Category Archives: Nonviolent News

Only issues of ‘Nonviolent News’ from 2021 onwards are accessible here. For older issues please click on the “Go to our pre-2021 Archive Website’ tag on the right of this page.

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight: Our degradation of nature is a national security issue

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News, , ,

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

It is said that a government’s overriding responsibility is to provide national security or as the UK Home Office says: “The first duty of government is to keep its citizens safe and the country secure.” The reasoning is that without a secure and well-ordered society there will be economic instability and the government will not have the means to deliver social services such as health care, education and sanitation. The truth of this is borne out by the civil war in Sudan and President Putin’s war against Ukraine. In Sudan public services have collapsed and in Ukraine the government struggles to provide its citizens with electricity during their harsh winter due to the targeting of power stations and the national grid by Putin’s war machine.

Because of the tremendous suffering that results from wars and internal violent conflict national security is justifiably a government priority. The default view across the main political parties and most governments is that this can be obtained and sustained through military might. This, the evidence suggests, is mistaken.

A primary reason why interpreting the need for national security in solely militaristic terms is flawed is because of its exclusivity in that it ignores the multiple needs that human wellbeing is based upon which leads to depravations often resulting in civil disorder which can escalate into prolonged armed conflict. There are many examples of this occurring around the world including in Northern Ireland.

One of the many problems with militarism is that it has an unquenchable thirst for money in order for a government to develop and stockpile the means of war. When a war begins the unquenchable thirst includes both human and nonhuman life.

Militarism nullifies the very purpose it is purported to serve which is the welfare of those in whose name wars are prepared for and fought. The case of nuclear warfare underlines the point.

The nuclear weapons of the nine countries that possess them are immensely more powerful than the 15-kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945. It killed an estimated 70,000 people instantly with many thousands dying over the following years. The bomb used on Nagasaki three days later killed an estimated 200,00 people. The UK’s submarine-launched warheads are six times more powerful than these bombs and the U.S. B-41 bomb is 1,500 times more powerful.

The impact of the use of these weapons is beyond horrifying in terms of the number of deaths, life-long injuries and loss of infrastructure, built heritage and cultural archives that would occur. In addition, it is estimated that disruption to the climate would lead to two billion people suffering from famine. A nuclear war would turn our Garden of Eden into a burnt, dusty, poisoned planet making life exceedingly difficult for future generations.

A high cost is born by militarism even if a shot is never fired. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute inform us that in a single year, 2024, $2,718 billion was spend on the military worldwide. In the course of a decade this is $20, 718, 000, 000. And guess what, no matter how much governments spend on the military they will always feel that it is not enough and demand ever higher sums from their citizens further depriving them of social services. By way of contrast most people and businesses don’t invest their money on unrealisable projects.

Another dimension to the idea that national security can only be obtained through the threat of mass violence is that it is wholly disconnected from what is the real threat to human wellbeing and survival, nationally and globally. This is the increasing inability of the biosphere to sustain the life-style enjoyed by people living in rich countries like our own since end of the Second World War.

This reading of the terrain is not only held by environmental organisations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace but also, as will surprise many, by the UK Government. The report ‘Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security assessment’ compiled by the Joint Intelligence Committee, on which the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHO sit, emphatically states that the declining health of the biosphere is a national security issue.

The report was held back from publication and only made public through a freedom of information request lodged by the Green Alliance. Number 3 of its 7 Key judgements reads.

“Critical ecosystems that support major global food production and impact global climate, water and weather cycles are the most important for UK national security. Severe degradation or collapse of these would highly likely result in water insecurity, severely reduced crop yields, a global reduction in arable land, fisheries collapse, changes to global weather patterns, release of trapped carbon exacerbating climate change, novel zoonotic diseases and loss of pharmaceutical resources. The Amazon rainforest, Congo rainforest, boreal forests, the Himalayas and South East Asia’s coral reefs and mangroves are particularly significant for the UK.”

