Category Archives: Readings

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Readings in Nonviolence: A rehearsal for reality – An interview with Karen McFarlane

Nonviolent News, Readings, ,

Art and peace series

Karen McFarlane has been involved in community relations and social theatre for years. She works with Partisan Productions, a professional Theatre and Film production company (core funded by CRC and ACNI) committed to creating socially engaged art working with communities on social and political issues.

Interview conducted by Stefania Gualberti

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Stefania – How did your background and experiences lead to your involvement in social theatre?

Karen – None of it was intended. Everything happened – for a reason – accidentally. I did my degree in English and film studies. My focus at school when younger was science based. My mum died when I was 16 which didn’t impact on me consciously for a long time, but later I realised that it completely changed my focus and direction more toward the arts.

I have been very lucky in my career. My first full time job after graduating was with the first branch of Waterstones in Belfast. Setting it up from a shell of a building to a fully functioning book store and I was put in charge of running the Children’s section which I really enjoyed as I had become a mum during my time at University. I progressed well for a number of years but became disillusioned as it moved from the love of books and recommendations to the realisation that money making was paramount to the organisation. It wasn’t my cup of tea. After a few changes in the book trade I then became redundant and unemployed for many months – it was a difficult time.

I eventually found an ad in the paper looking for unemployed women to take part in a film training programme – friends and family thought it sounded dodgy but I went for it anyway and it opened up a number of opportunities for me. It was a training course for film festival management, being run by Cinemagic under the auspices of The Nerve Centre. It was a year-long programme studying every aspect of managing and running a film festival. It was a really enjoyable art programme that tied into my degree in English and Film Studies. The festival exposed young people to foreign movies and offered opportunities to attend workshops with actors, directors, writers etc.

Most of the audience would have been children brought by schools or sometimes by parents, but they would have been mostly middle class pupils and families. I was more interested in trying to reach less privileged young people and eventually went from administrator in Cinemagic to Outreach coordinator, which was the start of what I am doing now in many ways. I was bringing projector, screen, films by taxis and buses out to different community centres, traveller camps, youth clubs etc showing films, talking about films and giving the young people access to films they wouldn’t see anywhere else. Most of the children I was interested to reach out to would have never been to the cinema to see any films.

When funding ran out for my post, I started to work in Ballynafeigh Community Development Association (BCDA) surprisingly as I hadn’t had a community development background. We were looking at Ballynafeigh as a shared neighbourhood working with other communities in Northern Ireland who identified as shared and what lessons we could all learn from each other particularly in a post conflict society. As part of that project, we employed Partisan Productions to do a piece of Forum Theatre and that was the start of my interest in social theatre. It was a very difficult project negotiating the conflicts between the needs of the community and the artistic aesthetic. One example of the issue tackled was of flags going up in a neighbourhood which was supposed to be shared.

Forum theatre terrified me at first. A short piece of theatre is constructed, in this case 45 minutes long, which brings up the issues that have been researched with people in advance (through interviews or workshops in the community). This production was called “Stevie’s Big Game” and focused on shared neighbourhood issues. In forum theatre after the piece has been played for the audience, it is played again and the audience is asked if they want to change anything, find solutions. You are completely reliant on audience participating and they can decide to shout some suggestions from their seats or get up on stage and replace the actor in acting solutions to the problem they are facing. Every night in the side wings we were worried that nobody would get up, but every night we were inundated really.

In every experience I always found that there is somebody willing to get up, to give it a go and try this format and it astounded me every time. In this format of forum theatre there is a figure called a joker which interfaces between the audience and the character on stage. They are the ones who will encourage the audience to participate, at least to start shouting suggestions about what they want to happen and then encourage people to get up on stage. Sometimes you would have people who are reluctant to get up on stage but never to shout out suggestions. We will never force anyone to get up on stage or do something they wouldn’t feel comfortable doing. Even if you end up in a discussion you are still looking at issues and finding solutions. After this experience I trained in Dundalk on Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed which forum theatre is an integral part of.

Stefania – What do you feel is special about art and especially theatre to transform conflict, connect and build peace?

Karen – Forum theatre is very powerful. At the time when I was first involved with social theatre, we were doing some work with young people. The relaxed atmosphere that they brought to the show was hilarious. They all brought lots of sweets, crisps, juice but they were really engaged. The issues they chose were very different from the ones the adults chose. Their sense of morality was very different. There was a scene where there was a potential affair happening between two people, flirting and the young people were outraged, they hated it: if you are married to one person you can’t be flirting with another. The issue never came up with the adults.

From the ridiculous to the more sublime; the flag issues. There was a scene where the main character is trying to sell his mothers house and he doesn’t have an issue with the flag per se as he is from the same background, but the flag going up is going to affect the price of the house. When the kids were asked what they would do in that situation one of them suggested the use of physical violence. When he was invited on stage to perform it, he knew he was going to look ridiculous if he tried to hurt the actor, so he engaged him in a conversation. He had to try and find different ways. Just this example for me showed how powerful this format is. The conversation didn’t go as he had thought it was going to go, he had to think what else can I do here? He realized he had different options.

Stefania – How can socially engaged theatre help tackle racism and sectarianism locally or build relationships?

Karen –The idea of tackling racism and sectarianism is very funding lead. There is a certain amount of dishonesty that comes with that. Because you can’t tackle sectarianism and racism doing just a workshop. You need continuous work and you need to be able to build relationships and chip away at some of these issues, then you have some hope. I don’t know if the young person I was talking about earlier had a positive impact from participating in our project, but I know his life turned around. I can’t tell you if it had an impact on him at all, but I would like to think that maybe it did.

I think we all need to think about the language we use when doing this work. For instance we have been working with a group called ‘Stop Attacks’. We are all familiar with the term ‘punishment beatings’, but this has all sorts of connotations, not least that the young people deserve the violence that is used to control and manipulate them. It is ultimately child abuse though and we are working with this group to bring awareness about the brutality and coerciveness of such practices.

Social theatre gives you a way of building relationships and looking at things from different perspectives. It offers you the opportunity to realise there are always different options and choices.

Five or six years ago, there was a theatre production we did in East Belfast, “East Belfast Boy”; a traditional piece of theatre based on community research and what young men were experiencing in the area. Young men on the 12th of July with their aspirations and/or lack of aspirations.

“East Belfast boy” was very successful, we had to turn people away every night. We don’t charge for tickets. Sometimes we work on donations but mostly is just free in. Board members didn’t even get in to see it, we really didn’t expect to have so many people. It was a massive success. It was only a couple of years later we were told a couple of the men working in the community centre had a bet that nobody was going to show up to this theatre production in their area. They were gobsmacked and admitted that they were wrong and pleasantly surprised.

Stefania – Why did you think it was so successful?

A lot of the issues you find in one community are relevant to many other communities and are also rarely explored within the local areas. We make a real effort to transform buildings – in this instance a somewhat dilapidated community centre – into what looks and feels like a real theatre which impacts on the local community and creates a word of mouth pull to our events. This was also part of the Eastside festival which helped.

A journalist (Robert) came along and wrote an article in the Irish News. His story says everything about what we are trying to do. He talked about coming into the venue to see the show and almost turning his car away as in the area there are murals, flags and is very well identified as a unionist, loyalist area which made him feel very uncomfortable. He made himself overcome the fear and went in anyway. The article said how fantastic the show was, but the most important thing was about his experience. After going in he met a person from the Arts Council, myself and the writer/director Fintan and some of the people from the community centre. As he walked out, he realized he had left the programme behind and he went back to get it and he describes it as “it felt like going home” because he had met such nice people and felt so welcomed there. His opinion of what he was about to experience had completely changed. To me that says everything about the power of art, and how transformative it can be.

Stefania – How do you overcome the barriers in groups especially people who would not consider themselves as actors or theatre experts?

Karen –There are a lot of barriers when it comes to theatre as it is surrounded by snobbery. There are rigid rules in theatre but in our projects, we try to make it accessible. I am not suggesting that our projects would make people go to the theatre more, but we bring the theatre to them.

We always present the productions in the community, but we try to transform the space into a theatre space. We worked in West Belfast- Poleglass- on a show about suicide, there was an epidemic in the area at the time amongst young men in particular. “I Never See the Prettiest Thing” was staged at the Brook recreation centre, a massive sport centre in the middle of the community, and we completely transformed the space. We brought in a full light kit, projectors for digital imaging, full set and staging and made it as professional as we possibly could. Another journalist interviewed us and said I didn’t even know this theatre existed. She thought she was in a real theatre. We like to transform spaces. 99% of our audience would have never been to a show so it is important for our audience to see something in their area which has changed the community into something different.

Stefania – How do you think the creative process can help healing trauma at both individual and collective levels?

Karen – I have real difficulty with this question because I’m not sure that it can. There are obviously art therapists who do fantastic work. And art can be very therapeutic and can be used to help people overcome trauma. We would never claim that we do that. There are some processes that claim to be healing trauma and I feel very uncomfortable with that, as I think they can potentially re-traumatise people. In our workshops we are always careful that people are not playing themselves and if someone wants to bring their story, we are careful that somebody else would play the character to create that distance. To understand you have different choices in life, you need some sort of distance. If you are emotionally involved, it is very difficult to come up with options. I know some people use art and theatre as a form of therapy, but it is not our approach.

The intention is not healing trauma but I am aware in the piece we did about suicide the audience were very affected but in a positive way. We had comment cards and everyone came back with positive feedback about the show and on how people related to experiences of suicide somewhere in their lives, family or friends. One of the youth groups that came along to the production said that even if a lot of young people had experiences of suicide, they were never able to talk about it before the show but did talk openly after. Social theatre has the power to make people more aware and create opportunity for discussion. If it makes a difference to some of the participants and audiences that’s good enough for me.

Stefania – Is there a particular project or engagement that you want to talk about in relation to this conversation on art and peacebuilding?

Karen – I have named quite a few. One takes us to a different level. Before the pandemic we worked with young men and what makes some of them join paramilitary organisations and we had really started getting into the depth of some of the issues. We had a show called “Time of my life”. The Department of Justice became really interested in this piece of theatre as some of them came to see it in the community organisations. They and PSNI funded us to tour it. In 2019 we went to Newtownabbey, Dundonald, Carrickfergus, and other community organisations. The plan was to take it into the North-West, Derry was interested but because of the pandemic we had to cancel it.

It looked at how little some of these lads have a lack of hopes, lack of aspirations, education system letting them down, community organisations letting them down. Debt and drugs being massive issues that lead them into getting involved with paramilitaries. We also collaborated with the youth detention centre.

We looked at all of these issues during the discussions after the performance and it was very interesting to look at the different perspectives the various audiences had. When we invited statutory bodies to participate, their input was very different from the young people in the community centres. It indicated the massive gap between the perspectives of what happens on the ground and the perception of statutory bodies. They are trying to influence the issues which are very far from their reality. The people from the local community could watch, laugh, empathise. The statutory body would sympathise but felt they couldn’t laugh. The suggestions on what can be done were more effective from the community, while the statutory bodies were confined to policy issues. The relationship is top-down. It’s a pity the programme was interrupted but fingers crossed we will be able to continue because it had a real potential to impact on both the community level and on policy.

Stefania – Could you share some of the learnings you have encountered in your years of experience?

Karen – One of the learnings is about how a lot of the problems we are trying to deal with are systemic. How can we influence policy? That’s tricky, it is not easy to do, and you need to know how the system works to have an impact on it. That is probably a challenge and a learning for the future.

In Forum theatre we talk a lot about power. Who has power? When we are doing our workshops, we deal with power at a very basic interpersonal level, it is not legislative theatre which tries to impact on policy.

To go back to the language used -often the discourse goes towards “we are all be the same, we are all human”. That really annoys me. We are not all the same, and we shouldn’t. We should celebrate the differences. I was asked to do some workshops in a diverse parent group. They all lived in the same area and their kids go to the same school. The kids play with each other and have no issues with diversity, the parents didn’t know how to talk with each other. Do I say hello to the woman with the scarf? With the fear to offend, we do not communicate.

I think we need some more honesty with this kind of work as none of these issues are going away any time soon.

One learning that I think we all forget too often is how important it is to have fun with what we are doing. Working with Women’s Groups taught me this more than anything. The groups tend to come into the room talking about their worries – caring for children, grandchildren, lack of money, health issues etc. And for the short time they are concentrating on the games and exercises in a workshop they forget about all of that and have fun. As adults we forget how much we learn from enjoying ourselves.

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Readings in Nonviolence:

Nonviolent News, Readings

The excuse of job creation in military investments: the case of Spain

Introduction

This piece is being used here for several reasons. As the Irish state strongly backs military production in Ireland (Northern Ireland is even better linked to the military-industrial complex) a counterweight to their spurious arguments is needed. And one of the most important points – for those thinking in terms of jobs – is that investment in military production is a poor, indeed pathetic, job creator; just look at the figures quoted below. This should be noted aside from questions of morality and selling weapons to countries which cannot afford them and may use them for nefarious purposes. And the arms industry is notoriously corrupt; bribing politicians to buy particular armaments is not only corrupt but deeply, deeply reprehensible at every level.

We thought it would also be interesting to take this Spanish example, a country about whose army and arms industry most people in Ireland – and elsewhere – probably know little. But it portrays and analyses a typical example of many believing the hype which is touted about the military and arms production.

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From Pressenza International Press Agency https://www.pressenza.com/2021/11/the-excuse-of-job-creation-in-military-investments/ accessed via Transcend Media Service

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When the General State Budget is presented, the Minister of Defence of the day insists that the multimillion-dollar expenditure dedicated to the purchase of armaments generates employment. But, as the authors point out, a comparison of the jobs created in the military and in other areas allows us to question the dominant narrative.

Military investments are usually justified by the jobs they create. The latest example is the army’s logistics base. Several municipalities competed to host the installation and, in the end, the Ministry of Defence decided to install it in Cordoba, as it was the option that offered the most advantages. The choice of this city as the site of the base has had the support of all the city’s political, economic and university sectors. Even the political left has joined the municipal initiative with little debate. The initiative has not been questioned, at least not publicly.

