All posts by Rob Fairmichael

News, February 2026

Nonviolent News,

Féile Bríde: Walking the way of Brigid

Afri’s Féile Bríde takes place on Saturday 7th February at Solas Bhríde, Kildare with this year’s theme, Walking the way of Brigid asking what it means to live with care and courage in our time. Contributors include Eman Mohammed on Brigid’s Fire and Righteous Rage: What care demands of us today; Patrick Bresnihan, Patrick Brodie and Paulie Doyle on The price of Prosperity; John Maguire on Louie Bennett: Feminism, Peace, Labour!; a documentary by Tommy Hayes on The garden where the parties grow; a launch feature on peace education for schools plus music from Cormac Breatnach, Sive, and Tommy Hayes. Full programme and booking at www.afri.ie with the programme running from registration at 10 am through to close at 4pm. Organised by Afri in partnership with the Solas Bhríde Centre, the Brigidine Sisters and Cairde Bríde. Full fee is €35, concessions €25.

l The informative annual Peacemaker newsletter from Afri is at https://www.afri.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Peacemaker-Afri-Newsletter-2025-Small.pdf and a ten minute video of some of Afri’s work in 2025 is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc0O2-cVNOA The Doolough Famine Walk will be on Saturday 13th June this year.

Mitchell Institute open events: Peace, weapons, victims, law

The Mitchell Institute at QUB organises a variety of open seminars and conferences on a variety of topics within its stated remit of “Building a peaceful, inclusive and secure world”. Events of interest coming up include a symposium on Peace in/from the Margins on 23rd and 24th February sharing “epistemic insights and lived experiences of building peace from hidden, excluded or marginalised locations”;   a conference on 3rd March on “Christian Ethics and Peacebuilding in the Age of AI and Autonomous Weapons Systems” with 12 papers presented as part of 4 panels with a keynote address by Prof Peter Lee; and lectures on Innocent Victims, Heroic Survivors and Monstrous Perpetrators

by Dr Harriet Gray on 18th March, and on Civil War, Foreign Intervention, and International Law by Prof Brad Roth on 18th March. Full details at https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/events/

ICCL: 50 years young

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) was founded in 1976 with leadership from Kader Asmal (also founder of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement and subsequently a minister in the first couple of democratically elected governments in South Africa) and Mary Robinson (subsequently President of Ireland) among others. So it celebrates 50 years work this year and there will be a flagship 50th Anniversary Conference in Dublin on Tuesday 16 June, further details to be announced. With a proud track record of campaigns and achievements the work very much continues – see https://www.iccl.ie/ for details.

St Brigid appears again / Neutrality song

Miracles never cease and St Brigid has appeared yet again at the Department for Foreign Affairs to mark her feast day, delivering a St Brigid’s Cross and Downpatrick Declaration, calling for peace, human rights and the retention of the Triple Lock to Minister Helen McEntee See 3 minute video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECdrDxfpkac

l Meanwhile a rendition of a great song, The Neutrality Song: Save the Triple Lock, performed by JoeBlackRyder and written by John Maguire to the tune of The wearing of the green is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A87_exf8inQ

EU approves of investing in nuclear weapons

“The European Union published guidance on December 30 that reclassified nuclear weapons as acceptable investments under its sustainable finance framework, completing a policy change approved in November that narrowed the definition of banned armaments from “controversial” to “prohibited.” The shift addresses earlier vagueness that the Commission said hindered efforts to raise $932 billion in defense investments over four years. Under the revised rules, only four weapon categories remain expressly outlawed by a majority of EU states: personnel mines, cluster munitions, and biological and chemical weapons. Nuclear weapons manufacturers avoided exclusion because only Austria, Ireland and Malta signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, though all EU members support non-proliferation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The updated guidance also permits ESG* labelling for companies handling depleted uranium for anti-tank ammunition and white phosphorus, which is toxic but not classified as a chemical weapon.” https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/14/144240/nuclear-weapons-are-now-esg-compliant *Environmental, Social and Governance. Thanks to Caroline Hurley for this information, more to be found elsewhere on this….e.g. https://www.ft.com/content/f789a262-e774-41b2-8f36-0995650e6a16

CAJ Webinar: Unpacking Legacy and NI Troubles Bill

Focusing on “Unpacking the Joint Framework on Legacy and the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill”, CAJ, the Committee on the Administration of justice, has an online webinar which will feature an NGO panel, presentation on the Joint Framework and Bill from CAJ, followed by input from the Pat Finucane Centre, Amnesty International, Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Relatives for Justice. This is on 3rd February from 3.00pm to 4.30pm and you can book at https://tinyurl.com/y2x7dt2n The CAJ website is at https://caj.org.uk/

Doomsday clock ticking closer to midnight

“If we remain silent, we are playing with a loaded gun” said Adi Roche of Chernobyl Children International in relation to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists having moved the Doomsday Clock to just 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been since its creation in 1945, warning that humanity is now living in a time of “unprecedented danger.” The decision reflects escalating global instability, with the war in Ukraine cited as a key driver, particularly the ongoing weaponisation of nuclear power. Calling on global leaders to act decisively, Roche urged renewed international leadership to reverse the trajectory toward catastrophe. “This moment must galvanise world leaders into urgent action. We must use the power of human intervention, diplomacy and moral leadership to turn the hands of the Doomsday Clock back from midnight.” https://www.chernobyl-international.com/news/

Organic Centre, Rossinver, Leitrim: Going for organic growth

The Organic Centre in the heart of rural Rossinver, Leitrim looks forward to 2026, as we come into the Spring and brighter days ahead. As an educational charity, the centre specialises in promoting all things organic, sustainable living and biodiversity. The Organic Centre was founded in 1995 by local organic growers, and farmers. Developed on a 19-acre green field site at the foot of limestone hills beside Lough Melvin, it became a pioneering organisation, at the forefront of organic growing, and action for climate change. The centre currently looks forward to almost 40 courses ranging from growing skills including introduction to gardening, and grapevine skills, to renewable workshops, to heritage skills like stone wall building, hand spinning, and willow weaving. https://www.theorganiccentre.ie/Learn/weekend-courses

The calendar year hosts a multitude of free seasonal events, including one to mark Brigid’s Day, Apple Day, Samhain, a Green Christmas fair, a large range of free activities for Biodiversity Week in May and Heritage Week in August, to name but a few. And coming soon on 1st March is Potato Day, a free family friendly event, with demonstrations, tours, and an onsite craft and food market. For certified training for growers, the centre also hosts a now adapted, part time course over two years, Level 5 in organic horticulture, an opportunity to learn and be part of a movement, as policy makers nationally and internationally start to recognise the importance of organic agriculture for planet and health. The MSLETB in Organic Horticulture closes for applications on 6th February. https://www.theorganiccentre.ie/Learn/now%20part%20time%20horticultural-course

You can organise a tour or workshop (in topics such as composting, container gardening or biodiversity in your garden) as an away day with your work, school or family. Just ring 0719854338 or email info@theorganiccentre.ie And if you are interested in hiking, after you’ve finished investigating the 19 acre site, you can unwind and walk on towards the new Fowley’s Falls trail that links up with the Organic Centre, and end at the Grass Roof Cafe for tea and coffee. Check out the Organic Centre’s website and social media channels for more information on courses, events, and the onsite and online shop. www.theorganiccentre.ie

