Fierce Vulnerability
A Conversation with Kazu Haga on Trauma Healing and Nonviolence
In this episode of Nonviolence Radio, Michael and Stephanie speak with nonviolence trainer and educator Kazu Haga about trauma healing and nonviolence — what he calls “fierce vulnerability” (also the title of his most recent book). Because, as he insists, all violence stems from trauma, Kazu reminds us that we cannot simply “shut down” injustice. At the same time, we need to bring trauma healing into our understanding and practice of nonviolence at every level.
He says, “But if we can really understand that these [injustices] are all manifestations of a collective trauma, can we respond to even state violence in a way that brings us closer together, in a way that brings us closer to healing?”
In this discussion, Kazu points us toward a paradigmatic shift from harm to healing, where interconnection is as constant as gravity — we really can’t get around it.
Following the conversation with Kazu, Michael and Stephanie speak with Hunter Dunn from the 50501 coalition to debrief on the impact of the “No Kings” rallies and explore, as Dr. King asked, “Where do we go from here?”
Transcript:
Stephanie: Good morning, everybody. I’m Stephanie Van Hook, and I am the director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and also host of this Nonviolence Radio Hour. I’m here in the studio with my co-host and news anchor Michael Nagler.
Michael: Good morning, Stephanie. I noticed this kind of a nonviolence theme in all of your affiliations.
Stephanie: Yeah. There, there’s something. There’s something to it. And yeah, on the show we like to explore the power of active nonviolence the theory, science, spirituality, all the culture of nonviolence, as it doesn’t get enough press, I’d say. And on today’s show, I’m very happy that our first guest is already here on the phone with us: Kazu Haga. He’s been on the show before actually several years ago when the pandemic first started. I believe we had Kazu on to talk about his book that he had published around that time.
I’m pretty sure it was then called Healing Resistance. And we’re lucky to have Kazu back to talk about some ideas that he’s been thinking through and sharing through his new book, especially Fierce Vulnerability. So welcome back Kazu to Nonviolence Radio.
Kazu: Thanks so much for having me. Good to be back with you all.
Stephanie: I was trying to remember… Was it around the beginning of the pandemic when you, when Healing Resistance came out or did you, did I just happen?
Kazu: Yeah. It was actually January of 2020, so it was right then and then the lockdowns happened about a month after it came out, so yeah.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Kazu: Sounds about right.
Stephanie: I remember then too, we were talking about systemic issues. I think COVID had been known in January and people were starting to get afraid of it. And I remember talking to you about it kind of in that pre-panic state of when the world was still somewhat panicking about it. And anyway, and you always have such a wide perspective on, systems collapse and what we (laughs)
Michael: bye-bye.
Kazu: Yeah. It’s a big world.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. What? You have been touring like crazy. It seems every time I’m on social media, there’s a new interview that you’ve done with somebody in some part of the world. I’d love to hear a little bit about your journey with your new book, Fierce Vulnerability, and where are you right now and where have you been and who have you been talking to?
Kazu: Yeah, no I’ve been really grateful for the support that I’ve received for the new book. I’m currently in Racine, Wisconsin, but I’m actually here to support my partner who’s at a board meeting. So it’s nice to get out on the road to support some of her work too.
But yeah, no, I’ve been all up and down the East Coast and doing virtual events and it has been a really beautiful reception, I think. Every generation contributes something to the ancient lineage of nonviolence. And I’m hoping that Fierce Vulnerability just adds a little bit more to continue to expand our understanding of this universal and ancient truth, yeah, I’ve been really grateful for the reception that we’ve gotten.
Stephanie: Well, you’re putting in so much heart and soul into… Just into talking with as many people as possible, it seems and that’s it’s really moving to see you just really pushing things forward. And the book is sort of a secondary thing, I think, for you because you’re so steeped in your life in these principles and values.
And it seems like the book is a tool for you to be able to talk about these things, but it’s not the end goal. It’s not the end game.
Kazu: Definitely. And I think I see myself more as a trainer and a facilitator than anything. And so the book, both of the books that I’ve written, comes out of a training workshop. Fierce Vulnerability comes out of a training that me and my friends developed several years ago. And the book is I think just one way to talk about it. But ultimately, I would love for people to engage in the workshops in some way and have an embodied understanding of what we’re trying to explore here.
Stephanie: Yeah. And that fierce vulnerability comes from the… It’s another way of saying nonviolence. And I heard in another interview that you were talking about that it gets you into the room because people can be turned off by the term ‘nonviolence’ or they focus too much on it. Using a descriptor: fierce vulnerability.
Kazu: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s so many misunderstandings about the word nonviolence, right? People think it’s a passive thing, or it’s weak, or it’s about not doing something about the violence in the world. And so I think it does become a barrier because as soon as a lot of people hear the word, there’s just all sorts of misconceptions that happen about it.
But I think the kind of new thing that we’re playing with in Fierce Vulnerability is bringing in a lot of the science around trauma and the healing from trauma and really mapping that onto the lineage of nonviolence to help us understand how violence happens, and how we heal from violence, both at the personal level as well as the systemic levels.
