Introduction
This zine collated by The Global Social Movement Center gathers insights and inspiration from a series of webinars on how social movements can help create just and non-violent futures.
Social justice movements worldwide navigate a complex terrain, facing multiple forms of violence; from war to oppression, surveillance to discrimination and beyond. How do people organise and resist in such realities? How can they succeed?
In a series of critical webinar conversations, we have invited activists, scholars, policymakers, and the public to explore the complex roots, manifestations and dynamics of violence, and the transformative role of social movements in achieving justice and building peace.
Each conversation has deliberated on multiple facets of violence, and the strategic approaches that movements employ to resist and organize. Through the course of these deliberations we sought to move from a critical examination, towards practical and strategic dimensions of non-violent action, learning how to effectively support and amplify these efforts, fostering broader solidarity and systemic transformation towards more just and peaceful societies.
From deconstruction to re-construction; from a tapestry of violence to a tapestry of just peace.
What you hold in your hands is not a complete account of the rich and layered deliberations that were held, but rather an effort to distill key insights and perspectives— bridging the specific to the universal. These takeaways are not meant to be ready-made, actionable solutions in and of themselves, but rather sources of inspiration—a starting point for deep, critical and meaningful conversations.
Webinars
- Webinar 1 – Speaking of Violence: Mapping the Terrain
- Webinar 2 – In Another’s Land: War and Militarization
- Webinar 3 – The Violent State: Dealing with Repression
- Webinar 4 – Uncivil Society: Ending Violence in People vs. People Conflicts
- Webinar 5 – The Peaceful Play of People Power: Violence and Social Change
- Webinar 6 – Towards a People’s Peace: Pathways to a Just and Peaceful World
Onwards
In difficult times it is important to pause, to measure the moment and its needs, to conserve energy and renew the hopes of a better future.
When the usual methods fail we must innovate and create new ways of resistance and change. Protest is not the only method. Disruption can take many forms.
We can make money lose its value, we can fill the air with softer sounds, we can create new rituals that respect the earth, revere the water and renew life. By example and by struggle, by consuming less, by serving others, by practising our values, by practical solidarity with the suffering of others we can transform the world.
At a time when institutional peacebuilding frameworks are in crisis, we recognize movements as essential in shaping sustainable peace rooted in justice. This is not a conclusion, but a launching point. An opportunity to engage a wider constituency in the insights, strategies and questions that have emerged throughout our deliberations:
- How can the agenda of just peace become an everyday manifesto for large enough numbers of people that it can have a decisive effect?
- What must social movements and their supporters do so that the world can become more aware of its own violence and work on ways of reducing it?
- And what are the organisational vehicles that need to be revised or developed for organisations that want to build just peace?
We want to continue to convene the right people for conversations and consultations and to develop ideas and demands for a peacebuilding infrastructure that integrates the values, experiences, and proposals of grassroots movements into the core of international peace frameworks.
This is our moment to move from analysis to action— to chart pathways forward towards a just and inclusive peace.
Join us as we continue to involve, strategize and commit to the work ahead.
Without egos, without halos, without logos and without silos.
Excerpt
A sneak peak into the zine.
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Explore Further
- Harnessing Our Power to End (HOPE) Political Violence
- Peacebuilding: A Democracy Resource Hub Guide
- SNAP: Synergizing Nonviolent Action and Peacebuilding: An Action Guide
- A Refresher on Narratives & Violence, Over Zero
- Backfire Manual: Tactics Against Injustice
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- Violence and the Backfire Effect
- Building U.S. Resilience to Political Violence: A Globally Informed Framework for Analysis and Action, Over Zero
- Block, Bridge and Build: Playbook for an Inclusive Multi-Racial Democracy
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