Clare O’Grady Walshe on Kenyan seed sovereignty success

Síolta Chroí’s current series on food sovereignty includes a webinar on Seed Sovereignty: Learning from the Success of Kenyan Farmers on 19th February, time TBC, with Clare O’Grady Walshe who played a role in the Kenyan court ruling that “Sharing Seeds is not a crime”, a landmark seed sovereignty ruling – it is hoped to also hear from a Kenyan activist. See https://sioltachroi.ie/product/webinar-seed-sovereignty-learning-from-the-success-of-kenyan-farmers-19th-feb/

WRI statement on war in NE Syria and the Kurds

War Resisters’ International (WRI) has issued a statement on the Syrian government onslaught on autonomous territories in the north-east of Syria. “The operations carried out by the Syrian government and its affiliated forces violate the principle of protecting civilians and constitute war crimes as defined by international law. Therefore, all states and international institutions must take action to immediately halt the war and engage in urgent diplomatic efforts towards a peaceful solution …..” See https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2026/war-resisters-international-executive-committee-statement-no-war-rojava

Global learning training for post-primary teachers in North

The Centre for Global Education is offering post-primary teachers across Northern Ireland free and comprehensive Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) that aims to enhance classroom practice in global learning.  This fully funded training is to equip teachers with the skills and confidence to facilitate discussions on sensitive global topics in the classroom. To register e-mail info@centreforglobaleducation.com or telephone 02890241879. Spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. https://www.centreforglobaleducation.com/

INNATE posters on gold mining, war toys

New A4 print-it-yourself posters on gold mining in the context of the Sperrins (and the forthcoming restart of the public enquiry on Dalradian’s plans there) and on war toys appear with the more than 120 others on a wide variety of issues in the Posters section of the INNATE website. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/posters/

Eco Congregation Ireland (ECI): Yearly review

An overview of ECI work and involvement in 2025 can be found at https://www.ecocongregationireland.com/2026/01/16/eci-annual-review-2025-now-available/ and you can sign up their regular newsletter on the website too. Eco-Congregation Ireland encourages churches of all denominations to take an eco approach to worship, lifestyle, property and finance management, community outreach and contact with the developing world.

Barefoot across Europe

Walking across Europe, from Instanbul to Claremorris, Co Mayo is amazing but to do it barefoot is an incredible ‘feet’ of slow travel. Eamon Keaveney is nearly back, having walked over 6,000 km – breaking records – in his bare feet in a fundraiser for Friends of the Earth in Ireland https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/ and Jigsaw, a free therapy and mental health support for young people https://jigsaw.ie/ You can add to this fundraiser at https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/BarefootAcrossEurope

Editorial: We are citizens of the world

Editorials, Nonviolent News,

Our first loyalty is and should be as citizens of the world.

That is not how nation states operate or their leaders think; loyalty to the state should come first, anything else is an also ran. Of course in some instances, multi-state or suprastate entities such as the EU supersede this primary required loyalty. But the EU itself is building itself as a supranational entity with military, great power, capacity – effectively a USE, United States of Europe.

There are some advantages to the nation state where it provides services that are needed by citizens. But it will also claim exclusive use of force within its borders, whether it can achieve that or not. The claimed prerogative to be the (sole legitimate) wielder of military power, and its exercise of that, is one which sits uneasily with those believing in nonviolence. And nation states can treat their citizens terribly and get away with it. While some of an anarchist persuasion wish to see the state withering away to be replaced by a totally cooperative society, many believers in peace may settle for a state which is gentle and caring in its dealings with its citizens and with the world outside.

The word ‘citizen’ has different connotations or meanings depending on the context – as an ordinary member of society, as a resident of a city (where the term comes from), or as a ‘member’ of a country or state. It is thus specific to a geographical area. To say we are ‘citizens of the world’ is in a way to subvert the term to apply to all of our Earth. But our globe is also a specific geographical area within our solar system and universe. There is no reason we cannot say we are indeed citizens of our particular world; by living here we have – conditional – ownership or rentalship of it and a responsibility to it and to what else it contains.

Samuel Johnson’s dictum that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel can be interpreted in different ways and was not an indictment of patriotism per se. But we have too many nation states – one would be too many – who believe in some way that that they are ‘chosen’, ‘special’ or in some way the centre of the universe. This goes with the territory of the most powerful global powers. It is also something which can be exacerbated by right wing religious beliefs as in the USA or Israel – or Britain in the past (and possibly in the present).

Of course we all have our own moral, political, religious or secular views and relationship in relation to the state. One aim to make progress is to transcend the hold of the nation state by promoting true international cooperation, not through regional power blocs like the EU or NATO but through wider associations which show we are all part of the human family.

One current major difficulty with this is that the United Nations, which should be the vehicle for such moves, is in the doldrums, partly because of the great power control of the UN Security Council. Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” – a misnomer of there ever was one – for Gaza and possibly elsewhere is a bizarre aberration, not least in that the appointed chair is ‘Donald Trump’ and not ‘The President of the USA’; it is a personal fiefdom which the United Nations has inexplicably backed. And the Irish government’s ditching of the Triple Lock on deployment of the Irish army overseas is a move to back EU and NATO militarism – troops have already been withdrawn from UN peacekeeping service to enable participation in EU battlegroups.

It may seem utopian to proclaim “We are citizens of the world first” when we see the reality of how things are at the moment. And so, in a way it is utopian but if we do not build that conception of “We are all in this together” to solve the problems of the world then we are reduced to “It is everyone for themselves” – and we know where that has got us. At a time when global heating threatens us all on this earth in serious ways, we see a nation state like the USA saying “Drill, baby, drill” when the effect is “Burn, baby, burn”. However Ireland itself, Republic or the North, have not done a quarter of what it could, and should, be doing to help save ourselves and everyone else from the effects of a burning planet.

We do have to pay our national taxes, we do have to obey national laws – except as part of nonviolent resistance where we oppose unjust laws or even just laws as part of a political campaign. We can take pride in our ethnic, national and regional identity, there is nothing wrong with that so long as we respect other people’s. In Ireland we can be ‘good Europeans’ but with a very different view of what being ‘a good European’ is. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Europe-World.pdf The role that Irish – and other people – can play is as peacemakers, and with the at times very positive experience of Irish involvement in international peacemaking in the 20th century. Becoming part of an EU and NATO military machine, whether directly or indirectly, is not being a citizen of the world, it is becoming part of a selfish and violent empire or empire in the making.

We are all part of ‘home sapiens’ and if we forget that then we are indeed in trouble and likely to stay in trouble. We can take pride in the best of human achievements, cultural and technological, while striving to build a world where justice and peace are the supreme values. If we are unable to collectively build that consciousness then the future of the world is grim, much grimmer than it is for many today.

We are citizens of the world first and foremost. Let us say that with pride.

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight: The Dominion Mandate

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News, , , ,

Everything we do, both personal and political, is based on our value system and understanding of how the world works. A headline example of values determining behaviour was given by Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, when explaining President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro on CNN News. He said: “We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Contrary to this view the evidence indicates that life in its myriad forms is based on cooperation rather than coercion. The important point is that how we see our place in the world determines how we act in it. If a view is erroneous then the consequences will, at the very least, be disruptive for those concerned.