Michael: I appreciated how you contextualized what you are doing. I think that’s so important for us because we often feel that we’re out in outer space. So we’re making a few noises, but we’re actually everything we do. In fact, everything we think and say and do is part of a tradition and adds to a growing wave. So I appreciated that.
Kazu: That’s right.
Stephanie: Michael’s a former classicist, and so tradition is …
Michael: (singing) Tradition!
Stephanie: Yeah. Something of great interest.
Kazu: Yeah. Nonviolence has such a rich tradition, right? Such a rich legacy that we want to keep, but maintaining and uplifting.
Michael: Yeah. And Kazu I don’t know how aware of this you are – I just became aware of it there. The science has exploded. I mean, we used to talk about mirror neurons, and I mentioned ’em briefly in the film. These whole brain systems that are like antennae that pick up other people’s intentions, emotions, et cetera, et cetera. It’s a really beautifully developed science now.
Kazu: Yeah and I think that science, like the science behind trauma and how it impacts the brain is really important to understand because I think then it becomes a little bit easier to depersonalize it and look at a person who may be acting in a violent way. And not think that it’s because they’re somehow evil in and of themselves, but there’s actually reasons behind it, both their own personal stories and their lives, but the science behind what’s going on in their brain.
And I think it’s really important to, to recognize that, we’re all capable of violence under the right conditions, depending on what’s happening with our brain, depending on our trauma history, and to really depersonalize instances of violence in that way.
Stephanie: That idea of framing this within trauma and framing violence within trauma: I wanted to ask you, ask into that a little bit too. So I’ve heard you say that that fierce vulnerability is based in this idea that all violence happens because of trauma.
Kazu: Yeah, one. One of the things that we’re really exploring is this idea that we live in a fractal universe. So the same way that trauma impacts me as an individual, impacts our collective bodies, whether it’s families or cultures or nation states. And we’re really playing with this understanding that injustice and things like state violence are not political issues as much as they are manifestations of a collective trauma. In the same way that if I have unhealed trauma, unintegrated trauma in my body I will oftentimes lash out and hurt other people or hurt myself. The same thing happens with nonprofit organizations, with communities, with nation states,
And yeah, can we – in our nonviolent resistance movements as a response to violence – can we move with this understanding that we can’t actually shut down injustice any more than we can shut down trauma?
Like when someone is acting out of a traumatic response. It doesn’t do any good for us to point our fingers and say, you need to stop doing that, you’re wrong.
And I fear that oftentimes in many of our activist movements, that’s how we try to quote unquote shut down injustice. But if we can really understand that these are all manifestations of a collective trauma, can we respond to even state violence in a way that brings us closer together? In a way that brings us closer to healing?
Stephanie: That’s really clear and really helpful as a framework. It just brings up all these thoughts and ideas. And one that I don’t think has been fully articulated in other places. I think we’ve all been kind of grasping at this. So to be able to point to trauma really kind of sets up a really firm framework for it all.
For example why, in principled nonviolence we often say: “Humiliation – don’t use humiliation as a tactic.” It doesn’t help; it only anchors people more deeply into shutting themselves down, from walling themselves off to demands from, for justice.
So, yeah, I think you really are onto something here and that’s very helpful for the entire movement to be able to talk about.
Kazu: Yeah. I mean, I think, tactics like shame and humiliation? Like, I get it. it’s almost like an easy response to violence. But I think what that does is it actually furthers the fractures in our society.
I have an incarcerated nonviolence trainer and friend that I’ve worked with for over 10 years now in Soledad State Prison, and he once told me that resolving a conflict is about fixing issues, but reconciling a conflict is about repairing relationships and that nonviolence is about doing both.
So often in our movements, we only think so far as to how to fix the issue. What is the legislation that we need to pass? What is the politician that we want to kick out of office? And if that’s the only thing that we’re thinking about, then it might be effective to use shame and humiliation. To get that legislation passed to get that person kicked out of office.
But in the process of doing that, you might actually be furthering the divide and the fractures within communities, within humanity. And, ultimately, nonviolence is not just about passing the legislation. But also about healing relationships and bringing us closer to this idea of beloved community and to reconciliation.
And so I think if we want to not just pass legislation, but ultimately to create a world that works for all people, and that is bringing people together, then at some point we need to get beyond tactics of shaming and humiliation, which only furthers the divides.
Stephanie: Yeah. And on top of that, I would say that using shaming and humiliation – these kinds of tactics that can further the divides – they also lead us down a slippery slope. Because if we are just focused on the issue, then really where’s the line that we draw from political violence? That it’s harder to make that distinction.
Kazu: Absolutely.
Michael: Yeah, Kazu! This whole question of humiliation, I’m glad to say, has been kind of studied recently and there’s a psychiatrist named James Gilligan who studied people who committed homicidal acts. And he studied these folks for 25 years and he said, I never saw a single act of violence that did not arise from a need to recover one’s dignity.
Kazu: Yeah.
