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Nonkilling Arts Research Committee Letter: Vol. 4, N. 5 (September-October 2020)
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"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
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Dear NKARC members and friends,
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Is the world changing for the better? Your contributions for this Issue point to the ways in which it may be. Love is greater than hate and fear. The measure has to be unity, cooperation, and compassion. Thank you for your contributions and works pointed with those intentions.
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1. Nonkilling Poetry
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In many traditions, a poet is seen as the knower of the past, present, and future. He or she hopes to see all, wanting to reside in every heart, a motivator of change. As the poet observes, it is the assurance of safety, like in the hum of the sleeping boy’s deep breath resting on his father’s shoulders in the poem, that’s the primary need. We have to shun fear because it is the mother of violence. The four poems below explore how to make that reassurance happen.
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Shoulders
by Naomi Shihab Nye
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A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
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No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
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His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.
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We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.
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The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.
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(Copyright © 1994 by Naomi Shihab. “Shoulders” from Red Suitcase collection, recently appeared in The Writers Almanac)
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Mother of Violence
by Peter Gabriel
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Walking the street with her naked feet
So full of rhythm but I can't find the beat
Snapping her heels clicking her toes
Everybody knows just where she goes
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Fear, fear — she's the mother of violence
Making me tense to watch the way she breed
Fear, she's the mother of violence
You know self-defense is all you need
It's getting hard to breathe
It's getting so hard to believe
To believe in anything at all
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Mouth all dry eyes blood shot
Data stored in microdot
Kicking the cloud with my moccasin shoes
TV dinner, TV news
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'Cause fear, fear — she's the mother of violence
Don't make any sense to watch the way she breed
Fear, she's the mother of violence
Making me tense to watch the way she feed
The only way you know she's there
Is the subtle flavour in the air
Getting hard to breathe
Hard to believe in anything at all
But fear
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Wisdom Is…
available to all, but rare
distilled from experience
advanced by dialogue
listening carefully
thinking deeply
doing what is right
selecting good over evil
speaking truth
acting with integrity
living simply
being kind and compassionate
demonstrating courage
learning from nature
Questioning
following the Way (Tao)
helping others
striving for peace with justice
being humble
choosing hope
persevering
(NKARC colleague David Krieger is the founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif. USA)
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by Francisco Gomes de Matos
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There is a deeper, painful transformation
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On the devastating pandemic
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ls there much reliable disease-preventive, life-saving information?
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More effective global interdependence governments
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May health professionals everywhere be educated to more effectively perform
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so the quality of Life on Earth
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those Health-improving citizens
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Have we been cooperative, dignifying agents of health
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May this be a Plea bringing closer
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(NKARC colleague Francisco Gomes de Matos is a poet, linguist, and educator based in Recife, Brazil)
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2. Nonkilling Music
The Avatar symphony is a composition in five movements of love, peace and harmony specially composed by Dr. Subramaniam, conducted by Michael Koehler, the Leipzig symphony maestro at Prashanti Nilayam, India to mark the 90th birth anniversary of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. The Symphony comprises classical musicians from 16 countries. Approx 60 min.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQLOkRoQvI
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3. Nonkilling Visual Art
Home Identity and inspired poems
Amelia Burke tells us about Fabricants de Futur’s work with refugee Afghan children in Camp Moria in Greece. She writes: “Here are a selection of drawings and two poems. Shukran Shirzad, the art teacher at Wave of Hope School, where the drawings came from, does not speak English, I have to try to communicate with him in very simple Dari, or via a third person. Dari is the official language of Afghanistan. I was very happy when he sent me more than 40 drawings by children in his school so that we can work on our Home Identity project. The enclosed 3 are from the 40 received. Aim of the project is to bring two communities together through children's art work in greater awareness and understanding between the people of Camp Moria and the Greek community in Lesbos. Rafael Carvajal’s two poems were inspired by the home identity art work depicting anxieties of homelessness. The original poems are in English as Rafael lived in the USA for many years."