The view of the world held by the leaders of the global political powers as in President Trump, President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin all subscribe to the nationalist belief of manifest destiny. The term was coined in the United States in 1845 by the prominent New York based newspaper editor John O’Sullivan who propagated the view that the westward expansion of the United States was divinely ordained. This in effect meant that those who endorsed the idea believed that the extermination of the Indigenous people and the theft of their land was endorsed by God.

The idea of Manifest Destiny combined with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which is a formal U.S. foreign policy declaration concerning spheres of political influence, governs the political sparring between the major powers today.

President Trump holds that the U.S. has a right to dominate the Western Hemisphere, thus his expressed intention to colonise Greenland. President Xi Jinping claims that China has a divine right, as ordained by history, to Taiwan and most of the South China Sea. For his part President Putin asserts that Russia has a right to Ukraine, vast areas of the Arctic seabed beyond its Exclusive Economic Zone in addition to other independent territories. Putin’s claim for having divine authority for his war on Ukraine is provided by the Russian Orthodox Church which describes it as a “holy war”.

The genocide in Palestine, another zone of terrible violence and suffering, also has its roots in the claim to divine authority as in the view of many in the Israeli government that Palestine was given to the Jewish people by God as stated in the Old Testament.

Reliance on the idea of Manifest Destiny, or claim to know the will of God, is not only used by political leaders and movements to acquire territory through violence, including intimidation and deception, but by corporations and ordinary people who have a strong acquisitive drive. The Christian source of divine authority in regards to treating the Earth as a collection of material resources available for the exclusive use of humankind rather than the community of life-forms we share the planet with is Genesis 1: 26. The text is sometimes called the Dominion Mandate and says:

“And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our own likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (King James Bible)

The Collins Etymological And Reference Dictionary (1953) states that dominion means supreme authority. To claim to have supreme authority over every species on Earth, many of which, as New Scientist, 17 January 2026, tells us have their own culture, values and emotions, is both hubris and self-aggrandisement. The Dominion Mandate, along with the belief that humans are created in the image of God, places us outside the natural order giving us licence to do with it as we wish without moral consequence.

The practical and moral consequences of this are evident in the steady rise in the average global temperature resulting in frequent extreme weather events that result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people every year and financial costs in hundreds of billions in hard currency. The Christian Aid report ‘Counting the cost 2025’ tells us that the estimated cost of climate breakdown in terms of physical damage between 1991 and 2020 is US$28 trillion.

Believing ourselves to be made in the image of God, superior to every species that has ever existed, has, in addition to climate breakdown, resulted in ecocide. Scientists estimate that between 20,000 and 2 million species went extinct during the 20th century due to human behaviour and according to the Royal Society a million species are currently threatened with extinction.

Given the extent of this annihilation of life one can only but conclude that to subscribe to the Dominion Mandate is to believe that God wants humans to eradicate all life on Earth and that we are His / Her/ Its executors somewhat akin to the Daleks in the 1960s BBC series Doctor Who whose mission was to exterminate all non-Dalek life.

The Daleks’ catchphrase. was “Exterminate” which they uttered as often in any given episode as our leading politicians utter the catchphrase ‘economic growth’ in any given speech or commentary with its rational to level mountains, build mega dams, change the course of rivers, mine the sea bed and eradicate all nonhuman life forms in order to realise economic goals. It would seem that we are so in love with ourselves we don’t want any other species to exist except those we have domesticated for our own use and gratification.

The healthy alternative to behaving like Daleks is to accept that we have no divine mandate and like every species are dependent upon the existence of a dynamic, evolving biosphere to survive and thrive. This means recognising the right of other species to exist through protecting their habitat from our avarice and sense of entitlement.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Reflections on M L King Day*

Nonviolent News, Readings, , , , , ,

The figure of Jesus in the New Testament is often domesticated by familiarity. Rendered gentle, apolitical, and spiritually remote, he is stripped of the radical edge that made his life — and death — so disruptive. Yet read attentively, the Gospels present Jesus as a deeply political figure: a priestly dissenter, a social agitator, and a practitioner of what we might now recognise as principled nonviolent resistance.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s articulation of nonviolence was not an innovation so much as a retrieval. King understood nonviolence as a way of life grounded in love (agape), truth, and the refusal to cooperate with injustice. In this sense, Jesus stands not merely as an inspiration for nonviolent action, but as its primary exemplar. His ministry consistently confronted systems of domination — religious, economic, and imperial — without resorting to violence, even when violence was both available and expected.

Jesus’ protest was not passive. He engaged in deliberate acts of disruption that exposed injustice while preserving the dignity of all involved. His overturning of the tables in the Temple was not an act of random rage, but a symbolic interruption of an exploitative religious economy that burdened the poor in the name of holiness. Importantly, it targeted structures, not people. Likewise, his refusal to observe Sabbath regulations when they harmed rather than healed was a form of civil disobedience grounded in moral clarity: “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

King insisted that nonviolence seeks not the defeat of the opponent, but the transformation of the conflict. This logic is visible throughout Jesus’ teaching. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his followers to resist evil without mirroring it — to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, love the enemy. These are not calls to submission, but to creative, disarming resistance. Scholars have long noted that such actions interrupt cycles of humiliation and retaliation, forcing oppressors to confront the humanity of those they seek to dominate.

Jesus’ priesthood, too, is radical. He operates outside authorised religious channels, extending forgiveness, healing, and inclusion without institutional permission. His solidarity with the marginalised — the poor, the sick, women, and social outcasts — constitutes a sustained critique of power. Like King, Jesus recognises that injustice deforms both the oppressed and the oppressor, and that liberation must therefore be mutual, even when asymmetrical.

Crucially, Jesus’ nonviolence is most visible at the point of greatest threat. In Gethsemane, he explicitly rejects armed resistance: “Put your sword back into its place” (Matthew 26:52). His refusal to meet violence with violence is not born of weakness, but of conviction. The cross becomes the ultimate nonviolent protest — a public exposure of imperial brutality and religious complicity, endured without surrendering to hatred. As King would later argue, redemptive suffering has the power to reveal truth that coercion cannot.

In dark times, the New Testament does indeed offer a model of nonviolent protest — one that is neither quietist nor naïve. It calls for courage without cruelty, resistance without dehumanisation, and truth spoken without the intoxication of force. Jesus’ life challenges contemporary Christians to ask not whether nonviolence is realistic, but whether violence has ever truly delivered the justice it promises.

King’s vision of the Beloved Community is inconceivable without this Gospel foundation. To follow Jesus, in this reading, is to become a disciplined practitioner of nonviolence — resisting injustice not by destroying enemies, but by refusing to become them. In a world tempted by despair and retaliation, the New Testament does not offer easy answers, but it does offer a demanding, hopeful path: one in which love becomes the most subversive force of all.

* M L King Day in the USA is observed on the third Monday in January; his actual birth date is 15th January.

l INNATE is happy to publish reflections and material in relation to nonviolence which come from any faith, humanist or secular background and material on the website includes items from Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Muslim perspectives, as well as secular and philosophical reflections.

Understanding Trump’s interventions: How regional imperialism generates World War

Nonviolent News, Readings, , ,

By Richard E Rubenstein of TRANSCEND Media Service

When Donald Trump was first elected U.S. president almost ten years ago, part of his appeal to many voters were his promises to reduce the level of US involvement in international conflicts and to avoid the costly “endless wars” fought by his predecessors. But his recent attack on Venezuela on the heels of U.S.-financed genocide in Gaza, as well as US air strikes in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, Iran, and the Caribbean/Pacific high seas, represents a major turn toward military intervention in his foreign policy.

