Dear NVT, The following is taken from the 'nonviolent.action' conference on Pegasus (the Australian node of the APC computer network). At a recent anti-war demonstration, in San Francisco, I had a very discouraging experience with some violent protesters. What was so discouraging, besides the whole Middle East mess, was the violence that marred the march. For the most part we were able to deal with the small outbreaks, and many marchers did their part too. But when we reached the Federal Building, there was an element (organized group??) that began tearing down the barricades and burned a flag. It was just too much for me and went against everything I stand for. I just had to do something! What happened next was that I ran over behind the first rank of barricades they were trying to tear down, and began futilely trying to get them to stop. I cried, begged, pleaded, and screamed at them that it was the wrong way and that it was anathema to what peace is all about!! They screamed at me that violence is the only way to change the 'State'! I screamed you've become like them ... you're only perpetuating the very thing you rail against. Mostly I was only able to get out the words no...no...NO! It's wrong! What saddens me though is the fact that not a single other 'Peace' marcher took up my efforts against the violence, or at least spoke out against it that I could hear ... In fact I don't even think our people on the sound truck said anything (I could be wrong though) about keeping things non-violent. Just what do they think Peace is about???? I felt so lonely, scared (VERY), and sad, but I had to do it!! I just can't take it anymore. Now I need to find a way to convert all those feelings and emotions into something meaningful. There has to be some way to let it be known that violent protest (as opposed to peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience and demonstrations) just furthers the aims of those whose actions we're marching against!! Peace, Cynthia Dear Cynthia, Your experience is quite a common one. Believe it or not. Something similar occurred on the weekend where I live, i.e. in Brisbane, Australia. There has always been a big difference between anti-war rallies and peace rallies. Dealing with violence at the personal level is an emotionally trying experience. Solidarity, Trevor Jordan Dear NVT, We have produced a reference brochure, which contains every material related to my anti-Hinomaru nonviolence action. In the brochure I referred to Jan McNicol and Margaret Pestorius along with a part of the theory of nonviolence action. Please accept my appreciation, because we have used illustrations and motifs which are seen in NVT; and very many times we use them in our leaflets and newsletters; some translations from the contents as well. When I get enquiries about illustrations and articles, I always explain to her/him about the source and advise her/him to subscribe to NVT. We provide our supporters with the brochures; the distribution will be nationwide but limited only to the concerned persons and groups. We do not expect any financial benefit from the distribution of brochures. Our purpose of the distribution is to research and construct a much firmer network of concerned persons and groups, to keep the matter controversial without interruption throughout Japan and hopefully all over the world, and to stop the aggressive attempt of Japanese government. We have made a new group called "melba" because I like peach melba. Melba should be read: Metsa Elaa Liike Basic Action, where 'metsa elaa' and 'liike' are Finnish words and mean 'forests are alive' and 'movement'. Today, I got a letter from John Seed, Lismore. I promptly informed two other groups in Yokohama about his Japan tour from April 19. Nonviolence activists of other districts in Japan will be helpful, the address of whom Brendan and/or Margaret must have. I will get in contact with Beth Lescheron in Tokyo, and expect John to keep me informed about his itinerary and all about his activity plan in Japan. Yumiko Kanebako Dear NVT, We write regarding the rather lengthy editorial or disclaimer, which appeared with our article on nonviolence in the Dec/Jan issue. Firstly we ask why it was necessary to illustrate the role of an editorial body specifically after our article? We would think it obvious that such a magazine's role would be to "publish controversial ideas about nonviolence in the hope of furthering debate and discussion, even when the expressed views differ considerably from our own". Secondly, in bringing attention to the role of the editorial body, was it then appropriate to insinuate that our article was "competitive argument" and not a "sharing of understandings." We would like to know what exactly constitutes either and also register our disapproval of such editorial practices as these. The main power of the editor lies in the actual editing of articles. You printed ours in full, and we wonder why, if our article was unacceptable or 'competitive'. We, on the contrary, feel it was exceedingly conciliatory. We have noted in past editions of NVT, and in the one in question, that the use of editorial notes has been virtually nonexistent, even for such prolific writers as Mr. Burrowes whose wisdoms cover eight of twenty-three (or one-third) of the Dec/Jan issue. This is not an unusual occurance. Interestingly enough in one of his articles appears directly under ours and in subtle ways attempts to answer both our article and the question in your note: "Precisely what constitutes nonviolent action?" We ordinarily would not have objected to this uncanny coincidence. Pointing out the usual practises of rights of reply etc., however, the content of Burrowes' article with its definitive categorisations and diagrams only served as an illustration of our major points and as such we thank you. Felicity Ruby and Ian Cohen Dear Felicity and Ian, We are sorry that you found our editorial note offensive. We certainly had no intention to offend and we apologise for any pain we have caused you. We do have a policy of stating when we do not agree with an article that we publish. We feel this is more honest that pretending to be unbiased and simply not publishing articles we don't agree with. Our major criterion for publishing is that an article be about some form of nonviolence, loosely defined (see the back cover). Nevertheless the editors are themselves nonviolent activists and theorists with personal relationships with other nonviolent activists and theorists, and as such sometimes feel the need to distance themselves personally from a particular article they publish. We also have a policy of not changing articles which we publish, except for correcting spelling or extremely bad grammar. Once again we feel it is more honest to include a note regarding our misgivings rather than altering the article to comply with our idea of appropriateness. Such editorial notes don't appear very often, simply because people so rarely send us articles about nonviolence that we disagree with. The last one we could find was "Combining Military and Civilian-Based Defence" by Jack D. Salmon in NVT #4 Aug/Sep 88. In this case our note appeared before the article and clearly stated our disagreement. The fact that our note after your article only implied that we disagreed with it, should be taken as evidence that our disagreement was slight. We cannot give an exact definition of the difference between "sharing of understandings" and "competitive argument". We guess we reacted to what we interpreted as a personal attack on our friend Robert Burrowes. We apologise if this was not the case. We assure you that there were no sinister motives in putting Robert Burrowes' article immediately after yours, nor was his article written in reply to yours. It simply seems sensible to us to place related articles together and the order seemed logical to us at the time. We are well aware that many issues of Nonviolence Today have been dominated by the writings of Robert Burrowes. This is simply because we receive so few articles from anyone else. We publish all we receive (provided they are in some way about nonviolence). We have often found it necessary to republish articles from overseas publications when we would much rather be publishing original material, particularly from Australian authors. Robert Burrowes is a close friend of the editors but this does not mean that we agree with everything he writes. Please continue to write and send us articles or letters. We would be disappointed to lose your input because we value your experience and understanding of nonviolence. Let's keep a focus on our common interests and goals. Peace and Solidarity, Jan, Janelle, Jerry and David (the editors)