Networking in Brisbane and Alice

Brisbane
I have travelled interstate twice in 1995 to work with local nonviolent
activists and scholars. The first trip, to Brisbane, was organised by Ralph
Summy of the University of Queensland and took place during 26 March - 2
April. During this week I stayed with Jan McNicol, one of the editors of
'Nonviolence Today'. This was the second time in twelve months that I had
travelled to Brisbane to talk about nonviolence with local people: there is a
lot of interest in nonviolence in that city. 

Many of my engagements were at the University itself. The first was a session
with Ralph's 120 first year 'Peace and Conflict' students on the topic
'Nonviolence as a Way of Life'. In this session, I showed the Melbourne
Rainforest Action Group video and spoke for a short time, before inviting the
class to participate in some brainstorms and a discussion of the subject. As
I have found previously, this topic generated a vigorous discussion among
class members and demonstrated the high level of idealism and commitment of
young people, which, regrettably, our society does little to nurture.
Although some students were skeptical about certain aspects of my description
of a nonviolent lifestyle, many more were clearly attracted by it, and some
already lived components of it themselves. Many of these students had been
inspired by the vision generated in Ralph's course. 

The following night I gave a talk organised by the University's Office of
Gender Equity; it was titled 'Making the Third Millennium Nonviolent: Women
as Agents of Nonviolent Social Change'. After consulting the Director, Gay
Mason, this talk concentrated on the role of women as social change agents
and illustrated this by reference to some of the lesser known nonviolent
actions undertaken by women around the world. I also explained, in terms of
nonviolence theory, the unique roles that women are able to play in making
the world nonviolent. The discussion among the forty-five participants at
this talk was both lively and challenging!

Two days later I facilitated a seminar of about forty second year students
who were enrolled in Ralph's class 'The Politics of Nonviolent Action'. Given
that these were students with some background in nonviolence, I decided to
involve them in something more difficult and challenging. A part of my
ongoing research involves investigating the specifically twentieth-century
phenomenon of cross-border nonviolent intervention (CBNI), of which the
actions by Greenpeace (in some cases), Peace Brigades International and the
Gulf Peace Team are better known examples. So I asked the students to discuss
and categorise about thirty examples of CBNI. The students became fully
engaged and the exercise gave them a much clearer picture of the frequency
and diversity of this form of nonviolent action. 

The following day I facilitated a Department of Government seminar on the
subject 'Constructing a Nonviolent Paradigm for the Twenty-first Century'. In
this seminar, I introduced my particular conception of social cosmology and
invited critical discussion of it. This seminar was attended by about twelve
staff and students, and generated some useful ideas about how to create
nonviolent communities as part of our efforts to create a nonviolent world.

Apart from these more formal University of Queensland commitments, I also
participated in a discussion among twenty-five students (of whom just three
were men) who turned up with less than two days notice to be part of another
discussion on nonviolence as a way of life. And I gave a talk and
participated in an energetic tutorial at Griffith University, both organised
by Gina Murray, on the question of how one's personal life and political
activism might be entwined. Again, I found the students to be extremely
responsive: a tribute, in part, to Gina's class style. 

In addition to commitments at the Universities, I spent considerable time
with nonviolent activists based in Brisbane and conducted two one-day
workshops. The most rewarding of the discussions were those with the
editorial collective of Nonviolence Today - Janelle Briggs, Dave Keenan and
Jan McNicol - during which we shared our visions for the magazine; the
discussions with San San Myint, a Burmese activist/scholar who is doing
research for a Ph.D. that will develop a nonviolent strategy for the Burmese
democracy movement; and the discussions with individuals such as Christine
Fenwick, Christine Clegg, Bill Colyer, Margaret Hanly and Polly Walker (who
is in Brisbane from the United States to do a year's study). Most of this
last group have been inspired by Ralph's classes and their interest in
nonviolence is now developing rapidly. I also enjoyed having good discussions
with 'old' nonviolence friends like Jerry Smith, April Carter and Karl-Erik
Paasonen.