The base is part of the plan for the Concentration of the Army’s Central Logistical Organs, which aims to concentrate the current twelve army logistical centres into three. It is estimated that the future Cordoba base will require an investment of 350 million euros. The Cordoba City Council approved an allocation of 28 million euros (with the corresponding modification of the municipal budget). The Andalusian regional government has pledged to contribute 100 million euros to the project. All this with the aim, they say, of “creating employment”.

It is very significant that, in the Moncloa press release announcing the construction of the base, a very visible box highlights that the base “will contribute to the creation of more than 1,600 jobs”.

When the General State Budget is presented, the Defence Minister of the day, whether from the PP or the PSOE, insists that the multi-million-dollar expenditure dedicated to the purchase of armaments generates employment. Job creation is also used to justify arms exports, even the most controversial ones. The military industry, and those who promote it, insist that their activity generates employment. All of this, surely, to counteract, silence or attenuate the majority rejection of arms manufacturing among the civilian population. Unfortunately, as a rule, they succeed.

Any industrial investment generates employment. But in many cases, this is not enough to justify certain activities, such as those that have undesirable impacts on people or the environment. Fortunately, on some occasions, projects have been stopped for precisely these reasons thanks to the denunciation and pressure of organised civil society.

A given investment in the health sector generates 2.8 times more jobs (almost three times more!) than the same amount invested in the military sector.

Every economic actor, including the military, should be accountable to society for its activities. And while it is true that military investments generate employment, the harmful effects on people and the environment should be included in their assessment. We cannot forget the direct effects of the use of weapons (people killed, wounded, disabled, with physical and psychological consequences, etc., as well as serious damage to the environment). In addition, however, the promotion of the military industry increases the militarisation of society, so that armed and violent conflict resolution is encouraged instead of mediation and peaceful conflict resolution. And how does the military industry evaluate these pernicious effects – should it only take into account the jobs created? But even the military industry’s much-vaunted job creation is questionable; let’s look at it.

In a study by Heidi Garrett-Peltier, published by the Watson Institute at Brown University, employment multipliers are calculated for a million-dollar investment in different sectors, including the military sector. The results are compelling.

According to the study, for every million dollars of investment in the military sector, 5.8 jobs would be generated in the military industry and another 1.1 indirect jobs, most of which would be jobs associated with the supply chain. That is a total of 6.9 jobs per million of investment.

In contrast, if the same investment were made in the renewable energy sector, a total of 8.4 jobs would be created in the case of wind energy and 9.5 in the case of solar energy. Retrofitting to improve energy efficiency would provide 10.6 jobs for every $1 million of investment.

Infrastructure investment (construction of streets, roads, bridges, schools, public buildings, etc.) would create 9.8 jobs per $1 million.

Job creation in the education and health sectors is even higher. Thus, for each million dollars of investment, 14.3 jobs would be generated if the investment were directed towards health and 19.2 if the investment were made in primary and secondary education.

In other words, according to the study, a given investment in the health sector generates 2.8 times as many jobs (almost three times as many!) as the same amount invested in the military sector.

Thus, according to this report, if the objective of an investment is job creation, investments in the military sector are the worst option. It is surprising that this fact is not taken into account in the discussion of military investments.

In Spain, the arms industry plays an important role. In recent decades, Spain has been one of the world’s largest arms exporters. According to Sipri data, Spain was the seventh largest arms exporter in the period 2016-2020. But its export activity in other sectors is not so relevant; according to World Bank data, Spain is the 16th largest exporter in the world.

Why does the Spanish state occupy such a prominent role in arms exports while it lags behind in exports as a whole? The answer lies in the notorious support given to arms exports by the different governments, whether of the PP or the PSOE. This support has even included the direct intervention of the Royal Household. The arms industry is therefore a matter of state. Surely, being among the main arms exporters is of geostrategic value for Spain and gives it international prestige among its allies. It is not, therefore, only a question of job creation.

Let us remember that some of these exports, such as those to Saudi Arabia, are particularly controversial and have been denounced by several organisations, which believe that they should be considered illegal under Spanish and European legislation on arms exports. And we cannot forget the corruption related to the arms trade; we cite as an example the case of the Defex company (51% state-controlled through SEPI) selling arms to Saudi Arabia.

Public investments should pursue the public good and the improvement of people’s lives and the preservation (and repair) of the environment. Investing in sectors such as education, health, renewable energy and infrastructure would satisfy the needs and demands of the population and generate many more jobs than the same investment in the military industry. Moreover, military investments cause an opportunity cost, i.e. they reduce the benefits that would be obtained if the investment were directed to other sectors that would create more jobs.

Moreover, do we really need so many weapons? The recent pandemic has highlighted the weakness of the health, care and education sectors in Spain. Would it not be more beneficial for the population to invest in these sectors rather than in the military sector? Given the current situation, immersed in a social and environmental crisis, would it not be more appropriate to invest in housing rehabilitation, the installation of renewable energies, the hiring of more teachers and health personnel? In this way, in addition to generating more jobs, it would improve people’s quality of life.

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Readings in Nonviolence

Nonviolent News, Readings, ,

Looking back to look forward

Introduction

As campaigning on the ecological crisis continues apace at the time of COP26, we thought it relevant to share a section from the WRI/War Resisters’ International Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns, specifically a section on studying particular campaigns in order to learn from them – and, as stated below, it can also be used in advance to mark issues which need considered in organising a campaign.

Some campaigns are, of course, small and limited rather than societal, national or international in scale. The extent to which some of the questions below are relevant will vary but that is fine. We can see what is relevant and reflect on those. And if we don’t ask the right questions we certainly can’t arrive at the ‘right’, or most appropriate, answers.

INNATE is also currently doing some work on Irish peace movement history, admittedly – given its resources – in a very limited way, and the questions here can be relevant for any political campaign.

This Handbook contains enough wisdom and practical advice to last us, and challenge us, for a very long time. It is available on the WRI website at https://www.nonviolence.wri-irg.org/en/resources/2008/nonviolence-handbook and paper copies can also be ordered.

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Campaign case study guide

It is important to document campaigns so people can learn from them. Just as we have learned from the nonviolent campaigns of people throughout time and around the world, documenting our own struggles and stories may help people in other times and places. This guide, created for WRI’s Nonviolent Social Empowerment case studies, can be used by an individual or group to determine the information needed to construct a case study of a campaign. This guide can also be used to remind us of what we need to consider in organising a campaign.

Overview

  • Nature of the campaign – what was/is the issue? when did it start/finish?

  • Geographical and (brief) historical context

  • Participants – who (analysis of class, race/ethnic, gender, religious group, age, sexuality, ability, other) – did this change at different phases of the movement?

Chronology

  • Starting point

  • Were there (have there been) distinct phases?

  • Were there particular moments of expansion?

  • What were the peaks?

  • What were other key events?

Nonviolence

  • Was there a public profile of wanting to avoid violence?

  • Was there a declared public policy of nonviolence?

  • If so, what was meant by nonviolence?

  • Was there consensus around this? What kind of differences around this?

  • What measures were taken to implement a policy of nonviolence?

  • Was there nonviolence training? Were there nonviolence guidelines?

  • Was the campaign seen as shifting the values of society more towards nonviolence?

  • Were there particular sources of inspiration for types of action or ways of organising?

Means

  • What use was made of official channels, lobbying, electoral processes, constitutional mechanisms, and with what impact?

  • How was the mainstream media used?

  • What role or influence did they have?

  • How did they try to develop or use their own public media or alternative media? With what impact?

  • Did the campaign try to establish alternatives? Were they meant to be temporary or permanent? What happened?

  • What kind of means did they use to build a movement culture or sense of connectedness? To what effect?

  • Did they use withdrawal of cooperation as a tactic? At what stage? With what effect?

  • Did they try to directly disrupt of obstruct an activity they were campaigning against? At what stage? With what focus? With what participation? With what effect?

  • How did they use conventional means of protest? How did they combine them with other methods?

Organisation

  • Did the campaign agree on a formal structure?

  • What informal structures played an important role?

  • Was the campaign concerned to have a participatory structure of organisation and decision-making? If so, how were people trained in the process?

  • How did the campaign link with other groups/movements?

  • What importance did you give to coalition-building? With what criteria for alliances?

  • How did the campaign address the needs of activists to learn, to grow, to rest, to sustain their commitment?

  • How did the campaign address the possible contradiction between the needs of security and the desire for participation?

  • What kind of repression did the movement expect to face? What provision did they make to support the people most affected?

  • Did the campaign have a clear time frame and concept of strategic development?

  • How did the campaign develop its resources (human, social, economic)?

Goals and outcomes

  • What were the initial goals?

  • How have the goals evolved? Why?

  • Was it an aim to empower participants? In what way?

  • How were the goals framed – e.g. with what type of slogan?

  • Was there the flexibility to revise goals, e.g. to respond to particular events, or to build on success?

  • How did they expect the institution holding power of those who ‘benefit’ from being dominant to change? (e.g. to be converted, to accommodate some of your demands, to be coerced into accepting the demands, or to disintegrate/dissolve)

  • To what extent did they achieve their goals? – short, medium, long term

  • With what side effects? – positive and negative

  • Did their adversary make any mistakes that significantly helped their cause?

Empowerment

All the questions have some kind of link with empowerment. This concluding section returns to some themes but with more focus. Answers need to encompass the dimensions of power within, power- with and power-in-relation to.

  • Who was empowered? to be or do what? (to join in, to share responsibility, to take

initiative, to maintain their activism)

  • What contributed to this sense of empowerment? (e.g. training, group confidence,

achieving strategic goals)

  • How did the experience of different phases of a movement affected the sense of

empowerment?

  • What about people involved who did not feel empowered?

  • How were strategies of empowerment discussed / constructed? personal, group,

social?

  • Was any participant/group disempowered – how? How did this effect the campaign?

  • Nature of the campaign – what was/is the issue? when did it start/finish?

  • Geographical and (brief) historical context

  • Participants – who (analysis of class, race/ethnic, gender, religious group, age, sexuality, ability, other) – did this change at different phases of the movement?

Readings in Nonviolence: In the new cold war, we have no future

Nonviolent News, Readings, , ,

by Yurii Sheliazhenko

Introduction

Truth may or may not be the first casualty in war but in an atmosphere of perpetual war and rumours of war then truth is extremely vulnerable, and everyone risks being deceived. Perceptions of truth can also be a bit like ‘our’ speaking accent; ‘we’ tend to think we don’t speak with an accent, it is people different from us that have an accent. In the same way, we can be so immune and inured to our own society and its propaganda, so familiar with its ways, that we feel we are presented with the truth, even if nothing can be further from the truth.

Western relations with Russia have been a developing nadir of the post-Cold war period. ‘The west’, particularly by taking NATO to the edge of Russia, has contributed considerably to poor relations between countries and to the development of authoritarianism and xenophobia in Putin’s Russia. Please note that we would be highly critical of Russian repression of civil society internally, and of Russian military actions in the region, e.g. the Crimea (annexation) and eastern Ukraine (disguised attempts at annexation), as well as in Syria.

So it is always a breath of fresh air when we are given an account of situations as they are, free from the blinkered, tinted spectacles of one side or another. This is the case with this report from Ukraine by Yurii Sheliazhenko. Thank you to VredesMagazine and War Resisters’ International/WRI for this piece.

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* A manuscript published in Dutch translation under a title "A pacifist voice from Ukraine: in the hybrid clamp between NATO and Russia" in VredesMagazine, vol. 14 iss. 4, 2021. Vredesmagazine is a joint publication of half a dozen different peace-oriented organisations in the Netherlands. 

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As Ukraine became a battlefield of the new cold war between United States and Russia, our peaceful life was torn apart by militant domestic nationalism and both competing aggressive imperialisms. We should get out from a dead corner of permanent war, economic and democratic decline, but it is not easy to pursue hopeful future.

STUCK IN THE PAST

Many of our troubles are caused by a fact that whole world stuck in the past. This hot summer revealed it vividly.
Summit of NATO, this relict of cold war epoch, positioning itself as the strongest democratic alliance in history and a leading contributor to international security, endorsed new nuclear arms race against Russia and proclaimed opposition to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which was supported by the majority of United Nations.
Zbigniew Rau, Gabrielius Landsbergis, and Dmytro Kuleba, foreign ministers of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, signed a declaration claiming common historical heritage of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It mentions “European identity of Belarusians, Lithuanians, Poles, and Ukrainians” suggesting they fought in the past and should fight again “despotic Russia,” and Ukraine should join NATO.

Then President of Russia Vladimir Putin wrote a long doctrinal article about “historical unity” of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians as descendants of Ancient Rus, which should stay together against supposedly hostile United States and European Union. He emphasized that those who turn Ukraine in the enemy of Russia “will destroy their own country,” threatening: “we will never allow our historical territories and people close to us living there to be used against Russia.”

Dark histories invoked by politicians weaponize dangerous half-truths. Building the myth of “us” against “them,” high-ranked storytellers try to erase from popular memory biological unity of all humans, intercultural capacities to find common ground, and long historical periods of relative peace when feelings of universal brotherhood and sisterhood were widespread.

ENDLESS HYBRID WAR

Strong rhetoric rooted in violent history always ends badly. When NATO launched missile defense system in Europe and welcomed planted “aspirations” of Ukraine and Georgia to became NATO members in 2008, Russia claimed post-Soviet sphere of influence by military force in South Ossetia and political mobilization of Russian diaspora around former USSR.

People of Ukraine were cornered by these great power tensions and forced to decide what side should we take. Ironically, instead of the dead corner metaphor we prefer to be optimists and call it opportunity for democratic choice, made by public gathering at square (“maidan” in Ukrainian), in particular Independence Square in Kyiv.

In 2013-2014 admirers of Nazi era ideologist of Ukrainian ultranationalism Stepan Bandera in Western-funded right-wing Ukrainian civil society networks, so-called Maidan movement, started series of massive protests and riots against former pro-Russian president Yanukovych, broke EU/Russia mediated agreement about peaceful transfer of power to pro-Western opposition, and pressured for prohibition of Russian language usage in local self-government bodies.

Simultaneously, admirers of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Russia-backed right-wing civil society networks, so-called anti-Maidan movement, rioted against strengthening pro-Western ultranationalist political elite, supported Russian military takeover in Crimea and hybrid warfare in Eastern Ukraine.