Michael: And we could do so much with that. There are so many things in the culture of this country that we could adjust so that it made people feel better about themselves and better about the human image. And it would raise the bar and, get us, what did they say? A rising tide raises all ships.
Something like that. It would resolve violence on so many levels.
Kazu: James Gilligan, many years ago, wrote a book called On Violence, which really pioneered a lot of this thinking. It’s true, like I can see it in myself too, right?
Like sometimes if I am in a conflict with my partner, and I’m not feeling heard by her, I might start to raise my voice. And that is not an effective tool for communication, certainly not for healing. But at the core of it is my desire to want to be heard. Right? And one of my favorite definitions of violence is when Marshall Rosenberg says that violence is the tragic expression of unmet needs.
When people are feeling powerless, when they’re feeling hurt, when they’re feeling unheard, we might lash out and choose tragic strategies to get a core need met, like dignity, like human rights, these things that we all need in life. And one of my favorite quotes is by transformative justice activist Mariame Kaba, who says nobody enters violence for the first time by committing it.
We all experience violence and then that leads to traumatic memories that we can’t resolve. And because of that, we lash out and hurt other people. So it’s really helpful to understand how the dynamic of violence happens in order for us to figure out how to resolve it.
Stephanie: That’s a really great perspective on the impact of trauma and then how it relates to acting out violently later from that initial traumatic response. And not every person who has experienced trauma acts out violently either. So how do you tease that apart as well? The way that trauma can impact some people to become, to be, to reinforce violence and others to not go down that path.
Kazu: Well, there’s a couple of things that happen, right? If you experience violence, then it can stay in your body as a traumatic memory, and then you can lash out and hurt other people. I think oftentimes what happens is that trauma enters and then we end up hurting ourselves. So from the outside looking in, it doesn’t look like a person is acting out in violence, but there’s so many ways in which they’re perpetuating harm in our own hearts and our own lives.
But also, a lot of people experience violence and because of the support systems that they have, whether it’s a foundation of spiritual practice, or deep community, or access to healing modalities, they are able to bounce back from that and become resilient and thrive.
A lot of the incarcerated people that I work with, they’ve experienced so much violence and many of them have perpetuated violence. Because of the relationships that they have, because of the access that they’ve had to teaching around nonviolence and spiritual practice, they’re now some of the most dedicated peacemakers I have ever met in my entire life.
I think it’s important to know that even those of us who have experienced severe harm and violence and have had traumatic memories and perhaps even acted out in violence, that healing and transformation is always possible if the right resources are in place. Right? So instead of investing in incarceration, if we invested in resources for healing and community and things like that, then I think the balance and the order of the universe will ensure that we get those returns as well.
Stephanie: And also adding to this, shifting the image of the human being, which I was listening to an interview that you did – maybe at the beginning when the book first came out some months ago – where you were describing going through trainings at the prisons where the where they’re telling you that the prisoners are bad people and they’re gonna lie to you. Can you share that?
Kazu: Yeah, so as a volunteer in prison, I have to take this annual training, and luckily these days I can do it online, but in the past I used to have to go to each of these prisons and sit through like a six-hour course. And the whole thing would just be a correctional officer or prison administration staff just telling me how horrible these incarcerated people are and how they’ll lie to you and cheat you and they’re only in your class because they only care about the certificate.
And after so much conditioning it makes sense why some people would start to believe that, right? But that was just after a six hour training as a volunteer. So I can only imagine the kind of training that they received to become a prison guard, right? And so I think after that kind of message getting hammered into your head over and over again, it actually becomes easier for me to have compassion for some of the correctional officers who actually mistreat incarcerated people, right?
Of course that behavior is wrong and we need to do everything we can to fix it. But if we can understand their story and understand how they got there, it becomes a little bit easier to have a little bit more compassion for them and to figure out a more effective long-term way to transform the culture of violence.
Michael: One thing that those administrators and prison guards are trying to do to you – you could put it this way: they’re trying to give you a frame in which to see these people. And I’m reminded of a little episode where there was a nurse in an emergency room and suddenly a woman burst in with a revolver and she just calmly walked over to the woman and held her hand on the gun and started talking to her and getting the story out of her, hearing her as you were referencing earlier. And pretty soon she had disarmed the situation and they asked her, “Geez, Joan, how did you do that?” She said, “Well, I didn’t see a violent threatening person. I saw a patient coming into my emergency room.”
We should be paying a lot more attention to the frames that we build into ourselves. That could really shift in a very positive direction how we see one another.
Kazu: Absolutely. And there’s multiple stories similar to that, right. Of a potential mass shooting being resolved by someone who can actually talk to the person who’s in pain, who’s trying to lash out, and we don’t hear about those stories enough.
Stephanie: Right. Antoinette Tuff.
Kazu: Absolutely. Yeah.
Stephanie: Well, in, in, in terms of frames and worldviews, Kazu, I was also thinking of Fierce Vulnerability as a paradigm shift and it seems that really what is the most traumatic thing for humanity is to have that paradigm of unity and connection shattered.
