Nonkilling Arts Research Committee Letter: Vol. 2, N. 4 (Jul-Aug 2018)

Bimestrially sent from our site: Nonkilling.org.

"Nonkilling art explores the spirit and practice of how to prevent, respond to, and to improve individual, social, and global well-being beyond killing." —Glenn D. Paige

Dear NKARC members and friends,

In NonKilling Arts Research Committee(NKARC), we are always seeking to expand space for creative expression for a NonKilling world with a conviction that violence is a preventable disease. Creative imagining has a significant role to play in visioning of a killing free life-sustaining world. In this issue of the Letter, we have your related contributions of poetry, visual arts, non-fiction writing, song, cinema, photography, and journalism.

1. Nonkilling Poetry

Enclosed below are three thoughtful poems, two from NKARC colleagues Maureen Korp from Canada and Christophe Barbey from Switzerland, and the third one by a Turkish poet Hüsamettin OLGUN.

(a) Oahu

by Maureen Korp

Seeing something there
a glint, quick light rippling
in the tide
half a heartbeat closer
dark, silvered triggerfish
back and forth . . .
back and forth

ships and planes and submarines
reconnaissance, surveillance—coastal
helicopters, back and forth, back and
forth . . .
in the tide, the triggerfish

in the boxes up the hill
all the numbers
all the bones, all that they could find
thrown upon the beaches
by the tides
back and forth, back and . . .
forth . . . nothing ever ends

(b) An Island Called Respect

by Christophe Barbey

I live an island called “respect”.
Living there allows me to see
Humanity in you;
Living there allows me to see,
Through you, humanity in me…
Living there for us to see,
Together in humanity,
Thank you!

Sometimes,
I swim to distant shores,
As far as I know the seas,
I swim an ocean of care,
As I delight and bathe
In the love born
From such a happy fare.

To my nakedness,
I add politeness.
If we are made of words,
– Though not only –
If I stop swimming
The oceans of feeling,
Indeed, I do drown.
If we are made,
Some of words,
Then it is grace,
The politeness
Of our shared worlds.

As I reach a distant shore,
Through your eyes I can see:
Be it beach or cliff ?
I do welcome your welcome,
Though, I can climb both!

Where we stay and what we do,
Yet hidden song of living love,
Universal, we may do…

As I fly away
Returning home,
It is your smile,
Ever present as may be,
That carries by me,
The happy memory,
Of present shores.

If so may be,
That neither eye, word nor touch
May reach our peace,
From you to me, me to you,
May we still swim or go,
Together I prefer,
To an island called “respect”.
 

(c)  We Are the Same

by Hüsamettin OLGUN
(Turkish peace poem was translated into English by Talat Halman)

What if each of us listens to a different song
And cherishes a different color;
        That wouldn’t be wrong!
Same is the music we play
Same is what we say
        deep down we are the same
On our lips is the same wish
        we’re human, with our load of hope and love.

We understand the language of the sheperd’s flute
And the lure of lovesongs,
And the grief that our mothers
Live with their elegies for our dead brothers.

We’re one, our hearts, full of love, beat
For the unity of all.
In our spirit,
        Like children, we’re immaculate.
Little things give us joy
And big things
        We want to share with the whole world.
We weep with those who weep
        And laugh with those who laugh,
Our hearts are full of friendship,
We’re one,
We’re one

What if each of us listened to a different song
And cherished a separate color;
        That isn’t wrong
Same is the music we play
Same is what we say
        deep down we are the same
And on our lips is the same wish
        we’re human,
with our load of hope and love.

(Thank you Dr. Ada Aharoni for forwarding the poem)

2. Visual arts and Nonkilling

YOURS TO DISCOVER art installation
Digital artist Erik Sze-Lang Chan EEPMON designed and created a 100 ft long x 17 ft high mural, an art installation entitled, YOURS TO DISCOVER for the new Canada Science & Technology Museum in Ottawa. It is a gentle visual narrative that explores the intersections of human innovation and ingenuity driven by curiosity to advance the social impact of science and technology on future.The start of the mural plays off the ceiling design, guiding viewer through a fantastical journey with eepMonkey and Banana Bird. The massive size of the wall serves as a canvas to represent a timeline that abstractly reflects the past, present and future in an innovation story. Passion and optimism is embellished throughout, connecting both analogue and digital with heritage and the future. Using vector design tools, the piece is etched onto a touchable, solid surface (acrylic) and 3D printing techniques. Erik describes his work to be, “a nod to historical artistic practices and evolving modern techniques”.