Seven-years’ war in Donbas between Ukrainian and pro-Russian combatants killed and wounded tens thousands of civilians and deprived of home more than two million. Both sides, according to OSCE reports, almost every day violate ceasefire established by Minsk agreements, and Ukraine refuse to negotiate peace with separatists, as Russia demands, claiming they are agents of Russian occupation.

Geopolitical ambitions prevail over concerns about life of people. Consequences are tragic, as in situation when separatists fighting Ukrainian military aircraft with Russian Buk missile system shot down civilian airliner MH17, killed 283 passengers and 15 crew members.

In Crimea seized by Russia people suffer irrespectively of their (non-)allegiance to Ukraine, either from political repressions by de-facto authorities or from international and Ukrainian economic sanctions, including water blockade.

Great powers play with fire, organizing frightening military operations in and around Ukraine. NATO and Russia send troops to secure their interests on the ground, simulate naval war with each other during dangerous drills in Black Sea. In arms race with Russian nuclear-capable navy in Crimea, NATO plans to build two naval military bases in Ukraine.

Each side in the hybrid war tells compelling but yet a half-truth, or, to say sincerely, a false story, why it is “just war” of self-defense. These stories are good illustration of 1921 Bilthoven statement of principles adopted by war resisters: we should not support any kind of war, “aggressive or defensive, remembering that modern wars are invariably alleged by Governments to be defensive.”

MILITARIZATION AND DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY

Hybrid war corrupts and blows up all usually peaceful spheres of life. Ruthless populist networks, far-right sentiments, and propaganda of hatred provoke more and more bloodshed. Neo-Nazis fought on both sides of Donbas war, Russian National Unity and Varyag Battalion for separatists, Right Sector’s Ukrainian Volunteer Corps and Azov Battalion for government. Returning home, they teach kids to hate and fight in militarized summer “patriotic education” camps.

News is not news anymore, media aren’t media; they are Russian or Western propaganda subject to information war and censorship. The same problem with education and science, battle of historical half-truths is good example. Law is turned to lawfare: instead of human rights, we protect politically expedient rights of “our people” and punish “enemies” as severely as “we” can.

Ukrainian civil society was polarized and weaponized by the notions of exclusive identity, awaken by the new cold war. Ukrainian nationalists refuse to tolerate any tradeoffs to Russia, gather rioting crowds against implementation of Minsk agreements, violently silence opponents. There are also right-wing proponents of Russia and Soviet past; formally, they call for peace, but in fact it is call to take side of Russia in the new cold war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, elected after promising peace, stated that peace should be “on our terms” and shut up pro-Russian media in Ukraine, like his predecessor Poroshenko blocked Russian social networks and pushed official language law forcibly excluding Russian from public sphere.

Zelensky’s party Servant of the People committed to increase military spending to 5% of GDP; it was 1,5% in 2013, now it is more than 3%. With majority in parliament, presidential political machine concentrates political power in Zelensky team’s hands and multiplies militarist laws, such as draconian punishments for evaders from conscription and creation of new “national resistance” forces, increasing personnel of armed forces in Ukraine by 11 000, creating military units in local governments for mandatory military training of millions of people aimed to mobilize whole population in the case of war with Russia.

According to the 2019-2020 EBCO annual reports “Conscientious Objection in Europe,” those who refuse to kill have a little chance to legal recognition and protection of their beliefs during conscription in Ukraine and Russia, not to say in separatist “people’s republics.” Alternative non-military service arrangements are hardly accessible, discriminatory and punitive in nature.

HOPE FOR PEACE AGAINST ALL ODDS

Public opinion polls paradoxically show that majority of people demand peace, but trust Armed Forces of Ukraine more than any of political institutions. Faith in “peace through victory” is result of political illiteracy and lack of peace culture.

Peacebuilding projects funded by international organizations heal some wounds of war, but strategically are focused on social cohesion around militant national identity. Many of them avoid to use the word “peace” itself because of patriotic reasons: right-wing propaganda equates it with “Russian world.”

There is no strong public voice of common sense in Ukraine denouncing in principle and impartially toxic militarist policies and identities, like Stalinist and Banderite, or generally denouncing all war and preparations for war. Main churches, while sometimes praying for peace, made clear unequivocally what side they took in the geopolitical battle.

Consistent pacifists, religious or secular, in our society are tiny minority treated like dreamers, in the best case, but usually as heretics and traitors.

Pacifist Ruslan Kotsaba who denounced mobilization to Donbas war in 2015 YouTube video was jailed for treason, acquitted and released, put on trial again with mobs of haters surrounding the court during every hearing. Recently neo-Nazi assaulted him on railway station, he lost sight on one eye because of splashed brilliant green. Police failed to arrest perpetrators.

Netflix sci-fi war film “Outside the Wire” prognoses endless violence will turn Ukraine into wasteland during coming decades. The only way to prevent such grim future is to learn how to achieve peace by peaceful means, but very few people believe in such perspective and work on it.

Despite challenging environment, we try to build peace in minds and in real life of people on the basis of consistent pacifism, according to War Resisters’ International declaration, using our limited opportunities and resources. It seems that whole worldwide anti-war movement do the same. For progress in this cause, we need to develop and enact universal peace plan more effective and realistic than strategies of the new cold war.

–

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Yurii Sheliazhenko is executive secretary of Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, member of the Board of European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, member of the Board of World Beyond War. He obtained Master of Mediation and Conflict Management degree in 2021 and Master of Laws degree in 2016 at KROK University, and Bachelor of Mathematics degree in 2004 at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Apart from participation in the peace movement, he is journalist, blogger, human rights defender and legal scholar, author of tens of academic publications and lecturer on legal theory and history.

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Readings in Nonviolence: Truth, Accuracy in Media

Nonviolent News, Readings,

‘Readings in Nonviolence’ features extracts from our favourite books, pamphlets, articles or other material on nonviolence and related areas, or reviews of important works in the field (suggestions and contributions welcome)What and where is truth in the media? In relation to Afghanistan, or indeed anywhere else, we have to sift through a morass of self-interested opinions and ‘facts’ which may be anything but the unvarnished truth, insofar as that can be accessed. What follows is a slightly edited editorial from Transcend Media Service of 23/8/21 which has loads of links (these have been removed here); you can access the original, and links, at https://www.transcend.org/tms/2021/08/afghanistan-and-the-mainstream-media-manipulation-methods/

This is of specific relevance to peace because the reality of situations can be twisted and distorted to justify a stand – or, indeed, in the case of Afghanistan, excuse massive failures by those who supported armed intervention.

In printing this article we are certainly not saying we should take everything in it as true and accurate either but rather it should be taken as an alternative view which can help us provide a reality check on our usual media sources. There are wider issues in relation to ‘peace journalism’ which are not covered here.

Truth, Accuracy in Media:

An Analysis

by Jan Oberg, Ph.D. for TRANSCEND Media Service [23/8/21]

When it comes to Western mainstream media’s coverage of international affairs, I would today dare the hypothesis that 10-20% is truthful, 20-30% is fake and narratives and 50-70% is omitted (see definition in point 2 below).

This is not a scientific statement or hypothesis that I have tested empirically; rather, it is my judgement based on two things: a) witnessing over some forty years the decay of the mainstream media’s international affairs coverage and b) my experiences from conflict zones such as e.g. all parts of former Yugoslavia, Georgia, Iraq before it was occupied, Iran, Syria and China and comparing them with the media images conveyed by the mainstream Western press.

In TFF’s recent analysis ”Behind The Smokescreen. An Analysis of the West’s Destructive China Cold War Agenda And Why It Must Stop”, we make use of the following nine Mainstream Media Manipulation Methods, MMMM:

  1. Fake – lies, deception, inventions or whatever else that cannot be judged/verified as empirically valid; presentation of institutes and scholars as ‘independent’ and defining publications as based on scholarly research when they are not – are typical examples.

  2. Omission – leaving out essential perspectives, facts, analyses, experts/expertise, literature, counter views, possible alternative hypothesis and explanations of found results. When taken together, the omission is often much more distortive than fake (and less easy for the public to detect).

  3. Censorship – meaning a government tells the media (by law or less open and verifiable methods) what the limits are. When a few of the countless millions of possible stories that could be told from around the world are selected for the front-pages, it is also the result of censorship, not only omission.

  4. Self-censorship – news bureaus, editors, reports and journalists know the standard operating procedures and stick to them because it is convenient and typically secures that they keep their job. It’s built on a kind of group think. Censorship and self-censorship define the discourse and its framework and what thetruth is, commonly understood/accepted as part of that local culture and perceived as ‘natural’ – that is, also politically correct.

  5. Framing – is a somewhat difficult concept because it can mean many different things. It can mean setting the frames of “what are we talking about here?” It can also be framing as orientation and interpretation – “In social theory, framing is a kind of interpretation, perhaps a set of anecdotes, historical events and stereotypes that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events.” Media framing builds on these dimensions but adds something specific – “the parameters of the discussion itself – the words, symbols, overall content, and tone used to frame the topic. When compared to agenda setting, framing includes a broader range of cognitive processes – such as moral evaluations, causal reasoning, appeals to principles, and recommendations for treatment of problems.” Simply put, it’s about how a story is packaged.

  6. Constructed narratives – stories that more or less substitute for reality and makes reality- and source checks superfluous or even dangerous (for the maintenance of the fake/omission report). Narratives are often gross simplifications of a complex reality and use everyday ways of thinking that everybody can relate to without much knowledge of the substantive issues. Boiling down a complex conflict to a struggle between bad guys and good guys is an example.

  7. Propaganda and other distortions – let us quote the Cambridge Dictionary: “information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people’s opinions” – one example being political/wartime propaganda.

  8. Psychological warfare or psychological operations (PsyOps) – close, of course, to propaganda but often defined as influencing other people, not our own. However, that is not the case today. Undoubtedly, governments also do PsyOps on their own citizens – such as constantly instilling in them a sense of being threatened by foreign countries, weapons, terrorists – or by Some has called this fearology – governance by instigating fear. People who fear are much more willing to accept controls and limitations and to obey than those who do not fear – as we have seen when it comes to accepting all kinds of measures to combat terrorism and pandemics. PsyOps are broader and aim to influence a target audience’s value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behaviour. It can be used to induce confessions or reinforce attitudes and behaviours favourable to the originator’s objectives and are sometimes combined with black operations or false flag  tactics.

  9. Cancel culture – a more recent term – is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrown out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism have been “cancelled” mostly because of their views or behaviours. The expression “cancel culture” has predominantly negative connotations and is commonly used in free speech and censorship debates. From another perspective, it is a demand/punishment having to do with someone who is politically (non)correct and/or challenges the framework of the “Zeitgeist.”

These methods are an integral part of today’s Western mainstream media and, thus, political reality. While each has its distinct character, they also overlap and are used in clusters that fit the chosen political agenda.

In the above-mentioned report we apply them to the Western mainstream media’s treatment of everything China but it is part and parcel of all mainstream global media coverage. In what follows, I shall try to apply some of them to the war on Afghanistan in general and the August 15, 2021, Western military withdrawal from Afghanistan in particular – aware that it can only be hints without lots of documentary links. (The numbers below do not indicate priorities).

We are/were told…

1… that all this started on October 7, 2001.

It didn’t. The ”it” that started was not the violence but the conflict and that was all about the first Cold War between the US/NATO and Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact. Concerning Afghanistan, it began with Operation Cyclone in July 1979, four months before the Soviet invasion. It is one of the longest CIA operation having cost more than US$ 20 billion.

2… that the purpose of the war and occupation was to fight terrorism which had manifested itself in New York and Washington on ”9/11.

That was the pretext; however not one Afghan had participated in the terrible terror attack (which wasn’t a war by any definition) and should never have been misused to start the thousandfold more killing Global War On Terror (GWOT) still going on with exclusively counter-productive results (see later). George W. Bush refused to deliver documentation for the US assertion that 9/11 was masterminded by Osama bin Laden and, therefore, the Taliban refused to deliver him in exchange for such documentation.

3… that the installed government and the Afghan military forces cowardly ran away and there was no purpose in trying to fight for Afghanistan when its own government and military didn’t do it.

The simple fact is that the US spent US $ 86 billion on giving Afghanistan the wrong kind of military with which no one would have been able to win in what is fundamentally a rather low-tech guerilla war in a mountaineous environment. (Nothing learned since Vietnam).

4… that it wasn’t about nation-building but about eradicating the forces that hit the US on 9/11 and develop a national defence force to guarantee that Afghanistan would no longer serve as a base for terrorism that could reach the West.

On the contrary. It was, at the very least, about some nation-building and imposition of Western values. The US has promoted and increased militarism and terrorism worldwide instead of defeating it. In 2000, US State Department had about 400 people dying in global terrorism annually; according to the latest Global Terror Index, the figure today is 16.000, or 40 times higher. GWOT must simply be the most stupid war ever fought.

5… that improving the lot of Afghan women through e.g. education was a major – noble – motivation for the invasion and occupation.

Undoubtedly, over these 20 years of Western presence, millions of Afghan women have been educated and now see more opportunities. However, it is naive beyond the acceptable to believe that such a human rights motivation was central to US/NATO policies. Additionally, if you improve education – what’s the use if you do not do a lot of other things – which could have been done as US economist Jeffrey Sacs has eloquently stated.

Had the US done anything wise and good for the Afghan people, the Taliban would not have had a chance to come back. So, it can be argued, the US has fought the Taliban for 20 years only to make its return unavoidable. Had the US/West’s mission been predominantly civilian, respectful of Afghan culture and really about human rights – the military would have gone home at least 15 years ago and the rest been one huge foreign-assisted development project.

And a final observation on this: Western mainstream media’s only reference to George W. Bush – perhaps the largest contemporary non-convicted war criminal – is that the withdrawal was bad because he fears for the future of Afghanistan’s girls and women – one of the more shameful interviews brought by Deutsche Welle.

We were/are not told…

1… that 9/11 was a pretext rather than a cause. Neither what the real story of 9/11 was. Too much in the official account doesn’t make sense.

2… that Afghanistan’s geo-political position and its incredible reservoir of minerals was a much stronger motivator for the operation.

