Peace
The U.S. just started another war. We're good at starting wars. We're not good at ending them, but we start them really well. They say this is for "humanitarian" reasons. Aren't they all?
With all the recent and well-deserved attention on the work of Gene Sharp, it shouldn't come as any surprise that a film about the foremost living strategist of nonviolent action is soon to be released.
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan has left many of us reeling, particularly as it came so soon after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. We are overwhelmed by the devastation and the helplessness we all feel to respond. So how do we pray for those who are suffering and for those who have died? It is not easy and anything that we can say seems inadequate. Here is what came to my mind this afternoon as I was praying for the people of Japan and remembered again those in Christchurch, and Libya, Yemen, the Ivory Coast, and the many other places of unrest in our world
Erica Chenoweth directs Wesleyan University's program on terrorism and insurgency research, which she established in 2008. Her work will be featured in the upcoming May issue of Sojourners magazine. Erica is doing innovative research on the strategic effectiveness of civil resistance and nonviolent revolution. Recently, she wrote a post at Monkey Cage on why traditional "peace and security" academic programs should include nonviolence and civil resistance tactics as part of their programs. "It is time for security studies to take nonviolent conflict seriously," writes Chenoweth, "and to incorporate such episodes and their dynamics into the canonical literature."
In November, 2010, Marine 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly was killed by a landmine in Afghanistan. He became one of now nearly 1,500 young Americans to die there.
I've been fascinated watching an earlier blog hunker down into a strong debate about Israel and the Palestinians (February 22, "