What obscures this reality at present and muddles much media coverage of the situation is Trump’s invocation of the Monroe Doctrine (aka the “Don-Roe Doctrine”) to justify his activities in the Western Hemisphere.  Yes, he abducted the Maduros, killed Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers, declared himself the owner of Venezuela’s oil, destroyed or captured ships and crews sailing from Venezuelan ports, threatened the rulers of Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil, and promised to take over Greenland. He has also intervened overtly, covertly, and through proxies on every inhabited continent.  Even so, many commentators conclude that Trump’s intention is to exercise military power primarily in the U.S.’s Caribbean and Latin American “backyard,” while other regional hegemons such as China and Russia do as they wish in their own spheres of influence.

This bully-boy version of multipolarity may satisfy members of the MAGA coalition who want to believe that the would-be Nobelist will remain true to his original isolationist promises.  It has even gained acceptance among some analysts at the mainstream foreign policy journals and NGOs. To accept this regional focus, however, means shutting one’s eyes to the history and dynamics of imperialism, especially as illustrated by the imperial wars of the 1930s

Amid the deluge of articles and broadcasts covering Trump’s recent Latin adventures, one finds few analyses comparing U.S. aggression with the imperial wars of the 1930s that are now recognised as significant steps in the run-up to world war.  In 1931, Japan conquered Manchuria after manufacturing a false-flag incident at Mukden and then attacked China, seizing Beijing and Shanghai.  In 1935 Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and two years later defeated Haile Selassie’s outgunned regime.  Around the same time, Hitler invaded the demilitarized Rhineland.  He would soon move to overthrow the Austrian and Czechoslovak governments and send military forces to aid General Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

Of course, these events took place almost a century ago – but the analogy is startling.  Like Trump’s recent actions, these were short-lived, asymmetrical assaults by imperialist powers against nations resisting their hegemony. Their impact was minimized by characterizing them as limited wars conducted within some Great Power’s sphere of influence.  But today we understand that they were also significant steps toward world war.

Why doesn’t this sort of violence remain in the regional backyard instead of generating global conflict?  The first reason is that interventions like these always target imperial competitors, not just local resistors. Italy’s war in Ethiopia was aimed at British interests in the Horn of Africa, Japan’s aggression in Manchuria at Chinese and Western interests, and Germany’s machinations in Europe at Western and Russian interests. The pattern of targeting an imperial competitor’s local “agents” persisted long after the end of World War II.  In the 1970s Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger overthrew the Allende regime in Chile and installed Pinochet’s dictatorship there because they considered Allende a potential Soviet (and Cuban) ally. Similarly, Trump’s overarching aim in Latin America is to limit the growing influence of China (and the less substantial influence of Russia) on that continent.

In short, the apparent local focus of operations like the Venezuela attack is an illusion. The fact that the major target is a competing empire compels other nations in the affected region to choose sides – a polarizing process that tends to create armed multinational blocs and a bipolar world order.  Barbara Tuchman’s classic work, The Guns of August, shows exactly how this operated to produce the unbelievably destructive “war to end all wars” in 1914. We are likely to see such polarization take place with increasing intensity over the next few years in Latin America, Africa, and East Asia.

But that’s not all. Imperial powers prevented from acquiring essential industrial resources in regions claimed by their competitors tend to retaliate by seizing control of other regions where those resources can be obtained. In the 1930s, Western attempts to weaken and contain the Japanese Empire led the Tokyo regime to seize Manchuria’s coal and iron. A decade later, the Japanese conquered Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaya to secure the oil, rubber, tin, and other industrial materials monopolized by French, Dutch, and British empires in what had been considered up to then a European backyard. Today we see the same sort of competition over resources such as rare earths, industrial minerals, oil, and natural gas inflaming conflicts between imperialist powers on a global scale.  (Indeed, with the advent of climate change, the list of scarce resources grows to include essentials such as water and breathable air.)

The moral?  All modern empires are global. The U.S and its rivals are not like the ancient empires that conquered weaker nations as a kind of sport, extracting tribute from their rulers, but generally leaving subject peoples to their own devices.  Modern empires are late-capitalist powers driven to compete globally for essential industrial materials, markets, and investment opportunities, and compelled to “develop” or transform the societies that they dominate.  There is no way that their ruling classes can remain in their own backyards – and when they go abroad (as they must, to maintain their own viability), they go armed to the teeth.

Liberal as well as conservative commentators may hate to admit it, but Lenin’s work on imperialism got this right. For limited periods of time, while issuing threats of violence and engaging in covert operations, the empire-builders may manage to negotiate their differences “peacefully.”  But these periods of relative quiescence do not last. Unable to solve global problems that their own profit-dominated systems exacerbate – problems like radical social inequality, human-caused climate change, and mass migration – they employ threats of war and war itself as their favored methods of conflict management. They call this strategy “peace through strength,” but we understand that what they really mean is Empire First, by any means necessary.

The fact that warfare is now entirely industrialized and that weapons of mass destruction, including nukes, are proliferating at a dizzying pace does not alter these dynamics.  Nor does the existence of a sadly weakened United Nations provide much hope that inter-imperial conflicts can be controlled before they become part of another run-up to global violence. Once again, history sets off alarm bells that anyone not deafened by present-day cacophony should be able to hear. It was precisely when the League of Nations proved unable to stop Japan’s, Italy’s, and Germany’s localized aggression that the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war as an instrument of national policy – a treaty signed by almost all the world’s nations – became a dead letter. Then and now, intensified regional imperialism was a symptom of impending global war.

Donald Trump’s interventionism thus represents a major escalation of inter-imperial conflict – but its significance is already being minimized not just by MAGA cultists, but also by a large cross-section of establishment liberals, centrists of both parties, foreign policy mavens, and the corporate media. Devoted to the dogma of “peace through strength,” Democratic Party leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are unable to criticize Trump’s military adventures, except to complain that he doesn’t consult Congress as he should and sometimes acts “recklessly.”  With Iraq in mind, the New York Times editors warn that attempting to occupy nations that don’t want to be occupied is a bad idea.  The liberal critics of military intervention rest their arguments on the tendency of interventions to produce Iraq-style occupations that trigger mass rebellions requiring lengthy, costly, and brutal counterinsurgency campaigns.

Trump’s answer to this, up to this point, has been to rely on covert operations, proxy wars, air strikes, and commando raids to avoid the necessity to deploy massive occupation forces in subject nations. The Venezuelan coup represents an attempt to use a “decapitated” existing regime with substantial mass support to guarantee U.S. control of that nation’s resources without provoking a local insurgency. This tactic may not work, but even if it does, the imperialist dynamics that we have been describing will continue to drive the world toward war as they did in the thirties.

After all, Japan quickly suppressed rebellion in Manchuria, which became the puppet kingdom of Manchukuo, and the Nazis took over Austria and Czechslovakia without provoking mass rebellion. The world system does not become more pacific because an empire succeeds in pacifying its newly acquired subjects.  If Trump gets away with seizing Venezuela’s oil without provoking a guerrilla war, destabilizing Cuba without a new Bay of Pigs attack, setting up his colonialist “Board of Peace” for ruined Gaza, or absorbing Greenland by means of threats and bribes, we will not hear a word of serious criticism from the advocates of U.S. “world leadership.”

