Tag Archives: Nonviolence

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty

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Beyond the programme: Nonviolence as organisational practice

A central question for organisations engaged in peacebuilding is whether nonviolence should be understood primarily as a discrete area of service provision or as a broader methodology that informs the entirety of organisational practice. In the context of Northern Ireland, this distinction is particularly significant. While there is clear value in creating dedicated spaces, programmes and services through which nonviolence can be taught and practised, there is a risk that such an approach can unintentionally compartmentalise peacebuilding. Nonviolence may become one strand of activity rather than the ethical and methodological framework through which all activity is understood.

There remains an important case for tangible nonviolence infrastructure. Dedicated hubs, programmes and practitioners can provide spaces for dialogue, mediation, restorative practice, conflict transformation and education. They can develop specialist expertise and offer communities accessible spaces in which difficult conversations can take place. In a society shaped by a prolonged history of political violence, communal division and intergenerational trauma, such spaces have considerable practical and symbolic value.

However, the existence of a dedicated nonviolence service does not in itself create a nonviolent organisation.

An organisation may deliver programmes concerned with reconciliation while retaining highly hierarchical internal practices. It may teach dialogue while making decisions without meaningful participation. It may promote dignity externally while reproducing practices internally that leave staff, volunteers or service users feeling marginalised or unheard. It may challenge interpersonal violence while paying insufficient attention to structural inequalities that contribute to conflict, exclusion and social harm.

For this reason, nonviolence may be more productively understood not simply as a programme, but as a methodology.

Such an approach would require organisations to examine the values and assumptions that underpin their everyday work. The relevant questions would extend beyond whether an organisation provides peacebuilding activities. They would include how authority is exercised, how conflict is addressed, how decisions are made, how people experiencing anger or distress are responded to, how accountability is understood, whose voices are included, and how power is distributed within organisational and community relationships.

These are not peripheral questions. They are central to the practice of nonviolence.

This distinction is particularly important in Northern Ireland, where peace has often been measured in terms of the reduction of overt political violence. The transformation brought about through the peace process is substantial, yet significant patterns of division remain embedded within social and community life. Residential segregation, educational separation, interfaces, enduring sectarian attitudes, socioeconomic inequality and competing narratives of identity continue to shape everyday experience.

A meaningful contemporary understanding of nonviolence must therefore extend beyond the prevention of physical violence. It must also examine the conditions in which violence, alienation and social fragmentation become possible. Within Kingian traditions of nonviolence, nonviolence is not synonymous with passivity or conflict avoidance. Rather, it involves an active engagement with injustice while resisting the dehumanisation of those with whom one is in conflict. This is an important distinction within the Northern Irish context, where the avoidance of difficult issues can sometimes be mistaken for reconciliation.

Nonviolence does not require the absence of conflict. It requires a different relationship with conflict. It requires the capacity to challenge injustice without reproducing humiliation, to hold people accountable without denying their humanity, and to acknowledge trauma without allowing past trauma to determine future relationships. It also requires a willingness to address questions of power, inequality and exclusion rather than focusing exclusively on interpersonal reconciliation. Seen in this way, nonviolence becomes relevant across the full spectrum of community practice.

In youth work, for example, a nonviolent methodology would move beyond behavioural management towards an understanding of behaviour as communication. Boundaries and accountability would remain necessary, but they would be exercised in ways that preserve the dignity of the young person and recognise their capacity for change.

In community development, nonviolence would require a shift from delivering services to communities towards building agency and power alongside them. Participation would mean more than consultation. It would involve communities having meaningful influence over decisions that affect their lives.

In organisational leadership, nonviolence would similarly raise questions about the exercise of authority. Leadership would remain responsible for making difficult decisions, but greater attention would be paid to transparency, participation, relationships and the manner in which power is exercised.

Even apparently ordinary organisational practices may carry significance within this framework. Hospitality, welcome, listening and the creation of spaces in which people feel recognised can themselves become forms of peacebuilding. In divided societies, everyday encounters can gradually challenge inherited assumptions about identity and belonging.

This suggests that the most useful distinction may not ultimately be between nonviolence as a hub and nonviolence as a methodology. Both have value, but they serve different purposes. A dedicated hub can provide focus, expertise, visibility and practical resources. It can act as a centre in which nonviolent approaches are taught, developed and tested. However, its purpose should arguably be to influence the wider culture of the organisation and community rather than to contain nonviolence within a single programme. The hub might therefore be understood as an organisational centre of learning and practice rather than the sole location in which peacebuilding occurs. Its success would be measured not only by the number of programmes delivered or participants engaged, but by the extent to which nonviolent principles influence the wider organisation.

This would mean asking whether youth provision reflects those principles. Whether community development practice reflects them. Whether governance reflects them. Whether organisational leadership reflects them. Whether approaches to safeguarding, conflict, staff management, participation and accountability reflect them.

For Northern Ireland, this broader understanding may be particularly important. The next phase of peacebuilding is unlikely to depend exclusively upon formal peace initiatives. It may also depend upon the extent to which the principles associated with peacebuilding become embedded within the ordinary institutions of social life. Youth centres, community organisations, schools, family support services, voluntary organisations and neighbourhood networks all have the potential to become sites in which alternative relationships with power, conflict and difference are practised.

The central question, therefore, may not be whether an organisation has a nonviolence programme. It may be whether nonviolence is recognisable in the way that organisation behaves. A dedicated hub can give nonviolence visibility, expertise and institutional presence. A methodological approach allows it to shape organisational culture and everyday practice.

In the Northern Irish context, the most effective model may require both: a clearly identifiable centre in which nonviolent practice is intentionally developed, alongside a commitment to ensuring that its principles are embedded throughout the organisation. Nonviolence would then cease to be simply something an organisation delivers. It would become part of how the organisation understands its purpose, exercises power, manages conflict and relates to the communities it serves.

Beyond the absence of violence: Building a deeper peace

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by Kate Laverty

Sitting today (21.9.26) at the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council’s Making A Difference 2026: Building Belonging conference, I have found myself returning to a deceptively simple question: what do we actually mean when we say that Northern Ireland is at peace?

It is an important question because we have become accustomed to measuring peace through what is no longer happening. Fewer shootings. Fewer bombings. Fewer deaths. Less overt political violence. These are extraordinary achievements and should never be diminished. The first Northern Ireland Peace Index, published this month by Queen’s University Belfast and the Institute for Economics and Peace, gives empirical weight to that progress. Between 2019 and 2025, measures of what researchers describe as Negative Peace — the absence of violence and fear of violence — improved significantly. Yet the structures and relationships associated with Positive Peace improved only marginally.

That distinction matters enormously. Because the absence of violence is not necessarily the presence of peace.

Northern Ireland knows this perhaps better than most places. We can remove the gun without removing the fear. We can stop the riot without addressing the alienation that preceded it. We can construct political institutions while communities continue to experience poverty, exclusion, sectarianism, racism and disconnection. We can become remarkably successful at preventing conflict from becoming violent while remaining much less comfortable with conflict itself.

And perhaps this is where nonviolence has something important to offer the next stage of peacebuilding.

Nonviolence is not the avoidance of conflict. It is a methodology for entering conflict differently.

That distinction is critical. Too often, nonviolence is understood as passivity: being reasonable, remaining calm, avoiding confrontation or simply refusing to retaliate. But serious traditions of nonviolence demand considerably more than restraint. They require people to confront injustice, expose harm, challenge unequal power and refuse to accept conditions that diminish human dignity.

Passivity asks us to endure what is wrong. Nonviolence asks us to confront what is wrong without surrendering the humanity of those with whom we are in conflict. That is a much more demanding proposition.

It requires us to develop the capacity to remain in difficult conversations rather than retreating from them. It requires dialogue that is capable of holding disagreement, rather than dialogue whose success is measured by everyone leaving the room comfortable. It requires de-escalation without silencing legitimate anger. It requires restorative approaches that take harm seriously while refusing to believe that punishment and exclusion are the only meaningful forms of accountability.

And it requires reconciliation to mean considerably more than people learning to be polite to one another. One of the challenges for peacebuilding in Northern Ireland may therefore be that we have occasionally confused managing conflict with transforming it. Conflict management asks how we prevent a situation deteriorating. Conflict transformation asks a deeper question: what is producing this conflict, and what needs to change?

