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Killing-Free Societies Are Possible
an article by Joám Evans Pim

For nearly three years I have been working with a team of other professionals to help reduce killing in the world through the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK) based in Hawai'i. Like all new adventures we need friends, encouragement and help spreading the word.



click on photo to enlarge

Visionary cold warrior and professor emeritus Dr. Glenn Paige presented a clear case in "Nonkilling Global Political Science" that it is possible to achieve killing-free societies. The Center builds on his work to make a measurable difference over time toward that end. Here are just a few of our accomplishments so far:

- Working with affiliates and colleagues in Haiti, Africa, South America and Asia to develop policies and initiatives to prevent killing, especially those with impacts on women and children

- Graduating 27 young leaders from our first two Leadership Academies, and working with them to eliminate killing and its causes in their 19 countries

- Publishing academic research with contributions from nearly 600 researchers at over 250 prestigious institutions

I am especially pleased that many of the recent initiatives featured on our website (www.nonkilling.org), are taking place in Africa. These include:

- An article, “African Initiatives Toward Killing-Free Societies,” highlighting the work of several of the CGNK's affiliate organizations and Leadership Fellows in Africa was just published by Gregory Bourne in “Conflict Trends.” He is the Co-Director of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) in Durban, South Africa

- CGNK has supported the Mozambican nonprofit FOMICRES (Mozambican Force for Crime Investigation and Social Reinsertion) to develop a new national initiative under the title "Nonkilling is Possible". The initiative will be focused on the collection and destruction of weapons and will be launched on June 16.

- In Kenya, three women who attended the CGNK Nonkilling Leadership Academies in 2009 and 2010 are working together to create a prototype “peace village,” imagined during an Academy visioning exercise.

- The Glenn Paige Nonkilling School in the village of Kazimia, Sud Kivu, DR Congo -- established by the Great Lakes Africa nonprofit humanitarian organization Mleci (Bemba language for “Nurturing” like mother’s care) – has been accepted by GlobalGiving.org in Washington D.C. in a contest for permanent listing for charitable donations.

DISCUSSION

Question(s) related to this article:


Are nonkilling societies possible?, If yes, what should we be doing? If not, what will happen to us?

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LATEST READER COMMENT:

Promoting Communication Literacy through Principles of Compassion for a Nonviolent Planet

by Vedabhyas Kundu

At a time when there are conflicts at different level around the world, promoting COMMUNICATION LITERACY through principles of compassion is a necessity so as to bring people together and collectively work for global peace.

Compassion and feelings for others are essential ingredients for human unity. Swami Vivekananda had said, “Do you feel for others? If you do, you are growing in oneness. If you do not feel for others, you may be the most intellectual giant ever born, but you will be nothing; you are but dry intellect, and you will remain so.”

Indeed in today’s contemporary society when there are so much of differences and intolerance, if we can’t promote feeling and compassion for others, we cannot promote oneness amongst one another. There seems to be crisis of values and little respect for each other’s ideas and perspective. For a large number of people, the self seems to be the supreme and are agnostic about the feelings of others. Anger and hatred towards each other seems to be found in abundance. All these will lead to greater conflicts and ill feelings amongst fellow beings. Swami Vivekananda pertinently underlines that howsoever one may acquire intellectual power, without compassion for others, one is nothing. . ...more.


This report was posted on June 28, 2011.