Whether anti-Trump or pro-Trump, our imperial misleaders and their corporate partners ignore the connections between regional warmaking, the militarization of domestic society, and the increasing likelihood of world war.  That’s the bad news. The good news is that Trump’s increasingly unhinged and unapologetic interventionism is waking people up on a wide variety of fronts.  Empire, imperialism, and military-industrial complex are no longer taboo words and concepts. Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, formerly one of Trump’s most passionate supporters, understands that his promise to be a good isolationist was a lie and that the current frenzy of U.S. military interventions is a symptom of an empire in decline.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Minnesota, California, and several other US states are learning what it feels like to be subjects of imperial domination. The masked, armed agents of ICE, acting out of fear and rage in an increasingly hostile environment, could as well be descending on Fallujah as on Minneapolis. It will take a while longer before an US awakening becomes general, but this will happen, I hope and pray, before Trumpian violence generates an irreversible movement toward world war.  To quote the banner that appears at the conclusion of Stanley Kramer’s 1959 anti-nuke movie, “On the Beach,”

“THERE IS STILL TIME … BROTHER.”

l This piece appears as the editorial in the 26th January – 1st February issue of Transcend Media Service (TMS) (2026 Week 5) https://www.transcend.org/tms/2026/01/understanding-trumps-interventions-how-regional-imperialism-generates-world-war/ TMS is always worth looking at and the same issue includes a long video interview with Norman Finkelstein by Chris Hedges on Deconstructing Trump’s ‘Peace’ Plan for Gaza.

Shannon Airport, Irish Neutrality, Global Peace and Justice

Nonviolent News, Readings, , , ,

Military veteran and inveterate peace campaigner – and writer – Edward Horgan had the following article published in the Clare Champion (21st January 2026) – and as usual hits a number of nails on the head –

In his article in the Clare Champion on 14 January, ‘Shannon Airport and Ireland’s Foreign Policy Debate’ Prof. Donnacha O’Beacháin asks an important question. How compatible is facilitating US military operations through Shannon Airport with claiming a form of neutrality grounded in international law? The answer is that international law on neutrality is clearly defined in The Hague Convention V on Neutrality 1907, article 2 of which states that: “Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power.” Successive Irish Taoisig and ministers for foreign affairs are being disingenuous when they use such ‘administrative caveats’ to claim that Ireland is militarily neutral despite allowing over three million armed US soldiers to transit through Shannon airport. The US has been a belligerent state in a series of wars that have cost millions of lives since the end of the Cold War. Yet Irish neutrality has had the support of majority of Irish citizens since the late 1930s. After we joined the United Nations, our neutrality took on a much more active role, including UN peacekeeping and promoting global justice.

Morality is one of the important issues raised by Prof. O’Beacháin. He says that Irish neutrality “has historically been justified as an active commitment to the UN Charter…”. Now our Irish Government is about to abandon the Triple Lock, thereby undermining the UN Charter, and joining so-called coalitions of the willing. The issue of morality has become of critical importance. US President Trump’s threats to use force against Greenland would, if implemented, involve breaches of international laws. Genocide is now being perpetrated against the Palestinian people since 7 October 2023. This raises issues of basic morality and crimes against humanity. Shannon airport is being used by the US military to help perpetrate this genocide. No amount of realist national interests justifies Ireland being complicit in genocide and in breach of Article 3 of the Genocide Convention. Prof. O’Beacháin’s article is an important contribution to the debate on Irish neutrality and the role of Shannon airport in that debate.

Also, on 14th January a report on related matters by Ken Foxe appeared on RTE news. The report referred to a letter by Conal Henry the chair of Shannon Airport to Minister Darragh O’Brien last May. It said Mr Henry warned the Minister for Transport that protests and airside incursions at the airport were a grave risk and a threat to the international reputation of the State.

The real threat to the international reputation of the State does not arise due to the protests but to the breaches of international and humanitarian laws due to US military use of Shannon airport. This also creates a significant threat to the international and national reputation of Shannon airport. In his letter Mr Henry said he recognised and respected the right of protest and said that airfield incidents needed to be addressed urgently. Yes, it is vital that the right of protest as enshrined under Article 40 of the Constitution must be respected. The protests and incursions against US military use of Shannon airport did not begin on 7 October 2023. They began over there decades ago in 1991 and intensified with the unlawful US-led wars of aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere and more recently against Iran and Venezuela, and US support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Millions of people, especially children, have been killed due to these wars, yet no one has been held to account for Irish government complicity in these wars of aggression.

Since 1991 over sixty prosecutions have been taken against non-violent peace activists, who held a well-founded belief that their actions were justified due to the far greater injustices and war crimes being committed in the Middle East and elsewhere. Mr Henry’s letter stated that “Shannon Airport is strategically vital national infrastructure, serving not only commercial air traffic but also facilitating military traffic at the direction of Government.” The issue of ‘facilitating military traffic at the direction of Government’ is the real issue at Shannon airport especially given that complicity in genocide is a crime under international law and under Irish law (the 1973 Genocide Act). He also said that the incursions posed a very serious security risk. The most serious security risks at Shannon Airport are caused by US military use of the airport. This creates an increased risks of terrorist type attacks or retaliation attacks by one of the belligerents in the Russian / Ukrainian war due the Irish Government actively providing military and financial support to the Ukrainian military and to its government. A neutral Irish Government should be promoting peace not wars.

Of concern also is the request by Mr Henry to the minister “Given the ongoing threat, your intervention on this issue would send an important message about the seriousness with which the State views these breaches and the importance of safeguarding the integrity of Shannon Airport”. The integrity of the lives of Palestinians and others killed in US-supported wars, are far more important than the integrity of Shannon Airport.

The RTE report by Ken Foxe also refers to the draft response by the minister for transport to the chair of Shannon Airport and to other correspondence and requests for action involving the ministers for transport and justice. Given that 12 peace activists are now before the courts and being prosecuted for incursions into Shannon airport, caution should be exercised to ensure that there is no inappropriate interference with the course of justice. It is essential that a proper independent investigation be conducted into the role of various Irish government, state and airport authorities in allowing US military use of Shannon airport. Accountability at all levels is vital in a democracy and even more vital at global level. Ending US military use of Shannon airport and restoring genuine Irish neutrality is by far the most effective way to ensure the safety and security of the Irish people. We also have legal, moral and humanitarian duties towards the rest of our common humanity.

Billy King: Rites Again 336

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello again for my first sharing of thoughts for 2026. And my first thought, looking at Afri’s Féile Bríde programme is the contrast with the Irish government which proclaimed a public holiday in Saint Brigid’s name but totally ignore anything about her such as her peace and sanctuary making and aspects of her mediation. Yes, it is indeed the first public holiday honouring a woman and to be welcomed but they avoid looking at what kind of woman she was. Anyway, on with the rest of the show –

But not before telling you, if you haven’t already listened to/seen The Neutrality Song written by John Maguire and performed by JoeBlack Ryder, do so NOW at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A87_exf8inQ

Tyred out

They were both Scottish and basically invented the same thing but it was the later person who succeeded in popularising the invention. It had been patented in Scotland by the first person but it was the second whose name became known widely around the world associated with it – and it transformed the world of transport. The second invention was in Belfast in 1888.

