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Reaching Your Enemy: Interview with Hawk Newsome (Black Lives Matter)

By
Peace News Staff
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When a Black Lives Matter group from New York protested at the “Mother of All Rallies” the unexpected reaction made headlines.

Hawk Newsome, president of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, and his team were invited on stage to speak. By the end of Mr Newsome’s speech the crowd was cheering, breaking into applause when he said “If we really want to make America great – we do it together”, and protesters and participants mixed afterwards.

“When I walked off that stage I was like ‘Wow – what just happened?’,” said Mr Newsome.

“Realistically, a lot of those folks, they were shocked – just like me, I was shocked as hell – a lot of these guys were, you know, pretty hard core Trump supporters, didn’t really care about what was happening to black people, what we were fighting for, and here they are opening up, opening their hearts,” he said.

“Some people were even opening up their homes, they aware like ‘Hey, if you ever want to come and visit, you know you can stay with me’.”

“That’s a stretch – that’s a stretch – right now I am just happy with starting a dialogue that we can build on.”

Hawk’s tips for reaching others?

1. “Communicate with love and respect.”

2. “Find common ground. And throughout the communication, just revert back to that common ground. If it’s a moral place, if it’s biblical, if it’s constitutional – let’s just remind people of the common ground.”

3. “Stay out of the Weeds. When we say stay out of the weeds it’s that little stuff that we can argue about – let’s not even argue about that, let’s not argue racism case-by-case, let’s just admit that we know racism exists, and try and find ways to fix it.”

“What we need is a dialogue, we need people speaking to one another, we need people understanding one another,” Mr Newsome said.

“We need – we need to understand one another, before we destroy one another,” he said.

Cover Photo: Vas Sagar

Tired of War: South Sudan Artists Promote Peace

By
Gale Julius Dada
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Three years into civil war, a group of artists in South Sudan are using their talents to promote peace.

Ana Taban, Arabic for “I’m Tired”, is a group of painters, poets, musicians, fashion designers, and cartoonists using social media, art, and drama to promote peace and non-violence.

“We use art, as a platform, as our tool, seeking this peace that we need and to speak up on issues that we think need correcting,” said Ana Taban artistic coordinator Manasseh Mathiang.

“We the artistic youth community thought that enough is enough with silence. Enough is enough of just staying by and watching the country burn,” Mr Mathaing said.

“And when we were together we were wondering ‘Ok, now what we do?’ because we are the influential youth around, and the majority of the population that is participating even in killing themselves and hate speech – youth like us. So we decided to come up with something that together explains what we feel and what the community at large feels.”

“The lyrics we write [are about] the problem we face, or the solution we see,” said singer Varna Joseph.

“Music has a very big role to influence other people to make changes,” Ms Joseph said.

The group has been operating for a year and want youth to express their hopes for the country, so they organized the festival Hagana (It’s Ours). More than 5000 people attended.

Their next campaign is Kojoron Fadi (Empty Saucepan), referring to the nearly 2 million displaced citizens facing famine and war.

“I’m tired of everything,” said Ms Joseph.

“I’m a single mother. The fact that I see my son suffers everyday going to school, maybe sometimes to sleep hungry – there is no money, we can’t afford to buy food,” she said.

“I’m tired of seeing other mothers suffer – I could say I am better off – but there are other mothers who really suffer, and they are suffering alone, they don’t know what to do, watching their children dying of hunger, and they are helpless.”

“Violence is no way – no more,” said spoken word poet Monday Luak Mathiang.

“Violence can’t solve. We all lose at the end of the day through violence,” he said.

“So sports, poetry, music, and art in general, that’s the only way we are riding now towards peacebuilding in this country, South Sudan.”

Cover Photo: Ana Taban/FaceBook

People Choosing Peace: Arzie (Kosovo)

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admin
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At 17, Arzie married and had her first child, but conflict in Kosovo began soon after the birth, and her husband was abducted and beaten. He escaped and the family fled to Macedonia, but when the war ended the growing family returned to Kosovo. The years after the war were not easy for Arzie and her young family, and for a source of income they took up farming raspberries.