This deduction applies to our own island as we like Britain share a similar climate and import most of our food, animal feed and fertilisers. In fact, the warming of the planet, loss of biodiversity, infectious diseases and multiple types of pollution affect everyone on the planet which makes a mockery of the idea that national security can be achieved through military might.

The best way to achieve national security is not by the main political parties, public commentators, think-tanks and so forth clamouring for an increase in military spending but by unrelentingly petitioning governments to address the root causes for the collapse of the eco-services we take for granted. Governments can work to restore ecosystems within their jurisdiction and through supporting international efforts help less wealthy countries heal their ecosystems. As the UK national security assessment says we are dependent on them. This is also the view of other governments.

Given this one wonders why governments misconstrue what it means to keep their citizens secure and safe.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Universal Basic Income and nonviolent redistribution

Nonviolent News, Readings, , ,

Nonviolence is often understood primarily as a refusal of physical force. Yet many of the most enduring forms of harm in contemporary societies are not enacted through overt violence, but through economic arrangements that quietly deprive people of security, dignity, and choice. From this perspective, poverty itself can be understood as a form of structural violence: a predictable outcome of systems that concentrate resources while leaving large sections of the population exposed to precarity. Universal Basic Income (UBI) enters this conversation not merely as an economic policy, but as a nonviolent intervention into the conditions that make violence—direct or indirect—more likely.

UBI proposes a simple principle: that every member of a society should receive a regular, unconditional income sufficient to meet basic needs. Unlike targeted welfare systems, it does not require proof of suffering, compliance with behavioural conditions, or participation in punitive assessment regimes. In nonviolent terms, this matters. Conditionality often functions as a form of coercion, forcing individuals to perform neediness or accept degrading scrutiny in exchange for survival. UBI removes this dynamic, replacing control with trust.

Nonviolent theory, from Gandhi to King to contemporary peace scholars, emphasises that peace is not sustained by restraint alone but by the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly argued that inequality corrodes social life, warning that “a society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him.” While UBI is universal rather than reparative, it reflects this insight: that redistribution is not charity, but a necessary correction to systemic imbalance. In this sense, UBI functions as nonviolent redistribution—addressing harm without creating enemies or relying on punitive mechanisms.

Economic insecurity is closely correlated with social conflict. Communities experiencing high levels of poverty are more vulnerable to crime, exploitation, and coercive power structures, including organised crime and paramilitary influence. When people lack basic stability, they are more easily drawn into economies of violence, whether through necessity or manipulation. UBI interrupts this cycle by expanding the realm of choice. It does not eliminate inequality, but it reduces desperation—one of violence’s most reliable allies.

From a care ethics perspective, UBI affirms interdependence rather than competition. Feminist scholars such as Joan Tronto have argued that societies routinely devalue care work—much of it unpaid, gendered, and invisible—while rewarding extractive or speculative labour. UBI recognises care, community participation, and relational labour as socially valuable, even when they do not conform to market logic. This recognition aligns with nonviolent ethics, which resist hierarchies that privilege productivity over humanity.

Critics often argue that UBI is naïve or economically unrealistic. Yet pilot programmes across diverse contexts have consistently shown reductions in stress, improvements in mental health, and increased civic participation. Importantly, recipients do not withdraw from society; they engage more fully with it. This challenges the violent myth that people must be coerced into contribution. Nonviolence begins with a different assumption: that people, when secure, are more likely to act responsibly toward others.

UBI also reshapes the relationship between citizen and state. Rather than positioning the state as a disciplinarian or gatekeeper, it reframes it as a guarantor of minimum dignity. This shift is subtle but profound. It moves governance away from fear-based compliance toward mutual obligation—a core principle in nonviolent political thought. As Gene Sharp observed, power ultimately depends on consent. Economic systems that humiliate or exclude erode that consent and invite instability.

In deeply divided or post-conflict societies, the case for UBI is especially compelling. Where identity-based politics often determine access to resources, universal provision can weaken zero-sum thinking. By decoupling survival from identity, UBI reduces the symbolic and material stakes of division. It does not resolve political conflict, but it lowers the temperature at which it occurs.