What was it? Most of us use the invention every day in one form or another if we are travelling by bike, bus or car. It was, of course, as those looking at the title of this piece will have realised, the pneumatic tyre and the successful re-inventer was John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish vet who developed the air filled tyre for his son Johnnie and his tricycle when they lived in central Belfast.

The INNATE peace trail of the centre of Belfast and the Ormeau Road covers the invention as it passes the former North of Ireland playing fields, now Lavinia Square, where a plaque marks a significant event in the popularisation of the invention (the trail includes some culturally or technologically significant items as well as the stories of those working for peace, justice and inclusion) There were cycle races there in 1889 and Willie Hume was a competitor in a few races – all of which he won. And that was because he had Dunlop’s pneumatic tyres. So ‘everybody’ decided they should get them and the rest has been history (initially some cycle races banned pneumatic tyres they gave so much of an advantage).

That history is actually quite complicated as is revealed by my source – a concise but detailed pamphlet by Jim Cooke (Dreoilín, 2000). The tyre and tube combination that we know for the bicycle today went through various stages and inventions by Dunlop and others (the two-way valve was one important development, Dunlop’s original valve was one-way only). The business development was equally complicated and Dunlop, already prosperous from a very successful veterinary business made money but not the fortune he could have from his invention – as is so often the way for inventors, others profit more. Initial business development was in Dublin and Dunlop moved there from Belfast and lived in that city until his death in 1921.

Johnnie, his young son for whom he initially developed the pneumatic tyre (Dunlop père coined the phrase ‘pneumatic’ for the air-filled tyre), died of meningitis aged 42. But his son, John Boyd Dunlop’s grandson, also John Boyd Dunlop, was an important figure in Irish medicine and helped to develop the Central Remedial Clinic in Dublin.

Meanwhile the ‘second age’ of the bicycle is coming even if providing the infrastructure to allow it to happen is so slow. Young Johnnie Dunlop was allowed out in central Belfast late at night in 1888 to try out his new pneumatic tyres on his tricycle…..it would be a foolhardy parent who would allow that today anywhere on the island of Ireland but maybe that day will come again….

But I will share a final conundrum which those on the Belfast peace trail are asked: what did John Boyd Dunlop invent at the same time as the pneumatic tyre. Well, it’s a bit of a (flat?) joke really because the answer is “the puncture”…….[If I can get my spoke in, some tyred jokes just keep getting re-cycled – Ed]

Not so Nobel

I am again revisiting the issue of who receives the Nobel prize for peace. No, it is not because of a winner passing on their Nobel medal to the current president of the USA (which says a lot about both the recipients and the awarding body) but rather what was said by figures in Norway about the prize.

I first covered this issue quite some time ago https://www.innatenonviolence.org/billyking/bk206.shtml when writing about Fredrik Heffermehl’s “The Nobel Peace Prize – What Nobel Really wanted” (Praeger, 2010). To recap from there, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the Peace Prize “should be for champions of peace, the confraternization of nations (‘confraternization’ is a difficult term and Heffermehl’s interpretation of putting ‘brotherhood among nations’, written in Swedish, into modern language), the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” This is almost totally ignored in the modern awards.

As I stated then “Originally members of the Nobel Committee included a strong representation of peace movement people; now it is elected according to the strength of parties in the Norwegian parliament and, Heffermehl argues, is used as a tool of pro-NATO Norwegian foreign policy.” So we shouldn’t be surprised at reactionaries and war criminals (e.g. Kissinger) receiving it. In fact the award is often totally at odds with Nobel’s intentions – not so Nobel or noble indeed.

However my triggering in writing this piece was reactions in Norway to María Corina Machado’s Nobel award being passed on to POTUS. Obviously, as was stated in Norway, ‘the prize’ cannot be given away although the medal can (Mairead Corrigan Maguire has given hers to the Ulster Museum in Belfast, a suitable holder). A former mayor of Oslo who is now secretary general of Norwegian People’s Aid, said the situation could damage the reputation of the Nobel peace prize and the Nobel committee. “This is unbelievably embarrassing and damaging to one of the world’s most recognised and important prizes. The awarding of the prize is now so politicised and potentially dangerous that it could easily legitimise an anti-peace prize development.” (Guardian 16/1/26)

Yes, the Nobel Prize for Peace is still the most prestigious award, possibly of any kind. It certainly outranks the Tipperary Peace Convention/Prize. Many of the recipients are admirable people, some are not. But for those who look at the Nobel prize in relation to the original intention, and more generally in relation to the promotion of ‘peace’, its reputation, and that of the Nobel committee, is long since damaged. And why should Donald Trump worry about not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – after all he has the totally bizarre FIFA peace prise (sic) by sycophantic FIFA President Gianni Infantino – though this has become not only a widely considered joke but also a political football….

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is usually defined as believing in the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (as proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill in 18th – 19th century Britain). This is of course distinct from 21st century capitalism where the aim is frequently the greatest wealth of the smallest number of people. But as you know from this Colm, I might start talking about one thing and end up on a complete tangent. Though utilitarianism does have a fair bit to recommend it.

My tangent is going to talk about a recent interaction with a utility company where, at the end of an initial contract

our household was being shoved onto their most expensive rate. So, I had a phone call to get me back where we were. Mention the possibility of leaving and you are nearly there. But said company, who have their call centre in the city where they are based, seem to try to stand out from the crowd. The first point is that the music when on hold in the queue to get a human being includes a raunchy punk number associated with the city concerned. Unusual, certainly.

And their call assistants seem to be encouraged to be human beings; on my recent call I received a strong recommendation to see a film which seemed relevant in the utility-arian’s mind given a personal detail of mine which was shared during the conversation. I have duly noted said recommended film and may view it when possible to do so. But a personal touch like that makes you feel said company has at least a bit of a soul even if it is a profit driven enterprise.

But God be with the days – or not – when you had no choice on your utility supplier – take it or leave it. The ESB (Electricity Supply Board) was the one electricity supplier in the Re:Public. And none of the utilities were private companies you could own or partly own through shares. So the ironic comment from your parent for leaving the lights on might have been “Have you shares in the ESB???!!!” when such was impossible. Of course something stronger might have been said too but that is another matter.

Our ancestors

We have have hopefully long moved on from the idea that the lives of our ancient ancestors were nasty, brutish (oops, I typed ‘british’ there, better correct that quick, ‘i’ and ‘u’ are beside each other on the qwerty keybored….) and short. They may at times have been nasty, they may have been short or shorter, but for brutish you could well look at some people’s and countries’ behaviour today.

Positive and progressive traits and skills which we associate with modern humans are all the time being found to apply to our ancient ancestors, including varieties of creativity. And the complexity of the bushy bush rather than the family tree of so-called homo sapiens keeps getting more complicated. How many varieties of hominins were around altogether? More and more seem to be discovered and our emergence is probably the result of good luck as well as good management of lifestyle and resources apart from any possible genetic advantage.

Rutger Bregman’s ‘Humankind’ is just one of the books that looks at the nature of humanity and our cooperativeness.

The Céide Fields in North Mayo is one great example of people living harmoniously and cooperatively in our pre-history on this island, 5,000 years ago. But I was struck by a paragraph from Bill Bryson (he of “A short history of nearly everything” from 2003, with a new version coming out). Asked about the complexity of the human family tree he said: “The thing that fascinates me as a complete outsider is, how did these people all get around? I mean, how did they disperse and what happened when they came upon each other? There’s a tendency to think they would have been fighting, but actually there was a lot of interbreeding. I think it’s kind of heartwarming, the idea that these people were living side by side for long periods. Because we modern home sapiens don’t do that very well at all.”