When acts of violence take place or are inflicted on you it can make you believe… It shatters the worldview where you felt safe. And that there’s this kind of fundamental worldview trauma. Do you see where I’m going?
Kazu: No, I totally agree. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, like the foundational truths that I believe in is that the universe is an interdependent place, right? That is the very nature of how the universe is built. It’s a law of the universe in the same way that gravity is a law of the universe. Like it doesn’t matter if you believe in gravity or not, you’re still governed by its laws. And similarly, whether you believe the universe is interdependent or not, I really believe that every atom in the universe is governed by the laws of interdependence.
And so when you are acting out in violence you are somehow removing yourself from the web of interdependence and saying, I can receive liberation. I can receive safety at that person’s expense. If I can dehumanize that person and feel that I don’t belong to that person, feel that if I cause harm to that person, somehow it will uplift me.
When you have that worldview, you are living in a delusion of individualism and the delusional separation, the delusion that we don’t all belong to each other. And I know this because I’ve been there; I still go through moments where I feel that. But that is… It’s a terrifying place, right, to feel like I don’t belong to the universe, that I don’t belong to the rest of the cosmos, to my family, to my community, right?
And so I think there is a part of us that once we start to believe that if I can cause harm on that person, then I will be more liberated. That relies on this delusion of separation that I think is really traumatic because yeah, you’re removing yourself and seeing yourself as an individual alone in the universe, and I think that’s a really scary place to be.
Stephanie: Yeah. And Michael, you’ve talked a lot about nonviolence as human evolution.
Michael: Yeah. I would just wanna add one element to your description of the universe. Kazu, you were describing it as we say synchronically – statically. But if we also could take into account King’s vision, Martin Luther King’s vision that it is evolving toward justice. And you can turn your back on that and go backwards and tear things down – cause a lot of trouble. But once you turn to move with it, there’s a mysterious power that is added to you. And that’s nonviolence. I mean, that’s why nonviolence is much more powerful than it seems and violence is so much less.
Kazu: Yeah, I love that. I’m just letting that soak in. I really do believe that there’s this momentum of nonviolence that is carrying us further into the universe and further into our evolution. I do believe evolution doesn’t stop. Right? It’s not like we evolved to become homo sapiens and then we stopped.
We continue to evolve and I really do believe that it is our destiny to continue to evolve more and more to be able to practice nonviolence and to be able to remember that we actually do belong to each other.
Stephanie: I’d love to get into that now, this idea of practicing nonviolence. I wanna just pick your brain a little bit about your own practices and your practice of fierce vulnerability and because I think that’s really where nonviolence has its power, both rooted in this large enlarged worldview of interconnection. And then how we engage that and practice it and show it through our lives.
And so I’m wondering. Maybe to get us started, somebody – our friend Alan – was telling us about a Marshall Rosenberg practice the other day that he… In workshops, Marshall used to say if people were having a hard time cultivating empathy or compassion, he would take pictures of people that were really hated, Hitler pictures, and pass him around and have people try to feel empathy for the person that is in the picture in ways that society tells us you can’t have any empathy for that person. You can’t understand them.
So I wonder about you. What kind of personal practices do you take on to cultivate that worldview of empathy and fierce vulnerability?
Kazu: I think things like Metta practice where you sit and meditate. You oftentimes begin by meditating on the image of a person that, for you, just represents pure love, right? It’s easy for you to pour that love out onto that person. And then to think of somebody neutral, and then to think of someone you have a small conflict with, and then a big conflict.
But also, little things like my partner and I, we live in a community called Kentico Farms, where it’s about 40 people across all races, ages, religions, everything living together. And we have what’s called our Restorative Justice room. It’s a room that’s dedicated just for restorative conflict engagement.
You’re only allowed to be there if you’re actively engaged in restoring conflict. And my partner and I, we go in there every single week, even if we haven’t had any conflict, just to check in to see if there’s any tension that we’re holding and to really release these tensions before they build up.
And so I think, finding ways to just constantly practice. nonviolence is a practice, in the same way that martial arts or meditation or any of these things are a practice. If you’re not constantly engaged in the practice of it every single day, then your muscles and your capacity to practice nonviolence doesn’t get stronger. And the weekly restorative justice practices that my partner and I have, I try to have more and more open and honest conversations with my family.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this aunt that I have who used to be my favorite aunt back in the day, and over the last ten years or so, she’s become this climate change denying Trump supporter. And I’ve been thinking about what it would take to genuinely engage with her in a way that doesn’t shut her down, but opens up possibilities for our healing of relationship.
I’ve actually been thinking about a quote – Michael, that was one of your quotes – that says, “In a world of falsehoods, the truth is inherently confrontational.” So how do I confront her with truth? And one of the truths that I think about is the truth that her understanding of climate science is wrong, and I wanna try to convince her that she’s wrong. But in practicing fierce vulnerability, there’s another deeper truth that sounds a little bit more like: “You used to be my favorite aunt and I mourn the relationship that we can no longer have.”