That takes us beyond the immediate argument and into questions of relationships, identity, power, inequality, history and belonging. It asks us to look not only at the people standing on opposite sides of an interface, but at the social conditions surrounding them. It asks why particular communities continue to experience disadvantage; why some young people experience limited routes towards power and recognition; why racism and sectarianism remain capable of mobilising anger; and why confidence in political and public institutions can remain fragile even decades after a peace agreement.

The Peace Index (https://nipi.economicsandpeace.org/) makes that challenge particularly stark. Northern Ireland’s reduction in violence is significant, yet the underlying foundations necessary to sustain peace have moved much more slowly. The research also identifies hate crime as the only Negative Peace indicator to have deteriorated between 2019 and 2025, increasing by 21.5 per cent.

That should make those of us involved in peacebuilding uncomfortable. Not despairing. But uncomfortable. Because discomfort is sometimes where serious peacebuilding begins.

It requires us to ask whether some of our established approaches remain sufficient for the society Northern Ireland is becoming. The Community Relations Council itself has recently supported reflection on whether community-relations practice needs to respond differently to contemporary experiences of identity, belonging and division. That conversation includes sectarianism, but can no longer be confined to the traditional binary understanding of community relations.

Our communities are changing. The forms through which fear and hostility are expressed are changing. The spaces in which conflict develops have changed. Social media can amplify grievance long before it appears on a street. Racism intersects with older territorial and sectarian divisions. Economic exclusion sits alongside questions of cultural identity. Trauma passes through families and neighbourhoods while new generations inherit conflicts they did not create.

Peacebuilding must therefore remain capable of changing too.

This is why I increasingly think that one of the most important capacities we can develop is not the capacity to eliminate disagreement, but the capacity to stay in relationship through disagreement.

That is different. It means teaching young people that conflict is not itself a failure. It means helping communities distinguish between anger and violence. It means creating spaces where people can speak honestly without humiliation becoming the currency of debate. It means being capable of saying, I believe this is wrong. I will oppose it. I will organise against it. I will challenge you on it — but I will not require your destruction in order to prove the legitimacy of my position.

That is the discipline of nonviolence. And there is something deeply relevant within it for Northern Ireland. Our peace process taught the world something extraordinary: political violence that once appeared intractable did not have to remain inevitable. But perhaps the work before us now is more dispersed and, in some respects, more difficult to see. It sits in youth clubs and schools, community organisations and workplaces, neighbourhoods and interfaces. It appears in conversations about migration, flags, language, poverty, policing, constitutional futures and who belongs.

The next stage of peace may not always look like peace negotiations. Sometimes it will look like creating the conditions in which people who profoundly disagree can remain in the same room. Sometimes it will mean restorative work after harm has occurred. Sometimes it will mean challenging structural inequality. Sometimes it will mean refusing racism or sectarianism when silence would be easier. Sometimes it will mean recognising the anger of a young person not simply as behaviour to be controlled, but as information about the world they are experiencing. And sometimes peacebuilding will mean having the courage to permit conflict because genuine transformation cannot occur where difficult truths are permanently suppressed.

The theme of today’s CRC conference is Building Belonging. That feels particularly significant. Belonging cannot simply mean inviting people into structures that remain unchanged. Genuine belonging asks whether people possess voice, agency and power once they arrive. The conference itself is deliberately creating space not simply to celebrate peacebuilding practice but to examine its future direction, including through work on community resilience, youth and identity, inclusion and courageous conversations.

And, when approached through the discipline of nonviolence, a place from which something different can emerge. The absence of violence gave Northern Ireland the possibility of peace. The challenge now is to build the relationships, institutions and social conditions that allow peace to become something more than an absence.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: The gentle boundary – Everyday nonviolence and the courage to say no

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We often imagine nonviolence in its great and public forms. We think of marches, resistance, prison cells, speeches, movements and those extraordinary people who stood before systems of violence and refused to become violent themselves. But most of us will never stand at such a dramatic threshold. Our practice of nonviolence will happen somewhere quieter: around a kitchen table, in a difficult conversation, in the moment when someone asks too much of us, in the workplace when we have to say no, or in the family when an old pattern begins to rise again.

Perhaps some of the deepest acts of nonviolence are almost invisible. They are the moments when we refuse both aggression and surrender.

There is a temptation to think that kindness must always say yes. Particularly for those of us who work in community, hospitality or care, inclusion can slowly become confused with unlimited availability. The door is open. The kettle is on. There is another chair at the table. These are beautiful things, but an open door does not mean that every person may enter every room. There must also be thresholds.

A threshold is not an act of hostility. It is the place where one space meets another and both are allowed to retain their integrity. This is what a boundary can be. Not a wall. Not punishment. Not the withdrawal of love. A threshold. It says: you may come this far, and here we will meet one another.

There is something profoundly nonviolent about that. Violence, in its broadest sense, often begins when we cease to recognise the separateness of another person. We demand access. We insist. We control. We decide that our need gives us a claim upon somebody else’s time, body, attention or emotional life. But the opposite can happen too. We can commit a quieter violence against ourselves by continually abandoning our own limits in order to keep others comfortable.

Nonviolence asks something more difficult. It asks us to honour the dignity of both people. I do not have to diminish you in order to protect myself, and I do not have to diminish myself in order to welcome you.

That is a harder balance than it first appears. Sometimes maintaining an inclusive atmosphere means saying, gently, this particular space is not the right space for you. Sometimes it means saying, I cannot do that, but perhaps someone else can. Sometimes it means offering one form of relationship while declining another. Sometimes it means leaving the door open to conversation while closing the door firmly on a pattern that has become unhealthy.

The manner matters. There is a world of difference between saying no in order to wound someone and saying no because the relationship needs shape. A boundary offered without humiliation allows dignity to remain in the room. We can explain without accusing, redirect without rejecting, remain warm without becoming endlessly available, and refuse the request without refusing the person.

These are small disciplines, but perhaps this is where nonviolence begins to become a way of life rather than merely an idea. The great traditions of nonviolence have always understood that peace is not passivity. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of nonviolence as refusing both to inflict violence and to submit inwardly to hatred. There is strength in that middle place. It requires us to resist the seductive simplicity of two extremes: domination or capitulation.

There is another way: gentleness with firmness, hospitality with discernment, compassion with limits, love without possession.

And perhaps this matters especially in community spaces. An inclusive community cannot mean that every individual receives everything they want. In fact, without boundaries, the loudest needs can eventually consume the space intended for everyone. The task is not simply to keep the door open. It is to tend the room: to notice who has become quiet, who is taking too much space, who feels unsafe, who is always expected to give, and who has never learned that another person’s kindness has limits.

True inclusion requires stewardship. It asks us to protect the atmosphere in which belonging can grow.

Sometimes the gentlest thing we can do for a person is not to become indispensable to them. We can point towards another relationship, another service, another friend, another source of strength. We can resist the flattering temptation to become the answer to every need. There is nonviolence in this too, because dependency can quietly distort a relationship. What begins as kindness can become obligation; what begins as support can become expectation; what begins as generosity can become resentment. A healthy boundary interrupts that journey before either person becomes diminished by it.

Perhaps this is one of the quieter truths about peacebuilding. Peace is not merely learning how to live alongside the stranger. Sometimes it is learning how to live lovingly alongside those who are closest to us without consuming one another. It is learning the sacred distance from which another person’s life can remain their own.

There must be room between people: room for choice, room for responsibility, room for disappointment, room for growth. And within that space, affection does not disappear. Sometimes it becomes more honest.

There is great tenderness in being able to say: I care about you, and I cannot do this. Both sentences can be true.

Perhaps that is one of the gentler acts of nonviolence available to us each day: to remain present without taking over, to listen without absorbing everything, to welcome without surrendering the threshold, to say no without making an enemy, and to allow another person their dignity even when we cannot give them what they seek.

And then we return to the ordinary rituals of belonging. Put the kettle on. Pull out a chair. Ask how they are. Listen. Laugh. Share whatever can genuinely be shared. The boundary remains, but so does the welcome.

Perhaps peace has always depended upon these small things. Not simply upon the courage to stand against violence when it arrives loudly at our door, but upon the quieter courage to practise another way of being with one another every day: a way in which nobody has to disappear for somebody else to belong.

