Gene and his Writings on Direct, Nonviolent Actions
Create Space for Peace, available March 2011, is a collection of writings from the late Gene Stoltzfus' articles, speeches, and letters about his global journey of peacemaking. More information at our Facebook Page and follow us on Twitter.
- Why a Book about Gene's Peacemaking?
- Who is Gene?
- Countries and Communities where Gene Created Space for Peace
- Peacemaking Topics Gene Used to Address
Why a Book about Gene's Peacemaking?
The past century was the most violent in our common history however a sub theme was the emerging rediscovery of nonviolent peacemaking by Gandhi, King and the rest of us around the globe. From India to Eastern Europe, from democratic movements in China to freedom walks in the United States, from little known villages in Afghanistan to farmers and fisherfolks in Colombia, people have discovered the power of nonviolent action.
Gene both imagined and worked everyday for peace in the world's hotspots for more than 40 years. His work as a conscientious objector in Vietnam during the war, in Philippines during martial law and in urban Chicago's gang areas in the 1980's convinced him that a long term organized team approach was crucial to reduce violence. He went on to become the founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) from 1988 to 2004. Now in its 25th year, CPT trains and deploys violence-reduction teams around the world in militarized or crisis areas like Iraq, Palestine and parts of Columbia.
Additionally, Gene's peacemaking work and vision cut to the core, not the symptoms, of four global systemic threats: militarism, the environment, the economy, and the food crisis. His approach possessed an authentic voice that won him the trust and respect of numerous communities worldwide that he partnered with to co-create space for peace.
While in former times it might have been laughed off or marginalized, the emerging culture of nonviolence -- or at the least curiosity about its content and effectiveness -- create conditions where learning, action, organizing and active peacemaking has a chance.
This window of opportunity deserves our critical attention, able reflection and competent preparation. At root all of us in this world have the potential to share the power of love and nonviolence, forces that reach far beyond mere sentimentality.
See also a review of Create Space with examples of Gene's peacemaking. More about peacemaking and worldwide violence-reduction projects here.
Gene Stoltzfus (February 1, 1940 - March 10, 2010) was the Director of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) from its founding in 1988 until 2004.
Gene came to this work of peacemaking first as a civilian volunteer and conscientious objector in Vietnam where he served beginning in 1963.
Gene's commitment to peacemaking was rooted in his Christian faith and experience in Vietnam as a conscientious objector with International Voluntary Services during the US military escalation (1963-68). He recalled watching the helicopters personnel unload their cargo of bloodied bodies. This experience set him "on the search to make sense of life and death where the terms of survival, meaning and culture approve and even train for killing." Gene had to ask himself: Was I willing to die for my conviction of enemy loving just as Vietnamese and American soldiers all around me were being asked to give their lives in order to achieve peace and security?
Gene Stoltzfus grew up in Aurora, then a rural town in Northeast Ohio where his parents gave leadership in a Mennonite church and his father was the pastor. He graduated in Sociology from Goshen College in Indiana and holds an M.A. in South and Southeast Asian Studies from American University (Washington D.C.) and a Master of Divinity from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, IN.
He leaves behind his wife Dorothy Friesen of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. They lived in Chicago for 25 years until his retirement to Fort Frances, Ontario, Canada. He used to make twig furniture as a contribution to the greening world. Gene's reflections on 40 years of peacemaking and effort to stimulate dialogue can also be found at his personal blog, Peace Probe.
See also Gene's Wikipedia page.
Countries and Communities where Gene Created Space for Peace
Starting with Vietnam and the Philippines, Gene reached out in life and death to communities around the world including urban peacemaking work in Washington D.C. and Richmond, Virginia; a peace delegation to Iraq on the eve of the Gulf War in 1991; Haiti during the bloody years of the coup; Palestine/Israel beginning around the second Intifada in 1995; supporting the struggles of First Nations communities throughout North America in relation to land and resources, including Lakota in South Dakota, Annishnaabe in Ontario, Oneida in New York, Miq'mak in New Brunswick; Chiapas, Mexico around the Acteal massacre of 1997; Colombia accompanying communities displaced by paramilitary; Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion; and the Pakistan/Afghani border region in 2001 and again in 2009.