And for me to get to that conversation with her, it takes a lot of emotional processing and work for me so that I can express this deeper truth to her in a way that is grounded in our desire for connection. And I think doing practices like that will help us understand what it means to scale that up. So next time we’re at a protest, we’re leading with a deeper truth that has the potential for us to create deeper connection between communities.
Stephanie: I’d love to get into the protest ideas too, but you said so many beautiful things, I just wanna hold that space and acknowledge the restorative justice room and living in a community that seems committed to mutual aid and support and nonviolent values, which seems like that’s daily practice. It’s almost an ashram in that great lineage of nonviolent communities.
Kazu: It’s a really beautiful place.
Stephanie: I’ve heard about Metta practice quite a bit, and I do practice it at times.
And there’s another aspect of Metta practice that you might be familiar with as well, which is sitting in the presence of unconditional love. Sometimes it is just bringing in those people or figures that love you unconditionally and just sitting in that space. So it might be, a teacher or a parent or a friend or a spouse or partner, or it could be, a deity image or whoever you need to go to where you feel like you have that connection of receiving unconditional love from that being, it could be a pet.
Kazu: Yeah.
Stephanie: That’s supposed to inform our practice of compassion, of nonviolence because without being able to receive unconditional love, we can’t give it.
Kazu: Yeah, I love that practice. I was facilitating a workshop years ago and we were talking about Metta and what Dr. King called Agape love – a Greek word for unconditional love for all beings. He said, “As a Christian for me, agape love is God’s love.” So it’s not even required for me to cultivate it or develop it. It’s everywhere around this, and all I need to do is to step into it.
And I love that because I think sometimes it becomes really difficult for us to think about how do I cultivate love for the person that is causing harm to me or my communities? But when we think about it as something that just already exists out in the world and our job is just to step into it, I think sometimes it’s a little easier for us to be in that field of ultimate love.
Stephanie: And receiving love requires vulnerability, doesn’t it?
Kazu: Oh yeah. Sometimes it’s actually harder than anything.
Stephanie: Let’s jump in. We have a few minutes left, but how do we apply this then to direct action? A little later in the show we’re going to be speaking with Hunter Dunn from 5051 about the No Kings protest.
It’s just a really nice segue to get us thinking a little bit differently. And from this paradigmatic shift that you’re talking about with fierce vulnerability, how do we engage direct action with unconditional love, with vulnerability that doesn’t look like shutting down?
What does it look like, Kazu Haga?
Kazu: Yeah, so fierce vulnerability is really about taking the lessons that we’ve learned from interpersonal trauma healing and relational work, and scaling that up.
And so I dream about direct actions, civil disobedience, that instead of leading with the message of ‘We’re here to shut things down; we’re here because you are wrong; we’re here to demand this piece of legislation.’ What if we led with messages of we are here because our heart is breaking witnessing the violence and destruction in our society. We are here because we are scared, we are lost, we don’t know what to do. And could those messages, leading with our own vulnerability, open up possibilities for healing that might not have been there prior to that?
In my trauma healing work, I’ve experienced that the moment one person opens up with their vulnerability, it just transforms the space and opens up so much potential for healing that wasn’t there before. And a lot of the work of fierce vulnerability is about what is the work that we need to do to prepare ourselves to open up our hearts in a way, in spaces where that might actually not be met.
There’s a quote from Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber who says, “Preach from your scars, not from your wounds.” And so what is the healing work that we need to be doing to prepare ourselves, not just to practice forming blockades and practice working with the media, but what is the heart training, the spiritual training that we need to do, to have the courage to lead with our vulnerability and not put that in, not put that in us in a place where we can be re-traumatized by that?
Stephanie: Kazu, thank you so much for joining us this morning on Nonviolence Radio. If people wanna continue the conversation with you, where can they find you?
Kazu: You can find me on my website, kazuhaga.com. K-A-Z-U-H-A-G-A. And I’m on social media, but I’m actually trying to get off of it. But yeah, deeply grateful to be here with you all.
Stephanie: Thank you so much for your time, and thank you to your family also for lending you to us this morning.
Kazu: Thank you Michael and Stephanie.
Stephanie: You are here at nonviolence Radio. So Michael, why don’t you get us started with a little bit of news while I bring our next guest on – Hunter Dunn from 5051. Tell us about what is happening in the world of nonviolence.
Michael: Thank you. To take a kind of broad view of the big picture, what I’m seeing is a tremendous growth in violence. Everybody’s seeing that, and I’m gonna talk about some aspects of it in a second. But there’s also a tremendous growth in nonviolence and unfortunately that is not nearly as visible. So we can make our best contribution to the world these days, I think, by uplifting the various positive developments in nonviolence.
I’ll be mentioning some of them in the show, and of course on our website we have a great deal of information about those resources. But it’s important for us to feel that the regeneration is hanging out there in the sidelines, in the wings, and all we need to do is give it more attention and it will be there for us.