3… that the US fundamentally saw Afghanistan as a piece in a very large puzzle of the game at the time against the Soviet Union – and, more recently, against China. Remember Kissinger and Brzezinski? And the writings of Ahmed Rashid? And the role of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence ISI – there isn’t much it has not been involved in…

4… that the US has created (the preconditions for) and supported terrorist movements where and whenever it saw it fit be it the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS and, and the Muslim Uyghurs from Xinjiang – 5000 of them operating in Syria fighting with Western-supported terror groups mostly trained, equipped and financed by leading NATO members, Turkey in particular. They organisation, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, ETIM, has its exile government in – yes, of course – Washington. Former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, already in 2017 told VOA that ISIS is a tool of the US..

5… that NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan, as in – say – Yugoslavia, is one huge violation of the letters and spirit of its North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 (and the UN Charter, Article 1 in particular) and that 9/11 was not a war and, therefore, the Treaty’s paragraph 5 should never have been activated and NATO should never have been in Afghanistan.

6… that there were alternatives to war on Afghanistan and that it would not take much intelligence to have shaped some kind of presence in and influence on the Afghan society in ways totally different from the militarist approach that would likely have yielded much better results today.

7… that the heroin element of it all has always been very important – among other reasons to finance CIA’s covert operations in and around Afghanistan.

8… that the US has operated in ways that could not but make Afghanistan one of the most corrupt places on earth and that the US gave up already in 2011 to do anything about it. And corruption here means both economic and in terms of the ”puppet” people (and CIA operatives) it appointed and relied upon, fleeing President Ashraf Ghani only being the latest.

9… that if you look at maps of oil and gas pipelines, a huge Great Game has been played for decades; one of the world’ leading analysts and commentators on this region, Pepe Escobar, has called Afghanistan “Pipelinestan” for a reason. .

10… that Afghanistan – and the withdrawal – may have a lot to do with the US’ China Cold War Agenda, CCWA ,and the Biden Administration’s Number 1 priority to destabilise, contain and demonise China and its Belt & Road Initiative, BRI.

11… that the US has learned nothing from its war fiascos since Vietnam and that, as Andy Mack stated it brilliantly as far back as 1975 that big countries lose small wars or wars in small countries mainly because over time the aggressor loses domestic cohesion and the war itself legitimacy. Afghanistan has always been ”the graveyard of empires” – it may well turn out to be the fate of the US Empire too, but Afghanistan won’t be in the future simply because after the demise of the US Empire, there will be nobody who is mad enough to impose its own system on the rest of the world or try once again a ”mission civilisatrice;”

12… that every and operation of this type fundamentally rests on racism or white ”cultural” superiority or as Norwegian philosopher, Harald Ofstad, has termed the same – our contempt for weakness quite similar to the values of Nazi-Germany. See his immensely important book, Our Conetmpt for Weakness (1989).

13… that the human and other costs of the war on Afghanistan and all the Global War On Terror, GWOT, are obscene and absurd and a major reason the United States is in decline and its empire will fall (which will lead to the breakdown of NATO); a very comprehensive  – and heart-breaking – documentation is found at the Costs of war Project at Brown University.

14… that, simply put, to fight terrorism by killing terrorists is as stupid and morally reprehensible as eradicating diseases by killing the patients; one must understand the much more comprehensive mechanisms by which a human being turns into a terrorist. But that is too sophisticated for an Empire which is/will be second-to-none only in military power and therefore has only one tool in its toolbox – a hammer.

In conclusion, with Afghanistan being yet another predictable fiasco, one must ask questions today such as:

  • How would it be possible to spend US$2,261 trillion, cause millions of deaths in the Middle East as well as 37- 50 million people’s displacement plus 7,000 US servicemen and 30,000 vetyeran suicides – the latter alone 10 times the number of people killed on September 11 – only to achieve nothing good and still be seen as a world leader? It won’t.

  • The Soviet Union wasted 7 years in the ”Graveyard of Empires,” and Gorbachev was smart enough to see that it was futile and morally wrong to be there. It took the US more than double that time and with a disastrous withdrawal chaos and suffering still going on at the time of writing. What fragmentation inside the US is this the consequence of? And how much stronger will that fragmentation become now inside the US – thanks to real issues and blame games in (Brain)washington and NATO? Is The US Empire survivable or will it be over in 4-5 years like the Soviet Union after Afghanistan? (Add this to the above 14 points of what is omitted from the media – and political debate and research).

  • Will the US try to be in Afghanistan in another way because the withdrawal also has to do with freeing resources for the new US China Cold War Agenda? And how will China, India, Pakistan, Iran and Russia handle this new situation?

  • Will Russia, Iran, India and, not the least, China the next 10-20 years handle Afghanistan in a fundamentally different way? (It would be easy to do better than the US). Will Afghanistan’s future as an important member of the BRI become something different from what it was and is at this moment?
    We are living in very interesting – and dangerous – times. And we will until the – new Evil – US Empire has sunk like Titanic and the US decides to pursue fundamental domestic structural changes, abolishes its Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, and – thus – can again thrive as a normal and creative country that is a force for the global common good and not the common evil of the world.

It’s perfectly possible and those who can should lend the self-destructive US a helping hand before it is too late.

Readings in Nonviolence 291

Nonviolent News, Readings, , ,

Art and peace series

Music is the dialogue

– An interview with Darren Ferguson

“My identity and my history are defined only by myself – beyond politics, beyond nationality, beyond religion and Beyond Skin.”

Darren Ferguson, is a musician, a community worker, and a peace activist. He founded Beyond Skin in 2004 to tackle racism and sectarianism at a local level, to encourage positive social change and empowering people to celebrate diversity.

Beyond Skin is a diverse team of artists, facilitators and peacebuilders who design and facilitate different creative projects using intercultural music, arts, dance, digital media and sensory engagement.

Beyond Skin has been using artistic methods for global education and peacebuilding with local councils, education boards, schools, community groups, businesses and social enterprises across Northern Ireland and has been collaborating with different organisations and individual internationally.

This year Beyond Skin will deliver 35 different projects active involving people from 23 different countries. To name a few: Orchestra for change, Peace in Mind – The 100, Youth4peace, Blueprint are some of the projects which connect local artists and communities with artists and organisations in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Japan, Zambia & Kenya.

https://www.beyondskin.net

The interview was conducted by Stefania Gualberti.

–

Stefania – How did your background and experiences lead to your involvement in music and peacebuilding?

Darren – I was influenced by a lot of things I was doing as a community worker. In my youth I was volunteering for different faith groups, and I volunteered to go to Romania and worked for a couple of projects which ended up lasting over a decade and set up a charity there with various other people. I was influenced by both the community sector but also by popular culture. Musicians like Peter Gabriel, who was using music for speaking out about human rights and also Nitin Sawhney, a British born Asian artist – we took our name Beyond Skin from one of his albums Beyond Skin. There was another project called “1 giant leap” with these two music producers who travelled the world to try to find out what connects us all as human beings and used music as their narrative. Those three different projects really influenced me as well as popular culture, and as a community worker I just loved being around people and I got involved that way.

Stefania – What do you feel is special about art and especially music to transform conflict, connect and build peace?

Darren – I’m always learning from other people, every day. A good friend of mine Mark Smulian who did amazing thing with music bringing young people from Israel and Palestine together and is doing lots of things with music for mental health, he reminds me constantly that we are all creative, everyone is creative. Some people have talents such as someone can sing, others are really good dancers. We are all creative. Those of us who are blessed with legs doesn’t mean we are Usain Bolt. Some people have talent, and they can run really fast.

People are creative beings, it’s innate in us, it’s in our DNA. We can also clap together in time randomly, no other creature on earth can do that.

We are creative and we are designed to work together. We have all seen the power of music, especially during COVID time, it got everybody through this traumatic experience. When you see the impact of music and other art forms it makes it obvious to connect it into peace building and community work, why wouldn’t you?

I get invited to a lot of peace conference, peace events and they don’t lead themselves in a way that we function best as human beings. Human beings function at their very best around music, art, green spaces, food, and drink. When we are together in these spaces, we create things, things will come out and we have great time building relationships, relating with one another. When you are in four walls in a hotel room for a conference you don’t have that, it doesn’t have that big impact.

I think we have got to look at how we interact and relate as human beings and integrate that more into peacebuilding.

We tend to think of arts and culture as something you go to: you go to the theatre, to the cinema and so on. But when you wake up in the morning art and creativity is in everything. What we choose to wear in the morning is being creative, we create when we cook, and we are creative when we navigate life challenges, how we deal with things. It’s in us and that should be brought more into peacebuilding so people can relate to that more.

Stefania – How do you overcome the barriers in groups especially people who would not consider themselves as musicians or knowledgeable about music?

Darren – At Beyond Skin we try to engage people into music and sound. Sound is very important in how we relate to our environment; it is all around us. A great example is a project we did for Make Music Day4’33. It is based on a famous, very experimental composer called John Cage who is no longer with us. He composed 4’33”, a piece where musicians don’t play anything for 4 minutes 33 seconds and he copy righted. We are replicating that project in collaboration with the John Cage Trust, and we asked 23 musicians from different places in the world to send us videos of themselves not playing anything for 4 minutes 33 seconds and we put a compilation together. https://www.beyondskin.net/433

His thought process as composer was that there is always sound. As I am talking to you, I can hear the fridge buzzing, I can hear birds outside, I can hear traffic from the motorway. That is a composition. When we hear the musician from Sri Lanka you can hear the sounds from the environment there. In the piece from the Victoria Falls in Zambia, you can hear the water in the background. Sounds and music are often separated but they are so connected. If you look at Belfast, in West Belfast you have big diesel black taxis which service that area. That is a sound familiar only with that area, you have always that sound on the background and people do not realize that, but when they wake up in the morning they know where they are when they hear that sound. If you were to take those taxis away people would miss that sound and feel maybe a slight unease, as it wouldn’t sound as their environment.

All those elements are important when we interact music and sound. What makes us feel safe and how we step out of our comfort zone and meet people from different cultures and engage with them because, it is all relevant to all of us as human being. How do we engage people with sound? The 4’33” is a great example of that, and everyone can take part, you don’t have to play an instrument.

It is a mindfulness exercise as well, so important coming out of this pandemic which affected everyone in our mental health, if people say they were not affected they are lying. Sound and music give a great opportunity to be mindful, be still and focus on sound. How our brain respond to music is a chemical reaction and the benefits are widely researched.

Inner peace, once you have inner peace you can bring peace into the world. It is that simple, we have to be at peace with ourselves and with our neighbours and then extend to the wider world. The different levels are very much related.

Stefania – How do you think the creative process can help healing trauma at both individual and collective levels?

Darren – It has been well documented, especially in the last few years with the neuroscience research, the impact of sound and music in the healing process.

We work with people who live in countries experiencing violent conflict. Music is a good way to process what might have happened to you. Not to put it away, as it will always be there, but to help move on. We all have this music centre in our brain, it is a chemical reaction, which trigger us, music can be used to deal with trauma in a certain way. It works both way for the people creating and playing the music and for the people listening to it. Art is a very personal experience. When you look at an art gallery you could have someone sticking a bit of tape on the wall and that’s considered art, or somebody could consider the Mona Lisa art, but in my opinion, it is all art. That’s the beauty of art. It is not about being good, that’s subjective.

I think art can have purpose and no purpose. Art is about freedom and expression. Sometimes we forget that. Some of the peacebuilding projects which involve art limit people. I have done a lot of research on social media and YouTube and I have done a presentation on how we make peace infectious. You look at YouTube and there might be a well-done video on the issues of refugees, and it might have 2 million views. Then there is a video of a cat in a bath, and it got 80 million views and you go: “how is that more attractive to people?” We are obviously missing something of what attracts people to things and why that is. I believe the peacebuilding sector needs to look at popular culture to bring new people into those spaces and attract new people.

At Beyond Skin we have always done wacky things. An example is one day I noticed there were all these pop-up stands and people sitting behind tables presenting themselves at events, why would we do that? So, we decided to retire our pop-up stand. We had an official photographer to do a story for us, in a very humorous way but also as a way of challenging the sector in a creative way. If you want to do something as an organisation, association or collective, you don’t need a pop-up stand, just do it. Instead of sitting behind a table, sit in front of it, speak to people. You are the pop-up stand; you are the story you don’t need a pop up stand. It was a way to give people a wee shake and look at why we do things? How we do things, and do they work? Why things like the pop-up stand become normal? We love to challenge the status quo in a creative way.

Stefania – How do you work with people who reject certain music as ‘theirs’ rather than ‘mine’?

Darren – Yes, interesting question as here in Northern Ireland music has divided communities. We have a project at the moment with people part of a marching band from Protestant culture working alongside heavy metal rock musicians. We always bring it back to the music.

We did an event at the Black Box- a music venue in Belfast- and we had three Loyalist marching bands (all men) and we had guest musicians from Colombia and female musicians, as it can be very male dominated sector. We did it and it was great. We got great feedback and one guy came to me and said: “It is great what you have done here” and I responded, “What is so great about bringing musicians together into a music venue?” Sometimes the politics take over. Those were just some guys learning to play, read music, the band gave them a place where they felt they belonged and gave them the space to be creative. That’s overlooked.

In the new project we are creating a heavy metal flute marching band. That is to open up to audiences who might have not listened to that kind of music and going beyond the stereotypes. Music is a great way to do that, connect people. https://www.beyondskin.net/marchingmetal

We did another project with Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, and it opened up to people who said “I have never listened to that music” but through these projects they have been introduced to this other music and I find this interesting.

As my friend Mark would say “Music does not assist the dialogue, music is the dialogue”. Getting people together to do art and play music is a way of building relation and relax to talk about their culture. In some peacebuilding events you bring people together, strangers, and they are encouraged to talk about the issues. You would not do that in real life, why would you do it there. You need to build up trust and relationship.

At Beyond Skin we need to justify it with the funders that we are doing it in a different way, but this is more effective. Sometimes peacebuilding can get very boring! I have been to many boring peacebuilding events. Why are we here? I could be doing something much more interesting, fun and get people to talk about serious issues as well.

