Peace

( Tomdispatch.com ) – One strangely hot November afternoon, I waited for my elementary-school-aged kids to arrive at their bus stop. The quiet in our rural area was eerie. It captured the mood in the days after a national election that no one in my little community yet knew exactly how to respond to. In […]

Authoritarianism

The 6 Superpowers that Faith Communities bring to nonviolent Struggle

Waging Nonviolence

While religion has far too often been a tool of authoritarianism, faith institutions and communities have also been the life force of so many freedom movements. Maria J. Stephan ( Waging Nonviolence ) – In June, Catholic Bishop Michael Pham of San Diego, who fled Vietnam as a 13-year-old refugee in 1980, was part […]

Nonviolence

Veterans for Peace and Justice: Can Warriors Stop Endless Wars?

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former “Fox and Friends” cohost, claims to be obsessed with making the Pentagon and the military services about “the warfighter.” His main approach to doing so is a deeply misguided campaign to reduce “distractions” like commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (the dreaded “DEI”). No […]

Peace

Researching the Roots of War to Fight Militarism

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – I have spent the bulk of my career — on and off since the late Carter Administration — following the money that drives war and repression. What I have finally learned after so many decades of doing research on the war machine is that while research is critical, it must be […]

Kurds

Lessons from a historic Act of Disarmament in Kurdistan

Waging Nonviolence

After decades of armed struggle, the PKK is laying down its weapons and beginning a new nonviolent chapter in the Kurdish independence movement. Matt Meyer ( Waging Nonviolence ) – On July 11, in the hills of Northern Iraq, a scene unfolded that would shake even the most experienced disarmament activist. Walking down a steep […]

Archaeology

Early Farming in Middle East, Sometimes Matriarchal, Spread through Learning, not Conquest

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new study by Dilek Koptekin et al., a Swiss-Turkish team, has appeared in Science that combines archeological and genetics research to shed new light on the emergence of farming in the Middle East in the transition from hunting and gathering called the Neolithic Revolution. The authors find that big […]

Featured

The Islamic Peace Studies Initiative

Juan Cole

Pacifism in Islam – University of Manchester. Juan Cole’s remarks at their conference. The Islamic Peace Studies Initiative Juan Cole and Samer Ali have directed the Islamic Peace Studies Initiative at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies in the International Institute of the University of Michigan from 2016. The initiative sought to […]

Nonviolence

Can nonviolent Struggle defeat a Dictator? This Database emphatically says Yes

George Lakey

The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns. ( Waging Nonviolence ) – With Donald Trump set to take office after a fear-mongering campaign that reignited concerns about his desire to become a dictator, a reasonable question comes up: Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant? There […]

Jewish History

What Hannukah Teaches us about Violence and Peace

Yakov M. Rabkin

( The Times of israel ) – Biblical accounts teem with violent episodes. Just a few days ago, we read in the synagogue the story of Jacob’s two sons, Levi and Simeon, massacring the entire male population of a city in a devious scheme using a religious pretext. (Genesis 34) Their father was so aggrieved […]