Protester holds sign at demonstration reading ‘stop war’. Photo: Mathias P.R. Reding from Pexels.
1. What first drew you to peace activism, and how did your journey in this field begin?
In secondary school, our principal, Br. Konrad, a Christian Brother, showed us the film, Night and Fog, a documentary made by French artist/historians who filmed the remains of Nazi concentration camps after the survivors were liberated at the end of World War II. Horrified by the cruel genocide waged by Nazis who aimed to exterminate European Jewry, I felt an intense desire never to stand on the sidelines while witnessing an atrocity. And yet, I lived through the VietNam war without ever involving myself in direct action. I wept over newspaper articles, but somehow the possibility of confronting the U.S. military and government powers seemed otherworldly. Still, a strong longing persisted. In graduate school, I studied theology and learned about the “preferential option for the poor” professed in Catholic teachings. Rarely did I encounter anyone who was impoverished. When I finally made my way to volunteer at a soup kitchen in a parish on Chicago’s northside, I felt a huge relief. A community of people who lived simply, shared resources, and committed themselves to building a better world warmly welcomed me. They took practical steps, including war tax refusal, to help build a world without war. Over the years, our activism, social life, education efforts, and recreation blended together and often involved finding ways to welcome and ally with people who were new arrivals in our neighborhood which was still one of the poorest areas of the city. Many refugees fleeing violence in Central America came to our area, seeking lower rents and hoping for security. An earlier wave of immigrants had fled U.S. wars in Vietnam and Laos. With so many different languages being spoken in the neighborhood, teachers in the local elementary school needed to teach sign language to the incoming first graders, enabling them to communicate with one another.
Our community was diverse, energetic, inter-generational, and, often, fun-loving.
Campaigns sometimes led us to living in other countries, and sometimes to becoming prisoners in federal prisons and county jails.
Wars burn, maim, sicken, and kill people. We can instead vow to abolish all wars and find security through extending the hand of friendship and respect to all people, believing we are all part of one another.
The community I became part of, in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, helped me grow roots in the local, national, and eventually international peace movement.
2. What drew you to join World BEYOND War, and how did the idea first take shape?
In January of 2014, three seasoned peace activists, David Swanson, Leah Bolger, and David Hartsough, founded World BEYOND War. I counted all three of them as friends and had appreciated opportunities to join with them in various campaigns to resist U.S. war and militarism in Central America, Bosnia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. We had also collaborated in efforts toward nuclear disarmament, closing Guantanamo, upholding human rights, welcoming refugees, and closing military bases. Increasingly, participants in these projects recognized the need for an international, secular group which would assert principled opposition to all wars as its main mission. We deeply appreciated the faith-based pacifism embraced by historic peace churches such as the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and the Quakers. We were also closely aligned with Catholic Worker houses of hospitality which espoused pacifism and promoted Ammon Hennacy’s observation that you can’t be a vegetarian only between meals and you can’t be a pacifist only between wars. Sensing the value of creating a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating for abolition of all war, of the institution of war, the three founders agreed to start World BEYOND War.
Becoming a global network involved years of steady outreach inviting people to sign a “Declaration of Peace” pledge and motivating groups throughout the world to form chapters. The movement is headquartered in Charlottesville, VA, where David Swanson lives, but essentially it aims not to have one address but rather to be truly international. World BEYOND War now has tens of thousands of people across 198 countries worldwide who have signed onto World BEYOND War’s Declaration of Peace, including 900+ organizational pledge signers. The organization coordinates forty-one chapters in thirty countries and maintains partnerships with 107 affiliates around the world.
Every chapter opposes the very institution of war. Many members confidently wear T-shirts saying, “I’m already against the next war.”
Yet, I readily admit the inherent challenges in adhering to pacifist principles when human rights are violated by vicious militarism and when genocidal attacks threaten people with annihilation.
3. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced promoting peace and supporting refugees within the Western, Global North mindset?
In the United States and other western countries, corporate media pays constant attention to what officials and military leaders say about wars, foreign policies, defense and “security.” Many ordinary people seldom learn about the consequences of U.S. wars and weapon sales. Powerful elites in the United States want wars to continue so that they can profit from weapon sales. With every war, millions of traumatized people lose their homes, and many are forced to flee ongoing war, persecution, and economic upheaval.
People in the U.S. and other western countries could welcome newcomers seeking refuge in safer havens. Extending hands of genuine friendship would bolster security and forming mutually reciprocal relations would enable people to strengthen their communities.
Narrow goals focused on winning an election motivate many candidates seeking public office. Some believe they can benefit from fostering a “fear factor,” persuading people to prevent people from entering their country because the newcomers can’t be trusted. They will undermine the security of the country’s citizens by taking their jobs, committing crimes, and destroying their economy Although we in the U.S. are primarily a nation of immigrants, some leaders claim that certain people have a protected right to a bigger piece of the pie, to living more comfortably than others.
