Chris Moore-Backman - Gandhian Nonviolence
Chris is a peace activist from Chico, California, who serves with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently returning from Palestine, and is the producer of the radio documentary series "Bringing Down the New Jim Crow," which explores the movement to end the system of mass incarceration in the United States.
Our conversation is based on his forthcoming book The Gandhian Iceberg: A Nonviolence Manifesto for the Age of the Great Turning. We talk about nonviolence and the three parts to the Gandhian model: self-purification, constructive programs, and satyagraha. I became aware of Chris and his work through conversations with Ethan Hughes, who gave me a rough copy of The Gandhian Iceberg.
Through that, and time spent at The Possibility Alliance, meeting with members of the Catholic Worker Movement, and those practicing nonviolence and building egalitarian communities, a light went off in my thoughts on how nonviolence is a required component of creating the world espoused by permaculture. That lead to this conversation with Chris on how to move from a place of anger and fear, to one of compassion and love. As discussions emerge about how the third ethic of permaculture is the least discussed and most confusing to understand and implement, nonviolence and the Gandhian model provide a way to return this ethic to a proper place in our practice.
You can contact Chris at moorebackman@gmail.com and find more about his work via the links in the resource section in the show notes. Creating a more bountiful world requires peace and nonviolence.
To continue to exist under old methods and modes that create feelings of scarcity and result in violence and oppression don’t fit within the ethics of permaculture. A new revolution is required, lead by the practice self-purification, constructive programs, and satyagraha. Should you choose to embrace this path, and I suggest you explore it further at the very least, there are additional resources in the notes for this episode that include links to the Metta Center for Nonviolence, a series of free books on nonviolence from the Albert Einstein Institute, and further articles on satyagraha and the power of nonviolence.
Along the way if I can assist you, wherever you are, get in touch by leaving a comment below.
Resources
Chris’s Email: moorebackman (at) gmail.com
Bringing Down the New Jim Crow
Chris’s Articles at Truth-Out
Dr. Michael Nagler, author of The Search for a Nonviolent Future Martin Luther King
The Inconvenient Hero by Vincent Harding
Brene Brown
Gene Sharp
Michael Brown
“The Presence Process” Charles Eisenstein
Peace Projects
Be the Change Reno, Nevada
The New Community Project Harrisonburg, Virginia
Canticle Farm Oakland, California
Additional Resources
Nonviolence: Working Definitions (Metta Center for Nonviolence)
Satyagraha (Wikipedia)
Non-violence, the appropriate and effective response to human conflicts
Collection of free books on nonviolence (Albert Einstein Institute)
The Power of Nonviolence
/r/nonviolence (reddit)