We haven’t gone away you know

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By Kate Laverty

Sometimes, I wonder if being nonviolent is being “too much” against the grain. But, nonviolence is all around us. We are not alone. We are not on the fringes. We are not fighting a losing battle. Here’s proof, on a global scale.

  1. 30 June — Cape Town, South Africa: standing between migrants and xenophobia. Around 20 organisations gathered at Salt River Circle under the banner “Workers of Africa Unite – Immigrants Welcome”, forming a human chain as a deliberate counter-presence to anti-immigration demonstrations elsewhere in Cape Town. What makes this especially interesting as nonviolence is what surrounded the protest: Muslim, Christian and other faith leaders convened emergency meetings, organised food, hygiene supplies, blankets and pastoral care for foreign nationals, and created a coordinated relief response. Here nonviolence was not merely opposing hostility; it was physically replacing hostility with hospitality. Muslim Views, reporting in July 2026. (Muslim Views)

  2. 2 July — Paris, France: marching in silence for Gaza. Several hundred people joined a silent march through Paris, carrying portraits of people killed in Gaza and walking behind a commemorative banner. Some participants dressed in black. Whatever one’s politics around the conflict, the method itself is striking: silence used as witness rather than shouting used as confrontation. Reuters Connect/Anadolu, 2 July 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  3. 5 July — Mallorca, Spain: a human chain to defend a landscape. Residents and environmental activists joined hands along Es Trenc beach to protest proposed changes they feared would weaken protection of the Es Trenc–Es Salobrar nature reserve. The symbol was beautifully simple: people using their bodies not to damage or occupy the landscape but to draw a protective human line around something they believed should be preserved. Majorca Daily Bulletin and Reuters imagery, 4–5 July 2026. (Majorca Daily Bulletin)

  4. 6 July — Washington DC, United States: an interfaith alternative rather than an enemy. Around 200 Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist participants marched across Capitol Hill as part of Interfaith Action for Palestine. The three-day gathering also included interfaith worship and visits to congressional offices. One particularly important detail is that organisers said that, unlike previous years, their emphasis was less on disrupting the organisation they opposed and more on creating an alternative vision based on equality, care and solidarity. That is almost textbook constructive nonviolence: don’t merely resist the thing you oppose; embody the alternative. Religion News Service, 8 July 2026. (RNS)

  5. 11 July — Hong Kong: remembering when public protest becomes impossible. Former Tiananmen vigil organiser Tang Ngok-kwan has continued acts of remembrance despite the disappearance of Hong Kong’s mass candlelight vigils and the imprisonment of colleagues. AP documented him returning quietly to former commemorative sites, bowing at Victoria Park and softly reading victims’ names. He has also repeatedly walked a route containing 64 steps—an allusion to 4 June—and while imprisoned once marked the anniversary by running 35 laps barefoot. This may be one of the most beautiful examples I found: when power removes the demonstration, remembrance itself becomes resistance. Associated Press, published 22 August 2026; AP photographed Tang on 11 July. (AP News)

  6. 18–24 July — New Delhi, India: fasting, human chains and keeping your own protest peaceful. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk undertook a prolonged hunger strike amid youth protests over alleged examination irregularities. But one of the most interesting smaller stories came from the protesters themselves. On 23 July, demonstrators formed a two-layer human chain specifically to maintain discipline and prevent their own crowd moving towards security forces. Other volunteers formed chains to manage crowds while people collected rubbish from the protest site. That is nonviolence not simply as refusing to attack police, but as a movement deliberately regulating itself so anger does not become violence. Wangchuk eventually ended a 26-day fast on 24 July. Reuters, NDTV and Reuters Connect, July 2026. (Reuters)

  7. 16 July — London, UK: Muslims and Jews choosing relationship amid division. Muslim and Jewish leaders, interfaith activists and young people gathered in Westminster for the Together We Rebuild summit, jointly convened by the UK Muslim Network and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The point was not pretending that profound disagreements had disappeared; it was rebuilding relationships after years in which the Israel-Gaza conflict had severely strained relations between the communities. This belongs in a discussion of nonviolence because remaining in relationship with someone whose community carries a radically different experience of the same conflict can itself be a disciplined act of peace. Jewish News / Board of Deputies, 16–17 July 2026. (Jewish News)

  8. 27 July — Israel/Palestine: refusing a hierarchy of grief. Palestinian peacebuilder Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon gave a remarkable joint interview to Le Monde. Abu Sarah’s brother died after being tortured in an Israeli prison; Inon’s parents were killed by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Yet they work together, tell both narratives and insist on equality between their losses. Inon explained that they deliberately use the same language to describe each other’s bereavement, refusing a relationship in which one person’s pain is treated as more legitimate than the other’s. This is a profound form of nonviolence: not denying injustice, but refusing to make empathy conditional upon identity. Le Monde, 27 July 2026. (Le Monde.fr)

  9. 28 July — Florida, United States: ringing a bell against execution. Outside the execution of James Duckett, opponents of the death penalty gathered peacefully. One person rang a bell and called out “not in my name”; a priest also rang a bell, while another protester held a sign calling for justice rather than execution. There is something powerful in the simplicity of it: standing beside an institution of state violence and answering it with a bell, presence and words. USA Today Network via Reuters Connect, 28 July 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  10. 29 July — Ecuadorian Amazon: teenage girls using law and persistence against environmental harm. The Guerreras por la Amazonía—the Women Warriors for the Amazon—continued pressing Ecuador to implement a landmark court judgment requiring the removal of harmful oil-industry gas flares near communities. Members include Indigenous girls and young women, some only 15 or 16. Their campaign has relied upon litigation, testimony, organising and international solidarity rather than retaliation, despite Amnesty reporting stigma and attacks against campaigners. Their persistence has already helped produce legal and political change. It is a useful example of nonviolence as stubbornness: continuing to return to institutions and demand that justice already promised be delivered. Amnesty International, 29 July 2026. (Amnesty International)

  11. 1 August — Wilmington, Delaware, United States: responding to a police shooting with a peaceful procession. Following the fatal police shooting of Kadir Skinner, protesters walked peacefully from the location where he was killed to Wilmington Police Department headquarters. It is an old nonviolent form but a powerful one: taking grief and anger—the emotions most capable of producing retaliatory violence—and turning them instead into collective movement, speech and public witness. Delaware News Journal/USA Today Network via Reuters Connect, 1 August 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  12. 18 August — Dhaka, Bangladesh: standing together against attacks on Indigenous people. Members of the Indigenous Forum formed a human chain at Shahbagh in Dhaka to protest attacks on Indigenous communities. Again, the human-chain method is significant: there is no weapon and no attempt to injure; the bodies of participants become the message—we will stand beside one another. Reuters Connect/NurPhoto, 18 August 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  13. July — Drumcree, Portadown: choosing not to march to the police line. For the first time in more than 25 years, Orangemen at Drumcree did not undertake their customary Sunday walk towards police lines at the Garvaghy Road. The decision was made while a High Court challenge was ongoing. Whatever one’s position on the underlying parading dispute, the act itself is significant: a tradition containing decades of confrontation was interrupted by a deliberate decision not to enact the confrontation that year. In thinking about everyday nonviolence, this is interesting because sometimes restraint is itself an action. Belfast Telegraph, 5 July 2026. Read the Belfast Telegraph article

  1. 6 July — Alexandra Park, North Belfast: friendships across a wall. An Irish News feature found residents on both sides of the Alexandra Park peace wall talking not simply about removing physical barriers but about the relationships that have gradually made removal imaginable. Carmeela Hamill, from the Antrim Road side, described making friends through a cross-community group with people from Tiger’s Bay and being invited to their Eleventh Night bonfire. Michelle McEwan from Tiger’s Bay talked about Protestant and Catholic children needing opportunities to meet rather than being taught implicitly that they cannot venture into one another’s areas. Community worker Kate Clarke described how relationships between residents on both sides have allowed problems to be resolved together, with consultation rather than decisions imposed on communities. This may be one of the purest examples of gentle nonviolence: friendship slowly making a wall less necessary. The Irish News, 6 July 2026. Read The Irish News article