3. Non-fiction and Nonkilling

(a) Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress by Steven Pinker
Pinker's new book debunks pessimism about modernity showing how we
have over past four centuries progressed through science and reason and a philosophy of Enlightenment, his main criterion of progress however seems limited to economic progress and improved quality of life. The strength of his work comes from positing his insights and ideas with strong empirical data trend lines. It’s continuation of his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature where he describes why violence has declined historically. In his new work, he chides critics for their angst of materialism grounded in neo liberal ethics, and pooh-poohs all those crises we think are consequences of unregulated progress e.g. climate change, nuclear weapons, wars,  resource depletion, artifical intelligence, and economic disparities etc. Wanting us to share in his optimism about the power of our rational minds, he remarks: “our puny rational faculties have been multiplied by the norms and institutions of reason: intellectual curiousity, open debate, skepticism of authority and dogma, and the burden of proof to verify ideas by confronting them against reality.” He wants us to believe that new ideas will continue to emerge to cope with the notion of civilization’s entropy saving us from environmental crisis and nuclear war.

For me, a significant omission from his book is any mention of Glenn D. Paige’s Nonkilling Global Political Science (2002) which more than a decade ago made similar pursuasive empirical argument that violence and wars were preventable, and provided comparative indices of deliberate killings in war, suicide, homocide, death sentence etc. Paige sums up: “Materialism and morality have arrived at the same conclusion. If tradition has taught that we must kill to be free, equal, and secure, the present teaches that unless we stop killing not only freedom and equality are in jeapordy but our very survival -- individual, social, and ecological-- is imperiled." (p.155) Pinker’s Enlightenment related chapters on Peace, Safety, Terrorism and Democracy etc. miss out on pointing to the seriousness of such insight.

You may also find the following two critiques of the book of interest:

• Rachel Bronson's critique of Pinker's chapter related to nuclear disarmament

• Jeremy Lent’s critique - Steven Pinker’s ideas are fatally flawed

(b) Romance in South Asia and Nonkilling by David Evans 
NKARC colleague David Evans’ new website has four pieces related to his PhD thesis: Social Emergence: Romance Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Style. Focused on Northern India and Nepal between 1993 and 2013, his paper deals with the theme of elopement of young lovers from different religions and castes on the Indian sub-continent and the heavy price that is sometimes paid by the youth for their action, often with tragic consequences. That is much different from happy ending romance shown in Bollywood movies (though in previous times the local romance legends described in the paper had similar fatal consequences). The paper compares regional folklore tales with contemporary romance situations. Pointed mention of Nonkilling paradigm (p.23-24) raises the discussion of gender violence to another level. The sociological monograph can be a good way to initiate conversation on this difficult topic in academia and other fora where prevention of gender violence is being examined.

(c) Congratulations to IFLAC (International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace) for publishing yet another thoughtful anthology on peace and arts, this time the 2018 Anthology for Anti-War and Peace, edited by Ada Aharoni and Vijay Kumar Roy. Taki Yuriko, a poet contributor from Japan summarizes spirit of the collection as follows: "Our pens, notebooks and keyboards are more powerful than bullets, bombs and warlords." The new anthology has broadened the topic of prevention of violence beyond Terror as killings today result from ill-thought actions of both state and non-state actors. The anthology comprises poems, articles, and paintings. The IFLAC Peace Anthology contains anti-war articles, poetry, paintings and real life stories. The editors hope that creative expressions in the anthology from different parts of the globe will contribute to promote awareness of the need for a culture of nonviolent peace. {Download the book as pdf}

4. Nonkilling Song

We Go High
(from recent Mavis Staples Album, If All I was Black)
The song title is a reference to Michelle Obama’s speech at DMC convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016. Mavis Staples is a member of The Staples Family band that was very close to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement in USA.

We go high
When they go low
I know they don't know
What they're doing
When they tell their lies
Spread around rumors
I know they're still human
And they need my love

Gonna stand side by side
Our hearts in command
Love as our guide

We go high
When they go low
I know they don't know
What they're doing

Oh, I have a mind
To bury them whole
When they go low
To tell you the truth
I wait for the time
When we are all brothers
Holding each other
Heaven on earth

Gonna stand side by side
Our hearts in command
Love as our guide

Oh we go high
When they go low
I know they don't know
What they're doing

We go high
When they go low
I know they don't know
What they're doing
They tell their lies
Spread around rumors
I know they're still human
And they need my love

Gonna stand side by side
Our hearts in command
Love as our guide

We go high
When they go low
I know they don't know
What they're doing.