Well, having said that, wanted to get into some of the world events. If any more proof were needed of the futility of war, we see two huge examples of it now. Iran used to have a fairly serious opposition to the theocratic Islamic regime. And, we’ve all heard of women’s life freedom and of course it was brutally suppressed, but it was there and it was strong, both in the country and in the diaspora community. And now, because Iran is under attack, everyone is pulled together. They’ve resolved their differences. They all rally behind the Islamic regime now, and the diaspora community is not able to get any headway if it’s any different.
And we’re seeing a very similar thing in Israel in a different way. And it’s all reminding me of a short story by Leo Tolstoy called “What Men Live By.” I won’t go into how the story works, but it does show that in the last analysis, most people can be manipulated into action by the prospect of a war. War is a tremendous source of false and shallow enthusiasm.
But if the war goes poorly over time, and they almost always do, then people involved get dispirited and angry. Maybe the opposition to nonviolence could be limited in that way. But unfortunately what happens in a place like Israel is that the reasonable people tend to leave and that leaves the extremists in with even more power.
However, the unquestioning support among the young people in America for Israel is evaporating. There’s some mention of the bad influences of the Israel lobby appearing that has to be much more. But Ma’ariv, which is a news service, has now stated that Israel is “…a country in collapse.” There were 140,000 laborers from Palestine who came in as like our laboring force coming from the southern border.
They would come in every day and do the work that was needed, but since October 7th, they haven’t been allowed in and since October 7th 550,000 Israelis have immigrated. They’ve left the country, they’ve gone back to wherever they came from – to America or so forth. And remember, this is a country of 19 million, so getting up towards a million emigres is really crippling now.
One of the really negative things I want to say before we get into the bright side, and that is a recent statement I want to quote to you.
“The power of conscience-free manipulation coupled with the big-lie technique has, many times in human history, proven to overcome people’s normal sense of self-preservation, especially when this manipulation is practiced by a convincing psychopath.”
And I wanted to quote that because this is not just an attitude that some people have. This is a formal diagnosis that psychiatrists have offered. And on the question of conscience-free manipulation: does that sound familiar? Isn’t that kind of like advertising? Which we’ve been exposed to thousands and millions of times. So once again, I think we see the way that this disagreeable element in our culture is positioning us of making ourselves vulnerable to very destructive political developments.
So on the bright side. I’m constantly amazed these days by new organizations that are coming into being or else they’re new to me.
Yeah. I’m gonna now turn it back over to you, Stephanie, to get to our next guest.
Stephanie: Oh, thank you so much! So we have with us today Hunter Dunn. He’s an organizer with 5051, and you might recognize that organization from the No Kings protest that took place on President Trump’s birthday, June 14th. So welcome Hunter to Nonviolence Radio.
Hunter: Hi. Thank you guys for having me.
Stephanie: Thank you so much for being here. And wow, so you helped to… You’re part of an organization, 5051, that helped organize these massive rallies – these massive protests that took place on June 14th.
Tell us a little bit about the organization 5051, first of all, so we better understand its connection to nonviolence, and then we’d love to have the numbers and the impact of the protests.
Hunter: So start with 5051. It’s more of a national coalition of organizations than an organization in and of itself, right?
So I’m a local organizer with 5051 SoCal, which operates in the greater Los Angeles area, but I’m also part of the California State 5051, which is sort of a coalition of all the local chapters. And I am the national press coordinator, which means I volunteer and am part of, and help lead, one of the national working groups, which sort of brings together the local and state chapters from across the country.
We don’t have a 501(c)3 or (c)4 for the national organization, but many of the local and state chapters do. So it’s more. We like to call it ‘the 5051 movement’ because it’s more of a movement with a ton of organizations that all consider themselves to be 5051, based on our shared values of, among other things, inclusion and a commitment to nonviolence.
And that’s sort of how we recognize each other as 5051. It’s whether or not you uphold those values in the resistance against the Trump regime. So, fundamentally, if an organization within 5051 starts disrespecting the concept of nonviolence – starts being violent – they get rapidly disavowed and disfellowed by all the other local, state, and national organizations.
So that’s sort of how we hold ourselves accountable, and that’s how we maintain a commitment to nonviolence when you have hundreds of thousands of people. We all recognize each other until you don’t do something that fits with our values and we see if we can fix that. And if we can’t fix that, then we’re gonna have to go our separate ways.
To make a sort of silly comparison, I have some Church of Christ background and it kind of reminds me of how the Church of Christ has those councils and fellows and disfellows each other. Mutual recognition would be the term I use. When it comes to the massive rallies local-level organizations, state-level organizations across the country that are part of 5051 helped plan and put on those rallies.
And at the national level, we helped work with the national partners to get the message out. There were, I believe, over 200 organizations – part of the No Kings National Movement. And many more locally that helped out individual chapters, whether it was 5051, Black Votes Matter, Color for Change, Public Citizen, ACLU, Indivisible, or many other groups that all took part in helping get anywhere between five and 12 million people into the streets on June 14th. I suspect the number’s somewhere in between those, because I think the 5 million was based on registrations and in LA we had about 4,000 registrations, but we had well over 200,000 people show up based on analyzing the video footage.
