It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. –Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi

This woman is amazing.  He name is Aung San Suu Kyi, and she is the daughter of General Aung San–founder of the modern Burmese army and negotiator of Burma’s independence from the United Kingdom.  She drew much of her political inspiration from India’s Mahatma Gandhi, especially with regards to her policy of non-violence.  Her Buddhism also influenced her politics.

Suu Kyi rallied for a new democracy in Burma, as a military junta had taken over.  However, in 1988, she was put under house arrest, being told that they would free her if she left the country and never returned.  She refused to leave, even though her two sons and her husband remained out of the country.

In 1990, the military junta, led by General Than Shwe, held a general election in which the National League for Democracy won with 82% of the votes.  Aung San Suu Kyi, being the party’s prime candidate, would have assumed Prime Ministership, but instead, the junta nullified the election results.  This created a huge international outcry, but Suu Kyi remained in her home, under arrest.  She spent 14 of the next 20 years under house arrest, but during those times she was out of house arrest, she never left the country, knowing that she would not be allowed to re-enter.

She has received many peace prizes, notably the Nobel Peace Prize she received in 1991, for her non-violent and peace-promoting practices.  The Nobel committee stated:

conflict doesn’t just exist outside of the united states.  it happens all over the place, and tends to manifest itself in many different ways.  the US has seen a lot of conflict within its own borders, one type being street violence.  Tyrone Parker, from the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., co-founded the Alliance of Concerned Men after the accidental death of his son, who was hit by a stray bullet during a skating rink shootout in 1989.  instead of seeking revenge, Parker dedicated himself to ending the violence in his hometown and restoring the sense of community he himself had grown up with in the same place.  Parker and the Alliance’s co-founders (Rahim Jenkins, Joe Nelson, Eric Johnson and James Alsobrooks) reasoned that the secret to ending violence was to go to the source to cultivate truces between conflicting groups.  the five men became volunteer peacemakers, going out unarmed and confronting violence on a person-to-person basis.

knowing that the Alliance isn’t there to hurt anyone, gangs and their individual members have begun to trust Parker and the Alliance; when Alliance mediators set out to settle disputes among killers and vengeful street leaders, giving them a chance to escape the crime an violence in which they have established themselves.

the Alliance has several programs, serving around 300 kids per day.  operating on the fact that every person has his or her own integrity and worth, the Alliance mentors all kinds of people, from ex-convicts, to students after school, to people in substance abuse programs.  countries such as Russia and Brazil have reached out to the Alliance for guidance on how to improve their own civic situations.

Attorney General Eric Holder spoke on february 18th of the achievements of the Alliance.  Of it he said,

I’ve watched the Alliance of Concerned Men grow from a handful of frustrated – yet, ultimately, hopeful – friends and neighbors into what it is today: one of this city’s most powerful, and most successful, voices for change. You’ve helped to create peace in some of our most dangerous and divided neighborhoods. You’ve spoken out for communities in crisis. And you’ve stood up for families and individuals in need. This work has always begun in the same, simple way – by getting people together, by talking, and by listening.

i think we can all learn a thing or two from Tyrone Parker and Eric Holder.  resolving conflict in a non-violent way that brings people together–now that is the best way to do it.

send your comments, stories, or thoughts.  who knows, i may repost them! and i would love to read what you have to say.

for more information on the Alliance of Concerned Men, go to www.allianceofconcernedmen.com

“After the bombing of Nagasaki, the survivors began to pray, not for vengeance on America, but that Nagasaki would be the last city to know the horrors of the atomic bomb.” -Full Circle: The Epic Return to Trinity

A few years ago, I visited Hiroshima for the first time.  I took a tour around the city with a few friends of mine, in which our tour guide spared no details of the death, devastation, and tragedy that resulted from the US’s dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  But what really struck me, even more than the shocking details of the bombs’ aftermath, was how the survivors reacted.  Understandably, the bombs trumped any offensive strategy that the Japanese would or could have had. Instead, the prevailing sentiment resulting from the bombs was the hope that no one else would ever have to go through what had just occurred, rather than the hope for revenge on the United States.  Hiroshima has since dedicated itself to encouraging and spreading peace, despite the atrocities its people witnessed, and the city represents a part of human nature that I don’t think people see enough of.  There is so much ugliness in the world, and so many people who want to get back at those who have wronged them, but every once in a while, we come across someone who can take that ugliness and turn it around.  Coming full circle doesn’t necessarily mean ending up where you started–rather, it can mean finishing a cycle and starting with a fresh, clean slate.

Matt Taylor’s “Full Circle: The Epic Return to Trinity” is a movie that explores this, following the pilgrimage of three monks from Nagasaki to San Francisco, and then ultimately to New Mexico’s Trinity site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated as a test.  They take with them a flame kindled from the embers of a temple that had been ruined after the bomb in Nagasaki, that had been burning for 60 years.  The purpose of their journey was to carry the flame from the site of the last bomb’s detonation back to the testing site or birthplace of the first, closing the circle that had opened as a result of the 3 bombs.

I am going to try to get the version of the trailer in English up of the movie so you can watch it. (Below is the movie’s trailer in Japanese.)  In the meantime, I would love to read (and possibly post) anyone’s stories similar to that of Hiroshima’s reactions to the devastation its people suffered.

Full Circle: The Epic Return to Trinity

-Fernanda

This is a retelling of a short story by Terry Dobson, the late teacher and writer of Aikido who is often credited with spreading the art to the U.S.

Aikido is a martial art, which means “the way of peace”, or more specifically, the “way of harmonizing energy or spirit”.  

One day, a young Aikido student was riding a subway in Tokyo.  He had been studying Aikido intensely for a few years there.  At the next stop, a very big, very drunk, and very angry man boarded at the next stop and began pushing and threatening the other passengers.  Aikido is the art of resolving conflict and the student was thus taught never to engage in combat except if others were in harm’s way or if there was no other recourse to prevent an attack. The student, eager to test his skill in a real-life situation, knew he could disable the man and thus prevent anyone from getting hurt.

So, he stood up and the big man immediately shot a look at him and yelled, “What are you looking at sweet-heart?”  The student then blew a kiss at the man who shouted back “Someone wants a lesson!” and began to stomp over. About half way down, a little old man caught the drunken man’s attention and said, “He buddy? What ya drinking?” The big man glared at him and replied “Sake!  What’s it to you, old fart?”  The little old man just started talking “Ah, sake!  I love sake!  I drink it with my wife in our garden.  In the spring the azaleas grow but not now because of the frost…”  Gradually, the large man’s face began to soften, and by the time the Aikido student arrived at his stop, he was in the old man’s lap sobbing, “I don’t have a wife anymore, and I don’t have no job and I’m ashamed …bwaa haa haaa…”  The young student realized he was still far from becoming the Aikido master that the old man on the train that day was.