  2. 14 July — Ardoyne, North Belfast: one drumbeat past an old flashpoint. The Ligoniel Orange lodges’ return parade passed Ardoyne peacefully after the Parades Commission scheduled the return for the following morning rather than the previous evening. This is an interface that has witnessed serious violence in earlier years. Instead, the bands passed with a single drumbeat, a small police presence and no incident. There is something almost symbolic about that image: where there could once have been competing noise, anger and confrontation, there was one restrained drumbeat and people simply passed one another. The Irish News, 14 July 2026. Read The Irish News article

  3. 15 July — Ballymena: answering horrific violence with silence and solidarity. After the deaths of a woman and her eight-year-old daughter in a suspected double murder-suicide involving their family, scores of people gathered at the Braid Arts Centre for a vigil. The family had Polish roots, and organisers Youth Ambassadors Northern Ireland issued their invitation in English and Polish, asking people to come together for quiet reflection, light and unity and explicitly standing alongside the local Polish community. Prayers were also offered at All Saints. It is an example of a community responding to violence not with spectacle, blame or suspicion, but with silence, flowers, prayer and presence. The Irish News, The Irish Times and UTV, 15–16 July 2026. The Irish News report | The Irish Times report | UTV report

  4. 24 July — Stranmillis, Belfast: Israeli and Palestinian girls playing on the same team. Seven Israeli and Palestinian girls, mainly from East and West Jerusalem, came to Belfast as members of one of the Middle East’s few integrated basketball teams. They joined young people from across Northern Ireland at PeacePlayers’ annual Interface Games at Stranmillis College. The young people played Gaelic games, rugby, football and basketball together and talked about the parallels between divided societies. One participant described friendships that otherwise would never have happened; PeacePlayers’ Gareth Harper said reconciliation had to be worked at every day. That sentence is important: peace was not being treated as an agreement signed 28 years ago, but as something practised repeatedly through relationship. The Irish News, 24 July 2026. Read The Irish News article

  5. 9 August — Belfast: 10,000 young people at a dance rather than destructive bonfires. This is perhaps one of the strongest examples for your purposes. More than 10,000 young people attended Féile an Phobail’s Dance Night in Falls Park on 8 August. Organisers explicitly described it as a diversionary event intended to draw young people away from the destructive anti-internment bonfires and antisocial behaviour once associated with that night. Belfast was reported to have had no republican bonfires that evening. This is nonviolence as constructive programme-building: you do not merely tell young people don’t build the bonfire; you create somewhere else to go, something better to belong to, music, celebration and community. Belfast Media and The Irish News, 9 August 2026. Belfast Media report | The Irish News report

  6. 9 August — Belfast City Hall: a Shankill flute band welcomed at the Fleadh. On the final day of the Fleadh, the Shankill Road Defenders flute band performed at the City Hall Gig Rig. Afterwards, band representatives described receiving an “extraordinary welcome” and stressed that the Belfast Bands Forum had not simply been included symbolically: representatives had been involved in planning, listened to when concerns arose, and given genuine ownership. This is worth distinguishing from tolerance. Nobody was being asked to hide their tradition. A loyalist flute band was able to perform within the world’s largest festival of Irish traditional music and be received warmly. The Irish News, 12 August 2026, reporting the 9 August performance. Read The Irish News article

  7. 12 August — Bogside, Derry: asking for “level heads” when confrontation was possible. Following the removal of controversial bonfire material near Lecky Road, tensions rose. But Bogside Community Support appealed explicitly for calm and urged young people not to give anyone the reaction they might be seeking. The group had been working with young people around the bonfire issue and attempting to reduce tensions ahead of the August 15 period. This is the kind of nonviolence that is easily overlooked because success often looks like something not happening: community workers entering an angry situation and trying to prevent grievance becoming confrontation. The Irish News, 12 August 2026. Read The Irish News article

  8. 21–22 August — Inner East Belfast: community representatives doing the work of de-escalation. Groups of young people from rival factions gathered around Bryson Street and Pitt Park and threw bottles and stones at one another; objects were also thrown at police. Yet the PSNI specifically reported that officers “worked with local community representatives to reduce tensions”, remaining until the young people dispersed. That brief sentence in a news report conceals a great deal of work: people knowing the young people, talking, negotiating, crossing an interface, moving groups, staying present and preventing something worse. The Irish News and Belfast Telegraph, 24 August 2026, reporting incidents beginning 21 August. The Irish News report | Belfast Telegraph report

Nonviolence is not weakness, and it is not silence in the face of injustice. It is the stubborn refusal to let hatred decide who we become. It is the courage to stand firm without dehumanising, to resist without destroying, to protect without humiliating, and to keep making room for the humanity of the other even when that humanity is difficult to see.

Our communities do not need more people skilled in outrage; they need people brave enough to interrupt it. So let us be the ones who lower the temperature, who cross the road, who make the phone call, who hold the boundary, who refuse the insult, who stay at the table, who stand beside the threatened and who build another way when violence tells us there is no alternative.

Nonviolence begins wherever we are. It begins in the next conversation, the next disagreement, the next moment when we are tempted to wound because we have been wounded.

Choose peace there. Practise it there. Make it visible. And keep choosing it until the gentler way becomes the stronger way.

Christianity’s Missing Peace

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Book review

Christianity’s Missing Peace – Pope Francis, Gospel Nonviolence and the Renewal of the Irish Church by Martin McMullan

Publisher: Wipf & Stock, 2025, Paperback ISBN 979-8-3852-6195-6, 134 pages.

Reviewed by Sylvia Thompson

This book by Martin McMullan, a Dublin-based teacher, has a foreword by Mairead Corrigan Maguire and reached me in February 2026 so a review is long overdue. Martin, the author, was known to me since the Pax Christi Ireland launch of Pax Christi International Catholic Nonviolence initiative on the 14th October 2023 in the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin. This is referenced in the book (p.100).

In her foreword Maguire says “the church is in urgent need of a clear, courageous and prophetic moral stance”. This book is certainly a contribution to that. The preface gives the reader a helpful overview  and the Introduction says explicitly that the “book is aimed first and foremost at the church faithful from a Catholic persuasion” and McMullan believes this to be “an urgent task to awaken people to a central but forgotten and misunderstood tenet of Christianity that has the power to truly transform the world”. Although I am personally coming from the Catholic tradition, I believe that the message given in this book applies to all Christians.

The book has six chapters and 134 pages so it’s a short read but there’s a lot condensed in those pages, for example Chapter 1, Jesus and Nonviolence. This shows the scholarly background to this book and here the author concludes that nonviolence lay at the heart of Jesus’ teaching and practice. Indeed Chapter 2 outlines that the practice of active nonviolence for the first three centuries was ”taken as a given for the building of the kingdom of God” until the “Constantinian shift” which took place with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine and the beginning of the Christian Roman Empire which in turn lead to the beginning of the ‘just war’ theory.

This book is calling for a return to Gospel nonviolence and sees a papal encyclical on this as one significant step. This could not be more timely and we can now see from the strong pronouncements of Pope Leo X1V that the church seems to be edging towards this as he follows the lead of Pope Francis.

In Chapter 4 there is an examination of various papal pronouncements on War and Peace since Vatican II and McMullan writes that they have shown a gradual accepting of the centrality of nonviolence to Christian peacemaking in the world…a most interesting chapter.

In the final chapter entitled Gospel Nonviolence and the Renewal of the Irish Church there is a particular reference to Ireland and the gap in the teaching on gospel nonviolence is highlighted. It documents the work of the Peace People as exemplaries of this but does not reference the work of Pax Christi Ireland including its Belfast branch and other peace activists within the Christian tradition e.g. Fellowship of Reconciliation over many years especially in the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement.

The closing words of the final chapter entitled A New Heaven and a New Earth, “It is time for brave and prophetic leadership to give hope to a very troubled humanity” is McMullan’s call to the Irish Church…is it listening?

August 2026 Supplement to Nonviolent News 341

Nonviolent News, , ,

SUPPLEMENT to Number 341, Belfast, 1st August 2026

Please note this is a relatively short supplement with mainly time-limited or immediate information, not a full issue (the next one will appear at the start of September)

ICND: Annual commemoration of Hiroshima bombing, Dublin

This year will mark the 81st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, which took place on 6th August 1945. Irish CND will be holding the customary annual commemoration in Merrion Square in Dublin. 