Universal Basic Income is not a panacea. It must be accompanied by strong public services, progressive taxation, and democratic accountability. But as a nonviolent intervention, it offers something rare in contemporary policy: a way to redistribute power and security without punishment, shame, or force. In a world where inequality increasingly fuels resentment and unrest, UBI represents a quiet but radical proposition—that peace might begin not with control, but with trust.

Readings in Nonviolence: The philosophic roots of nonviolence – An interview with Roberta Bacic

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Roberta Bacic is Chilean and came to Europe three decades ago to work for the War Resisters’ International. She is the curator of Conflict Textiles https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/ and a Visiting Professor at Ulster University.

– Rob Fairmichael spoke to Roberta Bacic and there is also a short input in the interview from Clem McCartney.

Rob Fairmichael: Roberta, I’m delighted to be talking to you here about secularism, and about secularism and nonviolence. So, I don’t know if you could start off with just a general kind of comment about where you come from in relation to secularism, the world, humanism, religion.

Roberta Bacic: Well, I’m not going to go that road, because I don’t have to put a label. You know, enough labels, enough ranks for everything, and I think I stand with the position based on observation of the world, of our capacities of thinking and feeling.

My position on pacifism and nonviolence comes from the empirical observation of the human condition and the natural order; by rational reasoning in which I act with feelings of affection and empathy. I have as much affection for a robin, or maybe more, than for a human being who’s throwing plastic around the world.

So my position in the world is a humble position in front of the huge power that is in nature and is in the world. So, that is my stand. It’s a philosophical stand. It’s not necessarily translated into an operative system. I’m not pretending to create and subvert the system. I’m intending to live a coherent life by which I can empathise with others, I can live in empathy, or not so much empathy, but we can coexist by basic principles of respecting also the environment.

Rob: How did this approach develop within your life? I mean, where did you start from, and how did that approach develop?

Roberta: Well, my parents survived the Second World War. One was in the concentration camp, and the other in prison because he didn’t want to kill. So, I have no empathy for the idea that it is either you have to forgive, or you have to reconcile, or you have to do this and that. The institutions that have been responsible and colluded with what happens are the same institutions that expect us to conform.

So, I have questioned from the age of 12, that was my first moment in which I decided I would not engage by being part of those institutions, I had to find another way to observe the world, in which I would not have to obey orders, and I would be in a position that I could be connected to everybody around, and not necessarily starting from the humans.

I had one of my first affectionate relationships with a snail that I had in the little tin on my windowsill, and I saw it grow and live and progress, so I don’t need so much the humans as a reference. I coexist with humans, and maybe that’s also why I have developed all this effort to create different languages, like textile language, to allow different ways of expression.

The system is very monolithic. I don’t want to hear anybody preach. Most people who preach at the end don’t behave the way they preach, or they think they can be forgiven or what they did can be forgotten because they had good intentions. I don’t have the ambition to convert anybody, I just want to be in harmony, and in that way it builds on those instincts in the natural order of cooperation, caring, consideration, and altruism.

I don’t want to be antagonistic, having to reject those whose instincts are control and dominance, and to use their tactics. No point. When there is no communication possible, I stay outside.

Rob: Would you define your approach as a secular one, or a philosophical one?

Roberta: Philosophical. It comes from philosophy, it comes from the rational. I don’t need anything superior. I don’t need to know from where I come or how the world was constructed. I don’t need answers. I can look at my cat and see that she has a wonderful life and enjoys the sun, doesn’t like the rain, and doesn’t need to know why she was born, and who gave her life, and when will she die, and she has no belongings. I look at the birds, they don’t need a passport, they can travel 2,000 kilometres without having eaten and having a ticket, you know? So that makes me be much more humble. I don’t need the big answers. I am very pleased to have a good life. I live simply, and that is what guides me.

I recognise the incredible complexity of the cosmos, from a philosophical point of view, and the earth within that of which we are a part. Wonder, awe, humility. We are only part of it. Where do we get all this idea that we are the centre, we humans are the centre? Why should we be the centre? We have no reason to be the centre.