That’s a 50 times more rate, but other places, most of the people who have showed up registered or even less. So some number between five and 12 makes sense to me.
Stephanie: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. But I think it’s definitely closer to 12 and here’s why. Every person that I spoke to about No Kings outside of my friends within nonviolent organizing were people who haven’t been out to protest in decades.
There are people who said, yeah. This one? I’m gonna go to this one. I haven’t been a part of that. So I just think that it activated participation in a way that was reaching people in a very deep place that would bring people who would otherwise stay at home and watch from the news, watch from their computers, attended something. And that was really powerful I thought.
And the other thing that I noticed was that even in tiny little towns like here. We’re up in Northern California and there’s a tiny town that Michael lives in. They even, with 500 people in their town, they had a protest, symbolic, in their space too. That starts to tell a story about how this is reaching people even in tiny little towns.
And finally I just felt like the energy of the space of these protests were something different qualitatively, not just quantitatively with all the numbers of people But just coming up to this space really moved me so much I began crying because you just feel so much solidarity and support and this kind of outpouring of love for our interconnected community for justice. It was so beautiful. And I wonder what your impressions have been and feedback you’ve received.
Hunter: And also I do agree there was probably the most beautiful one that I saw was looking at what happened in Boston, where the No Kings protest combined with a Pride Parade to become like a Pride No Kings protest combo thing.
They probably had… I’ve read estimates of over a million people all protesting together. Some people who had been going to Pride going to protest every year, and some people who hadn’t realized the situation until now, and finally they’re being activated and they’re getting out there on the streets. And they’re marching in solidarity and demanding change, a change in this authoritarian and violent regime.
So yeah, the energy that we’re having right now is completely different to the energy of earlier protests, and a lot of that’s a very good thing. But also there are a lot of lessons from earlier protest movements like BLM, like the protest against Roe v. Wade recently, and obviously going all the way back to protests against the Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests.
I’ve spoken to people who have come to our events and we’re part of those protests. So we have a lot of opportunity to get that advice and learn from the successes and the mistakes made by other protest movements because fundamentally, this is the same. And I don’t want to use the word battle because again, this is not a violent thing. But we’re in the same sort of spiritual and political and ideological conflict that we were in those 60 years ago. Sure, some of the words and specific policies have changed, but it’s still resisting against the powers of oppression and empire, and in some cases capital. Because a lot of the people who are funding and financing the worst of Trump’s policies are the richest people, not just in our country, but anywhere in the world.
Michael: I am sensing, and I wonder if you are also, I’d be really interested in hearing your view on this. I’m sensing a growth across the time span that you were just referencing: a growth in nonviolence. Awareness of it, sophistication in how to employ it, and the idea of ‘whatever it takes’ has kind of receded and nonviolence is beginning to really prove itself. Maybe I’m just being hopeful and optimistic, but what do you think?
Hunter: Well, the way that I pitched it to a lot of people who are skeptical was that we’re not just nonviolent as a moral principle, we’re nonviolent because it’s the most effective way to resist against a modern government with modern military modern weapons and modern processes. Trying to figure out how to best conceptualize this: if we were resisting violently against Trump’s regime, I don’t think we would succeed. I think it would end with just a bunch of people trying their best dying horribly, because fundamentally, the US’s military has access to things that civilians have no recourse against. So it’s not just a ‘it is more moral to not resist evil with evil,’ but instead to take other strategies to resist the evil.
Resisting evil, meeting it with good. It’s also about to actually win, to do better against the modern government, we have to be non-violent. Or else we don’t really have a shot.
And of course when I say nonviolent, I mean that in the general broad sense. I personally am a big fan of civil disobedience where it’s warranted, and some people may call some of that violent because in the society that we live in, there’s not really a distinction between a harm to a person and a harm to property.
And as a – I’m a Christian, for example. And as a Christian and studying like the works of Jesus or Tolstoy. There is a lot more when they’re talking about nonviolence. There is a lot of room for things that might be harmful to property or to training yourself up or to forming a human chain around something or sitting in to prevent things from being done. And some people like Fox News would probably call that violent even when it’s not.
So when I’m talking about nonviolence I just mean not being violent to people.
Stephanie: Love it. Yeah. Talk about nonviolence, I think is the most important thing. And I’d be remiss at this point not to bring in Erica Chenoweth. Many in the nonviolent movement sort of worship at the shrine of Erica Chenoweth, the author of Why Civil Resistance Works, who has brought the number 3.5 to the movement. So the 3.5% rule is that when 3.5% of the population gets involved, especially across sectors or pillars of support, including, military or business or politicians, not just media, not just movement activists, 3.5% in the population gets involved in a movement, that movement becomes unstoppable.
And I was listening to a pod that she was on – Pod Save America – the other day and she was pointing out that the media likes to try to, once you know it. 5051, to summarize, is doing the right thing by saying this is a nonviolent movement. Point that’s done. You just make that clear and don’t be dissuaded from that because the media, once people start debating ‘whoa, was this tactic violent or nonviolent?’ they try to turn people against each other, which then fractures the movement.