The ceremony will take place at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square Park, Dublin, at 1.10 pm o Thursday 6th August. There will be short speeches by Lord Mayor of Dublin Daryl Barron, Japanese Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission in Ireland, Mr Koji Hirohata, and Afri Board member, Dr Patrick Bresnihan (Maynooth University). There will also be contributions of music and poetry, and a wreath of flowers will be laid at the tree at the close of the commemoration. Both Irish CND and Afri are members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), so it is fitting that both organisations are involved in the commemoration.  

An estimated 80,000 people were directly killed by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, with casualties reaching 140,000 within a year. Approximately 12,500 nuclear weapons remain in the world today, more than enough to destroy life on earth as we know it many times over.

ICND continues “Sadly, the dark shadow of the possibility of nuclear war looms more grimly than perhaps ever before. Spending on nuclear weapons reached more than $119 billion last year, a shocking new high, with more than half of this expenditure deriving from the United States. Nuclear weapons states are all engaged in modernising their arsenals and delivery systems. Five of the nine nuclear-armed states have engaged in international military attacks in the past year alone. It would only take a moment of madness to plunge the world into an irreversible nuclear war.

Yet there are positive signs of progress. More countries continue to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons each year. The Treaty has now been signed or ratified by 100 countries, more than half the recognised states in the world. The first Review Conference of the Treaty will take place later this year. 

We must meet darkness with the light of positive hope and determination. We look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to our commemoration in Merrion Square, remembering eight decades of the legacy of nuclear destruction. Wherever you are, even if you are not in a position to join us in person this year, please do join us in spirit to stand in solidarity with the victims of these horrific weapons of mass destruction, and to affirm our determination to work for their elimination, the only way to ensure that the ghastly events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will not be repeated.”  http://irishcnd.blogspot.ie/ www.afri.ie

Hiroshima, Nagasaki lantern vigil, Belfast, 5th August evening

There will be a commemorative lantern vigil held at the Big Fish/Donegall Quay/Lagan Weir from 9.00pm – 11.30pm on Wednesday 5th August to mark the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and stand for nuclear disarmament today. As Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann is on in Belfast at this time with a main stage at the City Hall, the Big Fish was chosen as an alternative venue….but attendees can combine a visit to the Fleadh with the vigil (or vice versa!). Bring a lantern or failing that a candle in a jar. The event is organised by INNATE innate@ntlworld.com and see flyer at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-vigil-26.08.pdf Lantern vigils are being promoted by Pax Christi International https://paxchristi.net/lanterns-for-peace-from-hiroshima-to-the-world/ and this address includes instructions for making your own lantern……

Afri Doolough walk video, sponsored cycle in September

Afri’s Doolough ‘Famine’ Walk is always a powerful occasion and you can visit or revisit the June event of this year in a 14 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayK0TILHiLk and there are photos at https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/1e90b33ca4a643bfb8d64e8f7aa35e0f Donnah Vuma’s reflections at the walk are at https://www.rundale.org/2026/07/21/what-doolough-asks-of-us/ and Patrick Bresnihan’s at https://www.rundale.org/2026/07/21/republic-or-empire/ The 2027 ‘Famine’ Walk will be on 19th June next year.

Meanwhile on 12th September there is a sponsored ‘Famine’ Walk Solidarity Cycle on the same Louisburgh-Doolough-Louisburgh route (both ways) led by Joe Murray, former Afri coordinator, and Richard Moore, of Children in Crossfire. This will support Afri’s work for peace, justice, human rights and sustainability. The start will be in Louisburgh Town Hall at 12 noon. More info at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3vp3_a8Cy5MEXA2KTn6pVfZNyt57rN9/view

Demilitarise for the Just Transition!

The third annual Week of Action for Peace & Climate Justice, backed by a wide variety of groups, is taking place from 21st – 27th September and will address the links between war, militarism/militarisation and social, economic and climate injustice; the title of the week is Divest from War – Invest in The Just Transition! It will promote grassroots action and policymaking to confront both genocide and ecocide – for peace and a just systemic transition. As the Week of Action website states “amid escalating climate change effects and their disastrous toll on social and economic well-being, governments across the globe are militarising at pace. Over the last two years, a majority of NATO and EU states have committed to historic increases in military spending while gutting public funds for real climate and biodiversity action, overseas aid, social welfare, migrant justice, civil society and peacebuilding. This trend is echoed globally and, indeed, has global consequences for people and planetary health.”   See https://climatemilitarism.org/weekofaction/ Source: War Resisters’ International www.wri-irg.org

Peace News rides again

British peace publication Peace News (founded 1936) restarts publication in September with a relaunch pilot issue after a couple of years hiatus. The new ‘PN’ will be quarterly in full colour magazine format. They state “PN will continue to be a space for news, reflection, analysis and promotion of pacifism, anti-militarism, and nonviolence, of campaigns and actions for social, economic and environmental justice. We aim to have a wide range of contributors and book reviewers, and encourage broad discussion through comment articles and a lively letters page.” A new editor has still to be appointed – the post will be advertised in the first issue – but an admin worker, Maryam Namazie, is in place. Subscription rates are still to be announced. editorial@peacenews.info

From Othering to Belonging

john a. powell is director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley   https://belonging.berkeley.edu/ and a highly regarded thinker in the US on racism, identity, democracy and belonging. He visited Ireland in early June as a guest of Social Change Initiative and the Community Foundation Ireland. His thinking provides a very useful counterpoint to concepts about scapegoating and division, as in Northern Ireland. See https://www.socialchangeinitiative.com/from-othering-to-belonging-creating-a-world-where-everyone-belongs

l Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland towards immigration, trans rights, class, wealth and public housing are more progressive and inclusive than the narrative of polarisation dominating national debate – according to Hope and Courage Collective‘s first Ireland in Focus report, which tracks key developments, trends and events from 2024 to 2025. https://tinyurl.com/36sa3n7x with full report at https://hopeandcourage.ie/ireland-in-focus-mind-the-gap/

On democracy

Deciding how decisions are made is often the most important decision that people make. There is a new short exposition of the de Borda Institute www.deborda.org approach; “Democracy is for everybody, not just a majority, and definitely not just the majority. True democracy leaves no community behind.” See https://www.tasc.ie/blog/2026/07/24/democracy-is-for-everybody-not-just-a-majority-and-definitely-not-just-the-majority/

Síolta Chroí courses

Síolta Chroí run regular courses and you can sign up to receive their news at https://sioltachroi.ie/ and click on ‘Get updates’. Their aim is to “teach people how to grow food in ways that heal the land, strengthen communities, and create a healthier future.” Upcoming courses include ones on food fermentation (15th August) with Laura and Ruairí of Bio Cultures and one on 3rd October on seeds and seed-saving with Conor O’Kane, to mention just a couple. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sioltachroi Síolta Chroí, Aghacloghan, Carrickmacross, Monaghan A81C998.

Editorials: Racism, Nonviolence

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Racing against racism

Northern Ireland seems to have moved from having sectarian disturbances in the summer to racist attacks and pogroms. These have now happened three years in a row. It is no accident given that sectarianism and racism are close relations and the North has traditions of violence; scapegoating and othering is a habit that dies hard, and one that is used by some people, particularly on the political right, to create unrest and try to create support for their vicious creeds. Sectarian attacks have decreased and racist attacks have escalated. Nor is the Republic immune from right wing racist thuggery, that is also clear from previous rioting, attacks, and the fear felt by people who are recognisably ‘other’ than the majority ‘white’ – pink – population.

It is clear from the most recent racist violence in the North that racists were and are primed ready to use any excuse deemed suitable to trigger violence and a pogrom against people from a minority ethnic background. Lists of addresses occupied by migrants had been already circulated over some months when the incident happened involving an attack by a Sudanese man, and we don’t know his motivation or situation regarding mental health. While the violence and rioting was not orchestrated by loyalist paramilitaries there were certainly loyalists involved, and the paramilitaries did nothing to stop it. However clearly many of those involved in the rioting and attacks on black and coloured people were very young and for some there was undoubtedly the thrill of engaging in arson and physical violence, so-called ‘recreational violence’.

One of the ironies involved, apart from in some cases people thrashing their own area (and a knock on effect on the North’s current reputation, such as it is), is that Northern Ireland has a much lower level of migrants living in the jurisdiction than either the Republic or Britain. Northern Ireland has a total of around 6% migrants, half of whom have ‘white’ skin, so there is only 3% black or coloured residents in the North. The Republic has 20% of its people born elsewhere. In the UK as a whole the proportion of migrants is around 17% though more than double that in London and ethnic minorities are much longer established in Britain than either part of Ireland with a much higher proportion of ethnic minority citizens born in the state. So Northern Ireland is the region of the UK with by far the lowest number of migrants but the highest level of pogrom-type violence, a factor emanating from its sectarian history.