Rob: Somebody who I believe was important in your thinking was Jorge Millas. Do you want to say something about his influence on your thinking?

Roberta: Yeah, I think he had a big influence on me, first of all, for his humility. He would get into the class to do his lesson, and would not throw it onto you. He would just share his distilled thinking of life, and would never speak against anything or anybody. But he would be very strict in that you had to reason, you had to be coherent, you have to live a life according to the world of natural order, not the world order created by mechanics or other things, you know? So, he was very important in the way that he gave us freedom, but a freedom that was freedom to push you to do better. You always can do better. He would have absolutely disliked the teaching of, “oh, how good you are doing” – this very pampering thing.

He wanted you to be consistent, and that your capacity of thinking was innate to your humanity, and you shouldn’t be applauded for that. You were doing what you had to do. It wasn’t something that you praise, and you give a grade, or whatever. So his attitude was very important to me. He was very important also in his physical element. He walked very gently, very, I would say almost slowly, but he had a halo. You would feel that there was an air around him of serenity that came from complete clarity of where he stood.

When he entered the class, we had people who came to listen to him, even if it wasn’t part of their course. They were times when you didn’t work only for the mark. He would just develop a concept. So this idea of following a thinking process, but also feeling the thinking, and that you don’t impose, and that you wonder how do you get to this realisation.

And to get to what one of his followers calls “the joy of thinking”. It’s a joy to think. It’s a joy to think that we have limitations, that we don’t have the answer. That we can progress and be and feel, having doubts. And the more doubts we have, the more tolerance we have to others.

So I think he was central. He was also very important insofar that he came with his books; he would read a word, a sentence, and would give you the space. He would also answer questions from the students in a very calm, measured way.

I remember once a very irritated Marxist student wanting to turn the philosophy class into a class of politics. He asked him what role did religion have in his thinking. Jorge Millas walked along the room, very calmly, he didn’t answer strongly. He didn’t get irritated, he didn’t dismiss him. He put his hands under the chin. I can vividly still see him today as he said “Thank you for your question. In this class, in this thinking, there is no space for God.”

So it was a key point in my definition of how far I would go in politics too, because though I have been all my life very aligned with Marxism, I never became a militant, because I’m not going to endorse the terrible things some people have done to other people in the name of socialism, or Marxism, or Communism.

Rob: Coming on more specifically to nonviolence and aspects of nonviolence and so on. Nonviolence is sometimes very identified with religious points of view, whether that might be Christian or Buddhist or something else. Do you think that can be problematic in terms of a wider approach or understanding of nonviolence, or is it a matter of letting a thousand flowers bloom? You know, wherever you come from, you can come to nonviolence……

Roberta: Absolutely, nonviolence has been taken over. But nonviolence is a way of living and behaving in the world in which you use your reason to what can be effective and what cannot be effective. I can well remember being part of the movement against torture in Chile, Sebastian Acevedo, being a leader, and the big discussion was, shall we accept the communists? He said, “welcome, welcome all the communists. That means they haven’t found answers. They might come seeking protection for themselves and come and help us to find answers and ways to respond to the dictatorship.” You embrace everybody. It’s a strategy to live and to act in front of what’s happening.

Rob: I suppose as a Christian, I see no contradiction between my religious beliefs and what I see as the effectiveness of nonviolence. So, for me, the two things would mesh together. I very much think that nonviolence can stand on its own two feet, that it, in a way, doesn’t need a religious backing, but if it does have a religious backing, whatever source it…

Roberta: We all have to have our own ways of survival and standing in the world. We step into nonviolence as a way to respond to the world with those principles, and we can live with other people. I think in nonviolence strategy, to be efficient, you have to be accepting the principle of nonviolence. That’s the only thing that you can expect in common. The rest can come from different parts of thinking, philosophies, religion, mystical or non-mystical.

