May 2005

Editorial material in Peacework is published under a reative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License unless copyright is otherwise specified.

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

From the Editor's Desk

What would we say about a group of people who, upon seeing a house on fire, formed a picket line and chanted, "Water! Water! Water!" instead of forming a bucket brigade to help put the fire out? This is one of the devastating questions Brian Martin asked in his brilliantly loving dissection of and prescription for the peace movement in his momentous work, Uprooting War.

Perhaps this depiction of us is still all too apt, perhaps it was always an overdrawn indictment, yet I see encouraging signs, both domestically and around the world, that we are starting to do better at developing the tools we need to prevent, extinguish, and respond to such "fires."

While each of us may be able to contribute only small bucketfuls, nonviolent action has become a veritable wave that has swept the globe since the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti in 1986.

If it is difficult to overthrow a tyrant, it is more challenging still to transform socio-economic systems, as the traumatic last two decades of Haiti's history attest. Even so, some Haitians, as Jake Miller describes, despite the men with guns, continue to attempt to transform Haiti nonviolently. Despite the challenge of sociopolitical transformation (now faced also by Georgia, Ukraine, and Lebanon after nonviolent uprisings of their own in the last few months), the fact that nonviolent movements have repeatedly succeeded at overthrowing dictators is grounds for hope.

The work of Gene Sharp has for decades chronicled, categorized, and helped power this global upsurge. The nonviolent strategies promoted by the Albert Einstein Institution, which Sharp founded more than two decades ago, directly helped overthrow the Serbian dictator Milosevic, and have more recently contributed to the overthrow of repressive regimes in Georgia and Ukraine. In a special section of this issue, Bob Irwin reviews Gene Sharp's new book, Michael True and Elise Boulding assess his career, and Brian Martin offers another of his thoughtful critiques.

Jaime Lederer chronicles the surge in grassroots organizing by the US peace movement resisting the Iraq war, and how the new focus on countering military recruitment is starting to bear fruit. Our critiques of the war are beginning to deprive the Pentagon of the personnel necessary to wage global war. For a powerful example of local counter-recruiting in dramatic action, please see the tableau on our back cover.

Joe Volk, with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, argues convincingly that even as we focus on efforts to directly resist the war, and to sway public opinion, we can't afford to neglect any ethical tactic which could help slow or reverse the US Administration's militaristic juggernaut, including creative lobbying. David Hartsough, former FCNL staffperson and co-founder of one of the more inspiring "bucket brigade" organizations in the movement, the Nonviolent Peaceforce, provides a historical perspective on this approach, chronicling the complementary nature of lobbying and civil disobedience for the US movement resisting the US war against Vietnam. Bruce Gagnon, founder of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes a contemporary example of just such an approach, with his account of a sit-in at the local office of a Maine congressperson.

Our cover image and the accompanying article provide us with an entirely different perspective about how we can nonviolently respond to the natural process of fire itself. Here, the focus is not on putting fires out, but on bold nonviolent actions designed to allow the land to regenerate after forest fires instead of clear-cutting and poisoning the bioregion.

The Vatican and advocates of a nonviolent Catholicism are also attempting to weather firestorms, including the sexual abuse scandal, the reinforcement of misogyny and homophobia by the recent leadership, and the brutal blockage of life-saving condoms from HIV-stricken lands. Yet, carrying forward the tradition of loving nonviolence, Frances Kissling finds the compassion to eulogize Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) with honest kindness.

With inspiring examples such as these, I think we've moved beyond bucket brigades. As strategies of nonviolent action become institutionalized in the repertoires of social movements worldwide, I think we're beginning to install fire hydrants.

- Sam Diener, Co-editor

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