Brendan McNally, the brother of murder victim Natalie McNally (killed along with her unborn baby in a deviously planned attack by her erstwhile partner, a white native of Northern Ireland) has made a pertinent point on social media: he slammed “patriots” following the racist attacks and questioned where they were when his sister was killed. He said “…the murder of women by a current or former partner is a grave and recurring phenomenon in our society…almost half of the murders in Northern Ireland in recent years have a domestic abuse motivation. I didn’t see much of the same angry outcry and mobilisation from so called ‘patriots’ then, using the toxic mudslide of distortion and misinformation of their social media platforms. I wonder what the difference is?”

It is no accident that racist rioting tends to happen in working class areas which in general receive a raw deal from the state. This is true North or South of the border. The lack of positive challenges and involvement through youth centres or detached youth work, the lack of decent job prospects, the poor level of education for many (and particularly so for working class Protestant males) in the North, are all factors in creating a culture of disenchantment which can be turned into violence. That is not an excuse for violence but it is certainly a contributory cause.

It is also noticeable that, while racism and racist attacks can be found anywhere on the island of Ireland, the racist violence and pogroms of the last few years in the North have substantially been in Protestant areas. There are partly ideological and historical reasons for this. Nationalism and republicanism are, in theory at least, inclusive even if that was not the case for violent republicanism in the Troubles; if you are here you are part, or potentially part, of the Irish nation. Some community groups of all varieties pride themselves on working hard to be welcoming and inclusive. However unionism and loyalism tend to more exclusive, if you are not with us you are against us, and that can spill over into racism. And, again, largely for historical reasons, PUL/Protestant Unionist Loyalist politics tends to be to the right of CNR/Catholic Nationalist Republican politics, and this is another contributory factor. But none of these factors have operated in racist violence in the Republic.

Migration is a natural phenomenon. Human migration has been happening since before the emergence of so-called homo sapiens. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Migration_swallow.pdf Europe and the rich world needs migration because of its low birth rates. We are not disputing that some regulation is necessary but scapegoating and penalising asylum seekers leaving impossible situations and migrants trying to build better lives for themselves is a cruel aspect of modern life. And rich countries have only a small fraction of the asylum seekers of the world.

The race against racism is to establish the right of everyone here to be respected, to contribute to society, and be free of fear, and to do so before new patterns of racism become totally established (e.g. pogroms when a migrant is perceived to have done a violent act). Unfortunately with three successive years of racist violence taking place in the North, and the link with sectarianism, it is possible that the pattern is already established. This creates issues for anti-racist civil society but in the recent racist violence in the North many rose to the challenge; Kate Laverty’s beautiful piece on support for those threatened by racist violence appears in her column in this issue.

Nonviolence, 1, 2, 3

Nonviolence is a multifaceted concept and practice. Like any approach to life it has weaknesses as well as strengths but for both pragmatic and moral reasons it is necessary; the pragmatic reasons include ensuring the survival of humankind, and assisting successful and less painful outcomes to conflict. There certainly is power that grows out of the barrel of a gun (weapons of all kinds) but that can take us back to a situation far worse than the law of the jungle, and humanity has perpetrated atrocities that no animal in the jungle would engage in. We are in a situation where pressing a few buttons and inputting a few codes and life as we know it would disappear. As it is, life for all of us will be transformed by global heating and the dislocation and violence arising from that.

People sometimes have the notion that nonviolence only works in ‘liberal’ societies where such action is tolerated. This is certainly not so as Chenoweth and Stephan’s empirical research clearly shows. Depending on the situation, however, the time frame for nonviolence working may be different to violence, and there is nothing to guarantee success in life, but it is as good as it gets for results.

It may depend partly on our temperament, it may depend on our sense of justice, and it may depend on the circumstances we find ourselves; we can be involved in nonviolent action as first, second or third parties. We may work only in one of these categories, we may be involved in all three in relation to different issues, but there is a distinction and a tension between being involved in third party action on an issue and the other two.

First party action is where ‘I’ or ‘we’ (an individual, a family, a group, an organisation or a society or country) struggle for justice and equality. The civil rights movement in the USA or Northern Ireland in the 1960s would have been partly ‘first party’ action in that the people – black people and Catholics respectively – affected by injustice were struggling for their own liberation – assisted by others. These ‘others’ were committed to justice for all and involved in ‘second party’ solidarity. If we are directly affected by an issue or situation it is clearly in our interests to deal with it – but it may also be in the interests of the whole society, and inimical to anyone believing in justice. Many of those who campaign for just treatment for people with a particular debilitating life condition are likely to be the family and friends of those in that situation; they may straddle the line between first and second party activists.

We may be so done down by powerful injustice that we cannot stand up for ourselves. We may be bought off with bread and circuses, or by propaganda. But once we become conscientised on an issue we are likely going to stand up for ourselves. The level or oppression or apathy may determine what we can do for ourselves. But second party supporters may be of great assistance; this was the case with ending apartheid in South Africa when the issue became a global one with ramifications in South Africa itself which led to the possibility of change.

There are a million and one possibilities in second party, solidarity, action. We may get involved in support because we identify with a particular issue or struggle. Many in Ireland have become involved in solidarity with Palestine because they see clear injustice in the denial of a state and economic, political and military oppression; awareness of the history of Ireland may cause clear identification with the Palestinian cause. Of course there are Palestinians in Ireland involved in action for justice for Palestine and for them it is ‘first party’ action.

We may also get involved in second party action because of our human commitment to justice, peace and/or global sustainability. This general commitment then takes us towards more specific solidarity work. However green activism can also straggle first and second party action since ecological issues affect us all. The world is living on borrowed time in so many ways, in relation to violence, to climate change, and to overuse of resources.

Third party intervention is somewhat different in that our commitment to justice and peace brings us to work to bring different parties together to resolve their differences or to prevent further injustice or violence. As a mediator or conciliator our attention may be to a specific issue or more generalised conflict, and, as with all such situations, the ‘presenting issue’ (what is initially raised) may not be the major underlying concern or only one of many. The involvement of a third party might just be for a limited period such as a mediation process that the parties agree to undertake. A conciliation process may also be for a limited time, assisting communication and understanding between parties in a crisis – or it may be for a much longer time period as with the work of Quaker House in Belfast over a couple of decades in trying to develop understanding and interaction between sides in the North and more widely those involved.

The problem for third party intervention, which can include monitoring of one form or another as well as mediation and conciliation, is how ‘neutral’ or ’impartial’ is it to be? If you became directly involved in solidarity with one party in a conflict you would certainly no longer be considered impartial and your services would almost automatically be rejected by the other party or parties. But while you may privately be totally sympathetic to one party in a conflict your public manner demands that your involvement does not treat the sides differently. This does not preclude a mediator working with one party to help prepare their involvement when they are too weak or unprepared to do so. The term ‘balanced partiality’ is perhaps applicable here, at least to some extent.

The third party mediator’s commitment to justice means that they will not tolerate a fundamentally unjust agreement between the parties. But the agreement is fundamentally for the parties themselves to make and it may be a good or a poor agreement – a mediator will have pushed to make it an agreement which not only covers the issue but is likely to hold and be implemented.

The third party role is more constrained than that of the first or second parties. It is not value-less, it is value-able. INNATE has been involved recently in training monitors for situations of racial tension in Northern Ireland (and for decades in promoting monitoring concerning situations of political tension). Those involved are certainly not engaging because they are neutral between racism and anti-racism, they are certainly anti-racist, but, if deployed, they would equally ‘call out’ inappropriate by action by police, anti-migrant protesters or anti-racist protesters.

First, second and third party activism can all be part of nonviolence. Where you involve yourself may depend on your temperament, your politics and worldview, and the circumstances you find yourself in. All are needed. There are however boundaries, particularly between third party intervention and the other two which we need to be aware of and, where possible, respect. Of course it is possible that someone involved in third party intervention feels the need to jump to involvement in direct support on an issue, second party intervention, but they are then likely to forfeit the right and the possibility of continuing as a third party actor in the situation. While majoring on second and first party action, INNATE is involved in promoting the possibilities of nonviolence through all three approaches which can at times be a difficult balancing act – but all are appropriate responses depending on the situation.