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I want to hide but there’s no place to hide
everyone is comfortable at home
but home to me is just a body
I am a wanderer
I am sand picked up by a furious wind
I am a seed that needs of fertile soil
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cry – cry – cry – cry
I use my teardrops to build the frame
the roof of my dream lets in too much sky
my desire is crafted carpentry
I will take the nails that struck into me
and build a dome to wash sadness away
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smile – smile – smile – smile
I am safe in my flesh and in my bones
I have not forgotten I am human
I have not lost the will to love humanity
I will build away the hate and the ugliness
my joy will grow into a happy village
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I want everyone to know that I am alive
let my survival be a portal that swings open
let tolerance and understanding serve as windows
when you come I will roll out a carpet made of rainbows
we will seat together and share tea and sweet things
my home will be a home that warms and welcomes
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wait – wait – wait – wait
everything moves so slowly in no man’s land
the days seem like crows perching on a wire
the hours pour like cement down a shoot
I am hungry for so much more than food
my mind flies away like crows taking flight
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dance – dance – dance – dance
I am the music that waits to be sung
every step I have taken is a melody
in my heart I am the sounds of delight
come take my hand future of beauty
in me there is only harmony and love
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soon I will leave the silence of the numbers
I will grow wings and I will fly away
I will find that home that I keep inside
and the past will be a river that ran dry
and the future will be a festival of sunshine
and the present will taste like cinnamon an honey
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I’ve got a body made of light – and I’ve got the sun
I’ve got the air that I breathe – and I´ve got the sky
I’ve got friendships like a forest full of trees –
and I’ve got eyes that watch me as I grow
I’ve got my smile that opens the doors to the future –
and I’ve got hands that protect me and caress me
I’ve got a home that I carry in my heart –
and the stars shine in through its windows
I’ve got dreams bigger than the ocean –
and a pearl so precious I call happiness
I’ve got memories like a river that goes to the sea –
and I’ve got the right to live in peace and harmony
I’ve got a love so big that it is the universe –
and I’ve got sisters and brothers all around me
I’ve got laughter and joy and justice and understanding –
and I am going to embrace everyone that touches me
I’ve got a chance at freedom and the right to live in safety –
and I’ve got hope like a lighthouse that brings me to my destiny
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4. Nonkilling Book Review
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The Principle of Nonviolence: A Philosophical Path by Jean-Marie Muller (reviewed by Bill Bhaneja)
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This English translation of Le principe de non-violence: Parcours philosophique by French philosopher -writer-activist is a rare book commissioned by the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK). CGNK founder Glenn D. Paige decided the translation was important as the ethic of “nonkilling” underlies all discussions of nonviolence. The goal of the book is to seek a philosophical concept of nonviolence; challenging all ideology that violence is necessary, legitimate or honorable. For full review: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/07/the-principle-of-nonviolence-a-philosophical-path/
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5. Nonkilling Activism
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Women Peacebuilding Conversations
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"The Conversation: Negotiating Peace" - BBC interview with a woman from Northern Ireland and a woman from Norway who helped bring end to decades of violence in Colombia and Northern Ireland, the two activists talk about the role and usefulness of women in the peace building.
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Anti-Racism March to Washington DC
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25-day day walk to D.C. brings racism, arrests and a sense of urgency for March on Washington activists (The Washington Post) Marissa J. Lang writes: "Before police shot a Black man from Wisconsin seven times in the back at point-blank range, before the National Guard was called in amid nightly unrest, a group of Milwaukee activists set off on a protest march calling for an end to racist policing and injustice that would wind through mountains and cross state lines....They were heading to the 2020 March on Washington the old-fashioned way: by putting one foot in front of the other."
