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This age can be a time of new beginnings,
when we finally recognize that cycles of violence must be broken by
innovative responses of a different kind.
Peace Studies at Manchester College explores the
exciting frontiers of nonviolent alternatives to conflict. Whether
in our personal lives or the international arena, we search for an
alternative choice of action that does not tear down, but works to
build up positive relations between adversaries. We resolve not to
accept injustice, but to actively oppose it without taking life or
forfeiting freedom, either our own or that of others.
Society teaches us to glamorize our past wars
and prepare for future ones. We are told that our personal safety
lies in owning handguns, and that our national security lies in
having thousands of nuclear weapons which, if used, would destroy
even our own environment.
Our families and neighborhoods have become
increasingly violent, and real peace is hard to find. Our get
tough "solutions" only seem to make things worse.
Despite the disappearance of national military threats, we
continue to waste billions for war while we spend pennies for
peace. The U.S. military budget is now greater than the total
military budgets of the thirteen biggest spenders below us. The equivalent of our
entire national debt has been spent on nuclear weapons alone since
1945. We find ourselves as a people with more and more power but
with less and less security.
The huge increase in destructive weapons has
bought no more peace than has the multiplication of guns in our
cities and villages. Our families are torn apart by gun deaths,
and our society is fragmented by the fear of more Oklahoma City
bombings and para-military terror. The Twentieth Century has been
a century of violence, and as we live by violence, we kill and are
killed by it.
We know that nonviolence does not guarantee our
security, but we also know that violence provides even less
security. Our challenge is to seek alternatives to "fight or
flight." We must instill the courage to experiment in
peacemaking if humanity, including our country and its best
values, is to survive and prosper.
"...may those who have questioned
nonviolence come to see that one's rights to life and
happiness can only be claimed as inalienable if one grants, in
action, that they belong to all." -
Barbara
Deming
This web site is copyright 2005 by Manchester
College.
Last Updated September 1, 2005.
Any questions about this website should be directed to the
Graduate Intern.
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