by Mark Shepard

Vinoba Bhave; photographer unknown; courtesy of bharatmatamandir.in

Once India gained its independence, that nation’s leaders did not take long to abandon Mahatma Gandhi’s principles. Nonviolence gave way to the use of India’s armed forces. Perhaps even worse, the new leaders discarded Gandhi’s vision of a decentralized society, a society based on autonomous, self-reliant villages. These leaders spurred a rush toward a strong central government and a Western-style industrial economy. But not all abandoned Gandhi’s vision. Many of his “constructive workers”, development experts and community organizers working in a host of agencies set up by Gandhi himself, resolved to continue his mission of transforming Indian society. And leading them was a disciple of Gandhi previously little known to the Indian public, yet eventually regarded as Gandhi’s “spiritual successor”, Vinoba Bhave, a saintly, reserved, austere man most called simply Vinoba. How did he assume this status?

In 1916, at the age of 20, Vinoba was in the holy city of Benares trying to come to a decision about his life. Should he go to the Himalayas and become a religious hermit? Or should he go to West Bengal and join the guerillas fighting the British? Then Vinoba came across a newspaper account of a speech by Gandhi. He was thrilled, and soon after joined Gandhi in his ashram. Gandhi’s ashrams were not only religious communities, but also centers of political and social action. As Vinoba later said, he found in Gandhi the peace of the Himalayas united with the revolutionary fervor of Bengal.

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by Narayan Desai

Editor’s Preface: Narayan Desai (b. 1924) is the son of Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s chief secretary until 1942. He is the founder of the nonviolence training center, the Institute for Total Revolution, and the author of a four volume biography of Gandhi among other works. He has been awarded both the Jamnalal Bajaj Award and the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for his work in nonviolence and pacifism. JG

Young Narayan Desai with parents; photo courtesy Narayan Desai

The Satyagraha Ashram of Mahatma Gandhi stood on the bank of the broad Sabarmati River, across from the city of Ahmedabad. “This is a good spot for my ashram,” Bapu used to say. All of us in the ashram called him Bapu, or Father. He added,  “On one side is the cremation ground. On the other is the prison. The people in my ashram should have no fear of death, nor should they be strangers to imprisonment.” Indeed, my earliest memories of Bapu are intertwined with those of Sabarmati Prison. Bapu would go for a walk each morning and evening. He would put his hands on the shoulders of those to either side. These companions would be his “walking sticks.” We children were always given first choice for this job. Whether his human walking sticks were really any help to him, perhaps only Bapu could say. But as for us, being chosen always made us swell with pride. In fact, in our eagerness to be chosen Bapu’s “sticks”, we would sometimes clash.

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by Mark Shepard

Lanza del Vasto 1979; photo by and courtesy of Mark Shepard

We are accused of going against the times. We are doing that deliberately and with all our strength.
— Lanza del Vasto

The machine enslaves, the hand sets free.
— Lanza del Vasto

Tucked away in the windswept mountains of Languedoc in southern France is a small island of peace known as the Community of the Ark. Founded and formed by Lanza del Vasto—often called Mahatma Gandhi’s “first disciple in the West”—the Ark is a model of a nonviolent social order, an alternative to the overt and hidden violence of our times.

Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto (1901-1981) was an Italian aristocrat deeply concerned about this violence. In 1936, Lanza traveled to India to meet Gandhi, the one person he thought might know how violence could be uprooted. Gandhi gave Lanza a new name: Shantidas, “Servant of Peace.” And Lanza returned to Europe with hopes of starting a “Gandhian Order in the West”.

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by Amitabh Pal

A nonviolent movement survives in Syria. Overshadowed by violence on both sides and ignored by the media, activists are still peacefully defying the Syrian regime.

Pacifism has a long lineage in Syria. One of the foremost philosophers of nonviolence in the Muslim world, Jawdat Said, is Syrian. The octogenarian, sometimes referred to as the “Syrian Gandhi,” is renowned for his attempts to conceptualize Islam as a pacifist religion. Using the parable of Cain and Abel (narrated in the Quran, too), Said urges Muslims to take their lead from the Prophet Muhammad (who cited Abel approvingly a number of times) and embrace “The Doctrine of the First Son of Adam,” the title of his most famous book. Said has been jailed a number of times since his work became publicly known in the 1960s. After spending six months touring the United States and Canada last year, he returned to Syria in an attempt to keep the flame of peace alive in his country.

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by Mohja Kahf

Logo of Syrian Nonviolence Movement; artist unknown; courtesy of SNM

Editor’s Preface: Syria commands the news daily, no less the atrocities of war committed there. Dr. Mohja Kahf’s courageous and comprehensive article chronicles an alternate, nonviolent resistance, overlooked or suppressed in the media. Since 2011, Quaker groups such as Friends for a Nonviolent World, have been “supporting Syrian nonviolent organizations and activists in their struggle for freedom, justice, inclusiveness, and democracy.” By 2012 the nonviolent movement was eclipsed by the armed struggle, but nevertheless carries on. If there are rebel groups with whom the UN can negotiate, there is also a nonviolent movement that can and must be engaged. The toll in Syria has been staggering and tragic. Now more than ever the efforts and courage of nonviolent resisters need also be supported and their stories told. JG

The Syrian uprising sprang from the country’s grassroots, especially from youth in their teens, and adults in their twenties and thirties. They, not seasoned oppositionists, began the uprising, and are its core population. They share, rather than a particular ideology, a generational experience of disenfranchisement and brutalization by a corrupt, repressive, and massively armed ruling elite in Syria.

