Posted by Robert Weir

The following article is by Dot Maver, executive director of The Peace Alliance, and Miki Kashtan, certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication who facilitates monthly telephone conference calls on this subject for the DoP campaign. The article appeared in the current issue of Tikkun Magazine, published by Rev. Michael Lerner and the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

Read the entire article at: http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0803/frontpage/peace

Excerpt from article:

"Imagine that you are talking to a state legislator about peace and reducing violence, and in response you hear: "Are you another one of those anti-war people? Don't you understand we are waging war for peace?" How would you respond?

Like most people who hope to bring about peace for everyone on our planet, you have likely had conversations with people who hold very different opinions from your own. Whether with family members, in work places, during a demonstration, or even within your own activist groups, these conversations often heat up and turn into arguments. Despite our desire for peace, we continue to perpetuate the very thing we want to transcend.

How do we bring our way of relating with people into line with our core values and ideals? In our experience, we have found that the practice of Nonviolent Communication (NVC)—a set of skills anyone can learn—can hugely increase the effectiveness of nonviolent social change, both inside our activist organizations and with those we are trying to connect with outside."