“It is very hard work but also rewarding,” Arzie said.

Arzie joined the Women for Women International program in Kosovo and began using her voice to help encourage other women to use their voice as well. Arzie started her own association for women called “Infinit” where she helps women change the way they think, helps them find solutions to their problems, and to fight against injustice.

“A woman can be strong without anyone’s help, but she can also breakdown if she expects everyone to value her. To see herself for who she is and accept it is a strength that a woman can have only by believing in herself,” Arzie said.

When a raspberry cultivator gave Arzie seedlings for 5 acres of land and told her to pay for it after selling raspberry products, she was able to see a future. Together with her family, Arzie started cultivating raspberries and expanded her business by selling products made from the raspberries she grew. The success Arzie gained from her raspberries gave her the ability to pay it forward and give raspberry seedlings to other women in Kosovo. She has now donated 5,000 raspberry seedlings to 88 women across the country.

Source and Photo: Women for Women International

People Choosing Peace: Jessica (Philippines)

By
Peace News Staff
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Jessica spent her childhood in Marawai City in the Philippines, a region where insurgents and government forces often clashed. Her family moved to Iligan, a buffer zone with Muslim, Christian, and Indigenous populations, but Jessica’s darker skin marked her as an outsider and she was often harassed. It was through sport that she found a way to deal with discrimination.

“I didn’t have many ball skills or technique,” Jessica recalls. “But my college coach gave me one-on-one training and I gained confidence in my abilities. For the first time in my entire life, I was appreciated. I realized sport could offer me support and could help anyone who suffered the same horrible things I did growing up.”

Jessica still lives in Mindanao, where a patriarchal culture and what she calls a “belief barrier” affects efficient collaboration between communities of the Tri-People in her province; Muslims, Christians, and the Indigenous population. She says it is women’s voices that are often lost in the noise.

“That is why it is my mission to help oppressed women and children. This is empowerment for me—to go from being a victim to someone who could make a real difference in my society.”

Jessica now works with her husband in women’s rights advocacy, and as a football master trainer for the ASA Foundation/Asian Soccer Academy, as well as being the regional coordinator for Let’s Do It! Philippines. Jessica dreams of creating a center that focuses on rehabilitation and reintegration for victims of sexual assault. With the help of the Global Sports Mentoring program, Jessica has connected with mentors Laura Burton and Jennifer McGarry (at the University of Connecticut) a is working to create an open facility for women and children all over Mindanao, with an inclusive program for persons with disabilities. She plans to use sport-based education, training to bring together women in a safe space where they can heal and find empowerment together.

Source and image: Global Sports Mentoring program

Is the US a Peaceful Country?

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admin
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Recent political violence in America has shocked the world, and strained national unity in the USA. In the latest Global Peace Index (GPI) the USA ranked only 114 of 163 countries.

The GPI is released each year by Vision of Humanity, a project by the Institute for Economics and Peace, and the index measures negative peace, which is the absence of, or fear of, violence.

“It’s across three major domains – so we look at militarization, levels of ongoing conflict, and safety and security in society,” said Michelle Breslauer from the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Positive peace, on the other hand, is about what builds a peaceful society, such as the 8 pillars of peace.

“Positive peace looks at things like well-functioning government, a sound business environment, equitable distribution of resources, high levels of human capital, acceptance for the rights of others, free flow of information, low levels of corruption,” Ms Breslauer said. It also includes good relations with neighboring countries.

“And the countries that are strong in all of them tend to be the most peaceful,” she said.

What could help build peace in the USA?

“We see greater polarization in the media,” Ms Breslauer said, “so that’s an area to work on – access for journalists and whistle-blowers to cover issues without fear of prosecution.”

“And then when we think about for instance, the acceptance of the rights of others, how do we deal with difference? With migration, with immigration issues? With economic stability too, across different groups,” she said.

“These are all areas that are much more localized and easier to access than the larger political, military, conversation, and will actually build the societal resilience and cohesion that we need in the United States.”

“One of the things I think we have gotten out of the habit of supporting is local government, and the relationship between local civil society and local government,” Marc L. Schneider, from Human Rights Initiative, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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