Extinction Rebellion protesters holding a NONVIOLENT banner during the February 2020 March along with Parents 4 Future
By JessicaGirvan1/Shutterstock.com
George Lakey’s new book is called How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning. On its cover is a drawing of a hand holding up two fingers in what is more often considered a peace sign than a victory sign, but I suppose it is meant as both.
Perhaps nobody is better qualified to write such a book, and it’s hard to imagine one better written. Lakey co-wrote a similar book in the 1960s and has been studying the matter ever since. He doesn’t just draw lessons from the Civil Rights movement, wasn’t just there at the time, but was applying lessons from earlier actions to training activists at the time. His new book provides—at least for me—new insights even about the very most familiar and often discussed nonviolent actions of the past (as well as lots of new rarely discussed actions). I’d recommend that anyone interested in a better world get this book immediately.
However, out of the countless examples of past actions explored in this book, there are—as is absolutely typical—very few passing references to anything related to war and peace. There’s the usual complaint that marches have been tried when an (unspecified) targeted and escalating and enduring nonviolent action campaign might have had a better impact. There are two sentences praising the 12-year-long successful encampment at Greenham Common opposing a U.S. nuclear base in England. There are three sentences suggesting that a campaign that has protested Lockheed Martin’s manufacture of nuclear weapons for four decades has not known how to attract enough participants. There’s a portion of a sentence recommending the film The Boys Who Said NO! And that’s about it.
But can we read this wonderful book, and tease out some lessons that might apply to the work of ending war? Can we come up with actions that make clear to observers our goals and the case for them, that reveal secrets and expose myths, that target those who can make changes, that endure and escalate and appeal to wider participation, that are both global or national and local?
Ke hana nei ka World BEYOND War i kahi neʻe hoʻopau kaua me ka hoʻohana ʻana i nā hoʻolaha e pili ana i ka hoʻokaʻawale ʻana mai nā mea kaua (me kekahi kūleʻa) a me ka pani ʻana i nā waihona (me ka ʻole o ka kūleʻa nui i ka pani ʻana i nā kumu, akā kūleʻa i ka hoʻonaʻauao ʻana a me ka hoʻopaʻa ʻana), akā World BEYOND War kekahi. ʻO ka hoʻolaha ʻana i nā moʻolelo moʻokalaleo he mea hiki ʻole ke kaua, pono, pōmaikaʻi, a pololei paha. Hiki iā mākou ke hoʻohui i kēia mau mea?
ʻO kekahi mau manaʻo i ka noʻonoʻo. He aha inā inā hiki i nā poʻe ma ʻAmelika a me Rūsia ke koho balota i nā helu he nui i loko o kahi referendum kūʻokoʻa i hana ʻia ma ka disarmament a i ʻole e pau a hoʻopaʻi ʻia a mea ʻole paha i loko o ka huhū a me ka hoʻomāinoino? Pehea inā he hui o nā poʻe Iranian a me nā ʻelele o ka United States a me nā lehulehu ʻē aʻe e ʻae i ka kuʻikahi kuʻikahi no kā mākou hoʻokumu hana i hoʻopau i nā hoʻopaʻi a me nā hoʻoweliweli, a i ʻole i ʻae ʻia ʻo 2015? He aha inā i hana ʻia nā kūlanakauhale a me nā moku ʻo US e pane aku i nā hoʻopaʻi lehulehu a pale ʻole?
What if large numbers of U.S. people, representing and communicating with localities back home, were to go to Iraq or the Philippines to join with the people and governments of those places in asking the U.S. troops to depart? What if exchanges, including student exchanges, were set up between the U.S. and the places where bases are protested, with the big message being, for example, “South Korea Welcomes Unarmed Americans!”
He aha inā inā lawe ʻia nā kamaʻāina e hoʻohana maʻamau i nā lā nui e hoʻolauleʻa ana i nā kaua i kū ʻole, e hoʻomanaʻo nei i nā ʻōlelo āpau i haʻi ʻia he pono kēlā mau kaua. He aha inā inā kēlā me kēia wahi a puni ka honua a puni ʻo ʻAmelika Hui Pū ʻIa kahi i hoʻolālā ai ʻo al Qaeda i kekahi mea ma mua o 9/11 e kau inoa ʻāpono i Afghanistan no ka hōʻole ʻana o ke aupuni US e hoʻokolokolo iā bin Laden i kahi ʻāina ʻekolu?
He aha inā inā hoʻomohala nā ʻoihana hoʻoliʻi kūloko i nā haʻawina hoʻololi kula (he aha ka waiwai o ka ʻoihana holomua i ke hoʻololi ʻana mai ke kaua a i nā ʻoihana ʻoihana maluhia, a mai kahi kahua koa kaiaulu i kahi hoʻohana maikaʻi ʻia no kēlā ʻāina), ka poʻe i kipa ʻia i nā limahana kūloko a me nā mea hoʻolimalima mea kaua. nā mea e pili ana i ka hopena o ke kaiapuni, e hoʻoponopono i ka poʻe e hopohopo nei i ka pūʻali koa o ka mākaʻi, hoʻokaʻawale i nā mea hana kaua ʻole e hāʻawi i nā hana i nā limahana hana kaua?
Demonstrators took to the streets at Times Square in New York City to protest war against Iran & Iraq on January 4, 2020.
By Ryan Rahman/Shutterstock.com
What if elaborately outfitted actors portraying such recipients of U.S. weapons, U.S. military training, and U.S. military funding as King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, or His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah of Brunei, or President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, or President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea (there are dozens; you could have a new brutal dictator every week or month) were to show up at local branches of U.S. weapons companies, or at their alma maters where they were trained in brutality (the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the United Kingdom, the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, etc.) and demand that the corporation or the school NOT endorse Congressperson Ilhan Omar’s Stop Arming Human Rights Abusers Act?
Are there ways, in other words, in which an antiwar effort that’s already dedicated to nonviolence and teamwork and sacrifice and education and broad appeal can succeed at being both global and local, at aiming for a world at peace but also at short-term achievable changes? I encourage reading George Lakey’s book with these questions in mind and reporting back here on your answers: https://worldbeyondwar.org/howwewin
The Publication of Origin for this article is World Beyond War.