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The Peace Report, Issue #8
By Louise Diamond, Ph.D.
Welcome to The Peace Report, an occasional set of reflections on world and national affairs in these times of change and challenge, as seen through a peace lens.
The Dalai Lama’s Prescription for a Culture of Peace
When asked in a taped interview for the recent Building a Culture of Peace conference, “What would it take to transform the current culture of violence in our societies to a culture of peace,” His Holiness replied that this could take a long time, but we could accomplish it with ‘perseverance, vision, and hope.’
Let’s start with vision, which, as we know, is an important part of successfully manifesting our shared desire. Someone at the conference wisely said, “When we leave this world, where are we at…still arguing about what peace is, or being in that peace?” We may not have had the conversation yet to agree on the specifics of what a culture of peace would look like, but we know, extrapolating from the conference proceedings and from our own experience, what the general picture would be. I offer it in present tense, to affirm its power:
We live in a society where the basic truth of our oneness and interdependence is recognized in our cultural norms, our institutions, our policies, and our relationships. Our children grow up with positive peace-related images, media, and life-skills, including knowing how to tap into that place of inner peace from which true peace unfolds. Life-affirming respect, equality, and justice form the basis for our activities, our economy, our national and foreign policies, and our governance. Violence in all forms is considered aberrant, not normative, behavior.
Non-violence approaches, dialogue, and win-win strategies are used to mediate and resolve our conflicts – and we are widely trained in these skills. Meeting the basic needs of all, and advancing the common good and well-being of people and planet are our priorities and the driving force behind our business as well as our political life. Our many differences of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc., are seen as enriching the whole. We practice creative collaboration and cooperation as the way to insure a safe, healthy, and sustainable world for all. Love, not fear, is the pulse of our lives together, and partnership, not domination, structures our relationships. Our media reflects all of this, the arts enhance it, philanthropy sustains it, and religions inspire it.
Someone else at the conference said, “We as peacemakers energize the potential.” The vision above is a statement of potential. We could possibly disagree on the wording of it, or find more sentences to add, but for let’s use it as a draft vision for a culture of peace. How can we energize this potential, while withdrawing our energy from the current, violence-oriented state of affairs by non-reactivity? This is where the heart comes in.
In our hearts, we already know all about peace. The seed of peace is embedded in our very nature; it is our birthright, our spiritual DNA. Because of this, we all have access to the frequency of peace and have surely experienced it in some moment(s) in our lives. Therefore we can energize this vision by going to that place of peace within and literally holding this vision (or some version of it) in our hearts with love. We can amplify it even more by linking with (thinking about) all others who also believe in this future, and saying ‘thank you’ to them and to the universe that this vision now becomes manifest.
When we look at this vision, we realize there is a significant space between it and our current reality. That space, that tension, is what spurs action. And so we come to His Holiness’ second point, perseverance. Perseverance means continued action; acting over and over again, putting one building block on top of another, knowing that every act, no matter how small or how large, makes a difference. Again, a quote from the conference: “Your contribution does not need to be earth-shaking to make a difference.” Indeed, every thought, word, prayer, action, image, song, dance, or dream for a culture of peace makes a difference.
Perseverance also means trusting that the journey takes time and is worth pursuing, no matter what current circumstances might appear to be. It is a commitment to keep going, above all. And this is where His Holiness’ third point comes in, hope. Hope means keeping the heart open, the eyes focused on the prize, and the feet moving toward the vision, in spite of or even because of the events around us. It means having faith, trusting that we’re on the right path. Indeed, as old forms based on dominance, violence, and separation come to their inevitable end as ways for us to live together, the immediate situation may appear quite daunting. Only by remembering that we are energizing and cultivating the peace garden that will ultimately replace the old ways with a whole new system can we maintain our momentum and fulfill our promise to ourselves and to the web of life.
The Dalai Lama has given us three markers on the path to a culture of peace, and I do not pretend to know what he meant by his words: vision, perseverance, and hope. I offer these musings as a basis of reflection, and to encourage you all to come to your own understanding of His Holiness’ charge to us in these times. What is your vision? How do you persevere? How do you hold to hope through troubled times? This wise man has given us the prescription, and now it is up to us to elicit our own wisdom to apply the medicine, for the benefit of all our relations.
You Can Change the World!
A Structured Coaching Program for Social Changenth Agents, offered by Louise Diamond, Ph.D.
What is Social Changenth?
We live in times of change and challenge. Old systems based on separation mind are breaking down, putting severe stress on our planet and our people. Many of us are engaged in helping humanity make the shift to unity consciousness, with its extraordinary potential to transform our social relations at every level.