I was in Japan before the pandemic last year and I was at an event organised by this organisation who is doing music and peacebuilding. They are the largest music peacebuilding organisation, they are called Min-on Concert Association, they have been going on for 40 years and they have one million volunteers. How do we get one million volunteers? How do you sustain that? I had a meeting with the founders to talk about how they did that. I could see their smile the joy was apparent. I thought, whatever you have, I want that and that is what is really attractive. I had been at a antiracism event where lots of people were really angry and they were right to be angry but I left feeling angry. I don’t want that, that is not attractive, no wonder they struggle to get members. In this association, you have people with smiles on their faces, they are well aware of the problems of the world and they say: let’s deal with that!

There is nothing fun about racism and sectarianism but there is a way to use fun and joy to deal with those issues by engaging people in dialogue. We have to find ways to attract people (the cat in a bath).

Stefania – How can global education help tackle racism and sectarianism locally?

Darren – Before Beyond skin I worked with developing organisations who worked with countries struggling with poverty and in global education programmes. The project “1 giant leap” looked at issues that connect us, love, faith, death, sex, money… all the subjects that relate with all of us.

 

One of the big issues at the moment is health as well as gender inequality. I have a four year old girl and I am thinking about her future and what she will be dealing with, we should have tackled those issues years ago (pay gap, accessibility and patriarchy).

Global education for me is listening and learning from our global neighbours. When the pandemic hit, we contacted our friends in Africa, they always had restrictions and always have done with less than we have. So, we asked how are you doing it? We should be doing the same. Learning from them. Our partners in Zambia are well ahead of us in terms of renewable energies, they are doing tremendous stuff! It is important to learn from our global neighbours.

Stefania – Is there a particular project or engagement that stands out for you that you can talk about in relation to this conversation on art and peacebuilding?

Darren – Not one particular project. We did a conference in a very different way as we left 50% of it unprogrammed, a space for what was emerging. It was March 2017 and it is difficult to describe, it was powerful. At that event my friend Mark got up to the stage saying, “Music does not assist dialogue, music is the dialogue.” We got into this discussion on how the funding can be restrictive and put you in a box. A lot of artists felt like that. If you are from Africa that doesn’t mean you need to do drumming; you like jazz, do jazz. Don’t let people put you in a box, be creative. That opens the door for us. A big initiative called Art Dialogue was born out of that. 30 artists collaborate together from different countries in very creative and innovative ways. That conference was one of those moments of realization, we need to be freeing artists and not being restricted/restrictive. Freedom in art to make a difference; freedom from labels, expectations and stereotypes and bringing fun and joy into the process.

We get invited to help organise multicultural festivals. I ask, what is the difference between a festival and a multicultural festival? Just mainstream it and call it festival so it becomes normal to have a diversity of people collaborating in it. When I hear Chinese people called minority when they are in fact a global majority, I think we need to change perspective, from our inward perspective. Let us focus on our language, what is a minority? What are we saying? It gives a distorted perception of reality. I think with art you can “shake the tree”, challenge people and wake them up a little bit.

Stefania – Could you share or summarise some of your learnings in your years of experience?

Darren – Every day is a school day, every day I am learning. There are no experts in peacebuilding. Peace is a process, a process of learning.

Get people together around food, music, art and green spaces and things happen.

Take risks, we constantly say let’s do this and deal later with the consequences.

Understand where people are coming from, you don’t know what they are going through. We have to be really empathetic with our fellow humans. We can’t judge people from what we see, as we don’t have the full picture -social media doesn’t help as it is very reactive, you wouldn’t do that to somebody in person, we need to bring back people to human interactions.

– – – – – –

Raytheon in Derry

June 2021 StoP webinar report

by Eamon Rafter

The webinar was organised by StoP – Swords to Ploughshares, a new Irish network against the Arms Trade. With Spirit AeroSystems in Belfast grant aided by the UK government to manufacture military drones and their continued support for arms production at Thales, it was decided that it was a good time to get together to celebrate the removal of Raytheon from Derry to inspire resistance to current development in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The webinar was introduced and moderated by Joe Murray of AFRI. He spoke about how he saw a picture of John Hume and David Trimble welcoming Raytheon to Derry in 1999 as the ‘first fruits of the peace process’. The shocking irony of this had inspired him to hold a public meeting in Derry along with Children in Cross fire and this included students from East Timor at a time when weapons from the UK were being sold to the Indonesian military for use in East Timor. Out of this meeting FEIC – Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign was founded who along with Derry Ant-War Coalition (DAWC) and others built the campaign against Raytheon.

Jim Keys was one of the people behind the FEIC campaign and he gave an overview of how this cross community group with no party affiliation operated as a loose alliance who took on Raytheon. Following the AFRI meeting they had worked on an East Timor mural and set up a citizens jury to consider the appropriateness of Raytheon coming the Derry. The jury returned a verdict of ‘not welcome’ and a monthly vigil was established outside the Raytheon offices. A symbolic grave was dug here to mark the innocent victims of the weapons industry and signs around the city, the appearance of the theatrical ‘stealth monster’ and various actions took place which included the use of the Free Derry wall.

Politicians didn’t engage though in 2003 the City Council did oppose the war in Iraq. Raytheon did not engage or make a response to any of this, though they claimed that the Derry operation was essentially a civil one. Jim pointed out that Derry was a place where people understood what it was like to be ‘collateral damage’ and this was important in the development of the campaign. With a vigil in the Guildhall Sq, a shroud covering the Free Derry Wall and the Black Shamrock symbol of Irish neutrality and opposition to war, the campaign broadened across the city and in Feb 2008 a plaque was placed on the city walls dedicated to lives lost as a result of weapons made in Derry. Though the campaign would continue with regular vigils it would take a more public action to have greater effect.

Eamonn McCann, who had been a key leader in the civil rights movement, was one of the six of the Raytheon 9 who stood trial for occupying the Raytheon offices in August 2006. He talked about what had led to the occupation and how they were vindicated in court. A meeting of DAWC had taken place in Sandino’s Bar on 2nd August to hear former U.S. army interrogator Joshua Casteel. Hearing about the recent Israeli massacre in Qana, Lebanon on 30th July, the Raytheon connection was made and it was decided to occupy the plant.

It was felt that everything had been tried to engage the politicians and media and that vigils would not be enough to close down Raytheon. There had been no support from the mainstream who said they were against weapons manufacture but did nothing against it. The occupation of 9th August (the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing) was a last resort and McCann talked about the ‘semi-spontaneity’ of the event. They didn’t expect to get in but had managed to rush the door as an employee went in and once inside proceeded to throw computers and materials out the window. The eventual arrival of riot police in full armour saw nine men seated quietly playing cards and they were arrested and subsequently put on trial.

Eamonn Mc Cann talked about the case that was presented at that trial in 2008 and how the six men were acquitted. The case was based on the fact that the law would not see their action as defensible, so they had to show that they were actually trying to save lives, stop or delay a war crime, not just protest against it. They had to show that they had previously done everything that was possible and only after that failed did they commit to action in the reasonable belief they could stop war. The involvement of the Derry Raytheon plant in the development of rocket guidance systems and interconnectedness of the computer system with the Scotland plant meant they had legitimately targeted this to put the system out of action to help prevent a greater evil. In effect they put Raytheon on trial and their defence was McCann claimed ‘unassailable’. This gave it a certain international resonance and he felt that the Derry action had a real effect on the morale of victims in Qana, who they later went to visit.

He said it was the best thing he ever did and that it is never futile to stand up against war, even though you think it won’t achieve anything. The accumulation of actions, protests and messaging had been important so it was not a one off event. The trial victory was the pay-off for many previous events. It was important that the occupation was not over-planned and had some element of spontaneity. Neither was it just about the ‘burly men’ who were arrested, as women had been hugely involved. He said it was essential ‘to do everything patiently, but not to be afraid to be daring when the moment comes’. You need to wait and be alert for that moment.

Goretti Horgan was one of the nine women who entered the Raytheon offices in a third occupation in 2009. She spoke about being motivated by the Shannon 5 who had earlier attacked a US military aircraft in Shannon Airport and been through a long trial at which they were acquitted. Goretti had been present at the second occupation though at the time left before the arrival of the police to avoid being arrested. She emphasised that women had always been involved in the protests and actions and that Israeli bombings of Gaza had also been an influence on the women’s occupation. The precision guidance systems used in the Israeli attack were developed by Raytheon.

The women’s occupation may not have done as much damage as the men’s but it had stopped the plant functioning and kept the opposition to Raytheon going which was important. This time the main frame computer had been encased in steel so water couldn’t damage it. She said it was an educational process where they learnt a lot about the arrogance and lies of the arms industry. The sheer horror of the weapons they manufactured was shocking and it was hard to conceive how people thought them up in the first place. ‘We have to do whatever we can to end this evil trade for once and for all’ she said. The women were also put under trial and acquitted.

There was some discussion at the end of the session and some conclusions were drawn. Protests had never stopped after the trials and Raytheon eventually announced their departure in January 2010. They denied this had anything to do with the protests but under Freedom of Information it was revealed that they had said they couldn’t stay because the legal system could not guarantee their safety. It was mentioned that global solidarity is important and the protests at Raytheon in Tucson, U.S., had taken inspiration from what happened in Derry.

It is essential to know your rights and work together to get rid of the arms trade. We need to draw on victories like the one in Derry to give us momentum, just as the Dunnes Stores strikes against South African apartheid and solidarity with East Timor had had an effect. A new phase of protest would now be required to oppose recent arms contracts in Belfast and extractive industries. Derry activists were ready to be involved again and this time would make connections with climate change and what arms trade does to the environment.

Readings in Nonviolence, NN 290

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Art and Peace series

In the space between –

an interview with Viviana Fiorentino

Viviana Fiorentino is a teacher, writer, poet and activist. She is Italian and lives in Belfast. She published in international webzines, journals and in anthologies (Dedalus Press, 2019; Salmon, 2020); In Italy, a poetry collection (Controluna Press) and a novel (Transeuropa Publishing House).

She co-founded two activist poetry initiatives ‘Sky, you are too big’, a celebration on international migrants day which combines poetry and music from migrant artists living in Northern Ireland https://quotidian.ie/projects/sky-you-are-too-big/ ‘Letters with wings’ (founded on Poetry Day Ireland 2020) is a poetry campaign in support of artists in prison that collected 727 poetic letters to be sent to artists in prison for their art and/for defending their freedom of speech and human rights. ‘Letter with wings’ as part of the ‘Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics’ in 2021, organised “When art meets activism”, an online event dedicated to the women artists Chimengul Awut (award-winning Uyghur poet) and Nûdem Durak (Kurdish origin folk musician and political prisoner in Turkey).

She is on the editorial staff of Le Ortique, a blog and an initiative that voices and rediscovers forgotten women artists. https://leortique.wordpress.com/

She facilitates the creative writing and photography project “Same/Difference” (Quotidian – Word of the Street Ltd – https://quotidian.ie/projects/same-difference/ exploring themes like identity, belonging, diversity and peacebuilding.

She was interviewed by Stefania Gualberti.

–

Stefania: How did your background and experiences lead to your involvement in art and activism?

Viviana: The truth is “I don’t know”, exactly. If I look back at my background and experiences which led to my involvement in art, it comes to my mind all the times that I walked back and forward, that I changed my path, all the times I questioned my perspective, interrogated my way of living. My background is made of this: lots of intertwined paths. These doubts and questions led me to my involvement in art.

My first path was to study Natural Science and Biology. The connection to nature and the environment around me was for sure very important for both my involvement with art and activism. My art is a way for me to connect with the world around me, with the nature and the environment. Activism for me is living as communities which means to connect with the world around us, nature. Nature is made of human beings as well. Sometimes we perceive nature as non-human animals and plants, but nature is the whole environment, including us and all the millions of interactions between ‘we’ animals and organisms. If we take care of nature, we take care of ourselves too, this is a form of activism.

My background is also influenced by the fact that I travelled a lot in Europe. I was born in Italy and after secondary school I left the country and l went back to Italy and left again when I was 28. I lived in Switzerland, in Germany, in England, back in Germany and finally in Northern Ireland. These changes in ground and languages gave me the opportunity to shift my point of view many times. I think a revolution of the point of view is at the base of art. When you create art, you have to look at the world around you, or anything that is ‘the other’, from a different, new, perspective. To express it you need to be outside for a moment, in a space which is in between. This space allows you to create something new.

Stefania: What do you feel is special about art to challenge, connect and transform?

Viviana: Every day we listen to thousands of words, from the radio, the media, from the people around us as we receive the news from the world. In a way we become anaesthetized, we lose contact with words, we forget the meaning of words. Art, writing in my case, put these words back in a new context. That way we have a kind of revelation again from the words. This is the challenge. The art has a transformative quality. As we get this revelation, we finally see the new meanings of the words, from which we were anaesthetized, we have the possibility to transform our feelings of rage, despair, sorrow into something new, into something that can be beautiful through the act of creating.

Stefania: How do you think the creative process can help healing trauma at both individual and collective levels?

Viviana: There are two sides: one side is the power of transformation of collecting your experiences and reshaping them. The other side, the healing process, is not in the art itself but in the connection that art offers us. We create art to communicate with “the other”. For example, when I write a poem, at the end, I create a connection with another person. The healing is there whenever I reach somebody else. It can be just one single person, it can be in the future, it doesn’t matter. This connection, this possibility we have, is a flow of love.

I am not sure that art can be healing for the person who is creating it, it might sometimes, for me the healing happens in the moment the artist and the receiver connect. When you as an artist reach someone and when someone is reached by the art. The healing is not in the art but in the connection thanks to the art.

I think sometimes creating can be energetically tiring as you have to put together your fragmented pieces and you have to recollect your experiences that maybe traumatized you, so it can be a problem of re-suffering. In that moment of recollection the artist does a leap: you leave your specific individuality, your ‘ego’, for making that experiences universal. Before reaching the page, there is a process of growing, so to say, for you as artist. Somehow you are you look at yourself from outside.

This moment when you are in between space, in this outside space, is when you look at your life, and say, look that was me, but now it is an experience for everyone – you want in fact talk to many others – it becomes a universal perspective. It’s the growing of a new possibility, like a seed, you see you can grow from there. You can move forward from that experience. So, at the end, I can heal from that experience thanks to the other person that I imagine will receive my art. Art is art if it is universal, if it has something that can speak to others.