5. Nonkilling Doc Cinema

(a) Jazz Ambassadors directed by Hugo Berkeley (2018)
The documentary film about Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?
{Trailer}

(b) Standing with Rohingya Women 5 min. video
The short video by Shohan Ekramul Kabir follows the Nobel Women's Initiative (NWI) delegation to Bangladesh with Peace Laureates Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi, and Mairead Maguire, in partnership with Bangladeshi women’s right organization Naripokkho at the end of February. "Our delegation visited the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar to investigate the situation of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, particularly the violence against Rohingya women— including high levels of sexual violence."

(c) Oslo Accord doc film:
A correction about the doc Oslo Accords in the last letter. Nahum Laufer writes: "Thanks I got your newsletter, there is a mistake, maybe I was not clear about the film Oslo Accords the premier at Sundance 2018, also Toronto Hotdocs, Munichdok and many festivals all over the Globe. The film was produced by Medalia productions and directed by Mor Loushy & Daniel Sivan. Docs for Education, which I manage is distributing the film now to Film Festivals and only after 28th October we will also distribute to academic & public Libraries in USA, we have some restrictions not to distribute in Canada & Australia other parts of the globe.  Please let your mail recipients know of my note.
Our Motto: Peace, Salaam, Shalom
Nahum Laufer
http://docsforeducation.com/
Docs for Education
Israel"

6. CGNK News Update

(New postings on CGNK website. You can subscribe to the general newsletter, from the right sidebar of the home page of Nonkilling.org, to receive automatic updates on new posts.)

The annual Commission on the Status of Women met for the 62th time in United Nations’ HQ in New York from 12th to 23rd of March 2018.
This year’s priority theme concentrated on challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls, whereas the review theme focused on women’s participation and access to media. Elina Viitasaari represented the Center for Global Nonkilling on this high level event by following the general discussion by the Commission and by participating in around 40 different events. A written statement by CGNK drafted by Elina was also submitted to CSW62 with the title “Women’s role in rural killing-free societies: decreasing gender-based violence through women empowerment”.

Nonkilling Monitoring Programs: CGNK at the United Nations.
Since 2015, a main activity of the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK) as a NGO has been its participation at the United Nations, in the Human Rights Council (HRC). In Geneva, CGNK representative for UN agencies is Christophe Barbey. Reports of his massive voluntary work is available on CGNK website on the tab “Monitoring” - it has information about massive CGNK record of participation both in HRC and UPR (Universal Periodic Reviews). The UPR involves country reviews of Human Rights situation of a specific country. 

Shifting the Way We Think About Nonkilling, by Anoop Swarup.
CGNK Chair Dr. Swarup writes:  “Global Nonkilling Index in order to promote universal peace through affirmative nonkilling goes much beyond, using nonviolence as a narrative and a tactical approach… to develop a bold new principled and strategic paradigm of the future for holistic civilisational change.”  

Nonkilling Geographies by Profs. Derek Alderman and James Tyner.
Following the recent shoot outs in American schools, the article by the two American geographers in their official newsletter states that “a beginning point in the promotion of non-killing geographies is to confront directly the socio-spatial organization of violence: the spaces where violence takes place and those affected. Violence has important geographic consequences; it reshapes people’s perceptions of and interactions with places as well as their survivability and sense of belonging within those places.”

Nonkilling Education by Prof. Sofía Herrero Rico and Joám Evans Pim.
The new interdisciplinary publication that followed the 2015 Vasa Conference on Education for Killing-free societies  identifies some of the fundamental ideas of nonkilling education and put forth proposals for what such approach would look like in pedagogical practices, curriculum, the skills and competencies that should be taught in schools. {Browse and download the book}

Two Nonkilling Field Reports from NKARC colleague Koozma J. Tarasoff from Ottawa, Canada:

• Music Against War Challenges CANSEC — May 30, 2018. By Koozma J. Tarasoff of Canada with webmaster Andrei Conovaloff.

• Billboard for Peace. By Regina Peace Council, Saskatchewan. Posted by Peace Alliance Winnipeg, May 27, 2018.

The above two reports are posted on the Spirit-Wrestlers website.

