Through the provision of educational materials and community workshop facilitators, we provide a study and action program that explores nonviolence as a creative, powerful and effective process for addressing and resolving the conflicts in our lives and in the life of the world.
Travelling the Road of Peace and Happiness – transforming conflict into creative conflict.
By Bob Myers.
A must-read book for any adult who was a child, or for anyone in contact with a child learning to be an adult.
Available as h/copy or ebook.
For more information, or to purchase, go to www.roadofpeace.com
(25% of the purchase price will be donated to Pace e Bene Australia if you place the code word peba in the comment box.)
Angie O’Gorman, noted advocate of nonviolence and theologian from the United States, will be visiting Australia later this year. She will visiting Brisbane (28 – 29 July), Ballina (NSW) (31 July – 4 August), Adelaide (6 – 10 August) and Melbourne (12 – 15 August).
Yesterday was the International Day of Peace and I was out like many others trying to create a more peace filled world. I wonder to my self at times if any thing I do makes any difference. But participation in events to celebrate this day are growing. Last night I was heartened to recieve an email that reported the following news. The UN said guns fell silent across Afghanistan on Sunday for an international peace day that saw pledges by the U.S., NATO, Afghan government and the Taliban halt attacks. The U.N. said tens of thousands of international and Afghan soldiers as well as Taliban “all stood down from offensive military operations in support of the biggest International Peace day effort that Afghanistan has known. Cut and paste link for full article http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jPEwS3wTMlBo_K2WOS6GhZ9cQsKQD93B5CV00
So maybe one day a year will become many days a year until we have forgotten just what it is to make war on each other.
I have recently returned from my months’pilgimage’ to the US, to places that i consider Holy Places. My first ten days were spent at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker House. LACW has been present in East LA for 30yrs serving the most disadvantaged of God’s sons and daughters on Skid Row in downtown LA. The soup kitchen is affectionately known as The Hippie Kitchen and offers hospitality , a hot meal, a “ready smile and no preachin” 3 days a week. The current kitchen replaces the original which was destroyed by the last massive earthquake to hit California. A mural adorns the front wall and depicts Jesus in the Bread Queue. Its a powerful picture and i bear witness to volunteers serving the Jesus that exists in all people. Skid row is under siege from Gentrefication and a clean up programme to keep LA’s street ‘safe’. The residents of this area are constantly moved on, signs are every where to remind them that at no time will they gather in the streets or rest their weary bones. Their possessions are seized and destroyed. The police operate undercover stings and entrap people into procurring drugs. The prisons overflow with the meek and poor for such crimes as J walking and failing to pay fines. For a brief time the kitchen garden with shady trees, garden beds, picnic tables, mosaic murals and a water feature offers a place of eqaulity, respect and respite. A time to feel human and be treated as a human. A place to connect with friends, have a laugh, discuss politics or just sleep for a while.
Fantastic news – the arms expo to be held in Adelaide this November has just been cancelled!
News report here (note: the paper was a strong supporter of the arms expo).
OzPeace (key organisers of the planned nonviolent protests) press release here.
And a wonderful analysis provided by one protestor:
Us violent feral low life people armed with our deadly heat seeking loudspeakers must use the night to celebrate
That all those peace loving people with their toys missiles , cannons, guns, bombers, tanks, frigates etc are not bringing their toys here.
Last weekend Jarrod and I were both able to attend the Climate Action Camp in Newcastle, the highlight of which was shutting down the railway feeding the world’s largest coal port for a few hours (unconfirmed: over 24 hours as the police were apparently still searching for people overnight!)
Jarrod played an awesome facilitation role in some difficult spokescouncil meetings, helping diverse people work together for a common cause. Considering not everyone was even fully committed to tactical nonviolence (ie. a few thought that physical self defence was OK in a NV action), he and others facilitating did great work.
Jarrod was also a key part of the Parents & Kids Action Team, that enabled a whole bunch of kids to participate in a very safe and empowering way.
Justin joined a Newcastle-based action team / affinity group based around people from Rising Tide, the local anti-coal port NV action crew, and was one of 7 from his team and about 50 people overall who illegally walked onto the railway line (the police had helpfully stopped the trains already, so it was perfectly safe!).
Continue reading “Nonviolent direct action shuts down coal port”
PACE e BENE AUSTRALIA
From Violence to Wholeness
FACILITATOR CO-LEARNING PROGRAM
In partnership with Catholic Church Solomon Islands and Caritas
Solomon lands
April 7–27, 2008
Day 1 Saturday April 6
Brendan arrived in Brisbane on the ‘red-eye’ at 7am on Saturday morning April 5th, about an hour later than schedule….an auspicious start to this adventure. Carole’s husband Steve was there to greet him and take him to further repose for the rest of the morning…an afternoon of catching-up and planning for the work ahead…followed by a grand feast, packing and early’ish night.