So the more that you just cling to ‘we are nonviolent, we’re all connected in our approach which is nonviolence’ the better the movement is gonna stay cohesive and unified together. So thank you. Thank you for being clear about the commitment to nonviolence and don’t let anybody dissuade you or make us start debating the finer points of what this movement’s trying to do.
We would love to know, however, what next? Because 5051, this broad coalition of, as you mentioned, all these different organizations can jump in, which is awesome. Hands off, right? That was the beginning. And then No Kings. Where are you building to or what can people expect or how can people keep the momentum going?
Hunter: So when it comes to the next coalition date, that is July 17th, which is Good Trouble Lives on. And sort of a memorial honoring John Lewis as part of the National Day of Action because of his importance of civil rights movements into the moment that we’re living in now, right?
If the John Lewis Voting Rights Act was passed, we might not be in the situation at all so it’s important to recognize and pick dates that are important, ceremonially, ’cause that adds weight and that adds power to the nonviolent resistance. Even earlier than that, on July 4th, we are having another National Day of Action. That one is not titled yet. You may have seen some flyers going around saying, no Kings 2.0 or something.
Those are in our flyers. We would not use generative AI. That would make a statement that says we want rulers to rule not serve. That’s in one of those flyers, and it’s kind of a little… It’s a little embarrassing to look at that. I know whoever made it meant well, I just would do a little bit more proofreading on the AI.
But we don’t have a theme yet for that one, but there’s going to be a National Day of action on July 4th here in SoCal. The theme of it is ‘end the occupation’, referring to ICE and National Guard and Marines being present in our city, going around terrorizing people and, in ICE’s case, literally taking people hostage, taking people out of their homes, right.
It’s like the Martin Niemöller poem. “First they came for the socialists…” They’re doing that right now to undocumented immigrants in the greater Los Angeles area and in other places around the country. And in SoCal, at least, we’re demanding that’s going to stop and we’re going to go to the federal building where it’s happening and we’re going to demand it there.
And we’re going to make it difficult for them to continue harming people. And we’re gonna do that in a way that is entirely peaceful. This one’s a little silly, but the other day we spent some time slowing down their processes and we did it by throwing a dance party in front of their entrance and exit so they didn’t have any way to get in and out of the building without inflicting a lot of violence on us, which they were thankfully unwilling to do. So it made them harder to process and to take those people captive.
Now how many people did that save? It might have saved a couple people, which is why we’re trying to get a larger group to do a larger action and to be more direct with those demands and also put more pressure on our local elected officials for that. And I’m hoping to see similar actions taken on July 4th in other parts of the country. But also recognizing that it’s a day where a lot of people wanna spend time with their family.
So for July 4th we’re not expecting as big of a time as we are for a national coalition. And for July 17th – I really have high hopes for that one. But also I do worry because we are trying to uplift a cause and a person that maybe not every… Like, we’re doing a lot of work to help activate people and make them understand the changes that need to be made to the system and the importance of protesting.
And not everyone is ready to have a large protest on a weekday wherein they’re celebrating someone who doesn’t necessarily look like them. So we’re doing a lot of work to build more strength of BIPOC coalitions and to emphasize the importance of working with those coalitions for maybe some people who aren’t necessarily the most comfortable with that as it stands.
And past that we’re also looking at, probably, Labor Days. I imagine Labor Day can be really big, just looking into the future.
Stephanie: Yeah. And that actually makes me think, too. The way that – having studied past nonviolent movements – that when you can bring in, however problematic it can be though, love of country into the nonviolent movement it can somehow, it somehow begins to get stronger. Like in the Polish solidarity movement, like, we are resisting because we’re good Polish people. This is who we are. We are the Polish nation. This is why we’re resisting.
And that was really powerful, I thought, at the No Kings. I’d see American flags flying and I was like, am I at the right place? And it was – I was! But that, that’s qualitatively, again, different than others.
So I have a lot of hope in this movement. Hunter Dunn, thank you so much for joining us today. Quick: website that people can find more information, get involved.
Hunter: Our national website is fiftyfifty.one. That is the word ‘fifty’ spelled out, the word ‘fifty’ spelled out, a period, and then the word ‘one’ spelled out.
And I also wanna say it was great having a bunch of American flags, but it was also great seeing Mexican flags, Ukrainian flags, Palestinian flags. Because part of the beauty of what I think America is, and what Trump doesn’t think it is, is that we have this recognition of this diversity of a multicultural society.
We’re the greatest multicultural experiment that’s ever been done. And by God do I want that experience to succeed? And we can only do that when we recognize both that we are Americans, but also we’re so much more.
Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Beautiful. Hunter Dunn, thank you so much for joining us and thank you to everybody for being here at Nonviolence Radio: Kazu Haga, Hunter Dunn. You, Michael Nagler, my co-host, everyone who makes the show possible. Our mother station. To all those who support nonviolence radio: thank you so much, and until the next time, everybody please take care of one another. We’ll be back in two weeks.