We are beyond ‘fixing’ our intractable problems with solutions from the same old perspective. Now we are called to create new ways of being together – with ourselves and each other, and with this one earth we all call home. I call this process Social Changenth, because it is wisdom-based in unity consciousness, allowing for an exponential leap toward where we wish to be.
How Does this Coaching Program Work?
The program consists of three individual one-hour coaching sessions and one or more teleconferences, spread over a four-month period. The sessions are intended to help you be more effective as an agent of Social Changenth. They will assist you to clarify your intention and the parameters of your activity, elicit new inner wisdom and resources, and ‘be the change you seek in the world.’ In month four, you can participate in any or all of three teleconferences with other participants in the program, to allow you to connect with others on a similar path for networking and mutual support.
Each session is structured around a provocative question, which will provide the focus for our monthly discussion and for your exploration between sessions. The questions are:
- How do you want to change the world, and why?
- What gifts and skills do you bring to this, and how can you build on them?
- What new opportunities are emerging for you, and what resources will support your activity?
- (via teleconference) What are the next steps in your journey as an agent of Social Changenth, and how can we help one another?
You will be asked to come to each session having reflected on the question of that month (in writing or not, as you choose). Your thoughts will become the jumping-off point for our discussion, from which will emerge suggestions for exercises or activities that will prepare you for the next session.
What Makes This Program Unique?
In addition to these questions, we will be using material from the How to Change the World program*, which considers the dynamics of systems, power, transformation, and co-creativity as the underlying knowledge- and skill-set for effective Social Changenth. You will receive informational worksheets throughout that will help you address the monthly question through these four lenses.
Who Should Enroll?
This is designed for people working for a better world, in any field. Whether your interest is in peacebuilding, healing, business, spirituality, education, social and economic development, community-building, organizational leadership, activism, governance, philanthropy, environmental sustainability, media, the arts, or any other area, as long as your clear intention is to assist others in growing, learning, and acting with greater love, wholeness, and right relationship, this program is for you. It is especially suitable for those who feel themselves in transition, or on the threshold of new opportunities in their lives.
What are the Logistics?
You may begin anytime before September 15, 2007. You can register by email (diamond@louisediamond.com) or by phone (802-453-7194). After a short conversation about why you want to take this program, we will set the time for your first coaching session. At the end of each session, we will agree on the time for the next one. The sessions can be in person or on the telephone, and will be one hour long.
Registrants will be accepted on a first-come-first-served basis until the program is full (12 participants).
How Much Does it Cost?
$575, paid in advance.**
* How to Change the World is a year-long advanced training program offered by Louise Diamond. Meant for those helping humanity take its next step in these extraordinary times of planetary change, the course combines the wisdom of nature and of universal spirituality with findings from the social and behavioral sciences, to provide participants with the deep knowledge and skills needed by transformational leaders in these days. More information on this course, which will begin in January 2008, will be available shortly. This coaching program is a prequel (though not a prerequisite) for the training program.
**Full refund available if you cancel more than 24 hours before your first session. No refund if you cancel anytime after that.
Pardon Me, and Other News Bits
Pardoning Libby?
President Bush recently commuted the sentence of L. Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in a case all about the administration’s lies in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The question of a full pardon is still on the table. Yet we can use this egregious act of cronyism and disrespect for the rule of law to explore right relationship, for to pardon is to forgive, and forgiveness is a key element of true peace.
Forgiveness, however, does not mean we don’t hold others accountable for the harm they have done. On the contrary. The full reconciliation process involves a recognition that one has done harm to another, and a deeply-felt sense of remorse, which leads to an apology supported by some act of restitution, either actual or symbolic. Although forgiveness can be entirely independent of this, it is made much easier when the wrong-doer acknowledges and takes responsibility for their behavior.
Some acts are harder to forgive than others. Genocide, the violence of war, rape, murder, torture – it takes an extraordinarily courageous heart to forgive such unspeakable harm. For a start, I would love to see President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and their supporters like Mr. Libby finally take responsibility for what they have done to all of us by their actions in Iraq, and be held accountable. Then the families of the dead and wounded on both sides, as well as the millions of Iraqis displaced and impoverished by this war, might begin to explore their hearts for the possibility of forgiveness. Until then, I consider it a sham and an insult that they pardon each other for their crimes.