And the situations which we face in life range from the interpersonal, the local and community, the regional, national and international. We may not personally face the issue of mediating between Iran and the USA but we do face different levels of conflict in our life. And we might be primarily a mediator or conciliator with family and friends while being a first or second party activist at a national or international level. We can occupy different spaces. But we do well to remember that old adage “The personal is political’ in all that we do and are.

Nonviolence and 1, 2, 3 modes of intervention. You choose.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty

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Nonviolent engagement

This weekend, nonviolence found me in a bookshop.

Usually, I encounter it in the natural world — in cliffs and rain, in wind through trees, in the stillness that reminds me I am part of something larger and slower than the urgency of modern life. Nature steadies me. It teaches restraint, interdependence, humility. It is where my spirit recalibrates.

But this weekend, in Edinburgh, it arrived differently.

Among dusty shelves and uneven floors in vintage bookshops, I found myself returning to older roots — history, memory, stories carried through paper. There is something quietly restorative about second-hand books; they hold traces of previous lives, previous hands, previous thoughts. They resist disposability. They ask us to slow down.

And sitting there, reading a history of Arsenal F.C. — because, as any youth worker knows, supporting a football team is essentially a professional requirement — I found myself reflecting on the club’s recent partnership with Deel. Deel is a global HR and payroll platform co-founded in 2019 by French-Israeli entrepreneur Alex Bouaziz who has spoken in support of IDF and the genocide in Palestine.

It would be easy not to think about it too deeply. Football is saturated with corporate sponsorship. We are conditioned to accept branding as background noise. But nonviolence, at least as I understand it, asks us to remain awake to systems — to notice what becomes normal, what becomes invisible, what values are quietly being reinforced.

So I sat with the discomfort.

What does it mean to love a club while remaining critical of the economic and corporate structures around it? What does ethical support look like in a world where identity and consumption are increasingly intertwined? Can you still belong while refusing unquestioning participation?

For me, the answer is yes. Nonviolence is not purity. It is practice. It is the ongoing discipline of refusing to surrender moral reflection simply because something is popular, profitable, or culturally embedded. It is recognising that we are always participating in systems, but still asking how we might do so more consciously, more ethically, more humanely.

So no, I won’t buy the new kit. Not because I reject the club, but because I care enough to remain attentive. To hold affection and critique together. To resist the idea that loyalty requires silence.

Youth work teaches this too. Young people do not need adults who perform certainty. They need adults willing to think critically, act ethically, and model that belonging does not require abandoning conscience. And perhaps that is part of what nonviolence really is, not withdrawal from the world,
but deeper engagement with it. A refusal to stop asking questions. A refusal to let comfort replace ethics. A commitment to living gently and truthfully within systems that often encourage neither.

This weekend, I found that reminder not on a mountainside, but between old books, in the quiet turning of pages, and in the strange grace of paying attention.

Community – the past is present

This week, I met a man who once imagined something into being. Not an idea in the abstract, but a place. A meeting point. A vision that would eventually become Forthspring — the community I now have the privilege of helping to lead. https://www.forthspring.org/

What struck me most was not nostalgia. It was continuity.

The Reverend Sam Birch is a prominent Methodist minister in Belfast known for his extensive peacebuilding work during and after the Troubles. During the height of the Troubles, Rev. Birch gained recognition for his quiet but vital cross-community work, which famously included partnering with Redemptorist priest Father Gerry Reynolds to reach out to grieving families across sectarian divides.

The vision Sam Birch had has not dimmed with time. It remains bright, rooted in people, sustained by relationship, animated by the belief that community matters deeply. As he spoke, he returned constantly to others — to connection, to encounter, to the importance of creating spaces where people can belong across difference.

And I realised how much of that vision still lives. Not only in the building itself, but in the daily practice of what happens there: tea shared across divides, young people finding safety, communities choosing relationship over retreat. Forthspring was never simply about services. It was — and is — about sustaining human connection in a world that increasingly fragments it.

That feels profoundly linked to the principles of nonviolence. Not nonviolence as passivity, but as intentional, relational work. The understanding that peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice, dialogue, participation, and shared humanity.

Nonviolence begins in how we see one another. It is built through spaces where people are listened to, where dignity is practised, where fear does not get the final word. It asks us to resist the easy pull towards isolation, suspicion, and dehumanisation, and instead to remain committed to relationship — especially when it is difficult.

That is what I heard in his reflections this week. A belief that communities are not sustained through control or performance, but through care. Through ordinary acts of welcome. Through people willing to hold open spaces where others can gather, speak, disagree, heal, and imagine differently together.

In many ways, sustaining Forthspring now feels like inheriting not only a building, but a practice of nonviolence. A commitment to connection in a culture of division. A commitment to encounter in a time of withdrawal. A commitment to hope that is active, not naïve. And perhaps that is why his vision still feels so alive.

Because the need for places like Forthspring has not disappeared. If anything, it has become more urgent.

– – – – –

Editorials: Blockades and nonviolence, European security

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Blockades and nonviolence

The recent fuel price blockades by some farmers and hauliers in the Republic raise a significant number of questions about what constitutes peaceful and nonviolent action. There have been very variable, and mixed, reactions and emotions involved and these are understandable. The government chose to negotiate with official, existing bodies representing the sectors involved rather than the protesters themselves and there were concessions made. The protests were in that regard partly successful, even if the concessions were rather less than protesters wanted. There has been a contrast between the strength of the protests in the Republic, dealing with a local and sovereign government, and the lack of protests in the North where the chances of influencing the government in London, who decide on fuel duties, are very slim.

The first thing to say is that the blockades were peaceful but they were blockades. Some protesters refused to use the term ‘blockade’ but they clearly were that; preventing people going about their normal business and stopping traffic by placing vehicles in the way is clearly a blockade. But it is important also to distinguish between what is ‘peaceful’ and what is legal; something can be illegal but peaceful and indeed something can be legal but not peaceful or it may even be violent. What is legal is defined by the laws of the state. What is ‘positive’ socially and economically is another question.

The issues involved include matters to do with fossil fuels, the right and need to make a living, the right of people to go about their normal workday lives, and questions about what is democracy as well as the role of government. Ireland has not moved away from fossil fuels in the way it should have done and that is largely the fault of the government – and the people who elected them. If we were less dependent on fossil fuels then the issue of a considerable jump in fuel prices would not have been the issue it became. On the other hand, if people were unable to make a living because of the cost of fuel then something needed to be done – either government subsidies (by way of reduced fuel tax) or an increase in prices by those using the fuels, or both.

The main issue or problem was people being unable to get where they wanted or needed to be because of their form of transport being blockaded. This was obviously frustrating even if those stopped were supportive of the protesters – and infuriating if they were not, feeling they were being ‘held to ransom’. Did the protesters have the ‘right’ to do what they were doing? In nonviolent theory – except in cases of authoritarian regimes where protesters need to have their identity hidden – the general rule is that nonviolent protesters doing illegal acts ‘take the consequences’ and this is part of the protest, being willing to stand up and deal with what is thrown at them by the state while still challenging the state on it. After a partial victory in concessions being made by the state, and the army being called in to remove blockades, the protesters went home however the possible use of the army in such circumstances is a dangerous move regarding dealing with protests.

But were the protesters justified in causing severe inconvenience to other people​? This is a value judgement. ‘Nonviolent tactics’ can be used in negative ways – e.g. if racists organised a boycott of black and minority ethnic businesses that would be using a ‘nonviolent tactic’ for a negative and indeed violent cause. So it depends on whether you consider the protesters to be ‘right’ in their demand for government action on fuel prices. However in terms of positive nonviolent action by the protesters, other tactics could have been chosen which were more interactive with government and other citizens.

There is no category for the kind of blockade engaged in by the fuel protesters in Gene Sharp’s classic analysis of nonviolent tactics in his book “The Politics of Nonviolent Action” perhaps because such blockades were not much a feature of action when that book was written in 1973. Sharp’s category of ‘Nonviolent interjection’ (using human bodies) is rather different and involves people putting their bodies on the line – not their tractors and trucks.