That was from the ‘New Scientist’ of 27/12/25. And a final quote from Bryson which also says a lot in a few words is “I was terrible at science in school.” And look where he got. That reminds me of the old adage that “Behold the turtle – it only makes progress when it sticks its neck out.”

But to finish off on our ancestors, it has usually been thought that towns ‘proper’ only came to Ireland with the Vikings. Monastic settlements were thought to be the nearest thing. However archaeological excavations near Baltinglass in Co Wicklow may be revealing a much earlier town as revealed at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyw59v8978o with info from Antiquity archaeology journal. The excavation is of Brusselstown Ring (SW edge of Wicklow mountains). A bronze age ‘village’ had already been identified elsewhere in Ireland with 74 roundhouses but in Brusselstown Ring there is the possibility of 600 roundhouses and Dr Brandherm of QUB said “We’re talking a proto-town of sorts, and that’s 2000 years before the Vikings.” There may also have been a stone lined cistern for storing fresh water. There are always new and exciting things to learn about our ancestors and about human innovation. And that can make us wonder why modern humans have progressed so little on areas like conflict and common concern for each other.

–

Well, we are now fairly long embarked on the year 2026 but at the end of January I and you can see and feel the daylight getting longer which is a lovely feeling. Winters are getting shorter with global waming (sic) until, catastrophe of catastrophes, havoc is caused to our weather with the Gulf Stream/AMOC disappearing when We Have Problems, and we don’t need to journey to Newfoundland any more cos Newfoundland will have come here. In the meantime storms are getting stormier and rain rainier. Always look on the bright side of life….

But if you want a bit of a laugh before you go, try Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah as an Irish folk song…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQEzWCknLo There are different Cohen lyrics for the song and I leave you to debate whether it’s about religion, sex or both, but the ‘Irish’ version will do you good though you need to watch the visuals too…. There’s more of MurtR Guitar at https://www.youtube.com/@MurtRGuitar/videos though I think Hallelujah is the best of the bunch and heading for half a million views…

Until we meet again, Billy.

INNNATE annual report for 2025

Annual reports, Nonviolent News, ,

For all of humanity’s technological achievements there are many areas where progress has been slow to non-existent; these include learning to share the earth’s resources fairly, learning to deal with the real threats of global heating and war, and learning to deal with conflict in general. It is not that the knowledge in how to do these things does not exist, to a considerable extent it does, but the ‘knowledge of that knowledge’ is missing along with the energy and political will needed – apart from the selfish and vested interests which are happy with the Titanic-iceberg-bound status quo.This is where INNATE comes in or tries to come in through networking, information and training. Yes, INNATE is a small entity trying to relate to a wider constituency and what we can do is limited. But we are about creating awareness of nonviolent approaches which can have very real effects at all levels of life.

In relation to information produced, the usual 10 full issues of Nonviolent News were produced in 2025 along with 2 news supplements the months there was no full issue. And as usual there were web, email and (shorter) paper editions of this publication. We were pleased that in addition to the regular columns from Larry Speight and Billy King, Kate Laverty joined us as a columnist this year and we have other contributors – articles always welcome for consideration.

INNATE has two websites, the main website at www.innatenonviolence.org and the Flickr photo site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland There is much more material on the ‘main’ website than just Nonviolent News, e.g. 120+ downloadable posters for home printing. The photo site has the best part of 3,000 photos, a total which should be well surpassed in 2026, and these are included in 57 different albums, some subject oriented and others focused on a particular organisation; going to the appropriate album is the easiest way to find photos you might be looking for or want to see. Contributions of photos are welcome.

In 2025 we embarked on a training series on different aspects of conflict for the Migrant Centre NI Peacebuilders’ Project. This will continue in 2026 and includes understanding conflict and helping prevent it through good communication and decision making, as well as conciliation, negotiation and mediation. We are happy to explore training options with anyone and there is a ‘DIY’ workshops section on the main website for people to do their own exploration and training. INNATE can provide training or training support on a wide variety of areas including different aspects of conflict, nonviolence, campaigning, decision making, and monitoring (work in 2026 may include the last of these – we initiated monitoring of contentious situations in the North at the end of the 1980s).

There are many other aspects of work and interaction which are not covered here. While public events were lacking in 2025, the first part of 2026 will remedy that including a webinar on violence and nonviolence at the start of the Troubles in the North ‘with people who were there’.

INNATE moved physical address this year without any disruption but most information flows, in and out, are electronic. INNATE exists on a financial shoestring, is entirely voluntary, and depends on subscriptions and donations to continue. A financial statement is available on request. There is the opportunity for anyone anywhere to be involved with work supporting INNATE, and most meetings are held remotely; if you might be interested in looking at involvement, we would be delighted to talk.

Coordinator, INNATE, February 2026

News Supplement, January 2026

Nonviolent News, ,

Mitchell Institute events: Ethics of peace negotiations, Christian ethics and peacebuilding

Upcoming events at the George Mitchell Institute at Queen’s University Belfast can be found at https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/events/ These include a presentation by Kristoffer Lidén on ‘The ethics of peace negotiations’ at 5pm on 13th January, ‘The Cost of Flying the Flag’ in Northern Ireland, with Prof Declan French at lunchtime on 22nd January, a symposium on ‘Peace in/from the Margins’ on 23rd and 24th February, and a conference on ‘Christian Ethics and Peacebuilding in the Age of AI and Autonomous Weapons Systems’ on 3rd March.

Afri’s Féile Bríde, year in print and film

Afri’s annual Féile Bríde conference takes place in Kildare on Saturday 7th February from 10 am – 4 pm with the title Walking the Way of Brigid. Further details and speakers in due course on the Afri website at www.afri.ie The informative annual Peacemaker newsletter from Afri is at https://www.afri.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Peacemaker-Afri-Newsletter-2025-Small.pdf and a ten minute video of some of Afri’s 2025 is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc0O2-cVNOA The Doolough Famine Walk will be on Saturday 13th June this year.

More war machinery made in Belfast

Thales in Northern Ireland has a hand in a new radiowave machine for targeting drones. It is a type of Radiofrequency Directed Energy Weapon which uses high frequency radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside drones, causing them to crash or malfunction.  “Thales, which led the development of the RF DEW demonstrator, employ around 100 highly skilled engineering and manufacturing staff in Northern Ireland on the project ……” https://www.gov.uk/government/news/british-soldiers-take-down-drone-swarm-in-groundbreaking-use-of-radio-wave-weapon You can see just some of the past resistance to Thales in Belfast at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72177720297420924/

Development Education and Hope

The Centre for Global Education (CGE) and Comhlámh are organising a webinar titled “Development Education and Hope” which will share and debate the content of Issue 42 of Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review on the theme “Development Education and Hope”.  It will be held on Wednesday, 14 January 2025 from 12.00pm – 1.30pm (online).  Register at: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/development-education-and-hope-webinar-tickets-1974263128162?aff=oddtdtcreator CGE website is at https://www.centreforglobaleducation.com/ and Comhlámh is at https://comhlamh.org/

AVP: Another busy year

AVP, the Alternatives to Violence Project, has continued to grow and now includes 70 outside volunteers, 35 of whom are trained outside facilitators, alongside 50 inside facilitators, of whom many have only recently begun their facilitation journey. It delivered 43 workshops across 11 prisons in 2025, with a total of 451 participations by inside and outside participants. In addition there were numerous community gatherings in prison as well as online practice sessions. https://www.avpireland.ie/

Financial Justice Ireland

Financial Justice Ireland (FJI), formerly Debt and Development Coalition Ireland and formed in 1993, works for a financial system that serves the needs of all people, for global financial justice, rather than just some people, and which does not take the planet for granted. Further details at https://www.financialjustice.ie/ where there is a teachers’ portal with material for post-primary teachers. Their new strategic plan for 2025-2029 is also there.