I also spent time with Manon Liefin, Jason McLeod and Paul Cooper listening
to them talk about their East Timor solidarity campaign, and the difficulties
of working in an activist environment in which there are different
conceptions of nonviolence. We spent a couple of hours listening to each
other's personal stories before I introduced them to the 'Nonviolent Strategy
Wheel' which they wanted to learn about. Manon and Jason subsequently came to
the National Gathering of the Australian Nonviolence Network (ANN) in late
April, and Margaret Pestorius spent more time with them on her way through to
Cairns in May. 

The two one-day workshops were conducted at the request of Christine Fenwick,
and organised by Christine and her friend, Christine Clegg. With five days
notice, they did a superb job! There were eleven participants on the Saturday
and six (different) participants on the Sunday. We did segments on group
building, power, nonviolent action and 'nurturing myself' on the Saturday,
and group building, vision painting, power and nonviolent action on the
Sunday. These workshops were conducted on the sunny lawns of the University
of Queensland: a magical setting indeed! I enjoyed these workshops immensely:
the participants were very keen to get involved. Several of them are members
of the solidarity group 'Burmese Support Group'.

Alice Springs
My ten days in Alice Springs from 9-19 June were less hectic than my week in
Brisbane, but they were equally rewarding. The trip was one outcome of the
trip made a year earlier by Margaret Pestorius, on behalf of the Centre for
Nonviolence, through Darwin, Alice Springs and Adelaide. My time in Alice
Springs was organised by Geoff Evans of the Arid Lands Environment Centre
(ALEC); his family also housed and looked after me. The airfare was paid for
by ALEC and the Centre for Nonviolence c/- Commonground. 

Geoff works at the Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD). His partner,
Deborah Hartman, is Coordinator of the Intelyape-Iyape Akaltye Project which
works to develop a socially and culturally appropriate curriculum for young
Arrernte (Ahr-arn-dah) children. Geoff and Deb have been activists all their
adult lives and first met at a nonviolent action. Despite their full-time
work and family commitments (they have two sons - Jack and Vinnie), both
continue to lead full activist lives: I was inspired! Jack has a knife
collection which, I am pleased to report, he puts to exclusively nonviolent
uses!

After months of email messages to organise the ten-day program, I arrived in
Alice Springs on a sunny Friday morning. Early that evening we travelled to
the old Hamilton Downs homestead, about eighty kilometres from Alice Springs,
which is now used as a school camp and workshop venue. Although it has been
degraded by cattle grazing, the local environment is just amazing: it is
easily the best workshop environment in which I have worked. Seven activists
from ALEC participated in an introductory nonviolence workshop; efforts to
attract activists from other groups, including those planning the Kangaroo 95
actions, were unsuccessful: nonviolence, and/or some of its personalities
(certainly including me), has a bad name in some circles! The highlights of
this workshop were the discussion about nurturing ourselves and the
story-sharing that took place around the fire on two successive nights. They
went later than nurturing ourselves suggested they should! 

After the workshop we spent Monday - a public holiday and Geoff's birthday -
relaxing at the homestead. I had enjoyed sleeping in the dry creek bed and
waking each morning to watch the galahs nesting in the river red gums as the
Sun rose over the horizon. So I spent some of the day in this creek bed,
contemplating, yet again, the sheer beauty of nature. It was very restful and
healing.

On Tuesday Geoff took me to the Hidden Valley town camp: one of the
twenty-two Aboriginal housing areas that encircle Alice Springs. He also
showed me how a concentration of liquor outlets near The Gap adversely
impacts on the lives of the many Aboriginal people who live in, or travel to,
Alice Springs.

A plan for me to visit Yuendumu (an Aboriginal town several hours from Alice)
on Wednesday fell through because heavy rain had cut off the road. That
night, a Night of Nonviolence was held at Stuart Lodge. This video and
discussion night attracted eleven people, many from ALEC who had not been
able to attend the weekend workshop.