You don’t have to agree in everything. You have to agree in a strategy, and if you’re going to be in the street and you’re going to be in an action. I was quite often in actions with people who were very political, and from different strands of life, but together we held hands and we stood together. It’s the image of the apilleristas* holding hands in front of the Congreso Nacional, they were not pretending that we were all equal. They dressed in different colours, not to look like the military in uniform. It was a strategy to be different, each different. But the thing was we were showing that we were living up to other principles.

The importance of that is also nonviolence in daily life. It’s about being able to say what you agree with and where you disagree, and not to find the middle way, because quite often there is no middle way. It’s to accept the other, living different, having different principles, and coexisting.

I don’t think that you always want to come to a middle way, you have to give up a bit, and the other has to give up. So why should they? You can coexist in different beliefs, in different religions, in different stance, in different work. That doesn’t matter.

Clem McCartney: Pacifism and nonviolence within religion, it’s a good question where that comes from because the early religious thinkers, tended to adopt a position of love and compassion and basically non-violence. But where did they take it from? They may have taken it from existing thinking along those lines in different ways. Buddha renounced his power, his influence, his status, and meditated and searched for the meaning of life. And he probably was drawing from all these other disciplines that he studied and learned about.

The Old Testament prophets were very far from nonviolent, and very far from being pacifists, and in a sense, Christianity was a rethinking, a New Testament, a rethinking of that particular religious strain. And it came at a time when the Jewish community was under pressure from the colonial power and powerless, so it incorporated a much more non-violent element into it. So it’s not a question of where it comes from; it comes from so many different places. It reflects, when Roberta says that you find the concept in your own study of nature or human behaviour, human attitudes, emotions, and so on. But you can find it in other places as well. I think there’s a problem of saying you’re a secular pacifist, because that means saying something you’re not, you’re not religious, rather than saying, I’m a pacifist.

Rob: One detail that I would like to look at briefly before we come towards an end, is it comes to mind about the life and writings of Gene Sharp, because one of the issues within the nonviolent movement was the moral or pragmatic approach, if you like, to nonviolence. And some people accused Gene Sharp of not adopting a sufficiently moral kind of approach to nonviolence, but simply emphasising the pragmatic.

Roberta: Well, I don’t know if it’s a debate. I think Gene Sharp has done great contributions, and he has been trying to also implement methodologies, but the methodologies come after, and procedures on how to live according to that; it comes after you have taken a position, and from where you stand. So I think his ideas and his position of trying to create a movement are very valid. How we do it is our responsibility, and if we can’t do it, we can’t make the other responsible. Because whenever he was writing, he was writing in a time in which it seemed, like, for us engaging with agendas, it seemed to be a change of the world order, and we were going to come to a more fair world. It didn’t happen. Gene Sharp wrote at the time that nonviolence was becoming quite strong, there had been all the movement of Gandhi and other movements in the United States. So, the writings also respond… I don’t know if you agree on that, but writings respond to the times you live.

If I would have decided to fight the dictatorship with a gun, I hadn’t achieved anything, but I have to concede that Pinochet had to go because of the nonviolent struggle, the public discourse, and also the ones who threatened the order with guns. So, it’s a combination of things; there is no one position that will sort it out.

And now, I have been taken quite aback with a book I am reading on the Magdalene girls, an extremely good book that also has textiles that speak to this horror, and looks from the point of view of archaeology and anthropology. You know, all that was happening in Dublin, and people were seeing the girls through the windows and did nothing. So that shows that we haven’t had the simple values of empathy and outrage, engaging and putting myself in the situation of the other. I think that it’s no time for preaching. It’s a time to be humble and to act.

Rob: And I think, just in regard to an ending point here, it is a difficult time to believe in nonviolence, because violence is everywhere, and, violent approaches within states, and between states, and, all sorts of things.

Roberta: It’s always a time to be nonviolent, because we see that violence brings more violence and more violence. So, it is impossible to think that if I would change my position, I would achieve anything more. What is clear is we have not been able to achieve more inclusive spaces in which people think more and choose better presidents or prime ministers or all of that, because in many countries they are not imposed on them. There are elections but it is not democracy, because people are not participating in making decisions. So we are in a moment of absolute crisis of a system that’s not working.