Stefania, you also asked me about the collective levels. In this sense, art can be a glue, because of its power of universality we can stick together. We can find a collective voice, in a poem, in a painting, so we can imagine something together.

Stefania: How do you overcome the barriers in groups especially people who would not consider themselves as ‘writers’ or ‘poets’? How can poetry be accessible to everybody given that it is sometimes seen as the most pretentious of the arts?

Viviana: It is a challenging question because the inaccessibility of poetry comes, I think, from an old way of talking or reading poetry in education. Because of its nature, most poetry can talk to everyone, and it is largely accessible, it depends on how we read it. What is a poem? It is something written on a piece of paper. It is like a stone, it does not speak by itself; we need to give it a voice. How is the stone made? Maybe it is sedimented with water, but where does it come from? The same questions can be asked for a poem.

In a poem, what are the meanings of the words? What are the sediments that made it? What is the poem saying to us? Doing that, we give the poem a voice and doing so we recognise a part of ourselves in there. Looking for the voices inside us and bringing them to the surface is a way to say, Look, that is what I understood, what do you think? This question is poetry.

Each art has its own tools and techniques you need to learn if you want to be a professional, but the kernel is this voice which is inside of everyone.

Stefania: How has your bilingual and migration experience facilitated your engagement in this area?

Viviana: In Northern Ireland in particular, there is a movement from the reality which was true 30 years ago of a net division between two different groups. Now there is a wealth of different cultures which still needs to be recognized by the society. Each migrant here has this beautiful great possibility to be a bridge for those people who think they are still divided. People who have more than one language, more than one culture, can be a present for Northern Ireland.

Stefania: In your years of experience is there a particular project or engagement that you want to talk about in relation to this conversation on art and peacebuilding?

Viviana: There are two main projects that are part of my art and heart. One is Same/difference devised by Quotidian artists Maria McManus, Nandi Jola, Bernarde Lynn and I. It is a series of creative writing and photography workshops. The project has been implemented for the first time in Portadown supported by Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council  through Peace IV funds. It was then followed by further implementations of the project with two further series. It examines the concept of identity, belonging, home, diversity and peace-building, through creative writing and expressive abilities and explores the lived – experience of migration.

The common thread is to see ourselves with the eyes of the others, being in dialogue with the others, understating my own story and listening to ‘the others’. The groups we worked with actually represent Northern Ireland’s society today, diverse.

Letters with wings was born last year (2020) during the first lockdown when the feeling of constraint in our house was a good opportunity to emotionally connect with artists and people who all over the world were imprisoned for fighting for human rights or for defending freedom of expression. We asked the public to send on social media artistic letters to address to the artists who were imprisoned. We collected more than 700 letters and we are in the process of sending these letters. The letters can be read in our website (https://wingsletters.wordpress.com/). It was fantastic, we had a great engagement as people felt the necessity to reach out to the artists who were imprisoned. It was a community project, which was the strength of it, to do something together, to imagine a possibility all together.

I would love to finish up this interview with a poem that actually inspired many of the projects I talked during this interview. I initially wrote it in Italian then Maria McManus and I worked together toward a translation in English. Please take it as a way to thank you for this opportunity.

I – Landing

i

Sky, you are too big;

Persian Blue –

I cannot know you.

ii

Instead, I call on you, Land;

give me a place to put my feet,

a home for my uncertainty,

a place to doubt.

iii

A place to live.

– – – – – –

Readings in Nonviolence, NN 289

Nonviolent News, Readings, , ,

Art and peace series

Moving from injustice to generating alternatives:

An interview with Rita Duffy

Interviewer: Stefania Gualberti

Rita Duffy was born in 1959 and is a Northern Ireland artist. She describes herself as a pacifist and feminist. Her installations and projects often highlight socio-political issues and some of her work is in the permanent collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Imperial War Museum in London. Rita Duffy will have a new website available soon at www.ritaduffystudio.com

–

1. How did your background and experiences lead to your involvement in art and peacebuilding?

I grew up in Stranmillis, right beside the Ulster Museum. The Ulster Museum became our playground at the weekend. It was a privileged situation to have that in proximity. We went to the Botanic Gardens because our house was a Victorian terrace and that was an escape to greenery and when it rained, we went to the Ulster Museum and slide on polished floors. I would look at the paintings so that was something very guiding and important for a child who was obviously taken with the visual.

My father was from Belfast, my mother was from county Offaly. I didn’t really feel I belonged. I didn’t realize I came from Belfast until I was about 12. The pull of my mother’s people, she had six sisters, was so great, so it became inevitable to start making art, painting, about what was going on around me. It didn’t satisfy me that in art school the conversation was about shades of yellow, concepts, it seemed really bad and poorly argued philosophy, so I made a conscious decision to make work that was on what was around me.

What was going on around me was a battle in the city of Belfast that was a microcosm of what was going on in every conflict area across the planet, so it seemed to me an appropriate place to start. Something that I knew, something that had been formative, certainly the topic of conversation in our household. I went to St Dominic’s Grammar School for Girls on the Falls Road through the ‘70s and that was a very important time. We were safe, I was removed from it every evening. I was questioning my identity, who I was, a young woman and all that seemed to be an inevitable necessary conversation within myself and as a result within my work.

2. What do you feel is special about art to build peace?

I think art is a spiritual force I have come to realize. I have identified art as a spiritual force. Susan Sontag said that first. There is something incredibly powerful about art that stops human beings collapsing into barbarity. I am not talking about middle class, I am talking about stuff that really moves you, how creative thinking, artistic thinking, how artists think provides alternatives. There is a reason why artists, poets, writers, musicians are the first people locked in prison by regimes, because they draw attention to the necessary. It is not about some dislocated discussion about some philosophical concepts. It is about an urgency; it is about a passionate response. It is about drawing attention to injustice, it is about creating a space that encourage people to think and to act, and to respond and to be unsettled.

3. How can art help to transform conflict and connect people?

I suppose it is up to people to engage with art in terms of connecting people and transforming conflict. I have seen projects that are very effective and passionate about bringing people together. I think the fact that art takes place in a space apart from your area or my area, we go somewhere else. We go to a theatre, we go to a cinema, we go to a concert hall or we go to an art exhibition. That gives the opportunity for that third space, where we can argue, where we can allow ourselves to become confused, where we can then create something fresh out of that confusion. And I think transforming the battlefield into something else is what we have done many times. We had to rebuild, rethink, reconstruct and that means potentially there is space for fresh thinking.

4. How do you overcome the barriers in groups especially people who would not consider themselves as “artistic”?

Quite often people would say things like “I can’t draw to save my life” but you try taking people onto a journey where they enjoy and are challenged but they are not put into an excruciating place, because then what they will produce is excruciating. I think it is the artist’s job as a leader to have some sense on what you are working with, and what and how that might work in terms of their involvement into the art project.

You need to be really quite well tuned-in and informed on what, where, how, what your budget is and what are the possibilities. Then you have to take it and do a creative jump with it. If people find they resist too much, they don’t have to be involved, they can do something else, or find another project that suits them better. You don’t cater to the lowest common denominator you try to inspire people and you lead them. You are not finger painting, you are communicating, you are explaining why you are doing this, why this is necessary, and you can always find a place for people, find a way to engage people, even in the most basic situations, even doing a simple task, they feel like they have contributed. You are not being led by the group the artist has to lead.

Too much community art is about process. But if you want to do a fingerpainting exercise where everyone puts their input don’t expect to find something interesting art wise and don’t pretend there is something interesting visually either. You can find methodologies to engage people: like photography is a fantastic way, because everyone can take a photograph, it doesn’t take any skill to take a photograph, and occasionally you get really lucky. I always believe there is magic if you are genuinely trying to really engage with people and there is stuff you can’t plan for! That’s the stuff to go after and to recognize when it appears. As an artist you need to have a vision, if these people are not interested in painting, find another way, if they are very talkative, maybe you should have a writer on board, or they love to sing… you have to work with what is there and you have to suss out what’s possible.

5. How do you think the creative process can help healing trauma at both individual and collective levels?

I don’t know, I am an artist and I trust what I do. There is a level of trust, I don’t measure what I do, I don’t go back to examine, I don’t think. But I do know there is a sense that something has changed even if it’s a molecule of an individual’s psyche. They might not even get that straight away, but it might come back to them in different ways later on. I am interested in art, really, and I think it’s up to everybody to decide whether they were going to switch off the TV and listen to that symphony or be content and watch somebody playing darts. It’s their personal choices involved here. Sometimes people are at different stages of their life and sometimes they are more open to the possibility of transformation, sometimes not.

6. You are one of the best-known artists in Northern Ireland, indeed Ireland. How has this affected your art, if at all?

It’s funny, it either really works really well for you or really badly. In the North sometimes I would experience the attitude “Who do you think you are? I’ll bring you down a level or two”, so there is that aspect. But more times than not, you would get, “We will be delighted to work with you”, it gets a little bit easier to get your foot in the door.

7. How do your pacifism and feminism interact, and do you feel they are equally represented in your art?

I am politically interested. It is not something I think about. It is a subliminal thing. I am very interested in feminism; politics and I am very interested in pacifism. I am also interested in contemporary politics and what is going on around. I listen, I engage, and sometimes I come up with an image that is a response to that. Watching the Trump presidency unravel was something that I thought had a global resonance, that populism, I wanted to do something about that, so I made a list of drawings and a recent painting because it affects us and what was going on in North America, has happened in Brazil, The Netherlands, London. I suppose it’s about what sparks your interest at any given moment. I am reading a wonderful book by an Egyptian feminist, Nawal El Saadawi. She trained as a medical doctor, she died recently. I am reading her writing at the moment, it is amazing, incredible stuff. I am continuing to soak in things, reading and looking and thinking and I am doing lots of writing myself at the moment.

8. In your years of experience is there a particular project or engagement that you want to talk about in relation to this conversation on art and peacebuilding?

I should talk to you about the project I was making at Quaker Cottage* (with Ann Patterson), a portrait of eight women. I was looking at the Ulster mythology, the curse of Macha. The story is all about tribalism, division and not showing compassion to women and children who bear the most suffering of conflict. That is the most amazing story and I went to Quaker Cottage with the idea of choosing one of the women as a sitter for the portrait of Macha. When I was there one of the women was having contractions. Unfortunately, she had conceived as a result of rape. Her partner had a barring order but because of where they were lived, the police couldn’t exercise the barring order, so he occasionally broke in and raped her. I was thinking that was the most horrific story and I was thinking from my comfortable middle-class existence in South Belfast, it really kind of opened my eyes, to what women were experiencing in Belfast.

If I had heard that about a crazy worn torn spot in Bosnia, I would have thought, yes that is believable, but that was Belfast, Belfast, 11 years ago. I thought we don’t reflect these narratives, these experiences. So, I ended up making an exhibition on the portraits of these eight women and I interviewed them, and I recorded their stories, and we called the project “House to house”. From Quaker Cottage you can see clearly across to Stormont. Also ‘house to house’ was how the army searched. At the time there was an argument going on the radio about whether they should be allowed to have Easter lilies or calla lilies because they had had orange lilies. These men in Stormont were arguing about floral decoration in the lobby at Stormont and meanwhile I had heard that story.

That’s an example of how things grow. There is an element of magic, that’s how things develop.

–

*Quaker Cottage, managed by Quaker Service, is a cross community family support centre which provides services for some of the disadvantaged areas of north and west Belfast.

– – – – –

Review:

Dining with diplomats,

praying with gunmen

“Dining with diplomats, praying with gunmen:

Experiences of international conciliation for a new generation of peacemakers”

by Anne Bennett

Quaker Books, London, 2020, ISBN 978 199931 415 6 (also available as e-book), 162 pages. UK£10.00. www.quaker.org.uk

– Reviewed by Stefania Gualberti and Rob Fairmichael

Well, given that this is a book based on an internal Quaker process and there isn’t too much demand for international conciliators, what is the point in reviewing the book? Plenty, as we hope this review will reveal.

The first thing to say is that it is impossible to write the history of working for peace in Ireland, or indeed internationally, without mentioning the word ‘Quaker’ or Religious Society of Friends. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157717185737611

Conciliation is defined in the book as “the process of bringing people together and creating enough trust between them for them to talk constructively together. It usually involves the help of facilitators to encourage the parties to move to that point and to engage in dialogue to resolve the conflict that has divided them” (pages 2 and 22).

Anne Bennett tells the story on how the Quakers started to take up the role of international conciliators and how their quiet processes around the world have been successful over the years. They created a reputation based on their integrity and on their principles and values; building relationships of trust with people on both sides of the conflict, starting where they are; not taking sides but listening to all parties with the belief that if each person’s stories are not heard and acknowledged it is difficult to move forward; encouraging parties to explore options, nonviolent responses; working in building capacity of the local peace groups.

Nearly all those processes need to be done in strict confidentiality. Quakers, grounded by their spirituality and in the belief that “there is that of God in everyone”, have held the light of hope for peace even during violence. They trusted and have demonstrated that “peace processes begin with small groups and communities who can exert change amid divided societies” (page 42).

Conciliation isn’t the only show in town but as Andrew Tomlinson says, (page 96) “conciliation is part of an orchestra working for social change.” One particularly effective shout out in favour of conciliation is given by Diana Francis (page 84) where those who might not have listened to each other both listened and learnt.

Another question about the usefulness of this book for a more general audience is its transferability. Does the ‘international’ part of conciliation apply to national or local? And do the specifically Quaker parts apply to others? The first point here is that conflicts are now much more intra-national than international but the same approaches apply. ‘International’ or societal conflicts may be at a different level, and different cultural rules will likely apply in different situations, but these may be differences of scale and context rather than essence.

Some coverage is given to the fact that the Quaker name can provide an entry point, and we can say that cannot easily be replicated by non-Quakers who don’t have (or belong to an organisation with) a long and known track record of being fair and understanding to all sides. The ‘spiritual’ dimension of Quakerdom, however you might define it, also contributes to their acceptability. And the rules apply everywhere, e.g. “never saying one thing in one place and something else in another” (page 68).