7. Flash Forward Photography Award and Nonkilling

The Magneta Foundation Flash Forward competition was launched 13 years ago to give encouragement to young Canadian lens-based artists, and stack their work against their counterparts internationally.  Still, by allowing artists from only three Western, mainly English-speaking countries to enter, the contest’s breadth was limited. Many stories, approaches and aesthetics were absent. This year, the Flash Forward lifted its geographical restriction and decided to focus on four special categories – racial issues, climate and the environment, LGBTQ+ issues and female-identifying photographers. The submissions and the 100-plus selected artists turned out to be much more eclectic. Thomas King, in The Truth About Stories, reminds "that once we’ve heard a story, we can no longer claim ignorance. I would go further: Once you’ve seen a story, it becomes harder to dismiss as fabricated. Images are, for the most part, a reflection of the world in front of the lens as understood by the person behind it."  Hence the importance of nurturing diverse sets of eyes.  Our perceptions of communities such as in 21 year old Ms. Saige Mukash’s photographs of her indigenous Cree people challenge existing representations, these help us to move past stereotypes of a community and become more just, nuanced and respectful. On other photographs submitted in this year's competition,  the article notes: "we grow by learning about Maysa, a black Brazilian girl, competing in the still-segregated “Young Miss Brazil” beauty contest, or of the cycle of violence and environmental degradation that threatens Somalia’s very existence. We shift our perceptions when seeing South African trans sex workers as fashion models in the work of Jan Hoek, or how Nina Roeder deals with the death of grandparents who were chased out of their homes after the Second World War."
{Complete article by Laurence Butet Roch}

8. Nonkilling Reflections

Pope Francis sent out the following appeal as a prayer on the World Communications Day:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion.
Help us to remove the venom from our judgements.
Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters.
You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world:
where there is shouting, let us practise listening;
where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony;
where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity;
where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity;
where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety;
where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions;
where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust;
where there is hostility, let us bring respect;
where there is falsehood, let us bring truth.
Amen.
— Francis

The Award for Truth Telling: The Chicago journalist Bob Koehler receives the Truth Telling Award
Congratulations to NKARC colleague Bob Koehler on this special recognition for his Truth Telling journalism and his portrait being added in a hall of portraits painted by artist Rob Shetterly, unveiled last month in Chicago.  Since the beginning of NKARC Letter five years ago,  journalist Robert W. Koehler’s insightful articles have pointed to systemic discrimination against weaker and oppressed and evoke a compassionate understanding of those oppressed by unjust actions.  Enclosed in the section below is a typical example of Bob’s empathetic writing.

9. Nonkilling Journalism

Empowering Kids instead of Arming Them by Robert W. Koehler
Koehler points to the world's largest armament state, the USA, of failing to protect its school going children from armed attacks by its own.

A Victory for Sanity in World Politics by Robert Scheer
Scheer writes: “At the heart of this bold initiative is an openness to the wisdom and concerns of other nations, beginning with the government of South Korea but including most definitely the insights of the leaders of neighboring China, Russia and Japan. It is a break with the demonization of the North Korean enemy in the spirit of Richard Nixon’s opening to Communist China, which effectively ended the Cold War.”

Missing in action: Mutual accomodation by William Macdonald
Bill Macdonald writes: “The world has never had more people, more diversity or less-robust borders – it has never been more connected, yet disconnected. These trends will continue – the result of six centuries of freedom and technology that have weakened previous sources of Western cohesion. The need for mutual accommodation is now urgent if we are to live in a bearable world.”

Uri Avnery's Column: The Day of Shame  
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He writes: “On that day, most TV stations in Israel and abroad split their screen...”.

Nobel Laureate John Polanyi: How to save our planet from nuclear annihilation
Polanyi writes: "I witnessed attempted international negotiation of restraint when attending a Pugwash conference in Moscow in 1960. The participants argued the best hope for stability in a nuclear world lay in “minimal deterrence,” guaranteed by one bomb under Moscow, one under Washington."

US should accept Putin's offer to negotiate on Nukes by David Krieger

A New Generation Against the Bomb: What the burgeoning youth-led fight against gun violence can learn from the global anti-nuclear movement.  By Ray Acheson.

Last Word

KOREAS FOR PEACE
A Rhymed Reflection by Francisco Gomes de Matos

When the two Koreas PEACE decide to reach
What global lesson do they teach?

Bi-national differences there will always be
in how cultural, economic, and political relations country leaders see

When the two Koreas to a PEACE agreement subscribe
The utmost value to diplomatic harmony they ascribe

May this history-making PEACE accord also help the NONVIOLENCE/NONKILLING
continuum advance
so that in the near future an enduring ,multidimensional GLOBAL PEACE
LIFE ON EARTH will enhance

(Prof Gomes de Matos is a peace linguist, Recife, Brazil. Author of Nurturing Nonkilling: A Poetic Plantation. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling, 2009)

My deep gratitude to all who contributed and pointed to the material for
the letter.

Looking forward to your inspirations and comments as always.

Nonkillling Regards,
Bill

Bill (Balwant) Bhaneja
Coordinator
NonKilling Arts Research Committee (NKARC)
Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK)
www.nonkilling.org

"Nonkilling Culture crosses all the lines." —Glenn D. Paige

Nonkilling is THE measure of Human progress

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