Day 2 Sunday April 7
We were due to depart Brisbane for Honiara at 930am on Sunday April 6th. We arrived at the airport and were told that the flight was delayed until 1pm. All bags checked on (despite last-minute anxieties that we were about 10kgs overweight – the bags we mean!).
So we waited….walked and talked….and waited. Then we were up and away – the adventure begins for real…
t an hour into our 3.5 hour flight, while celebrating our departure and our first PeB Australia venture overseas, we had just been served lunch when it was announced that the plane was returning to Brisbane due to a failure of the radio….and so we arrived back where we started around 4pm. It was quite amazing – there was a remarkable sense of calm around – with everyone on board accepting that this is how it is – just like open space in action – we’ll get there at the right time!
After another hour of waiting around at the airport, we were told that the problem could not be fixed and we’d be put up in a hotel overnight and fly out next day (Monday 7th) at 6pm.
So off we went – into reverse gear – back through Customs, collected our bags and got on a coach that took us to the Siebel hotel in the heart of Brisbane. Just as we got on the coach we heard the guys sitting behind us chatting – and one of them was from Ahoghill in Ireland – a wee village about 20 miles from where Brendan was born….amazing! So we had a good yarn and ended up having a couple of drinks (or so) and dinner with them at the hotel – the Irishman worked with the commercial financing arm of The World Bank and the other, a retired Canadian bank manager, worked as a banking consultant….we had a very interesting dinner conversation…eh!
Other people we ran into during this leisurely, luxurious interlude, were
‘A.D.’ a young surfer from the UK who was going to Gizo to help rebuild village houses after the tsunami last year – his story was inspirational: his friends had been surfing there when the tsunami struck and had escaped with their lives. They had been so touched by the help they had received from the local people that when they got back to England, they couldn’t settle and began to raise funds from their families and friends to take back to help the villagers rebuild their homes. And so AD was on his way to help them….quite a journey for a young man of 20!
Sumaglien – a black South African woman, now living in Sydney, who had great warmth and humour….going to visit her husband who was an engineer in Honiara. Her stories of living in SA during apartheid were deeply moving…
Day 3 Monday April 8
Good sleep, morning walk along the river and filling breakfast of anything we fancied….
Had a meeting to plan our first day’s work, packed our bags and had another hearty meal before the coaches came to pick us up at 3pm
And so off we went again – no Solomons Airlines staff there to greet us, we queued up at the Check-Out and noticed that our flight was now scheduled to depart at 8pm – a further delay of two hours….learning to be patient and nonviolent with what is beyond our control…again!
Eventually we boarded a very recent model Air Vanuatu plane and departed – this time making it all the way to Honiara, arriving at 1245am Tuesday morning to stutter through Customs and eventually be picked up by Adam Elliot and Peter from Caritas and delivered to the King Solomon Hotel….”don’t get too comfortable guys, we’ll pick you up in the morning around 655am for an 8am flight to Gizo”….and then our story really begins…. Continue reading “Solomon Islands Journal”
Dear friends,
Climate change has become possibly the defining moral issue of our time. One of the biggest problems we face is that Australia is addicted to coal. Coal exports are Australia’s biggest contribution to climate change. The greenhouse pollution from our coal exports exceeds all of our domestic pollution combined – and is set to grow massively.
This July we invite you to join us in taking action to put a stop to this madness.
A major ‘camp for climate action‘ will be happening in Newcastle from 10-15 July. The camp will be six days of inspiring workshops and direct action aimed at shutting down the world’s largest coal port.
We are hoping to gather a group of concerned Christians together to form an action team (or affinity group) for the blockade action. This will probably involve most (but not all) members risking arrest for a minor offence, although details will be decided by the group.
Attached is a FAQ sheet with information on climate change and Christian faith, why coal exports represent an urgent threat, the hows and whys of nonviolent action at the camp, and the history of Christian nonviolent action. We invite you to read the FAQ and consider whether God is calling you to become involved.
You don’t have to be willing to risk arrest to be involved. You don’t have to be available all six days to be involved – some people are just coming Friday to Sunday. You don’t have to be an experienced activist to be involved. You do need to be passionate about climate change and about what God thinks about us trashing the planet.
To help people think through the issues and decide if they want to be involved, Project Green Church and Pace e Bene Australia Nonviolence Service will host a few afternoon workshops over the coming weeks. These will cover details about the camp, the direct action, Christian discipleship and some nonviolent action training. You don’t have to attend one of these workshops to join us at the camp, but it will help. Details of the workshops can be found here.
If you are interested, we would love to hear from you.
Yours in Christ,
Jonathan Moylan, Rising Tide & Newcastle UCATSA
Miriam Pepper , Project Green Church
Wenny Theresia, Australian Student Environment Network
Justin Whelan, Pace e Bene Australia Nonviolence Service
(Note: organisation names are included for information only. We do not claim to represent them.)
