work as well as daily life.

In short, Metta Mentors is an immersion program in applied nonviolence.

How it is run
Four days a week, participants will work with a local social change organization to address specific issues such as militarism, youth empowerment, homelessness, literacy, immigrant rights, environmental sustainability, etc. Every Friday mentees will come together under the guidance of the Metta Center to participate in forums and workshops that explore how to integrate nonviolence into social change work and daily life. Mornings will be geared towards reflection and facilitated discussion of the mentees’ experiences from the past week. Friday afternoons will offer workshops, speakers, and seminars on various topics such as community-based leadership, nonviolent communication, power and privilege, social movement formation, etc. These Friday gatherings offer participants the opportunity to democratically guide their own learning and efforts.

By participating in the program, Mentees will…

…embody the spirit of praxis, reflecting on principled nonviolence while acting for social change.
…be challenged to ask tough questions and live out the answers during the 10-week mentorship, and beyond. 

…receive guidance and mentorship from the Metta Center for immersion in a nonviolent paradigm.

…build deep relationships with their peers and colleagues, thereby creating a community and culture of nonviolence that inspires and supports each individual to realize and activate their own potential for change.

Logistics

Program Dates: Friday, June 5, 2009 – Friday, August 14, 2009
Application submission: Applications accepted until spots are filled, with a priority deadline of March 22nd
Location: Berkeley (and wider SF Bay Area), California, U.S.A.
Stipend: $2,000 per participant
Time Commitment: Program participants commit to
1) devote 40 hours each week to the mentorship program starting Friday, June 12.
2) attend an orientation retreat from Friday, June 5 – Sunday, June 7. The first days (Mon 6/8 – Thu 6/11) is an introductory period, where participants will have time to orient themselves with their partner organization, the Bay Area, and each other.
3) complete a culminating project. This project will be co-created and largely self-directed by the mentees. The last week of the program will be largely dedicated to this project.
Application: you can download the application here (also available in PDF format here)

What is the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education?
The Metta Center for Nonviolence Education exists to raise consciousness about principled nonviolence and serve as catalysts in the shift towards a nonviolent paradigm. It was established in 1982 by Prof. Michael Nagler, a world-renowned Gandhian scholar and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Today we offer a breadth of ongoing programs to serve anyone who wishes to learn and practice nonviolence, what Gandhi called “the greatest force at the disposal of humanity.” Metta Mentors offers the most in-depth experience of our programs.

Metta Mentors page | Frequently Asked Questions
Contact us: mettamentors@mettacenter.org | 510 548 5550

Children in Gaza. Photo courtesy of Nora Barrows-Friedman

Dr. Atallah Tarazi, a General Surgeon at Gaza City’s Shifaa Hospital, invited us to meet him in his home, in Gaza City, just a few blocks away from the Shifaa Hospital.

“One of the worst aspects of this war,” says Dr. Tarazi, “is the lack of respect for the UN.  Three United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools were bombed.  In Jabaliyah, more than 45 people were killed at a UN school; F16s bombed UNRWA supplies and stores.”

“In Shifaa Hospital, we saw plumes of smoke for day and night. All Gaza, every day, was covered with smoke and chemicals.  We don’t know how it affects the health.”

“Yes, ‘rockets’ did go out,” says Dr. Tarazi, referring to Hamas rockets fired into Israeli towns, “and we felt sympathy for any Israelis hurt by the rockets.  But, if someone hurts you with a pin, you don’t cut off his head.  You ask WHY the person tried to prick you with a pin. Consider that people here are trapped in a prison and there is a shortage of everything.  No one can repair anything. People wanted borders opened so that goods could come and go.  After six months of closed borders, people are frustrated.  Now, one side declares a cease fire, they say nothing about opening the borders, nothing about withdrawal, and yet they want NATO to help tighten the siege.”

“I hope President Obama will be much better than George Bush concerning these things,” said Dr. Tarazi.  “Human beings that have such a strong army should be civilized and not behave like a terrorist group.  Fanatics can be expected to use terror, but a democratic state shouldn’t use fallacious statements as an excuse for massive killing. A state which does this should be brought before an International Court of Justice.”

“And yet,” he said, “we must experiment with ways of love. We are trying, with Jewish people…by feelings and actions.  We need to succeed.  We need to live together.  We are trying to be in good relations with all the partners, all the views.”

“The strongest weapon all over the world is love,” says Dr. Tarazi, adding that he has always believed this and has said this to his colleagues, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, throughout his career.  He recalled declaring this same belief at the Eretz border crossing, shortly after the Israelis launched “Operation Cast Lead.” He had been among the 200 Christians who were chosen (800 had applied) to cross the border and celebrate the Orthodox Christmas holiday with family members in the West Bank. When the attacks began, he ended his holiday and hurried to the border, knowing he must return to his work
and his family.  At the border crossing, he greeted soldiers, “Merry Christmas.”  Soldiers answered, “Do you have weapons?”  “Yes,” Dr. Tarazi replied, “I have the strongest weapon of all, the weapon of love.“

Message from a Girl in Gaza. Photo courtesy of Nora Barrows-Friedman.

Revised January 14, 2009.