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6. Nonkilling Reflections
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Three nonkilling reflections from NKARC colleagues:
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George Floyd, Coronavirus and the Breath by Mony Dojeiji
Mony Dojeiji in her blog on recent times of Covid 19 has been writing about intersection of spirituality, free will, breathing and planetary survival. In one of her recent pieces, she writes:
"At the core of these conversations seems to be our beliefs about FREEDOM:
That, as a free person, I have the right to decide what is best for me, and no external force can make me do anything I don’t want. The virus isn’t dangerous, we’re all going to be infected anyways, and even if I did believe in the virus, my faith/ immunity/ body are strong enough to handle it.
vs.
As a free person, what I do for myself impacts others – no matter what I believe –because with freedom, comes responsibility to the community that we all share. What affects one, affects all.
This is all – once again - the outer manifestation of an inner conflict that just happens to be playing out right now in the conversation about masks."
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Nonkilling Anger by Rashida Khanam
Rashida writes: “The very word, 'Nonkilling Anger' resonates with me. I have been in killing and Nonkilling traits since my childhood and throughout my life”. In 2013, Prof. Paige replying to one of her queries commented about the crisis of modern times, asserting- "I am the product of killing." Paige was referring to his American persona shaped by a culture of unending wars, racial strife and domestic violence. Rashida’s reflection follows:
Nonkilling Anger
Anger is the real killer by killing everything even the life – the prime factor.
Anger being an irrational demon overpowers on human rationality for carrying on its devastating and killing consequences.
Anger the killing demon kills one’s happiness, breaks up relationships, family life and even may take ones own life.
Anger is like a flamed burner, burns everything in its path.
It is “Love” to overpower killing anger, letting it transformed into Nokilling anger.
Nonkilling anger being embedded with Nonkilling values and norms – compassion, empathy, hope, courage, and love – lets one become a Nonkilling human through measurable change in mind and soul.
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What is War? by Hugh Mann
In the spirit of linking munitions with ambitions, NKARC colleague Hugh offers the following:
“Promoting ploys with deployment, bombs with enjoyment, and boys with interment, war is a tormented, demented metaphor and euphemism for fraud, linking domestic debenture with foreign adventure. Unwanted and unwarranted, but cheered by profiteers, war is a hyped-up, hopeless trope imperiled and bedeviled by deadly medleys of screams and tears with corpses and caskets.”
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7. Nonkilling Doc Films
The Beginning of the End of Nuclear Weapons (Full length version)
On the 7th of July 2017, 122 countries voted in favour of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Countries that don’t have nuclear weapons but live under their threat voted for a ban. Without the knowledge of most of their citizens, the governments of the world’s nuclear powers didn’t vote, and yet the ban went ahead. Something new is happening. This documentary film about efforts to bring a nuclear weapon ban treaty into international law and the role of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is told through the voices of leading activists from several different organizations and countries and the president of the negotiating conference. Extracts of fourteen interviews are woven into the story that leaves one feeling inspired.
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On the 75th anniversary of the horrific bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, The Vow From Hiroshima an intimate documentary follows Setsuko Thurlow, a passionate, 85-year-old survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Her moving story is told through the lens of her growing friendship with a second generation survivor, Mitchie Takeuchi. Setsuko was miraculously pulled out of a fiery building after the bomb was dropped and unable to save her other 27 classmates who were burned to death alive. That experience shaped her life forever and she endeavored to keep a pledge she made to her friends - that no one should ever again experience the same horrible fate. The Vow From Hiroshima reminds us all that there is still so much we need to do in order to make sure an event of this horrific nature never occurs again.
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8. CGNK Updates
CGNK at UN Human Rights Council: Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights in Nepal
Report by CGNK Chief Rep Christophe Barbey at UN HRC in Geneva: The third cycle of UPR on Nepal is appropriately captioned ''Rights to Life and Peace and Related Human Rights Issues”. CGNK in its submission identified all key Nonkilling themes for the Nepal UPR, namely: enforced disappearances, suicides, peace policies (extensively); as also homicides and traffic casualties. The review process will continue through three stages: The UPR-info pre-sessions; a diplomatic semi-formal meeting gathering some submitting NGO’s and representatives of other countries. The State under review (here Nepal) is usually present. The process continues with the passage of Nepal in front of the UPR working group on 20th January 2021, where other States will provide their recommendations to Nepal. Finally, the process will be concluded at the 47th session of the Human Rights Council, in June or July 2021.