And we don’t have prominent leaders or states people who inspire us. To be able to move forward, we need to engage with lots of respect in the difference because the commonality is very easy. I find it always more interesting, a conversation with people who think different. One has to find a way in. Is it through affection? Is it through a hobby? Is it through a sport? Something that unites, some food that you like, whatever unites you, that allows you to discuss all these differences.

 

Because the reality is that we can live with different viewpoints. Certainly we can. My father and my mother were from different religions, suffered differently, but they had a life together. What united them was emigrating and being refugees, or asylum seekers in Chile. And that big bond of making a new life together was enough to overcome any differences. So, it wasn’t because they were against this or that, it was what they did together. And I think it’s this togetherness that is very important.

 

* https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/search-quilts2/fulltextiles1/?id=222 ‘Encadenamiento / Women Chained to Parliament Gates’, Anonymous. (© Conflict Textiles, Photo: Martin Melaugh)

Billy King: Rites Again, 337

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Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Welcome again and I hope it has stopped raining in your neck flood of the woods. What a month or two it has been for precipitation. It has been “Avec nous, le déluge” as opposed to France’s Louis XV and Charles de Gaulle’s “Après moi, le déluge” (“After me, the flood”). Right, that has got talking about the weather out of the way, so on with the rest of the show….

Renaming and shaming

The last issue of Nonviolent News was out of date almost as soon as it was issued and way before the paper edition reached people. There was a news item in the last issue about events at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast and it was ditching the Mitchell part of the name given links between Senator Mitchell and Jeffrey Epstein. In addition a bust of Mitchell was also removed from the front of QUB, the square in front of the old Lanyon building. QUB had gone big on the Mitchell link because of his important role in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998; he was chancellor of the university from 1999 for a decade and Queen’s celebrated their link through the bust and even involvement in a documentary film about him. They are not celebrating the link any more.

It is to Queen’s credit that they have now taken decisive action on this, perhaps helped by the fact the interim director of the former Mitchell Institute is a woman and a lawyer with impeccable human rights credentials, Prof Louise Mallinder. The statement from Queen’s said “While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, the university has concluded that, in light of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name.” This seems a fair judgement.

It is indeed progress that at least some men are suffering consequences for sexual abuse which destroys lives, sometimes literally as with Virginia Giuffre. If George Mitchell is guilty as charged then he should have the book thrown at him. If not guilty then he suffers from his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and perhaps unwise judgement on his part; but he also had continued contact with Epstein after he had said he had stopped such contact (like Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and others trying to distance themselves from the current international bête noire). Virginia Giuffre did withdraw an accusation against one man she had previously named and if you were on the receiving end of a conveyor belt of men willing to have sex with you, no questions asked, mistaken identity was possible. But it literally destroyed her life. How you deal with uncertainty of identification in such cases is a thorny issue.

However renaming and shaming is not only for sexual crimes. Trinity College Dublin renamed their Berkley Library because of philosopher George Berkley’s involvement in slave-owning and advocacy for slavery. There was a renaming process and the result was it became the Eavan Boland Library after the poet, the first woman to be so honoured in that university with a named building. Eavan Boland was a ground-breaking poet and had a close association with TCD, among other academic institutions; she died in 2020.

If someone is already dead or a monument or artefact is sufficiently old, there is the option of adding a modern inscription or addendum to what is there. This would not have been an option in relation to the George Mitchell bust at Queen’s since he is still alive and the issues concerned are not resolved. In some cases additional labelling may be the best option in that it acknowledges ‘history’ in relation to what was there and why it was put there but points out why they or some aspects might not be celebrated today with what we now know. This was what INNATE did on its photo site in relation to a former Irish ‘peace movement’ figure who, it transpired, violently ruined lives through paedophilia. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/46714717942/in/photolist-2eb298q

There are no easy answers but answers have to be made and judged. There were anti-slavers and anti-slavery ideology was around in George Berkeley’s time but the practice was legal internationally. Awareness of sexual abuse and rape was there as a crime in the past but there was not the same awareness of the way it could, and did, totally destroy lives.

