Non-violent ways of dealing with hate

[Oss Rae]

In the last week I've heard about several approaches to confront Nazism/the alt right non-violently. Just now on KPFA's The Talkies ( which can be heard here: archives.kpfa.org/data/20170823-Wed1100.mp3 ) the first guest (Kazu Haga, non-violence trainer and author of Don't Feed the Trolls -- How to Combat the Alt-Right, wagingnonviolence.org/feature/dont-feed-trolls-combat-alt-right/ ) described a small town in Germany where Nazis once went to march. The townspeople got sponsors who donated money to fighting Nazis for every foot the Nazis marched. Thus the Nazis were greeted with banners thanking them for helping fund anti-Nazi organizations. The Nazis were then faced with the choice of discontinuing their march or helping raise funds for counter Nazi groups.

Various programs also interviewed people from Life After Hate, an organization of former white supremacists who help people get out of hate groups (https://www.lifeafterhate.org/). They say it's much more effective to focus on people's needs for a sense of community and dealing with life than confronting them on race issues.

Democracy Now featured Life After Hate co-founder Christian Picciolini last week: www.democracynow.org/2017/8/17/life_after_hate_trump_admin_stops

And Rising Up with Sonali had Angela King, another co-founder of Life After Hate (third segment in show): archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_170818_080030uprising.MP3

Also, KPFK's I.M.R.U. spoke with a former Nazi (Tim Zaal) who similarly works to get people off that path and also is friends and works with a homosexual he helped beat up decades ago (Matthew Boyer) Zaal gives a weekly talk at the Museum of Tolerance, and there's a documentary about this (called Facing Fear: www.facingfearmovie.com/trailer.html ). Among other things, they visit jails and talk to inmates about letting go of anger.

The discussion can be heard here (starting slightly over 29 minutes into the program): archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_170821_190030imru.MP3

[Brian]

I was knocked out by that article by Kazu Haga about countering hate groups on the Waging Nonviolence website. Especially the notion that counter-protestors are not the resistance -- "We need to remind ourselves that we are the majority, and they are the ones resisting the changes our society is going through."

Haga articulates the ill feelings I've had watching some of the anti-fascist demonstrators acting less than nonviolently on the endless video loops from Charlottesville, worried that they were feeding the beast inside hearts of racist demonstrators, much like U.S. military policy in Iraq helped create ISIS.

Scroll down near the end to the subhead "Creative nonviolence" for other protest ideas besides Haga's example of turning a Nazi march into a charity walk-a-thon.  Most of the proposed actions are positive, but they would require coordination by a significant number of people in a loving frame of mind.  Peaceniks.