A conference hosted by Celebrate Life has been going on since the 26th of July and will continue until the 5th of August in Wardenburg, Germany. Celebrate Life promotes "consciousness development and self-responsibility and contribute to solving social and ecological issues".
One of the speakers at the conference is Scilla Elworthy who founded the organization Peace Direct. In the video below she shares some of her views regarding why she knows non-violence is the most efficient way to deal with thugs and bullies. "Force against force doesn't work" she notes, saying that one needs to work within oneself to work toward "inner power for self-knowledge".
Through her multiple years of experience in conflict zones Elworthy shares her final conclusion of how violence and oppression work by pointing out three different points:
1) Political violence is used to intimidate
2) Physical violence is used to terrorize
3) Emotional violence is used to undermine
Anger toward injustice is normal, she claims, but the only way to efficiently counter injustices is to know how to deal with our anger. Once we do this we can then properly communicate with those perpetrating injustice and have more of a chance to have any sort of impact. Dealing with other humans in an angry manner is hopeless, she says, since they think they are doing the right think.
Lastly, Elworthy makes another important point which I also agree with. She notes that last century was the time of "top-down power" where as this century we have entered into the era of "bottom-down" power where more and more people are realizing that the local people know best what to do and how to handle their conflicts.
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