And renaming may not work. Belfast’s City Airport became the “George Best Belfast City Airport” in 2006 in a rebranding rather than than shaming exercise but virtually no one calls it that and even the airport itself, while not dropping the moniker completely, doesn’t necessarily use the name. Tens of thousands turned out for George Best’s funeral in 2005 because, at a time Norn Iron was going down the tubes with the Troubles, his footballing skills had been the only local bright light on the international stage. But apart from making an already perfectly good name, Belfast City Airport, longer, perhaps naming an airport after a wife beater and painfully chronic alcoholic was not a wise move.

One conundrum I have though is why the man previously known as Prince Andrew chose the surname Mountbatten-Windsor when he was being de-princed even if it was a version of the underlying ‘family’ name. He could have become Andrew Smith if he wanted. OK, ‘Dickie’ Lord Mountbatten was King Charles’ much loved great-uncle but the issue is that there is credible evidence he was a relentless child sex abuser (word search if you want the gory details) including in relation to the notorious Kincora House in Belfast. And regarding Kincora there was probably involvement of different wings of British intelligence in using it to blackmail people rather than intervene and save children. That is altogether apart from Mountbatten’s tragically botched organising of the independence of India and its partitioning.

So choosing the name ‘Mountbatten’ as a change from ‘Prince Andrew’ seemed to be a jump from the sex abuse frying pan into a well stoked fire. Mind you, the financial and other indiscretions of the man previously known as ‘Prince’ look like they have been coming home to roost with his arrest in February, and his ex hasn’t done very well in that department either.

Putting the cartoon before the horse

I have been told, and passed on this information before, that cartoons stimulate the same parts of the brain as cocaine. I would think you might need to ask a specialist neurologist – one specialising in looking at cartoons and looking at people who look at cartoons? – for confirmation of this. However I will share with you that part of my daily routine is to look at a few cartoons at https://www.gocomics.com/comics/a-to-z nearly all of which emanate from the US of A which is where that website is based. I won’t share the few that I follow but it does give me a bit of a lift as I am getting into my daily routine. However if you overdose and/or become addicted and start looking at them all then you will never get to your daily routine at all so I restrict my viewing to three or four favourites. I don’t want you to become hooked.

Seriously…….

….pretty much all approaches to, and disciplines in, life can be the subject of humour. Of course caution is needed – and my sense of humour has at times got me into trouble (cringe) – and if you are dealing with fundamental subjects close to people’s heart, such as their religion or beliefs, then great sensitivity is required and awareness of what is culturally acceptable, what is borderline, and what is a definite no-no. I have dropped a piece I had written for this issue, based on a Times of India video, about major problems with the sewage system on board a US aircraft carrier which has been part of Donald Trump’s flotilla to intimidate and/or attack Iran – did he always intend to attack? In any case with current killings by said warship and flotilla on Iran, including the death of school children, the piece now felt cruel rather than amusing, a belittling of the suffering being inflicted, despite the fact it was about the perpetrators – so it was dropped.

There are debates and have been books about Jesus’ sense of humour, and a metaphor like the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle sounds on the humorous side to me. Humour often gets left out of official accounts of anything (the Christian bible could be considered such) because the writers want things to look ‘serious’. And yet ancient Irish monks working on important manuscripts made whimsical additions in the margins. If INNATE had the money and the time, which it doesn’t, I would like this publication or at least my column to be stuffed with cartoons.

And that gives me a chance to tell about the cartoon of the guru on the mountaintop. [Again? – Ed] The guru is sitting on the mountaintop, not looking too happy. A couple of acolytes are talking below. One says to the other “What is wrong with the guru?” and gets the response – “He has forgotten the secret of the universe again”….

