What Would A Culture of Nonviolence Look Like? 

At the Australian Nonviolence Network Gathering I agreed to write for NvT in
order to encourage and invite discussion about culture in the nv networks.
These are just some of my thoughts about what culture is, what the current
culture within the nv community might be, and why culture is crucial for
social change. I would welcome responses to my ideas - let's have a
conversation!

What is culture?
Expressions like "popular culture", "high culture", "multicultural", and
"culturally significant" get used a lot in Australia, but there is no real
consensus about what culture means. Some people think it's about opera and
art galleries. To others it is about the ways we use words, music and our
bodies to express ourselves. Still others think it's about ways of
interacting connected to our heritages as people of diverse racial and ethnic
backgrounds.

Ways of interacting
Jo Barter1 mentioned a "culture of niceness" that she perceived among Real
Women on Billboards in the last NvT. I think that her naming of this as a
cultural issue arises from a sense that the ways in which we interact with
one another are deeply cultural. It isn't hard to think of examples. 

People from different cultural heritages have different ideas about how much
personal space, touch and eye contact is appropriate in any given situation.
Women have a different culture about these matters than men do: how often do
you see women shake hands or thump each other on the back by way of a
friendly gesture? How often do you see men kiss or hug? It also seems to me
that there are different unspoken "rules" about these matters in mixed
company as compared with women only space (where more contact between women
is often acceptable).

Again, different cultural backgrounds prescribe what sorts of things are
acceptable by way of conversation, and between whom. In some cultures some
topics can only be discussed among women or men, among initiated people or
among children/adults. I was told quite explicitly as a child not to discuss
sex, religion or politics in polite company, but often the way ideas about
these kinds of questions are passed on is more subtle, and the punishments
for breaking the "rules" are more subtle than being told to go to your room.

In Jo Barter's example of "the culture of niceness", women's cynical and
jealous feelings were not as freely expressed as the loving parts of
themselves. It's my experience that this kind of culture is common in groups
that identify with some or all of the ideas of nonviolence. I think it is
particularly strong among anglo and middle class women, but all women seem to
get a stronger message that niceness is important than men do. Men who are
trying to take feminist and non-hierarchical ideas on board sometimes seem to
pick up the culture of niceness as well. 

Part of the message is that being honest about anger or frustration is not
nice, and nor is openly acknowledging conflict. Until we come to new
understandings of how to be nice, those of us who have internalised this
culture are going to have difficulty really being honest with one another.
Because we've been taught that the only other choice is to be hostile and
aggressive, we're not drawing on a very wide range of alternatives. We need
to work toward ways of being that aren't "nice" at the expense of honesty,
and that make real decisions based on real information about what's
happening. We need better ways of dealing with emotion when that's
appropriate without becoming swamped by it or giving it undue status: there
is no reason to believe that your feelings are more "real" or "valid" than
your thoughts, but they are a source of information nevertheless. 

In part I think this version of "niceness" has to do with sexism. If I am
right, women need to work out how much of it remains useful and discard the
rest, remembering that those of us who are not from anglo backgrounds or who
are working class may have different and preferable ways of being.
Pro-feminist men also need to think about it and see if they have ways of
being that they want to keep and may be able to share with women who have
absorbed messages about being "nice".

Some parts of our feeling, thinking, and cultures find their source in
resistance to oppression and our efforts to create the world we want. Other
parts are rooted in the oppressions we and others who share our culture have
been subjected to. We need to work out what we want to keep and what we want
to change, without erasing the past or pretending that the present is
necessarily desirable or the final state of things. We also need to treat
each other's cultures with respect, knowing that our cultural experiences go
very deep in ways that are not always easy to express in words. The answer to
why someone feels out of place in a given situation or with a given person
may take a lot of working out. In the meantime, it's important not to
invalidate each other's experiences, without giving up on discussing them
with one another.

Shared experiences/rituals
Part of the function of culture traditionally seems to be to give a sense of
belonging or community. It addresses questions like: Who is part of our
community and what is our bond? Who we are different from and why? 