Peacemaking Topics Gene Used to Address:
- Does Nonviolence Work in this Century
- Where is God when Violence Breaks Out
- Case Study-Peacemakers in the Midst of War: Iraq
- Equipping Peacemaker Teams: Envisioning, Development, Training & Programming Peacemaker Teams
- Bending Our Lives to Active Peacemaking
- Sustaining the Spirit, the Body & the Mind for Long Term, Disciplined Peacemaking
- Invitation to Global Peacemaking
CPTers worldwide are available to address these topics. You are welcome to find and invite a speaker near you.
1. Does Nonviolence Work in this Century?
How do we structure our lives of faith to give nonviolence the best chance in the years ahead?
The past century was the most violent in our common history however a sub theme was the emerging, rediscovery of nonviolence by Gandhi, King and the rest of us in the east & west, north & south-peace education and mediation efforts now span the globe. While in former times it might have been laughed off or marginalised, the emerging culture of nonviolence -- or at the least curiosity about its content and effectiveness -- create conditions where learning, action, organizing and active peacemaking has a chance. This window of opportunity deserves our critical attention, able reflection and competent preparation. It needs the talents that each of us bring to the table.
2. Where is God when Violence Breaks Out?
How can organized peacemaking efforts be taken to the heart of violence or war in the coming decades? People are forced to think hard about the meaning of their lives because war forces decisions. War can create the context where some soldiers begin to think about God while civilian victims question the faithfulness of God. In this context nonviolence can be particularly powerful in word, action, consistent strategy and symbol. Prayer and worship take on fresh meaning as the weakness and vulnerability of human civilization is made visible in killing and violence.
3. Case Study - Peacemakers in the Midst of War: Iraq
In Iraq the Christian Peacemaker Teams learned to invent responses to the overwhelming experience of violation, loss, and violence when the occupation began. CPT's work contributed to the disclosures around Abu Ghraib that gave impetus to the still tentative, worldwide movement for military forces to attend to the rights and protection of civilians.
Often we had to follow our intuition however in the work of human rights we learned from the efforts of international organizations like Amnesty International. Among Iraqi people we learned to listen fast, carefully and intelligently so that our listening was not unduly influenced by the enemies of peace. We learned to keep lines open in all direction in our public and private stance. We learned something about maintaining team life in what was often a perpetual state of emergency. But we also refined a strategy that contributed to some solutions but failed to stop or prevent the larger war. How do we explain these learnings and integrate them into the patterns of our peacemaking?
4. Equipping Peacemaker Teams: Envisioning, Development, Training and Programming Peacemaker Teams
History of CPT: This is the story of the development of Christian Peacemaker Teams over the last 25 years. How did we get to where we are today? Where are our convictions, our learnings, our human resources and the needs of the planet inviting us to go?
5. Bending Our Lives to Active Peacemaking
Beginning in our local communities, how will we begin to organize ourselves for this great experiment? Not all of us will be able to structure our family lives, careers or community obligations to become full-time peacemakers although full-time people are needed now. Full time or part time we are invited to develop skills in listening, negotiations, team work, and disciplined nonviolence. The confidence of our spiritual convictions can be developed through both training and experience and this will equip us to think confidently about long-term strategy. We will be challenged to remember what we are living for and what is worth dying for.
6. Sustaining the Spirit, the Body and the Mind for Long Term Disciplined Peacemaking
Peacemakers are regular people with personal needs, limits, hopes for meaningful worship, and vulnerabilities to wide mood swings, trauma, disappointment and joy. Peacemakers need a local support group for emotional support, help in decision making and to help carry out the work. There is no perfect support system but as peacemakers are trained and then live their way into the work in violent situations, unexpected gifts become available and new resistance uncovered. The great movements for human potential can help in this process of becoming more healthy and wise but it is the peacemaker herself who lives through the risks, the anger, and the hopes and then integrates them meaningfully. Are there hints in our experience that will help in our support systems?
7. Invitation to Global Peacemaking
Peace brought by force is elusive. Nonviolence works. Are we listening to this invitation?
The invitation to collaborate for peacemaking comes from Afghanistan to Burma and Zimbabwe; local congregations and tiny interchurch initiatives; urban centres and remote native settings; and denominations, universities and crisis settings. The call often comes with urgency when the crisis has already arrived and there is little time to call out people, train people to intervene and fashion a disciplined nonviolent response. The expected and routine response to crisis is that official armed units of police or military will respond to make things come out right. But the peace that is brought by force is elusive. The power of love and nonviolence works. Christians and all people of faith can play a leading role. The alternative in this century is for civilization, is for our world to rely on increasingly dangerous and out of control instruments of force and violence. Are we listening to this invitation? What can we do about it?