However other analysis, e.g. https://www.nukeresister.org/2024/07/13/blockades-block-liberation-how-blockades-obstruct-nonviolence-and-democratic-revolutions/ condemns blockades as a nonviolent tactic – “Blockades replace the uncertainty of democracy and the vulnerability of nonviolence with military notions of politics: win and lose, strength and dominance, tactics and strategy.” “Blockades are reactive rather than proactive” and “The blockade becomes part of an order of power that strengthens the one who is already strong.”

A look at disruptive protest activities https://commonslibrary.org/disruptive-protest-tactics-helpful-or-harmful/ has a comparison table of costs and benefits. However its point of “Little evidence of impact on policy change” does not apply in the fuel protests as clearly the government did change its tune. The question is whether that was democracy in action, extortion and holding others over a barrel, or something in between. In 1974 in Northern Ireland the loyalist ‘strike’ or stoppage against the Sunningdale agreement power-sharing government succeeded in bringing down the new political arrangement; blockades were a prominent part of this but there was also a substantial threat of violence behind them.

And this brings us on to the question of what responsibility the government holds. Clearly action was needed of some kind. Should they have negotiated or changed policy faster? Should they have acted earlier to clear blockades? Would that have inflamed feelings? What about the possible or threatened use of the army in this situation? And what is the government’s responsibility in relation to an economic matter like this which is clearly beyond their control (the international market price for fossil fuels); is giving away money the answer? The extent to which the government could or should take action to subsidise fuel prices is a moot point, and using a comparison like still getting the same overall ‘take’, despite higher prices, is one possibility for arriving at a just solution or at least a measuring stick. A windfall tax on increased fossil fuel profits in this situation could also be a possibility which could be used to subsidise fuel prices, even if retrospectively.

Democracy is far more than the workings of a parliament or assembly and elections every number of years. The workings of civil society and NGOs is an important part of democracy and its health (just look at how Putin has hollowed out the civil society which had developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union). Citizenry are entitled to protest whether that be for progressive or reactionary causes and reasons; they have that legal and civic right. When there is a heartfelt issue where the government’s actions are not in accord with the views of a significant number of citizens then there is almost bound to be ongoing protest. The majority of citizens in the Republic are in favour of neutrality and opposed to US military use of Shannon but the craven politicians in the government have been too afraid of US economic power to take positive action – hence ongoing protest and actions at Shannon airport, some of which have been ‘illegal’ but they have also been morally just. This is part of democracy too and it can be argued that it is the government that has been acting undemocratically and in opposition to peace and neutrality.

How you judge the justice issue involved in the fuel blockades will determine how you see the rightness or the wrongness of the actions involved and the disruption to the rest of the population. The protesters were entitled to protest. The state was entitled to react. How civil society saw the issue was an important factor in the equations involved. Some commentators have pointed to the right wing sentiments of some of the protesters and this may be an issue but the overall question is one of justice and fairness to all, protesters and those affected by the protest. Nonviolent theory does of course include the need to disobey unjust laws – but, if need be, it also includes the possibility of disobedience of ‘neutral’ laws which are not immediately connected with the issue at hand.

The lesson in all this is, of course, to have urgent transition from fossil fuel use and prioritising local green energy supplies rather than being dependent on large corporations for either fossil fuels or the provision of clean energy. Decentralised systems are much more difficult to be abused by the powerful and more difficult to disrupt when things are falling apart.

Just like the mixed sentiments of many in the population regarding the fuel blockades, nonviolent theory does not provide an immediate and clear answer on the fuel protests however questions of justice and equity should be to the fore in any analysis. And imagination and positivity in protest is part of nonviolence.

European security

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said (e.g. in Berlin) that security will be one of the key issues of the Irish EU presidency, coming up shortly for the second half of the year. He has also previously said, last December, that there was too much “squeamish debate” about Ireland working with other countries’, including NATO, militaries. He is quite right about an emphasis on security but not in the way he thinks – which evidently only concerns military security against Russia including EU-NATO cooperation. Here are the security issues which need tackled on an Irish, European and world level:

Human security:

The idea that ‘security’ is about military security is dangerous and deluded. Covid 19 was the greatest threat to world wellbeing for a long time and it had nothing to do with military security. Global heating is the largest endemic, global threat. Human security includes the right to life and freedom from violence, adequate food and housing, and civil freedom. The following issues of security all contribute to ‘human security’.

Ecological security:

Global heating is already a monumental disaster and stabilising global temperatures is of paramount importance. For Ireland there is the danger, analysed in a couple of recent reports, that the chances of the Atlantic AMOC current (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation a k a Gulf Stream) shutting down are greater than previously thought, which would leave Ireland with similar weather to Newfoundland and heightened sea levels. But this would affect the rest of northern Europe too and disastrously change weather patterns on a wider scale with likely catastrophic consequences for food production and wellbeing.

Food security:

Ireland is a net exporter of food but it is only in a few fields like dairy and beef. Most other food is imported. The island nature of Ireland and being on the western extremity of Europe adds a complicating and dangerous factor to food importing in times of chaos. At the very least contingency plans need to be in place for emergency times; at the moment the ‘just in time’ nature of food importing leaves countries very vulnerable but an island like Ireland especially so.

Security against war:

The arms build up in Europe is unsustainable in different ways, both economic and in terms of risk. The war in Ukraine, partly caused by NATO expansionism, is brutal but a wider European war, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, would be suicidal. The way to get rid of enemies is to turn them into friends; this is obviously easier said than done but current policies keep upping the level of threat. Ireland in particular, with its positive history of neutrality, should be working flat out on conflict mitigation and transformation. Standing up against the warmaking of the USA should be imperative.

Economic security:

The world is using its resources at an unsustainable rate. Apart from any questions of national and global equity, financial and trade justice are needed to help stabilise migration and avoid the chaos of migration beyond what is bearable for both sending and host countries. Obviously this relates closely to ecological security but it is much more. And developments in AI threaten both the economic and social wellbeing of many workers and would be workers; new parameters and paradigms need to be set for people’s involvement in economic activity and wage-earning. And relative economic prosperity does not guarantee the right to housing, for example, as people in Ireland, especially Dublin, and other places have been finding out.

We all deserve to feel secure. Current economic, military and international relations policies are creating massive insecurity. Emphasis on military security rather than human security is is part of a downward spiral of negativity and violence.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Just War, Just Peace?

Nonviolent News, Readings, ,

Reclaiming nonviolence in a time of political noise

Recent political commentary in the United States has brought the concept of “just war” back into public debate. Criticism directed at the Pope — alongside interventions from figures like Donald Trump and JD Vance — has framed Christian nonviolence as naïve, even irresponsible, in the face of global threat.

But this framing misunderstands both the history and the depth of the tradition it seeks to invoke.

The idea of “just war” did not emerge as a justification for violence, but as an attempt to restrain it. Rooted in the writings of Augustine of Hippo, it was a moral framework designed to limit when and how force could be used — insisting on necessity, proportionality, and last resort. It was, at its core, an ethic of hesitation.

Over time, however, what was intended as a brake has too often become a permission structure.

The Pope’s recent emphasis on nonviolence is not a rejection of moral responsibility — it is a return to a deeper question: what does it mean to follow a faith rooted in love, dignity, and the refusal to dehumanise?

And Christianity is not alone in grappling with this tension.

In Islam, principles of just conduct in war (jus in bello) emphasise protection of civilians, restraint, and accountability. In Judaism, the concept of milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war) is tightly bound by ethical conditions. In Buddhism, the commitment to non-harm (ahimsa) sits uneasily but persistently alongside historical realities of conflict. Across traditions, there is a shared discomfort — a recognition that violence, even when justified, leaves a moral wound.

So where does that leave us?

The question is not simply whether war can ever be “just,” but whether justice can ever truly be achieved through violence.

Nonviolence does not ignore harm. It confronts it differently. It asks what it would mean to build systems, relationships, and politics that prevent violence long before it becomes thinkable. It shifts the focus from reaction to prevention, from dominance to dignity.

To reconcile just war and nonviolence may not be about choosing one over the other, but about recognising their tension.

Just war says: if force must be used, it must be constrained.

Nonviolence says: we must build a world where it is no longer needed.

In a time when political rhetoric rewards certainty and strength, the harder path is moral complexity — holding the line that human dignity cannot be conditional, even in conflict.