This sense of community is partly a function of having shared cultural
experiences and expectations. Religions, nations and ethnic groups may share
special foods, special days, special places, rituals or symbols. The nv
community shares many of these things too: we have our special days (as
Margaret Pestorius mentioned in the last NvT2), our own rituals (meetings,
whooshes, opening/closing rounds, rallies, marches, blockades), our own
symbols (the peace symbol, the women's symbol, the dove, the broken gun) and
our special places (the traditional routes for marches and gathering points
for rallies and meetings, the Centre for Nonviolence at Commonground, our
sharehouses and communities). 

This shared culture will be different from place to place and time to time,
growing and changing as cultures usually do. But I think it's interesting to
think about the ways in which we have a sense of culture among ourselves at
the moment and how it intersects or clashes with the cultures that we bring
as part of ourselves from other facets of our lives and our being. 

Expressing ourselves through music, words, and our bodies 
Culture in the more explicit sense has always been a significant part of
social change movements too. Sometimes that has meant the symbolic use of
traditional songs: the Chinese students in Tiananmen Square sang the national
anthem to show that they were loyal Chinese at the same time they worked for
change in their country. Sometimes it has meant entirely new cultural forms
and expressions (the freedom songs of the civil rights movement, for
example). Sometimes these new traditions build on older ones. For example,
many civil rights movement songs started out as hymns and were changed to
suit the occasion. Some of the new ideas for an Australian flag draw on the
Nunga flag as well as the Southern Cross. But there have always been people
working to create things that express their vision for the world - in
Australia we have only to think of Judy Small, Ruby Hunter, Archie Roach or
Eric Bogle. 

Some recent examples
In the last issue,3 Vanessa Fox talked about going into court and hearing
Louise singing a song from the lockup beside the court. To Vanessa in court,
the song was a gesture of support from her friend who had been barred from
the court. To Louise it was an effort to build her confidence and strengthen
her voice ready for her own appearance in court. They were both part of a
long tradition of using singing to build courage and help us confront fears.

The Reclaim the Night marches in Adelaide for the last two years have been
led by a singing group on a truck, who teach songs at workshops before the
march and sing them along with hundreds of women in the march. Many women
feel a deep despair about the possibility of ending sexual violence, and
singing in this context has proved a way of increasing our feelings of
strength and unity in the face of the violence and expressing our
determination to keep working for a peaceful world. It's about celebrating
our strengths as women.

Hundreds of people have turned out at nonviolent rallies in Adelaide recently
to show the neo-nazi organisation National Action that we don't agree with
their racist views and actions. The level of fear at some of the rallies was
high, partly because of people's fears about NA; partly because of an
enormous police presence including a large number of horses and partly due to
the media expectation that there would be violence. 

At the second rally, organisers arranged for there to be singing in the rally
when it walked down to stand across the road from NA. The power in our voices
as we sang "We are a land of many colours and we are singing, singing for our
lives" and "Ain't gonna let intimidation turn me round! Keep on walking, keep
on talking, gonna build a brand new world" was really something to hear! The
singing empowered and united the singers, and dramatically changed the mood
of the rally from tension and fear to empowerment and unity. NA and the
police weren't sure what to make of this unexpected and peaceful expression
of our commitment to ending racism. As part of the rally we also threw
streamers in the Nunga colours and those of the ANC towards the NA rally,
again using our culture in a creative way that challenged their swastikas and
SS outfits. 

A Vision of the Future?
Without cultural work our social change movements will be less rich, less
diverse, and less effective. Cultural expressions remind us of our common
history, build solidarity, and help us maintain our visions and our
commitment to the movements and to one another. They are very concrete about
unifying the different parts of ourselves: thinking, feeling, interacting.
This is the cultural tradition I want to claim for myself and for the nv
community. I see it as vital to our future together.
Mary Heath
Footnotes:
1 Barter, Jo "Real Women On Billboards" (1994) NvT #39 pp3,4.
2 Pestorius, Margaret "International Day to End Violence Against Women: A
Proposal" (1994) NvT #39 pp15.
3 Fox, Vanessa "An Unexpected Court Case" (1994) NvT #39 pp9.