I have just gotten off the phone with my friend and colleague Oren Yiftachel, a co-founder, with Dr. Eyad El Sarraj of Gaza, of the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.  Prof. Yiftachel lives and works in Beer-Sheva, which is within range of the Qassam rockets coming from Gaza.  Yet when I asked him what the Israeli peace movement was doing to stop the counterattacks he said simply, “not enough.”  The same is true here, even 7,500 miles away in West Marin.

There is another lesson or two for those of us who work for peace and believe in it: we have to do much more, both quantitatively and qualitatively.  That is, we need to understand more things to do and when to do them, for if the last eight years’ wars have shown us anything, it is that protests aren’t enough. There is a time for protests and vigils.  This isn’t one of them.  We need direct action, not excluding, when all else has failed, downright civil disobedience, coupled with vigorous development and promotion of peace alternatives to replace what we — all of us — must now decisively reject: the starving of a whole population, the bombing of civilian neighborhoods in order to ‘target’ individuals within them.  In the final analysis, we need to reject war as an instrument of peace.

Neither Oren nor I were able to reach our mutual friend El Sarraj, a psychiatrist and co-founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme — the facility had been heavily damaged by bombing the night before.  But on the latter’s recent blog he described the terror of his children as the U.S.-made bombs fell perilously near his home.  Sitting comfortably here in Tomales, it made me very angry.  I am not sorry that it did.  If more of us were angry and had a constructive way to turn our anger into the ingredients of a saner future, namely by nonviolent methods, there might be a silver lining even in this disgraceful episode.

I have been searching desperately for some silver lining in the deepening tragedy in Gaza, and what finally came to me was the chilling words of the poet Aeschylus:  “And slowly, even against our will, wisdom drips against the heart by the awful grace of god.”

If there is a distinguishing feature in this latest round in the sixty years of reciprocal violence — something other than its ferocity — it’s that the futility of the attack was clear as soon as it began.  Already, to no one’s surprise, painfully won progress toward accomodation in the moderate Arab countries is evaporating, while Israel is clearly generating another round of “retaliation,” this time with that much less sympathy from the international community.  Even if Hamas’ fighting ability is effectively abolished by the time the carnage is over, will Israel achieve the security we all desire her to have, and which is the rationale for the attack?  Only in the very shortest term.  Before too long, the seething hatred in the Arab world, and the increased revulsion amongst the onlooking world at large, must boil over into action.  (A similarly “devastating” blow has just been landed on the major rebel faction in Sri Lanka, and a suicide bomber took revenge within the hour).  Before it even revealed the full scope of its cruelty, the massacre was styled Lebanon II or (by Jakob Rieken) the “mideast version of the Bay of Pigs.”  And as Israel’s wisest analyst, Uri Avnery, said of this carnage, “logic has little influence on politics.”

This realization is small comfort, given the terrorization of a million and a half people, the children blown apart on their way to school, the devastation crashing into homes and hospitals; but it could just possibly, if we choose to build on it, become much larger.

We could realize that this is what happens when people are so locked into antagonism that they become blinded to one another’s needs in the confusion of their own hopeless fear.  This is what happens when we arm one side against another (or both against each other), and reinforce  the tenacious myth that security can be acquired through domination.This is what happens when we concoct peace treaties and ceasefires around conference tables while- thousands of miles away- real people on the ground are being humiliated, degraded, and enraged.  This is what happens when small nations let themselves be used by so-called “great powers,” shielded from the human reality of their own actions.  This is what happens when, as Mikhail Gorbachev just pointed out, the international community has nothing in place to absorb the impact of these mad conflicts and interject the logic — and the plain humanity — that the combatants have forgotten.

And we could, just possibly, go further than that. More and more of us are in fact beginning to realize that the problem is not just this war in particular, not just this kind of war, but war itself.  War is a counterproductive atrocity left over from the prehuman past.  “If you want to go East, don’t go West” said a remarkably simple sage some hundred years ago:  If you want peace, prepare it.  Build up all peacemaking institutions, from the cultural level — peace education, peace journalism, sane entertainment choices — to real alternatives like the nonviolent intervention teams that have already saved so many lives at so little cost, in Central America, the Balkans, and now Sri Lanka, Colombia, Northern Uganda, and the Phillipines.  As Martin Luther King said, we are all “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”  We will never become secure, not one of us, by doing things to tear apart that mutuality. But there are many ways to peace through peaceful means that harmonize with and reinforce it.

To survey our globalizing planet geopolitically today is to see a mixture of hopeful developments alongside very disheartening ones: on the one hand the election of an intelligent president in the United States (which is possibly even more important than the election of the first black president) and the publication of ‘Charter 08’ presaging, just possibly, the democratization of China; but on the other hand, ongoing horror in places like Darfur and Burma.  Perhaps, if we can understand its lessons, Gaza will prove to be a bit of both.

“Michael Nagler is one of America’s contemporary pioneers in the field of nonviolence. For anyone seeking to strategize a peaceful future, The Search for a Nonviolent Future is a must-read. It’s wonderful material.” —Marianne Williamson

Also, Metta Center has just produced a new brochure, which is now available for download!