We need constant reminders about historical realities: the U.S. committed genocide against the first peoples who lived in the land long before European settlers and colonizers arrived. The U.S. enslaved Africans, buying and selling human beings who were degraded, brutalized, and forced into labor with no rights or benefits. The racist system of incarceration which afflicts millions of U.S. citizens can be seen as a re-enactment of the enslavement system.
Peace education requires us to ask practical questions: Why should someone who was fortunate to receive an education have an automatic right to be paid eight or nine times more in wages than the payment of someone who works hard but hasn’t received automatic privileges. For instance, if a newcomer to our society works as a caregiver for an elderly parent of a well-paid physician, it would cost the newcomer at least several days if his or her income to pay for one hour of the physician’s time. Why should we declare to be normal? Why should people who already have so much be entitled to get more?
4. In the conflict zones you’ve worked in, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gaza, what have been the most striking humanitarian challenges you’ve witnessed, and how have they shaped your approach to peacebuilding?
I have witnessed powerful countries like the United States and the proxies of powerful countries, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, commit crimes with impunity. There are no consequences imposed for bombing hospitals, holding prisoners indefinitely while subjecting them to torture, violating human rights, contaminating land and water, forcibly displacing millions of people and stealing from other people their precious and irreplaceable resources.
My approach to peacemaking relies on personalism. Forming friendly relations by living alongside people who are supposedly part of an enemy culture helps me see how the so-called enemy views me and my culture. It also helps us see the humanity of people whom my country or its proxies ruthlessly attack.
Author Salman Rushdie calls those who are forcibly displaced by war “the shining shards that reflect the truth.” Recognizing the truth of how wars bereave, maim, orphan, sicken, and traumatize people, any civilized country must undertake reparations to repair the horrific damage they’ve done. Reparations should certainly include assisting people who flee a war zone. Direct action to nonviolently resist ongoing war will quite likely be needed.
5. What roles do international organisations and governments play in providing long-term support to refugees, beyond immediate crisis relief?
Certain International NGOs have created exemplary model resettlement plans which seek to welcome newcomers, help them integrate into a new society, learn a new language and cultural norms, and become self- sufficient through paths leading to employment or advanced education. The best of these programs seeks mutually beneficial, reciprocal relations between residents of a country and newcomers seeking asylum or safer havens in which to live and work. For example, in Mértola, Portugal, an NGO called Terra Sintrópica developed a model resettlement program, Terra de Abrigo, which welcomed seven Afghans and one infant to resettle from Pakistan to Portugal in February of 2022. The Afghans who had been part of an NGO in Kabul called Afghan Peace Volunteers had fled their homeland following the Taliban takeover. Caring relationships began to form soon after their arrival in Mértola. The Afghan young adults had learned the basics of permaculture. Teamed with several skillful farmers committed to rehabilitating and cultivating desertified, arid land, they worked every day to tend hundreds of plants in a greenhouse, plant crops, arrange irrigation, and reap a rich harvest. They shared the fruits of their work with residents in the small city of Mértola. The program lasted eighteen months. At the end of that time, all of the young people were able to choose independent routes. Social workers from the NGO InPulsar designed a successor program, located in Leiria, called Barakat Leiria (Blessing Leiria). They created an eighteen-month program welcoming sixteen former Afghan Peace Volunteers to the small city of Leiria where they studied Portuguese, volunteered with local social service agencies, and prepared to become self-sufficient members of Portuguese society. All of the participants are now pursuing University studies or working full time.
6. From your perspective, what steps can global leaders and organisations take to create sustainable peace and prevent the displacement of people due to war?
Global leaders at the UN engage in genocide denial. They must stop denying their genocidal actions and immediately stop the flow of weapons to countries committing crimes against humanity and plausible genocide. Powerful elites know that by acknowledging genocide they will implicate themselves and so they want to turn away. To create sustainable peace, they must pay reparations. They must hold accountable all who have profited from war.
NGOs must engage in what Gandhi termed “truth force,” constantly educating the public to better understand the consequences of militarism and consistently raising the most important ethical question of our time: how can we learn to live together without killing one another. It is wise for NGOs to follow the lead of young people who, in the spring of 2024, displaced themselves from normal routines and living conditions and set up encampments enabling them to demand that University administrators disclose information about institutional investments in military corporations. Students wanted their universities to immediately end any form of support for Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians. The students swiftly organized international networks to share resources, plans and visions while also setting up and generally adhering to clear nonviolence guidelines within each encampment. When police attacked their encampments, students were arrested, jailed, tried, and fined, yet still they were not deterred. NGOs can draw inspiration from young people who risked punitive measures, including suspension, dismissal from employment, and even deportation because they acted in accord with their deepest conscientious beliefs.
7. What do you believe are the top three qualities that every effective activist must possess to create real, lasting change?
To create real, lasting change, activists must be part of a collective capacity for hope, desirous of building a better world. Activists must be willing to undertake risks similar to those which people trapped in prisons and war zones cannot escape. Activists need communication skills, especially empathic listening skills. A sense of humor and a genuine interest in learning from others helps, as does appreciation for beauty and kindness in myriad different forms. Awareness of the imminent threat of ecological collapse is also crucial.