Are killing-free societies possible? Evidence suggests that by working with committed organizations, leaders and individuals like you we can signficantly reduce and eventually eliminate human killing. This goal belongs to everyone, across political, religious or ethnic affiliations. The development of truly civil societies, and nothing less than the future of humankind, depends on our joint success.

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    • The Concept of Nonkilling

    Bibokoboko Nonkilling SeminarThe term ‘Nonkilling’ was introduced by Glenn D. Paige in Nonkilling Global Political Science (2002; 2009). As stated by the author, the concept refers to the absence of killing, threats to kill, and conditions conducive to killing in human society. Even though it focuses primarily upon killing of human beings it may be extended to killing of animals and other forms of life. In analysis of its causes, nonkilling encompasses the concepts of peace (absence of war and conditions conducive to war), nonviolence (psychological, physical, and structural), and ahimsa (noninjury in thought, word and deed).

    In relation to psychological aggression, physical assault, and torture intended to terrorize by manifest or latent threat to life, nonkilling implies removal of their psychosocial causes. In relation to killing of humans by socioeconomic structural conditions that are the product of direct lethal reinforcement as well as the result of diversion of resources for purposes of killing, nonkilling implies removal of lethality-linked deprivations. In relation to threats to the viability of the biosphere, nonkilling implies absence of direct attacks upon life-sustaining resources as well as cessation of indirect degradation associated with lethality. In relation to forms of accidental killing, nonkilling implies creation of social and technological conditions conducive to their elimination.

    Nonkilling does not exclude concepts as peace or nonviolence but rather provides a new approach. This nonkilling approach is characterized by the measurability of its goals and the open-ended nature of its realization. While the usage of terms as "nonviolence" and "peace" in many occasions follows the classical form of argument through abstract ideas leading to passivity, killing (and its opposite, nonkilling) can be quantified and related to specific causes, following a clinical perspective (prevention, intervention and post-traumatic transformation toward the progressive eradication of killing).

    But nonkilling does not set any predetermined road map for the achievement of a killing-free society. As an open-ended approach it appeals to infinite human creativity and variability, encouraging continuous explorations in the fields of education, research, social action and policy making, developing a broad range of scientific, institutional, educational, political, economic and spiritual alternatives.

    The concept of nonkilling can be expressed through the logo used by the Center for Global Nonkilling. The logo combines the ancient Asian yin-yang symbol with the recent brain research finding that stimulation of the pathways between systems of the brain controlling emotions and movement can assist change from violent to nonviolent human behavior. Analogously Creative Transformational Initiatives (blue), drawing upon Nonkilling Human Capabilities (white), can bring an end to Human Killing (red).