YES WE CAN PEACEBUILDERS
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NON VIOLENCE IS:
“NONVIOLENCE MEANS AVOIDING INJURY TO ANYTHING ON EARTH IN THOUGHT WORD, OR DEED.”
- GANDHI
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Forgiveness rather than punishment.
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Simplicity rather than excess.
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Sharing rather than hoarding.
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Trusting others even in the face of prior wrongs.
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Refusal to cooperate with violence and injustice while at the same time refusing to strike back.
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Realizing war breeds war – it never brings peace.
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A commitment of honor and courage and a
willingness to set aside one’s own interest
for the well being of others.
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Requiring at times to set aside one’s
own personal security.
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Requiring courage to stand up against the
oppressor but also the honor to engage in
dialogue with your opponent
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Refusing to return evil for evil, violence for
violence.
Definition of violence
The “violence triangle” was developed by Johan Galtung, pointing to the distinction between three separate types or forms of violence, all of which are closely interrelated.
The first of these, direct violence, refers to physical acts of violence, such as a man beating his wife, children fighting at school, or soldiers going to war. One of the clearest and most obvious types of violence, beamed into our homes and brought to us daily in many different forms, direct violence is itself only one possible form of violence...
The second corner of the violence triangle, structural violence, can often be far more difficult to recognize and understand. This is the violence built into the very social, political and economic systems that govern societies, states and the world. It is the different allocation of goods, resources, opportunities, between different groups, classes, genders, nationalities, etc., because of the structure governing their relationship...
Examples of structural violence are apartheid, patriarchy, slavery, colonialism, imperialism, the former state authoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe, and today's global imperialism/capitalism. In terms of lives lost, misery and human suffering, structural violence is by far the more devastating and destructive of the two forms of violence explored so far.
The third form (or aspect) is cultural violence. On one level, this can be taken to be those aspects of a culture that legitimize or make violence seem an acceptable means of responding to conflict. That violence is 'normal', or 'OK' is an expression of cultural violence. The degree to which violence has begun to pervade almost every aspect of our cultures is an expression and a form of cultural violence.
— Extracted from Searching for Peace – Johan Galtung, C. G. Jacobsen and K. F. Brand-Jacobsen