But some other points are that Quakers are not infallible – the book mentions failures including in the mid-19th century over Schleswig-Holstein (pages 8-9), times change, and having a name to live up to can be hard work. Quandaries and dilemmas appear in any challenging aspect of life, including in relation to conciliation the balance between confidentiality and justice (pages 17 and 39), and the possibility of appearing to collude with evil in certain circumstances (page 78). Sue Williams is usefully quoted on ‘the purity dilemma’ (page 80). Quakers have a particular moral and spiritual code but it is not necessarily any easier for Quakers than anyone else to traverse this ground.

The book is very comprehensible and also very comprehensive for its length. There is only one point in the book where we feel something was left hanging. In outlining the different parts of a peace process (page 47), it outlines and defines peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. It simply states “Quaker activity is concentrated on two of the three stages: peacemaking and peacebuilding”. The definition of peacekeeping given includes that “It involves monitoring local activity and being ready to use force if necessary”. Is this a judgement that force is or may be necessary? Lethal or non-lethal? And, if considered necessary, left to others rather than Quakers with their peace testimony?

Of course it may have been felt that going off on this tangent, and it is a bit of a tangent since conciliation certainly does not involve force or violence, was introducing a red herring into things. However a few sentences on why Quakers pick two of these elements and not the ‘peacekeeping’ one could have been helpful.

There are significant Northern Ireland links to this book. Both the author, Anne Bennett, and Sue Williams who is quoted a few times, lived in the North aside from when they worked, at separate times, for Quaker House in Belfast. Another also quoted participant, Clem McCartney, and the illustrator, typesetter and participant Lynn Finnegan are from Northern Ireland. Lynn Finnegan’s intriguing and slightly enigmatic, but highly appropriate, illustrations turn the book into a beautiful work of art. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/51129435906/in/dateposted/

This is aside from the fact that Northern Ireland has also been the recipient of long term Quaker conciliation efforts; Micheál Martin has remarked before how much he learnt about Northern unionists and the situation through programme organised by Quaker House in Belfast. When you consider that as Taoiseach he is not rushing headlong down a (potentially slippery) slope to a unification referendum, this is worth bearing in mind. And positive outcomes may not be the ones worked for; Nigerian magnanimity towards the erstwhile breakaway Biafra, after the latter’s military defeat, may have been partly occasioned by Quaker conciliation efforts previously, and their work to overcome demonisation of the military enemy (page 71).

The book was a response to an intergenerational conference the Quaker held in Woodbrooke conference centre in September 2019 with the aim of bringing together experienced Quaker peacemakers and younger generations to capture the learnings, knowledge and experiences the Quakers gathered over the years and explore ways of applying them in a fast-changing world. Ways of operating internationally have changed and the limited resources for processes, which can take a long time, as well as having a more widespread presence of other groups and organisations working for peace, made the Quakers doubt if they should still invest in this area or adjust and use their skills and knowledge locally. The willingness and energy to continue international conciliation is there, alongside the need to widen the pool of conciliators to include young Quakers to be able to respond to requests of intervention promptly as they did in the past.

The conference tried to bring together experienced Quakers and younger ones, with their eagerness to get started and learn. They demanded answers on the “mystery” of the stories of what Quaker international conciliation was, bringing hope to continue to do a good and relevant work updated in today’s world. The poem that closes the book (page 139) speaks of those questions the younger Quakers put forward: should we stay or should we go? Give us practical theory and robust framework. How can we join? Is peace work only for privileged volunteers? The Quakers found themselves in a threshold and again (amongst uncertainty, fear, and frustration) chose dialogue and trust to move forward.

The guru was looking glum. One acolyte asked another what was wrong and received the answer “He has forgotten the secret of the universe again.” We all have to keep discovering and rediscovering meanings and realities. When it comes to conciliation, this book is a very worthwhile part of an understanding and it is great that it has been written up in such an approachable style.

– – – – –

Readings in Nonviolence, NN 288

Nonviolent News, Readings, ,

“Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World”

Pax Christi International, 322 pages, 2020.www.paxchristi.net

Edited by: Rose Marie Berger, Ken Butigan, Judy Coode and Marie Dennis

A review by Sylvia Thompson

This is a timely and comprehensive text or guide book on nonviolence that should fall into the hands of many, from practitioner to academic. I read it alone and straight through…not the best idea even with various breaks.

The title itself ‘advancing’ tells us that this is not a primer text though a student of nonviolence could start here and follow it through.

The text has a Preface, Acknowledgements and four Parts I) Returning to Nonviolence, II) Foundations of Nonviolence, III) The Practice and Power of Nonviolence, IV) Embracing Nonviolence, the list of Contributors and 3 Appendices, but regrettably no Bibliography or Index.

Reading the contents alone gives the sense of its amazingly broad scope and depth and if you peep to the list of the contributors you will understand how this came about. I counted 120 and it states that they came from nearly all corners of our troubled world (but possibly not Northern Ireland…see later).

The title sub heading is “Biblical, Theological, Ethical, Pastoral and Strategic Dimensions of Nonviolence”, which means it will be of equal interest to theologians and those on the ground working in conflict resolution in their local communities and everyone in between.

It is the work Pax Christi International and more specifically a particular project, ‘The Catholic Nonviolence Initiative’ which was initiated in 2016 to affirm the vision and practice of active nonviolence at the heart of the Catholic Church.

There are frequent references to Pope Francis’ World Peace Day message of 2017 http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20161208_messaggio-l-giornata-mondiale-pace-2017.html entitled “Nonviolence: a Style of Politics for Peace” but the call is to go further for the Catholic Church to re-commit to the centrality of Gospel nonviolence. Appendix 1 (and elsewhere, see ‘Integrating Nonviolence Throughout the Catholic Church’, p.284).

With regard to the appendices, the impatient reader could go straight to them #1 (above) #2 Nonviolence nurtures hope, can renew the Church and #3 Ten elements of nonviolence.

How to describe this book in a simple way is perhaps to say that it answers these questions about nonviolence: What is it? Where has it come from? Why and Why not? Where? and How? There are clear signposts to further reading and excellent footnotes. It takes the reader to El Salvador, Central African Republic, Mexico, Sudan, to name just some countries.

What is it? It offers many wonderful and inspirational quotes and definitions, e.g.

“Nonviolence denotes a paradigm of the fullness of life at the heart of reality”. p.152

but read this comprehensive one on p.59

“Nonviolence is a force that resists injustice and violence, a spiritual discipline and a powerful strategy that challenges violence without using violence, transforms conflict, fosters just, peaceful, effective and sustainable resolutions to conflict and seeks the well-being of creation and community.”

and it continues

“It promotes human dignity; teaches self-respect and healthy communication; initiates processes of restorative justice to address interpersonal, communal and systematic injustices; and facilitates trauma healing. Its byproducts are creativity, joy, virtue, deeply held relationships and a shared hope for the future.”

It addresses of course, and I am just mentioning some topics, the Spirituality of nonviolence, violence against women and climate and ecological violence (read ‘Hearing the Song of the Earth’ p.245 and other references to Laudato Si’) and pastoral implications p.287 families and parishes p.292 but also addresses, what it terms ‘Sensitive concerns’ towards the end of the book on p.303 looking at the Internal Life of the Universal Church).

This section ‘Glimpsing the Church’s history of nonviolence’ pages 203-218 provides snippets from various corners of the world, so I was curious to read the following about Northern Ireland: “Followers of Jesus in Northern Ireland, including Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams, finally brought the troubles to an end.’ p.213. It certainly was a glimpse, but for me a disappointing one with regard to its brevity and, possibly, its accuracy.

‘Advancing Nonviolence’ can act as a guide, lead you to further study and most importantly to action or to evaluate your existing action. You may want more and I can see it becoming the perfect text for a study/reading group. Some recent good news is that study/reading notes to go with the book may become available.

Though a serious academic text as outlined in Part (II), Foundations of Nonviolence, I found it to be a very spiritually nourishing and indeed challenging one too. (Ref. ‘Seeing with New Eyes’, Joanna Macy).

Pax Christi International is to be congratulated on this publication, ‘the fruit of a global, participatory process facilitated by the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative to deepen Catholic understanding of and commitment to Gospel nonviolence.’ (from the Preface).

And I close with the closing words:” Faced with the challenges of this age, let us be transformed…. dedicated to faithfully healing our planet, and honouring the infinite worth of every being”.

–

To order individual or bulk copies, visit www.paxchristi.net

I bought it from https://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/2299/advancing-nonviolence-and-just-peace Paperback £25.45stg (€30.84 incl P&P). Now also available as an E-book EPUB (575KB) for €16 excl VAT from www.paxchrist.net https://paxchristi.net/2021/03/25/e-book-now-available-advancing-nonviolence-and-just-peace/

See also: https://paxchristi.org.uk/resources/nonviolence-in-action/educational-resources-for-nonviolence/

– Sylvia Thompson now lives in Co Kerry, but lived and worked in Belfast where she was actively involved in Pax Christi Ireland & International. Still a member of Pax Christi, she is now a member of the Diocese of Kerry JPIC (Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation) Committee, the Laudato Si’ Working Group (Irish Bishops). and local ecological & sustainable initiatives.

Readings in Nonviolence, NN 287

Readings, ,

Art and Peace Series

In praise of gentle disorientation:

An interview with Paul Hutchinson

Interviewer: Stefania Gualberti

Paul Hutchinson is the founder/director of Imagined Spaces, (specialising in creative community relations) and a former Centre Director of Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organisation.

He is a mediator and educator (including Visiting Professor at Dalhousie University and the Atlantic School of Theology), and an award–winning documentary filmmaker and writer. 

“Between the Bells”, his book from 2019, recounts the varied experiences of many whose lives have been changed by their visit to Corrymeela.

“Waiting and Silence” https://proost.co.uk/downloads/waiting-and-silence-by-paul-hutchinson  his film from 2015 explored a particular Quaker Meeting to ask some universal questions about the role and function of silence and contemplation in our society.

–

Stefania – How did your background and experiences lead to your involvement in art and peacebuilding?

Paul – That is such a great question because when do you start believing that you are creative and that imagination shapes the world? When you are a child you don’t say this is my future career. You say I don’t understand this, I do understand this.

Both my parents left school at age 14. My mom hated to read, she is dyslexic and left-handed and they frowned on you if you were left handled, so she was shouted at twice (for being left-handed and dyslexic) and she thought she was stupid, which she isn’t. From her, I think, I got the power of movement because she was a dancer. She had a physical intelligence, and so in our house she would be preparing for a class and she would be putting on music and trying to count it out 1234 2234 while we sat watching her in the living room. So that helped me to think to about the mechanisms behind music, behind dance – she was unpicking it before my eyes.

My dad loves books and loves telling stories and he features in lots of my stories. Libraries were a big deal and a love for me. It was a bonding between this macho man of action who liked to read, and me as a child. For me books, libraries and reading, are about connections and windows to other worlds.

I suppose, growing up then music was what really showed me that you needed very little skill to be creative (and skill also helps creativity.) I’m old enough to have been around when punk music came to Northern Ireland and so I formed a band, and we were noisy and awful, and it just gave me confidence to go: “I need to find my voice”. And you start off by sounding like other people and sounding distorted and eventually you might find your own voice, but you certainly develop a voice through pretending to be other people.

I always loved going to the cinema. At first with my Dad – Kung Fu movies, war movies, westerns, blockbusters. And then I fell in love with French cinema (Godard, Louis Malle) and then lots of other countries opened up to me via their films. For example, Iran was a country I knew so little about – it was a cardboard villain kind of knowledge. And then I saw a film from Iran and it was extraordinary – A Moment of Innocence by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. And then that took me to all sorts of places.

So, music, dance, books, films. Poetry was always there. English was probably my best subject. Then going to University doing undergrad, postgrad on Psychology, I became a therapist.

I worked at a mental health centre, when I was 26 (and what did I know at that age?) It was a day centre for people with a range of mental health issues and I suppose I brought my therapeutic practice, my creative practice, into the space to say how do we do things that are holistic? To try and let people know that they were more than their illness, more than their label. So, storytelling classes, art classes, massage classes, dance classes, film clubs. I formed the first youth group for people with mental health problems in Northern Ireland many years ago, like 1992. It was based around creativity, based around mostly not talking about their illness and it was about trying to say: “you are more than your illness, you are more than your pain” and creativity was really helpful.

I then did more post grad stuff in drama therapy and I thought how can I do creative stuff? I realised that: “We get stuck when we can’t imagine alternatives and pain sometimes keeps us stuck, routines, habits, culture… what I saw was imagination could expand our horizons, imagination could show us that we could be contradictory, complex, that we could have five feelings at once.”

I retrained in the early 90s to be a mediator, I had been doing lots of volunteer peace activism in different places and locations and I needed some theory. I did my foundation training with Mediation Northern Ireland and the two main trainers were John and Naomi Lederach (parents of the world-renowned John Paul Lederach). I didn’t realise until later how profound that first training was for me, and as soon as I finished it, I designed something to address mental health and conflict. I was just so excited by having a theory which could help me understand my intuitions.

The therapeutic, peacebuilding, mediation and the artistic are all a part of me so I wanted to use it all. I don’t have a hierarchy on talking is bad, dancing is good, stories are good, and theory is bad. To me it was: “How can I help people find their voice? How can we find our voice to give people lots of possibilities?”

Stefania – What do you feel is special about art to facilitate conflict transformation?

Paul – Symbol will allow two or three things alive in the same space (without competing), so ruling out a binary right and wrong, it allows the possibility of multiple ideas and perspectives not at war in the same space; or in dissonance and yet still part of it, and I just adore that – that there is all that possibility. Empathy is built when we use the arts. You get to jump into another person’s head or feet or smell or language and that seemed to be foundational for conflict transformation. It’s about the nature and quality of relationships; Who are we to each other? What is the multitudes of who we are? I think creativity can give so many languages, so many ways that are not hierarchical. I think creativity allows for the possibility of there being lots of truths.

It is not one or the other. I can do the straight therapeutic “tell me about your childhood” and I can say “let’s create a metaphor” or I can say “let’s watch this movie, what do you see?” or I can tell a story and see if it touches your story. Stories breed other stories – we see and hear and understand through stories so I think art at its best can offer the possibility of a polyphonic inclusive space.

