Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
Nonviolence is more than just protest. It includes solutions as well as objections to business-as-usual. It can be personal as well as political. From the tens of thousands of people in Lebanon demanding an end to the violence of economic austerity (pictured above) to peace activists in the United States refusing to pay war taxes, nonviolent action, practices, and approaches come in all shapes and sizes.
It also includes practicing nonviolence toward yourself. This kind of nonviolence practice isn’t something we explore much in Nonviolence News – but maybe we should. While many of us know how to use nonviolent tools for making change, it’s also important to dismantle the abusive violence that is built into how our culture expects us to treat ourselves. This includes things like: overwork as normal, stressful daily lives, treating our human complexity like robots, and decompressing with habits that are actually harmful.
So, what do you do to practice nonviolence toward yourself?
Between personal practices and direct action, nonviolence also includes structures and solutions, practices and policies that end or reduce harm in our communities. In this week’s Nonviolence News, you’ll find bright ideas like low traffic neighborhoods reducing accidents and air pollution, a demand from two thirds of US students to get cops out of their schools, projects by communities to establish housing land trusts to end evictions, food justice efforts like community gardens and Indigenous food sovereignty movements, Scotland’s bold energy democracy putting power in people’s hands (literally), and how El Salvadorans are reviving an ancestral language to empower transgender individuals.
You’ll also find stories in this week’s Nonviolence News of more familiar protest tactics: tens of thousands marching in France for climate action, blockades to stop pipelines, protect forests, and halt weapons sales; and thousands of coal miners and steelworkers on strike. All these ways of practicing nonviolence are connected … and all of them work to dismantle the many ways violence causes incalculable harm to people and planet.
I hope this edition inspires you to practice nonviolence toward yourself, treat others with it, and use its tools to implement nonviolent solutions in our communities and the world.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun, Editor
Photo Credit: Massive Protests Rise Up in Lebanon Against Rapidly Declining Economic And Living Conditions.
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