North Korea and the Success of Dialogue
North Korea, long held by this administration as part of the ‘axis of evil,’ recently decommissioned its nuclear reactor. They did this because the United States finally spoke to them. Yes, because we spoke to them, acknowledging their existence by relating to them as an equal. I’ve always thought it bizarre when people would say, ‘Oh, I haven’t spoken to my sister/mother/brother/etc. for 25 years because….’ Likewise, our government has refused to speak with North Korea, Syria, and Iran, when it is patently obvious that dialogue with those with whom we disagree is the most effective way to arrive at mutually-acceptable solutions to our differences. What better example could there be of this than North Korea? Dialogue rules!
A Spiritual Solution to the Mess in Iraq
I recently had the thought that our political discourse is stuck in two-track thinking about Iraq, looking only at a military solution to the mess there, or a political one, neither of which is in fact working. I would like to suggest a third option – a spiritual approach. What if His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as the two most revered spiritual leaders on the planet, convened a private meeting with the Sunni and Shiite religious leaders from Iraq (and possibly neighboring countries as well)?
What if they spoke in that meeting (beyond the view of media), of the religious imperative that lies beyond the quest for political power, to care for the people. What if they spoke of the need for Sunni and Shiites to live together in some form forever in the Middle East? What if they spoke about how Christianity and Buddhism have also had to deal with internal splits, including violent ones? What if they spoke of the Crusades, and the Church made a true apology for its actions against Muslims and reached out for forgiveness and a new dialogue and friendship?
Like other ‘what if…’ musings, this is only a dream today. But dreams can come true, and since politics and military might aren’t working….what if…
Embedding Where it Matters
We think of the process of embedding only in regards to putting journalists in with troops in the war in Iraq. But the peacebuilding community has a lot to learn about embedding from some unlikely experts: China, the arms industry, and the Evangelical movement.
China has embedded its citizens (primarily business men and women) in developing countries all over the world. It has also embedded its political clout and economic presence in those countries in the form of massive development assistance. Then, when politically sensitive issues arise, in the United Nations for instance, China can count on the support of those countries whose economies now depend on its good graces.
The arms industry has done something very similar in this country. They have made sure that there is some major production plant in every state, providing jobs and dollars to the local economy. They have also made sure that these plants depend on one another (so, for instance, the parts produced in one state are needed for the systems manufactured in another), thus assuring that every state’s Congressional delegation will endlessly support their survival and indeed their growth.
The Evangelical movement has also used this tactic. They have spent years strategically grooming and running candidates for political office at every level – from school board/library board/city council up to and including the highest executive, legislative, and judicial offices possible, In this way they have insured that their views have a strong presence if not actual dominance throughout the entire decision-making fabric of our society now and into the future, as local leaders rise to higher office over time.
What lessons can we who care about cultivating a culture of peace draw from this? How can we strategically embed our vision, our values, and our principles and practices throughout our society such that everyone recognizes a positive stake in supporting them? We must, I believe, address this question if we are to succeed.
Peacebuilders Hall of Fame
There are people all over the world, from many walks of life, whose names we will probably never know and whose achievements we may never hear about, who are making a profound difference for peace. This column will highlight some of these individuals, both to honor them and to inspire and educate the rest of us about what is indeed possible.
We honor Virginia J. Miller
 Virginia J. Miller is an exemplar of long-time peace activism based on love and nonviolence.
She began her activist career many years ago during the Vietnam War, when her children were growing up, with a commitment to work in earnest on peace and justice issues. Nuclear disarmament became a priority that has lasted to this day, beginning after college when she moved to North Dakota and found herself living a few miles from hundreds of ICBM missile silos, each with multiple nuclear warheads targeting the Soviet Union (and being targeted by them in return).
This focus has since taken many forms. While working for nuclear disarmament, she stood silent witness weekly on 'the line' for seven years on the University of North Dakota campus against the unspeakable horror of nuclear weapons. Since moving to New Mexico, deeply inspired by the personal story of a Hibakusha (survivor of the Hiroshima bombing) her same age, she has participated in countless rallies, actions and hearings relating to the production and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Now she has convened an ongoing dialogue group dedicated to furthering the process of a viable, sustainable peace economy in New Mexico, including and moving beyond issues of economic conversion.
Virginia also has stood up for justice throughout her years as an activist. She went to Nicaragua to educate herself on the situation there in 1984, and came back to urge leaders in Washington to change their policies. Arrested during a big nonviolent rally at CIA headquarters opposing CIA violence in Central America, Virginia was pleased that she was able to remain nonviolent in thought, word, deed, and spirit during that ordeal.
She also participated in the early days of citizen diplomacy, organizing and leading cultural, medical, educational, and economic delegations to and from a sister city in Siberia while it was first part of the Soviet Union and later of Russia.
