Hey there,
since we started the call for applications on the topic of online campaigns in SCI, I wanted to give a short overview on what is possible by doing campaigns. This might help you decide whether you find this kind of direction important for SCI to further our goals and values and also allows you to gather some more insight into campaigning and how others do it – very important for the study session, since it is not a training but an exchange of knowledge, skills and ideas for a non-violent future.
There are numerous ways of doing campaigns, both offline (also known as Real World) and online. Often both aspects are linked. The aims of campaigns can be very diverse. Policy changes, awareness raising, improved cooperation, fun,...
SCI has done quite some campaigns in its past, we campaigned for alternatives to military service since the beginning and I am too young to know all of the campaigns. Apparently, we did campaign for the independence of Nigeria 1985-1992 and for refugee rights from 1994 till 1997. I remember the Peace Caravan through Europe quite well though :)
Here some enlightening examples of other organisations doing campaigns, so we can learn from them. Looking through them definitely would be good preparation for the study session: View full article » Category: Society
Hey there,
since we started the call for applications on the topic of online campaigns in SCI, I wanted to give a short overview on what is possible by doing campaigns. This might help you decide whether you find this kind of direction important for SCI to further our goals and values and also allows you to gather some more insight into campaigning and how others do it – very important for the study session, since it is not a training but an exchange of knowledge, skills and ideas for a non-violent future.
There are numerous ways of doing campaigns, both offline (also known as Real World) and online. Often both aspects are linked. The aims of campaigns can be very diverse. Policy changes, awareness raising, improved cooperation, fun,...
SCI has done quite some campaigns in its past, we campaigned for alternatives to military service since the beginning and I am too young to know all of the campaigns. Apparently, we did campaign for the independence of Nigeria 1985-1992 and for refugee rights from 1994 till 1997. I remember the Peace Caravan through Europe quite well though :)
Here some enlightening examples of other organisations doing campaigns, so we can learn from them. Looking through them definitely would be good preparation for the study session: View full article »
I wonder how come the world seem just to be watching what's going on in Syria, where there has been some say over 5,000 deaths?
I wanted to share this intersting article that made me think a lot... it's just the absence of OIL the difference with Lybia?
The Truth Behind the Coming "Regime Change" in Syria by Shamus Cooke
You can find the full article here:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28853
A very interesting insight on police against population issues. Why to pity the police:
http://t.co/dQ2UDyjG
"Instead, it's a dozen scared kids and a police officer named John Pike spraying them in the face from three feet away. And while it's his finger pulling the trigger, the police system is what put him in the position to be standing in front of those students. I am sure that he is a man like me, and he didn't become a cop to shoot history majors with pepper spray. But the current policing paradigm requires that students get shot in the eyes with a chemical weapon if they resist, however peaceably. Someone has to do it. And while the kids may cough up blood and writhe in pain, what happens to the man who does it is in some ways much, much worse."
Hey there,
the application form for the new seminar in November is finally finished and you can download the Call for participants and the application form by clicking on your preferred format (pdf, odt, doc).
You can find the details of the seminar in this post as well:
Forget fists, forge voices - the power of nonviolence
The No-More-War team warmly invites you to our second topic based seminar: "Forget fists, forge voices - the power of nonviolence" from the 12th to 18th of November 2011 in Helmarshausen, Germany, financially supported by the Youth in Action programme of the European Union. View full article »
The war on terror since the tragic attack on civilians in the US ten years ago is far from finished, instead, it is reproducing itself. In the US, about 3000 people died in those attacks. In the following 'war on terror', the human rights were basically stripped to the bone, economies suffered (except for the military industrial complex) but most of all, civilians were killed. I will shortly give some indications for three countries, hit as so-called direct consequence of the US war on terror - though other countries used their own 'war on terror' to terrorize civilians in their countries.
However, here some rough informations about some of the civilian casualties of the war on terror:
Iraq
At least 355.000 (but more likely about 650.000) people were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 according to the Lancet study http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties Other studies find between 60.000 and 1.000.000 casualties. View full article »
A very interesting short summary about the current situations of Palestine / Israel from the global avaaz-network - made as a call for supporting a petition to the UN security council for recognizing Palestine state:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/middle_east_peace_now/
The people over at http://www.wagingpeace.org/ did a video contest earlier this year - perhaps thats a good incentive for people within SCI to get creative like this as well :)
Here is the second winner (my personal favorite) :)
For something even more SCI related I found this article in our international archive, where the work of SCI volunteers in 1949 in Hiroshima is briefly mentioned - it gives a very nice and short overview actually of SCI activities in 1949 :D Really nice to read and a very interesting way to travel back to earlier days of SCI movement!
http://www.service-civil-international.org/archives/scid/pdf/50_06_00_2.pdf
Just found this interesting video-clip. Maajid Nawaz, a former islamistic extremist (since he was 17), now trying to find ways to create a global culture to fight hatred and any form of extremism. Some of his summaries may be a bit rough, but the overall story, including his personal story are very interesting and I belief especially so in the light of the recent mad mass-killing of people in Oslo due to right-wing extremism.
He explains, that extremist organisations are much better succeeding in globalized ways than democratic organizations (he understandably seems to look at democracy and extremism as opposites) due to four reasons (I tried to shortly summarize them): View full article »
Amnesty International has published its new report on the human rights situation world-wide.
You can find an introduction here:
http://amnesty.org/en/annual-report/2011/introduction
The details about single countries can be accessed via the following link:
http://amnesty.org/en/annual-report/2011/country-data
More on the key issues of this year as Freedom of Expression, International Justice, Corporate Accountability and Middle East and North Africa can be found on this page
http://amnesty.org/en/annual-report/2011/key-issues
I also included the amnesty-international news on this page on the right side bar together with the headlines from democracy now. That way it is quite easy to stay up to date with news about human rights and political issues!
Due to some feedback I received it appears that some unfortunate misunderstandings have arisen in respect to the article I wrote below, which I would like to shortly clarify here as follows: 1. As stated in the article, I do not condone any form of violence against human beings whatsoever, including of course terroristic attacks. 2. I never wrote and did not mean to be understand in a way that would endorse the methods or ideology of Al Quaida or Osama bin Laden. 3. All articles on this blog, as stated on the "About" page, are personal points of view, shared stories, informations and contents and do not reflect the views of the whole No More Team as a whole unless specified otherwise. Warm regards to all readers :) Georg from the No-more-war teamTo catch up with the world I was saddened by todays 'news' that Osama bin Laden had been killed. I just want to take this moment to express my sincere condolences to his relatives - noone should die by another mans hand. Once again, violence was used to deal with a conflict - killing another man was once again excused by important values as justice. Some took the stance to speak of revenge, justice's perverse counterpart. I will quote a part of Tom H. Hastings book 'Nonviolent Response to Terrorism' which I just read during my stay in Sweden:
"Imagine an international community in which Osama bin Laden might have presented his complaints about overbearing U.S. influence in his native land, Saudi Arabia. If the people of the U.S. truly understood the offensiveness of foreign influence the Saudi people felt, perhaps the people of the U.S. might have ended their support for politicans who voted military aid to the Saudi regime. If a despotic royalty loves U.S. military hardware, an oppressed population will eventually hate the nation enabling the oppression." (p. 57-58) View full article »