From the politics of taking life to the politics of affirming it
From the politics of paying for war to the politics of offering peace.
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9. Nonkilling Journalism
"In the Shadow of Hiroshima 75 years On" by Terrance McNamee
McNamee writes: “One of the great tragedies of modern times is that Hiroshima has not reshaped our world for the better. Rather, it has locked us into the Cold War’s icy covenant: as the price of being “protected” by an (untested) deterrent, we must accept being held hostage to the prospect of nuclear catastrophe, without hope of relief, affecting generation after generation. The pact feels less demoralising than it once did. Terrorism, climate change, now global pandemics haunt us more these days. But the ghost of Hiroshima has not moved on.”
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"What can a pandemic teach us about nuclear threats" by Ted Lieu
Lieu writes: “The United States knew the risks and failed to prevent the outbreak of a novel coronavirus from becoming a deadly pandemic. It cannot fail to prevent a diplomatic or conventional military conflict from becoming a cataclysmic nuclear war. The United States needs to invest in diplomacy, to stop withdrawing from arms control treaties, and to curb the production of nuclear weapons. Buying new nukes doesn’t make us safer; strengthened alliances and prioritized diplomacy do. There is strength in tackling problems before they arise, and America is living through what happens when prevention is underfunded or ignored.”
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"Learning from the Hibakushas" by Robert D. Koehler
Koehler comments: "Nuclear disarmament can never be achieved when war by other means is still a go-to option. The time has come to demilitarize completely: Say no to war, and mean it. Without disarmament at that scale, nuclear disarmament will never be a certainty, even if the world dismantles existing nuclear weapons. They can’t be un-invented. What I’m saying is that nuclear disarmament does not mean humanity somehow forgetting — mysteriously no longer knowing — how to rebuild its nukes. It means knowing how not to rebuild them!"
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"Bulging deficits may threaten prized Pentagon arms projects" by Robert Burns
Burns notes: “After (U.S.) Congress passed four programs to sustain the economy through the virus shock, the budget deficit — the gap between what the government spends and what it collects in taxes — will hit a record $3.7 trillion this year, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. By the time the budget year ends in September, the government’s debt — its accumulated annual deficits — will equal 101% of the U.S. gross domestic product.”
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"Late US Congressman and Peace Activist Rep John Lewis and Dept of Peacebuilding" by Nancy Merritt
US Congressman Rep John Lewis passed away on July17 at the age of 80. He believed in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. A protege of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. he championed all causes of human rights throughout his life, including human dignity and support for establishing a Department of Peacebuilding in USA. As an activist, he would exhort his followers, "Get out there and push, and stand up, and speak out, and get in the way the same that my generation got in the way ... Get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble." Report: https://peacealliance.kontribune.com/articles/10053; and
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/john-lewis-dead.html
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Last Word
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Flowers embedded in beauty,
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Fruits enshrined in life,
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My deep gratitude to all who contributed and pointed to material for this Letter. Look forward as always to your inspirations, suggestions and comments.
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"Nonkilling Culture crosses all the lines." —Glenn D. Paige
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Nonkilling is THE measure of Human progress
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[THIS IS AN INTERNAL NEWSLETTER OF THE NKARC. COPYRIGHT FOR ALL MATERIAL IN THE NEWSLETTER REMAINS PROPERTY OF THE SOURCES/WRITERS/ART CREATORS]
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Stay in contact also on Social Networks
- Please feel free to contact NKARC Letter's coordinator at billbhaneja@nonkilling.org.
- You can also follow the Center for Global Nonkilling at these social networks:
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