Virginia finds time to attend many local and global events promoting peace and justice, including the Fourth World Conference on Women and the NGO Forum on Women in China in 1995, and The Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999. In 2003 she represented Santa Fe at Cities for Peace events in New York and Washington DC, including a press conference at the National Press Club, seeking a stop to the pre-emptive strike in Iraq.
She is currently on the board of Peace Action New Mexico, is an active member of the Santa Fe branch of the NAACP, and serves as Legislative Coordinator for the NM Department of Peace Initiative, to create an Office of Peace in New Mexico as a corollary to the US Department of Peace, which she also supports.
In her own words, Virginia says, ‘My capacity to love and forgive has grown immensely during the years…I will always work for peace and justice, seeking more effective ways to realize transformation for my six grandchildren, for my four great-grandchildren, for all the children and future generations.’
Virginia has been honored for her peace work through several awards, including the Prairie Peacemaker Award from the North Dakota Peace Coalition, and the Green Values Award for Nonviolence from the Green Party of Santa Fe County for ‘outstanding leadership in Santa Fe, the state of New Mexico, nationally and abroad, and for educating the citizens and the media in the history, processes, and benefits of peace.’
We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves. Thank you, Virginia Miller, for decades of service to the people and the planet through your principled commitment to a better world for all!
Hummingbird Recommends
The hummingbird is considered by some Native American peoples to be a messenger of The Peacemaker, the man who helped bring peace to the warring nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the principles of which became the basis of our own constitution). As one who can show us the deep recesses where the sweet nectar of peace resides, the hummingbird is a true peace leader in these times, and I have respectfully borrowed her name for this column.
Instead of reviewing a book this month, Hummingbird suggests we pause in our busy lives to remember Hiroshima Day on August 6. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima that day in 1945, and the one dropped on Nagasaki three days later, are the only instance of the use of nuclear weapons in warfare to date.
Three responses come to mind as we remember this day. First is the compassionate response – compassion for those who died a horrible death, or who lived (or still live) with the resulting radiation poisoning. As we sit comfortably in our privileged lives in the U.S. while wars rage in many places around the world (some of our making), we can easily forget that war is not really a patriotic mission for political ends but a series of horrific moments of unspeakable death and destruction. The suffering caused by these bombs resonates still today, and provides us the opportunity to let our hearts break open with the wounds of love for those and indeed all victims of war, in all times and places.
Second is the educational response. Years ago, before visiting Dachau concentration camp in Germany, I thought it preferable to raze such reminders of our human viciousness. Once there, however, I realized how important it is to remind new generations of what we are capable of, because it can spark a deep commitment to see that it never happens again.
Now, fifty years on, we have perfected the killing power of those earlier atomic weapons exponentially. Nine countries and counting have these weapons, in numbers too obscene to imagine. History shows us that when a weapon exists, someone is likely to use it. It behooves us as peacebuilders not so much to focus on the weapons and their danger as to educate ourselves about them so we can be more effective in our activities to bring about a world where they are not considered necessary or useful .
Third is the action response. Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate for her work in getting a global treaty to ban landmines, told the Building a Culture of Peace conference that she had recently turned her attention to cluster bombs, and that nuclear weapons were next. For those who are not drawn to political activism of this sort, there are other ways to put into action our desire to see the end of nuclear weapons. Craft a remembrance ritual in your school or community; spend time in prayer or reflection; sit with children to make 1,000 peace cranes; send financial support to organizations seeking the demilitarization of our society; read up on economic conversion of military production sites; etc. etc. etc.
August 6 and 9 are important days in our culture of peace journey. Let us use them as moments to reflect, to re-commit, and to give thanks that we are here today to make sure that not one single nuclear weapon will ever again be used on this planet.
Interesting Peace Web Sites
www.worldpeaceconference.org
Finally, the new Building a Culture of Peace conference website is now available. Go here for pictures, notes from the various break-out sessions, and more. Stay tuned for information on how you can get copies of the plenary session talks. Great gratitude to Heidi and Guy Burgess, Co-Directors of the Conflict Research Consortium at the University of Colorado in Boulder, for their skill in putting this all together. And thanks to everyone for your patience!
www.wiserearth.org
Here is the ultimate (to date) open source community directory and networking site for people seeking a better world. All the key areas of focus are represented (e.g., peace, environment, social justice, poverty, water, etc.). You can spend hours, days, months on this site learning what others are doing and sharing your own information worldwide. Paul Hawken’s recent book, Blessed Unrest, talks about this network as the largest, least publicized social movement the world has ever known. He likens it to the body’s immune system, galvanizing millions of seemingly unlike parts for the well-being of the whole. A must-visit site to help you know you are truly not alone!
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