The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions were empowering models for these Syrians. The uprising is characterized by wide geographic spread, significant rural and small-town involvement, and a basis in local communities organizing around local grievances, as well as in solidarity for each other. The protest movement did not mobilize around religious identity, showed a fundamental respect for the diversity of Syria, and included minority participants.

The Syrian uprising began nonviolently and the vast majority of its populace maintained nonviolence as its path to pursue regime change and a democratic Syria.

The uprising began nonviolently and the vast majority of its populace maintained nonviolence as its path to pursue regime change and a democratic Syria, until an armed flank emerged in August 2011. The Syrian Revolution has morphed. From midsummer to autumn 2011, armed resistance developed, political bodies formed to represent the revolution outside Syria, and political Islamists of various sorts entered the uprising scene. Since then, armed resistance has overshadowed nonviolent resistance in Syria.

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by Rabia Terri Harris

“Peace”; logo of Muslim Peace Fellowship; courtesy of MPF

Nonviolence is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language, and one of the most misunderstood ideas in the world. This confusion is not surprising, since the word means two things at the same time. And the one idea behind both meanings, though very simple, is not easy. It goes against the way many people think.

Here are the two different meanings of nonviolence.

Nonviolence is the life decision to live in harmony with the order of creation by giving up the domination of other people or the planet. Today, when put into community practice, this life decision is called culture of peace or peace-building.

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by Terry Messman

Martin Luther King, Jr.; with poster for Poor People’s Campaign; photo by Horace Cort; courtesy AP

Sometimes, in the midst of protest marches, a feeling springs up unawares, a feeling that Martin Luther King’s last dream can never die. His visionary dream of a Poor People’s Campaign remains an unsurpassed blueprint for the edifice of human rights we are still waiting to construct, the resurrection of the Dream.

For many years, everyone from well-meaning educators to White House officials has called on Americans to honor the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., by volunteering in community projects such as fixing up schools and community centers, removing graffiti and collecting food. These various proposals for a day of volunteerism to honor the civil rights leader fall tragically short of King’s dream of economic and racial justice, and an end to war. For, in his last days, Martin was on the move to Washington, D.C., not to participate in a feel-good photo-op at some community renovation project, but rather to launch a showdown with the federal government — a government that, even under the leadership of liberal Democratic Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, had refused to remove the burden of poverty from the backs of the poor.

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by Jeff Rudick

Editor’s Preface: In 1970, the year this article was written, the Catholic Worker Farm was in Tivoli, New York, not far from Bard College, a highly regarded liberal arts institution, as it still is. Indeed Bard was close enough for students to walk to the farm, and not only did many do this regularly, but some came to live at the Worker summers and holidays. The poet and theater director Jeffrey Rudick was one such student, and a valuable addition to the community. He was  “looking for a project” and Dorothy encouraged him to “get yourself to Delano and write about it for the paper”, as he recalls her saying. The Worker could be said to have “raised the social consciousnesses” of many generations of students, not just those from Bard. JG

Poster c. 1970, artist unknown; courtesy of University of Michigan

I joined the strikers in Delano, now well into their fifth year of a frustrating battle, for little more than five weeks, and hardly claim to know in a real way what their hardship was. But my impressions from the experience were and are strong and lasting, and I would like to share some of them.

I bussed up from Bakersfield to Delano through the flat commercial roads interspersed with long rows of vines. Delano appeared an ugly flat monotonous town devoid of woodland, crammed with the commercial clutter that plagues the landscape of America. I was later to learn that the railroad, which slices through the town, the planted orange trees and palms, and the long fields of vines on the outskirts were the only pleasing diversions for the eye.

As I sat on the bench in front of the small Greyhound station, I felt increasingly defensive. Many drivers in the traffic I was watching turned their heads and eyed me suspiciously as they passed by. I became conscious of my long hair as in so many small towns; I wondered if they knew I had come to join the strikers. I stepped into the nearest phone booth and leafed through the book for the number of the strikers’ headquarters. It was nearly dark and the last rays of the setting sun were fading, a dark shadow of rusted red becoming more prominent, until, as I reached the U’s there was a large red blotch as of crusted blood over the United Farm Workers’ listing.

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by World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates

“Knotted Gun”; sculpture by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, 1988; at UN building, New York.

Violence is a preventable disease

No state or individual can be secure in an insecure world. The values of nonviolence in intention, thought, and practice have grown from an option to a necessity. These values are expressed in their application between states, groups and individuals.

We are convinced that adherence to the values of nonviolence will usher in a more peaceful, civilized world order in which more effective and fair governance, respectful of human dignity and the sanctity of life itself, may become a reality.

Our cultures, our histories, and our individual lives are interconnected and our actions are interdependent. Especially today as never before, we believe, a truth lies before us: our destiny is a common destiny. That destiny will be defined by our intentions, decisions and actions today.

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by Gandhi Information Center, Berlin

In the name of humanity,

for the sake of all civilians threatened by war crimes,

especially women and children,

and for the benefit of Mother Nature suffering from war preparations and warfare:

We, the undersigned, plead for the universal abolition of conscription as one major and decisive step towards complete disarmament.

We remember the message of 20th century humanists: “It is our belief that conscript armies, with their large corps of professional officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription involves the degradation of human personality, and the destruction of liberty. Barrack life, military drill, blind obedience to commands, however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate training for slaughter undermine respect for the individual, for democracy and human life. It is debasing human dignity to force men to give up their life, or to inflict death against their will, or without conviction as to the justice of their action. The State, which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war, will never pay proper regard to the value and happiness of their lives in peace. Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male population at the most impressionable age. By training for war men come to consider war as unavoidable and even desirable.” (1)

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