When it comes to ‘disciplines’ in life, nonviolence and nonviolence training gets a going over at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/46378480811/in/album-72157678685228508 on the INNATE photo site – and you can click on the ‘Humour and satire’ album at that entry if you like for others in the peace field.

Dramas (more so) and comedies about lawyers are ten a euro/pound/dollar and some are excellent, some pretty poor, the usual gamut of quality. But I hadn’t seen a comedy take on mediation and mediators until I stumbled across an Australian Broadcasting Corporation/ABC series….about a lawyer. Helen is a likeable and well-meaning but somewhat hapless lawyer down on her luck when she joins a small law firm dealing mainly in wills and probate. The series is primarily about her and other aspects of her life, though mainly work. But she has a boss, Roz, who gets suspended as a lawyer, develops an interest in mediation and sets up a mediation business sharing the same office. Roz is not too great at the basics of mediation, leading to problems, but then, misinterpreting a conversation with Helen, develops a ‘beat them into submission’ approach to mediation. I don’t think saying that is too much of a spoiler in relation to the series.

The humour there is of course in the contrast between what mediation – medi-a-shun – is meant to be, a collaborative process, and what Roz develops, the exact antithesis. And in recent years a lot of lawyers have got into mediation as well so as not to miss that perceived gravy train. Anyway the series is called after the eponymous surname of the main character, ‘Fisk’ (eponymous is a word I like to show off with in writing though not speaking) and it’s on Netflix at the moment. There are 18 programmes in all over three short series of six episodes each, and Roz becomes a mediator in series 2, episode 2 although her interest is flagged up before that. In the programme, Roz is definitely a law unto herself.

Blinking blinkers

We all have things we see and things we don’t see or don’t want to see. I am personally very good, indeed excellent, at ignoring some things until I have to deal with them. The only thing I learnt in one workshop was the word ‘scotoma’ which, while it can mean a blind spot in your physical vision, was interpreted metaphorically as hidden things we don’t know or see about ourselves. Mind you I was at the concluding session of another workshop where people were asked their learnings from it; “Never to come on one of your workshops again!” was a contribution to this closing round – the programme had been totally inflexible despite repeated requests for change from participants.

But, widening the concept of blinkers, I wanted to talk about a couple of short promotional videos for the arms trade – no, I haven’t gone over to the other side. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1211542574295018 and https://defenceinvestment.campaign.gov.uk/northern-ireland/ Let’s take a look at what the videos include and don’t include. The first point is that both feature young women; this may be because they want to get more women involved in making armaments but presumably it is also to give the work a ‘soft’ look in a way while at the same time promoting it as a career choice. And of course they are talking about the benefit of job creation.

Another thing is that at no point do they talk about making armaments or weaponry components. It is about engineering, at the most ‘defence engineering’. There is no mention of making arms components or weapons that kill people. That would definitely be a no no. So the arms industry gets wrapped in cotton wool as simply an engineering opportunity and good for the community. In other words it is a lie by omission.

But the final point I wanted to make comes from the first video mentioned where the apprentice interviewee makes an absolutely amazing comment which portrays the blinkiest of blinkers, or is it a blindfold? In relation to having a high standard of work they say “You can’t just let one little thing slip by because that one little thing could cost someone their life.” The whole point of arms production work is to potentially deprive people of their life! But the only concern expressed is for those involved with producing and using the ‘product’, and there is no awareness of what it is being used for. It is sad, and sad propaganda.

–

Well, that’s my profundities [!!!!!!!!! Are you serious? – Ed] for another month, brighter days are coming meteorologically speaking and with a lot of work and hope perhaps eventually in the world too….

In closing, if you are wanting to hear both sides of the Triple Lock arguments, you can listen to a debate between Niamh Ní Bhríain (Transnational Institute, Neutrality Roadshow) and John O’Brennan, Jean Monnet (i.e. EU-funded) Chair of European Integration at Maynooth University. It’s on Newstalk with Ciara Doherty from early February, go to https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/newstalk-daily/the-triple-lock-what-happens-if-it-goes

That’s me for now, Billy.

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.