Síolta Chroí upcoming events

These include a tree harvesting day on Sunday 20th January, a webinar on ‘Food, Farming and Medicine’ with Dr Rupa Marya from 7 – 8 pm on 22nd January, and a ‘GIY’ workshop on ‘Food gardening for beginners’ on Saturday 21st March. More information about Síolta Chroí and the above events at https://sioltachroi.ie/   Síolta Chroí is at Aghacloghan. Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.

Feasta: Economic literacy

Feasta and other Wellbeing Economy Alliance Ireland Hub members will be contributing to an Economic Literacy webinar organised by Cultivate: “Exploring Different Economic Approaches”, on Tuesday 27th January from 3.30 – 5pm Irish time, as part of a new ‘Reclaim the economy’ week. This webinar will explore ecological, circular, social solidarity, and wellbeing economy frameworks. https://www.feasta.org/

Arms resistance in Bogota

On 1st December 2025, antimilitarist organisations, activists, and artists carried out a Nonviolent Direct Action against the Expodefensa Arms Fair in Bogotá, Colombia. Despite its nonviolent nature, the nonviolent action was harassed and violently repressed by the Public Forces, leaving several people injured. See https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2025/colombia-nonviolent-direct-action-against-expodefensa-repressed-public-forces

Petty Belarus action against Our House activist

In a serious but small-minded action, the apartment of Our House leader Olga Karach in Vitebsk (Belarus) has been confiscated by the Belarusian authorities. Personal belongings were partly seized and listed for auction, while others were looted by representatives of the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The apartment itself is expected to be put up for a state auction. These new reprisals follow a long line of actions aimed at punishing Olga Karach and all human rights defenders of Our House for their persistent work to protect Belarusians. In July 2024, the Brest Regional Court sentenced Olga Karach in absentia to 12 years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of 600,000 Belarusian rubles (approximately 170,000 euros), one among many penalties. Our House website is at https://news.house/

Editorial: USA, rogue state extraordinaire

Editorials, Nonviolent News, , , , , , , ,

We have previously disputed and tried to debunk the common western idea that, prior to Donald Trump becoming president of the USA that there was such a thing as a just, liberal post-World War II ‘world order’. This was a US and western fiction. Biden and Obama used drone or other attacks to kill who they wanted. The USA – and others such as the UK – helped destabilise Asia, the Middle East, and Africa through their attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Going back a generation or two, the USA killed many millions in Vietnam and Cambodia for absolutely no logical purpose and with no positive result except its own perceived interests.

Any analysis of the history of the USA has to conclude that while its foundation was ‘anti-colonialist’, its establishment in pushing aside and often exterminating the first nations, and its actions against Mexico, when expanding its boundaries was undoubtedly imperialist. Now we are again told, by the US State Department, that “This is OUR hemisphere” after the attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro. This was not the way to bring human rights to Venezuela. And the USA is not ‘America’.

While the attack on Venezuela was limited, with perhaps forty people killed, the idea that one country can intervene where it likes in its own interests and force a country to act as dictated to is extremely dangerous – the idea that it was to control drugs supply if a fictional fig leaf and there were many other ways to do that. The question is of course – who will be next? If the cowardly western nations with their supposed high minded ideals fail to condemn Trump then the Donald will conclude that he can act with impunity, certainly in his ‘own’ hemisphere but elsewhere as well – Africa, the Middle East, who knows.

It is ironic, though partly based on his own musings, that Trump was seen initially as an ‘isolationist’ president. With failures at home on the cost of living, for example, he may have turned to foreign military ventures as a way to distract and show his power. The problem is not just what he has done and may do but what Putin and Xi may conclude from such events. If one military superpower, admittedly the pre-eminent one, can act like this, why should Russia and China restrain themselves from acting accordingly? The USA is not the only rogue superpower, it seems to go with the territory. The fact the world is looking at a possible military takeover of Greenland by the USA is evidence of current international lawlessness and dangers.

Imperialism always has its self justifications and often there is some truth in them. The British Raj brought a railway system to India, essential for movement of goods and people, but it did so to enable control and its economic gain. Maduro has been a brutal tyrant who needed replaced along with his regime – but do we really think the USA was acting out of the goodness of its heart to control drugs and liberate the people of Venezuela? The USA likes to think of itself as the world’s policeman but it is a world bully. And what the outcome will be in Venezuela is far from certain beyond suborning itself to the demands of the US president; will the people be any freer or less poor and the country more democratic? The answer to these questions is ‘currently unlikely’.

Ireland is heavily dependent economically on US multinationals and investment. That does not mean it should not take action – it means it is morally obliged to do so. The least it can do is express strong disagreement with the US action as well as ban the US military from the use of Shannon Airport (or anywhere else in the Republic) to avoid actively facilitating US military control and further rogue actions around the world. Moral cowardice is too weak a term to apply to Irish governments over the last few decades in regard to Shannon; it is reprehensible political failure of the worst kind to support such a violent, rogue state as the USA. Irish inaction on this is woefully shameful especially when most citizens want to see Ireland playing a positive, neutral role in world affairs rather than supporting militaristic ventures by a country which acts in such a destructive way.

However there is another way in which governments and often people in Ireland and Europe are avoiding what is really happening in the world and especially in Europe itself. The drift to armed conflict with Russia is like the drift into the First World War. There is a massive lack of understanding of conflict and how it develops – and a massive lack of understanding of how conflict can be de-escalated without perpetuating injustice or simply acquiescing to might-is-right approaches. Western Europe seems intent on continually adding fuel to the fire – and the Irish government is now a fellow traveller with that approach.

Of course there are dangers emanating from Russia but many of those dangers come from western European approaches and responses to that country and its brutal and autocratic leader – whose personal emergence came not only through the re-emergence of political patterns in Russia but also western approaches to that country at and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is cruelly ironic that with all our 21st century knowledge of science, technology, and some human sciences, we as a world know so little about creating a peaceful world through creative means of dealing with conflict. As with global heating, closing our eyes and hoping the issue will go away can be, literally, fatal. We have the ready means to destroy what civilisation we have and yet we seem content to tread the same weary path to self-destruction. Homo ‘sapiens’ may be a misnomer.

The greeting to wish people a ‘peaceful New Year’ seems both wildly appropriate and inappropriate when we find ourselves where are are now. We do have the means, through nonviolence and creative approaches to conflict and global heating, to deal with the big issues but what we need are the political will and direction to take the path to peace and not the path to oblivion. As peace, green and human rights activists we can do what we can but we need to have a larger, wider movement with national-cultural support and governments that look, listen and learn. l