I think art at its worst can be propaganda so it can say: there is only one way (obviously examples of certain propaganda films during the Second World War on both sides were saying there’s only one way). They can be beautiful AND manipulative. Every film is trying to shape us.

Stefania – You are an artist. You create poetry, photography, movies, stories, images and metaphors, movement and drama. Is there an art form closest to your heart? What, or what combination, is most effective with groups and with what groups?

Paul – I don’t know if there is an art form that’s closest to my heart. I think I’m better at some than others, technically. Technically I know that I have more range in words that I do in music or I’m probably more technically gifted in film making than dancing these days, and so that’s about technique and ability to use the medium.

If I take films, movies, they have got movement, they have got words, they have got sound, they have got dance, if you wanted. Everything is in there, however it’s also the most expensive medium so I can’t say I love it more than others. I adore movies, I am a real geek. I think movies have shown me different worlds. In all the mediums, I think there’s a distinction between what I love and what I’m technically good at.

It also depends on the group and what you are there to do with them. Is it just for fun or to learn something?

I remember working with Jonny McEwan, Derick Wilson, Libby Keys, Karen Eyben (what a group of people!) and they had got this amazing piece of research money to look at creativity and growing a learning society. There was a Shared Future document, this is many years ago, where they got to asking people what sort of future do you want? We were invited to eavesdrop, to sit in on all these conversations and then to make art. I mean, it was lovely because people were giving you permission.

There was a group of artists called “Think bucket” which Johnny McEwan founded, which was really looking at how can art help reframe, re-lens, re-language, peace and reconciliation. I do remember though we went to Stormont and we had been given two rooms and then all the civil servants came in to see all this art and there was a complete mismatch. I had created T-shirts with slogans that people had said they wanted the future police to wear (Muslim, Gay, I bleed etc); I remember a civil servant saying “you couldn’t fit that into a filing cabinet”. We hadn’t done enough work between one language and the other, (civil servant and artistic) so I think people thought we were freakish. Sometimes you need to have a form that people can get, other times you need to disorient them out of their language into that new learning space. Now, if it’s too weird people just give up or feel defeated.

So, I guess I’m always looking at: “What’s the point of the session? How much time do I have? What relationship is there?” and then I build something from that.

One example that comes to mind is where I was asked to do ‘something creative’ with a group of youth workers. They were looking at resilience and these were brilliant youth workers doing a lot of amazing innovative frontline stuff. I brought a big bucket of dirt, fresh dirt into the room. I could just see in their faces that I was losing them almost immediately by this big bucket of dirt. I said: “I want you to stick your hands in the dirt and take a fist full of dirt for a walk”. They were like: “What’s wrong with you, mate? Why? And what will be doing next? Why? Why? Why?”, there was lots of resistance and the resistance is the material as I say all the time. You don’t go: “You are stupid, you should get this”, the resistance is telling me they’re uncomfortable, they fear: “Who’s got the power? Is this a test? Will they be valued? Are they going to get it right or wrong?”.

I said: “Go and do it, and come back”. I would say half of them probably just ignored it and came back and pretended to do it. I said: “Now, here is some lovely warm water and some soaps. Wash your hands”. They were really happy to do that, to get all that dirt off their hands. I said: “You folk are amazing, you work really hard and you pride yourselves about getting your hands dirty”. “Yep, that’s us”, they got that. I said: “How do you get your hands washed?”. They went “Ohhhh, now we get it!” They could still feel the dirt in their hands and the warm water when we got into the conversation.

Then the next day we were using that language to say, “how do you look after yourself?” because if you’ve got dirty hands all the time that goes into your partners’, your children’s hair, your food, what you read, everywhere you’ve got these dirty hands. I was trying to say in a metaphor, which had a very physical sense to it, how do you take care of yourself? Could I have just used the metaphor and said how do you get your hands dirty? I don’t think so. because they wouldn’t have felt it.

Stefania – Do you find people resisting creative and artistic approaches in group work?

Paul – Resistances is part of the process and obviously if there’s too much resistance, people can get hurt, nothing can get done, or there is distress or acting out or withdrawal. If there is too much storming, it can disrupt any learning for anybody. Sometimes that happens, people want to disrupt the whole thing in order to escape. The safety of the group, the stretch of the group, the comfort. I mean, we are built to push the genes further ahead into the next generation. We are genetically built to seek comfort and avoid discomfort and yet we have a sophisticated brain, within this very primitive body. Trying to build resilience with discomfort is part of the work, to monitor that and to measure that. Co-working can help a lot because you can’t always see it yourself. Yes, people resist and when they ask questions, that’s very helpful because I can’t mind read. Planning is hugely important for me, you plan very well in order to have the possibility and flexibility of all these options. Sometimes it doesn’t work. But risk is part of the practice.

I’m not there to force people, it is a fundamental principle for me. I’m not going to force people therefore I don’t know what’s good for people all the time. I think that when people resist, that’s telling you something (which I don’t know right away) rather than me going “Stop resisting!”

Stefania – Do you think the creative process can help healing trauma at both individual and collective levels? How?

Paul – Yes, yes and yes. I begin by saying some of my best work has happened because people thought I was only doing a bit of ‘fun art’ . I would get into community to do a ‘silly piece of art’ because they thought I wouldn’t do any damage therefore I was safe. So, some of my best work has happened when people have underestimated art and creativity and it’s allowed me in. If I had said can I come and do some peacebuilding they would have went, ‘no way’ because it would have been viewed as a threat. So, I sometimes downplay what art can do. I would say I will tell a few stories and see what happens and I’ll tell a story and you see what happens, or we watch a film from Iran and we see what happens.

There’s this gorgeous set of films called September the 11th, where eleven film makers were asked to write a response to 9/11. There is tragedy, comedy, metaphor, transformation and they are films from all different parts of the world. I use it in training sessions. The first film is from an Iranian film maker. It’s beautiful, I showed it to people in the American military, and they connected to that. They said, “All we knew was what we were told by Fox News, that the whole Muslim world was cheering when 9/11 happened, which is not what happened” and I remember this woman just going “This can’t be true” and I said, “Why can’t it be true?”, “I just thought Iranians were fundamentalist religious people who hated the West, and here they seem to be sympathetic to the West. It can’t be true, or….. I’d have to change my opinions about the enemy”.

I think creativity has a way in that straight talking hasn’t, art has a gentleness, it has a strangeness, it can be looked at entertainingly. If you watch a movie about something for example you think: “It is a movie therefore I can understand it”. There’s not a stealth, there’s a disguise, sometimes, that art can bring in. When it is otherwise just too hot or too cold for people to get to that place.

Sometimes you distance to get close, sometimes it is too painful to go near, you need to look at something from really far away, another country or a fairytale. That helps you to get a sense of it. Art has the possibility of allowing us to take a glimpse at the pain we have, sometimes from a distance, or masked, or transformed.

For example, I did a piece of work with Susan McEwan, I love working with her. It was coming up to the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, she said “I think we can get some money to do something, let’s dream big!” And I dreamt big and I said: “why don’t we get 3600 volunteers (to represent the 3600 deaths in the Troubles) and we will give them all a birth date and a death date of one of these dead, nothing more, and we will get them to surround the City Hall on one specific day”. She said: “that sounds good, let’s do it and we’ll see what happens!” I went: “okay, let’s do it!”. So, we began to think this up and it became too big for us and we didn’t have enough money. The scale of it was just too big but the idea of it… so this is back to art- the idea of it changed us! When we met, we would go “3600 people! How would that look like?” and so even not doing the project was changing us. Susan said, “let’s do something else”.

So we created “Just for one day”. On the 20th anniversary we invited 10 artists in 10 different locations around Belfast to produce a response to the Good Friday Agreement and the 3600 dead. One of my favourite pieces showed me what art could do. Leonie McDonagh is a dancer and comedian, not from the North. She put this idea to us which was how many times can I fall down and get up in 3600 seconds, which is an hour, and that’s what she did. We invited people who could go on a special bus that visited all the sites or people could go to one site. She performed in An Culturlann, she was downstairs and all you could hear was a bang. It was her falling down and getting up, again and again for an hour. She was bruised all over. People there would say “I need to look away, but I hope she’s okay”, “Every politician should see this, because look at what we’ve done to ourselves”. There was no manifesto, it was a slim woman falling down and getting up. And no one talked about her getting up, they only talked about her falling. This is profound, I am so pleased that we commissioned this. We had ideas about touring it and didn’t get to any of that.

That’s the example: those people were changed, should everybody have seen it? Should we have done the 3600 volunteers? Who knows? Another example was an Esther O’Kelly piece. She does these beautiful abstract paintings we said we’re going to put your really abstract work at a hairdresser in north Belfast. So, the hairdresser, all her clients and her mates, came and the hairdressing salon changed. Something quite abstract was beside a pair of scissors, and a pair of scissors sat beside something bright and beautiful and she had this new conversation, this juxtaposition, which delights me and very few things can do that, you know, talking therapy can’t always do that and art can do that.

My piece was a film. I was trying to find a sports stadium that had 3600 seats to show the scale of the deaths. Crusaders has 3200 seats and so I made a film with me doing a voice over, showing rows and rows of seats. At one point in the dialogue I say something like “Crusaders can only have 3200 people in it, what will we do with the 400, not let them in?” and this notion of heaven, hell, in and out.. I just wanted to weep, thinking “We got to get them in, we have to have them in, we’ll bring them in”. I got a gorgeous cameraman just to do these amazing images, it is 7 minutes long and I’ve shown it all over the world. People go: “What are you saying?” I say “No, what are you seeing?”. In the movie I list the jobs people had, shopkeeper, student, farmer, soldier and I just kept listing, in the end I think I did 50 occupations. It is different every time I see it, because how can your brain, really grasp, that amount of dead. In global terms, when you look at Rwanda, Cambodia, it’s a very small group, but it’s still a large number of people for the size of Northern Ireland.

So, I suppose what art can do is create a language for grief, create a language of remembering, create a language for lament and create language for recovery.

An artist recently said, “Every piece of work I do means nothing and everything. It means nothing in that it’s only a painting, it means everything because that’s all I can do.”

Art making and mark making have to be about everything and nothing. It is only a page with words on it, it is only a movie and yet it can reach to the heart of things.

How do you have a light touch and be passionate about it? How do you be deeply invested in something that may never get seen? Yet, isn’t that what relationships are about? There’s no guarantee of any relationship’s future and so when you start off to do a big piece of work, like write a book or make a film, my big fear is will anybody see this? Would anybody get this? What else could I be doing? I could be playing with the kids, I could be making dinner, I could be cleaning the bathroom.

To me art is about everything and nothing. I am not making it higher than doing the dishes and what I’m saying is I think it has capacity to let us see the world in all these different ways.

I used to think if I do a strong enough poem, everybody who sees it would be changed forever. You want to make a difference, but what does that mean? I think it changes me. I get the most out of it, I am sure.

I made a film about cheerleaders in Sandy Row, I didn’t know I was making a film about superheroes but that’s what they are. They went across boundaries by dancing. Because they were female and from Sandy Row they were disregarded. When I showed the film to them at the Queen’s Film Theatre, they wanted to have the red carpet. They got their own red carpet and the limousine. I said to myself “This is tacky” and then this woman said, “Nobody is ever going to make a film about me again”.

Stefania – In your years of experience is there a particular project or engagement that you want to talk about in relation to this conversation on art and peacebuilding?

Paul – I was really proud of a piece called “Patrick, Prods and Prams” with a group of women which began talking about celebrations and became an exploration of Saint Patrick’s Day, because they had never been to the Belfast parade on St Patrick’s Day as they felt it would have been dangerous. It became them participating in St Patrick’s Day parade as one of the first Protestant groups in Belfast. I have to say they took far more risk than I did. They said “We’ll do it, we don’t want to wear green and you have to lead us in the parade”. I did.

Stefania: Do you consciously try to use humour and light-heartedness in your work?

Paul – It’s about lightness and appropriateness of touch. I think with a heavy subject I try to hold all that’s in the room and sometimes I can hold it too heavily or too lightly. Other times a light touch can open it up, other times you’re holding it and it’s a real strain and other times you tell a joke, and the room opens up to possibilities. I’m doing a piece of research in West Belfast and we’re looking at cemeteries along Falls Rd and I’m going to start the session (which we do in a couple of weeks time) by saying that “I once went on a date, a first date, in a graveyard”. Now people are just going to be curious because as soon as I say that I know I’ve got the audience because you want to know, they want to know and… “it didn’t end well”, the date…

Stefania: What have been your biggest learnings during the years in your experience with art, creativity and peacebuilding?

Paul – That light touch, how do you develop your touch to hold what’s in the room?

A lot of this work is about practice, you have to practice, you have to prepare and then you have to reflect on what you have done. I have not done enough of that, in terms of reflecting. It is a benefit, part of that is economics and part of that is an odd thing which is a part of me doesn’t want to know how it works (as I might ruin it!). The researcher in me is saying “it is actually good to know that, so you can do it again and again and again.”

The intuitive, how do you develop the intuitive as a skill? Rather than going: “I’m just making it up”. I need to prepare for hours, in order to make something up on the spot. It’s a bit like musicians, you practice for hours so you can improvise with what’s in the room, who you’re playing with.

I remember a language translator saying: “don’t try and understand too soon”. To me that has become a mantra. It has massive implications. I think that creativity is not trying to understand too soon, (and also it stops people becoming problems to solve). When working with mystery and metaphors isn’t to explain things, it is to guide you through something you don’t understand with reason at first. Some people want me, every time I tell a story, to analyse it (that just sounds like a drag). I would like the story to be the story and that’s it. The learnings are practice, intuition, reflection, preparation, create models. Don’t not try to understand too soon. That art is about everything and nothing.

Victor Hugo said “There is nothing like a dream to create the future”; what he is saying to me is Imagination can create new worlds.

I suppose art has been saving and transformative for me, because it has allowed me to be a whole bundle of contradictions and if it helped me, I think it might help other people. It allowed me to be multiple things, to work in tough areas and believe in gentleness, to be good at talking and practice listening a lot, to be good with words and to do movement instead.

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For a photo of Paul Hutchinson, see https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/19644887644/in/dateposted/