Greetings friends and creators of beloved community,
The video recording for session one is available on our Crowdcast site.
Click HERE to view the video.
Homework
Group Guidelines & Agreements
Beloved Community
Spectrum of Violence
Tactics
Resources
Bonus Material
Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 | Session 4
HOMEWORK
Browse the articles at Nonviolence News to see how nonviolence is being used to make change in our world right now. https://nonviolencenews.org/
Begin journaling about what does “beloved community” mean to you. We will have opportunities for some of you to share your writings.
GROUP GUIDELINES AND AGREEMENTS
I agree to share and participate at whatever level feels safe and comfortable.
I understand that facilitators are not acting in the capacity of professional psychotherapists or counselors.
I agree to maintain confidentiality about personal stories or experiences shared in my small group or in the large group, unless I have been given permission to share them with others.
I agree to listen with my full and complete attention, and to wait until a person has completed his or her thoughts before I speak.
I will strive to appreciate and honor our differences.
Diversity is an opportunity for me to grow and learn in a new way.
I agree to practice common Zoom etiquette.
Mute when not speaking. Raise hand when possible. Camera on unless stepping away for a moment.
BELOVED COMMUNITY
Beloved Community can feel like a BIG idea, because it is. Below are some of the elements, principles, and values so you can begin developing and deepening your own understanding of Beloved Community.
Creating beloved community is a global vision—not a lofty utopian goal—and for Martin Luther King Jr it is a realistic, achievable goal that can be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence and social change.
The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and MILITARISM are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community. When we work to remedy one evil, we affect all evils. To work against the Triple Evils, you must develop a nonviolent frame of mind.
Some contemporary examples of the Triple Evils:
Poverty – unemployment, homelessness, hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, slums…
Racism – prejudice, apartheid, ethnic conflict, anti-Semitism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, ageism, discrimination against disabled groups, stereotypes…
Militarism – war, imperialism, domestic violence, rape, terrorism, human trafficking, media violence, drugs, child abuse, violent crime…
Quotes+
Gandhi: Nonviolence is more powerful than a nuclear weapon
Cornel West: Justice is what love looks like in public.
Stephen R. Covey: In the long run, you can never accomplish a worthy end with an unworthy means.
Richard Rohr: Unity is diversity embraced, protected, and maintained by an infinitely generous love.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
angel Kyodo williams: We cannot have a healed society, we cannot have change, we cannot have justice, if we do not reclaim and repair the human spirit. (listen to this reflection)
Coretta Scott King: Noncooperation and nonviolent resistance [is a] means of stirring and awakening moral truths in one’s opponents, of evoking the humanity which, Martin believed, existed in each of us. The means, therefore, [have] to be consistent with the end. And the end, as Martin conceived it, [is] greater than any of its parts, greater than any single issue. The end is redemption and reconciliation.
Beloved Community/Nonviolence – Ends the myth of redemptive violence
Unity in diversity – unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation
Synonyms & Images
ubuntu
ek ong kar
we n’ de ya ho
echad
tawhid
beloved community
oneing
Kingdom of God (Reign / Heaven)
I am because we are
We Inter-Are
You are part of me I do not yet know
Indra’s net
inescapable network of mutuality
interbeing
THE VIOLENCE SPECTRUM
The Violence Spectrum exercise gives us an opportunity to experience the different perspectives of violence. Because participants are given limited information about scenarios, which is part of the process even in real life, they often make assumptions. It’s always helpful to pay attention to assumptions, ours and others. The exercise often reveals the wide range of opinions people hold about violence, highlights that we often bring our assumption and biases to the decisions we make, and allows us to begin thinking about how to respond nonviolently in different situations.
TACTICS
3 major types in our toolbox:
Protest & Persuasion
Noncooperation
Intervention
Other types include but not limited to:
Disruptive Action: Nonviolence works because it is disruptive; disrupts the status-quo, business as usual, life as usual. Otherwise, power holders ignore us.
Constructive: Building solutions, helping one another
Alternative Institutions
Concentrated
Dispersed actions
Creative (remember nonviolence and creating beloved community are creative acts of love, there is no recipe)
RESOURCES
Misconceptions of Nonviolence: http://contemplativeinterbeing.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Misconceptions-of-Nonviolence.pdf
198 Methods of Nonviolent Actions: https://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/198_methods-1.pdf
300 Nonviolent Tactics: https://www.tactics.nonviolenceinternational.net/tactics
BONUS
Seven Reasons to Choose Nonviolence (click to view as image):
Adapted from Why Civil Resistance Works by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan
1. It breaks the cycle of violence and counter-violence.
2. It is a power everyone can wield: the threshold to join a nonviolent movement is
lower than for a violent movement.
3. It is least likely to alienate opponents and third parties, which makes it more likely to achieve public sympathy and support from various “camps.”
4. It is more likely to produce a constructive and sustainable outcome, rather than a
destructive one.
5. It leaves open the possibility for conversion of the opponent.
6. It is a method of conflict resolution that may aim to arrive at the “truth”—a fuller
picture of a given situation, rather than mere victory for one side.
7. Research has found that nonviolent movements are more successful in achieving
their goals (53% vs. 23% of violent movements).
Facing the Challenge of a New Age
On December 3, 1956, one year after the bus boycott, Dr. King delivered an address to the First Annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change. The address was titled “Facing the Challenge of a New Age.” Below is an excerpt from his speech. Take time to read this slowly, mindfully, one sentence, one phrase at a time, giving each cadence time to resonate in your mind, heart and soul:
We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization. There is still a voice crying out in terms that echo across the generations, saying: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven.” This love might well be the salvation of our civilization. This is why I am so impressed with our motto for the week, “Freedom and Justice through Love.” Not through violence; not through hate; no not even through boycotts; but through love. It is true that as we struggle for freedom in America we will have to boycott at times. But we must remember as we boycott that a boycott is not an end within itself; it is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority. But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men [and women]. (Source: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/facing-challenge-new-age-address-delivered-first-annual-institute-nonviolence)