On Thursday I facilitated a workshop for Aboriginal community development
workers from different town camps. There were eleven people at this workshop
which consisted of two segments, both identified at a preliminary meeting
held two days earlier: some principles and techniques for intervening in
situations of interpersonal violence (an unfortunately frequent occurrence in
their lives), and some introductory material so that they could start to
assess the potential of a nonviolent action campaign to halt alcohol abuse,
and the violence that stems from it, in Alice Springs. I found this workshop
very challenging given that my experience of teaching in a cross-cultural
context was extremely limited. I was fortunate to have high quality support
from Geoff in planning the workshop and excellent support from the teachers
and participants, including Pat Ahkit, in conducting it. We did a lot of
activities - roleplays, visualisation, body sculptures and vision painting -
which fully engaged most participants. 

On Friday night I spent several hours with the Night Patrol. This service is
run by Tangentyere Council (which represents many Aboriginal organisations in
Alice) and is designed to provide a non-police response to situations of
conflict among Aboriginal people in Alice Springs. I spent one and a half
hours at the base and then two hours on the road in one of the Patrol's two
vehicles. During this time I gained a clear sense of the dedication of these
people but an even clearer sense of how difficult their work is given the
lack of resources and education they receive in order to do it. I admire
their commitment greatly. During my time in the vehicle, we toured through
about five town camps, checked several popular nights spots and listened on
the radio as the other mobile team gave first aid to a woman with a heavily
bleeding knife wound in the upper thigh. This first aid was vitally important
as the ambulance seemed to take a long time to arrive. The team I was
accompanying also removed three drunken people from a household: two of these
people were taken home, the third was taken to an overnight 'dry out' clinic.

On the weekend I conducted a leadership and strategy workshop for three of
the people who had attended the introductory workshop. There was some
conflict over who should attend this workshop (given the limit on numbers),
which I contributed to by not making the process by which people were
selected for attendance more transparent. But it also highlighted the
difficulty of organising a ten day program with little real support from the
sponsoring local organisation: partly because ALEC members initially
understood little about what was being offered, Geoff did virtually all of
the organising and promotion for the ten-day program by himself. In any case,
all of us had a meeting to share our concerns about this process and, while
there was not enough time to deal with all facets of the conflict, each
person was able to say how they felt about it and to hear what everyone else
had to say. There was a commitment to keep talking about it after our
meeting. Given that I was doing the leadership workshop for no payment (I
agreed to do the whole ten days for an extremely modest fee), it also
highlighted the need for me to be even clearer about my own expectations and
commitments in such circumstances. In the end, the leadership workshop went
well and those who participated will share what they learned with other
members of ALEC at a strategic planning workshop in September.

Apart from the formal elements of my program mentioned above, I also had
several meetings with individuals involved in community work of various types
in Alice Springs. This made it obvious that there is much potential for
nonviolence in this town, although with the turnover in the 'whitefella'
community (as many people leave after a work contract expires), it is
apparent that nonviolence will gain a strong foothold only if it is taken up
by the Aboriginal communities in Alice. Given that these communities are
quite familiar with nonviolent action and have used it previously (for
example, to prevent damming of the Todd River, and in anti-alcohol
campaigns), it is education programs to support them to learn how to apply it
strategically that is required. There is some interest among ALEC members to
facilitate this; the ANN might consider how it can meaningfully support this
type of work in future. 

I enjoyed my time in Alice Springs a great deal, and particularly learned to
appreciate the commitment of people like Geoff and Deb. Geoff and I are now
trying to encourage a representative from Alice to participate in the ANN
phone link-up (PLU) so that this 'corner' of the country remains in touch
with the wider network.

Trips of this nature are invaluable for nurturing interest in nonviolence in
parts of the country were it is not yet fully established and viable in its
own right. The Centre for Nonviolence will continue to subsidise interstate
travel so that people who want support to develop nonviolence in their region
can get outside help, when this is useful, to do so. 
Robert J Burrowes