Nonviolent Activism for Liberation

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Why Focus on Nonviolent Activism for Liberation?

We live in precarious times, facing enormous global crises that are unraveling what still remains of social solidarity and threatening our very survival as a species. Transforming the systemic conditions that created and now accelerate the crises to fully realign with life is an existential imperative none know how to bring about even as more and more people around the world are mobilizing for that very purpose.

Following the tradition of deep nonviolence, my own focus is on aligning means with ends. This means, to me, at least the following:

vision: how do we increase our capacity to focus on what are we aiming to create, beyond opposing what we see around us?
liberation for all: how do we work for a world that works for all, not only for those who are like us or agree with us?
collaboration: how do we relearn, even while working for change, to distribute leadership, increase trust, and ground leadership in care for the whole?

For over two years, I was offering coaching calls to activists within the Extinction Rebellion movement in support of greater individual and organizational capacity. In these calls I focused on what arose from those who came, focusing on themes such as facilitation, collaborative leadership, giving and receiving feedback, walking towards conflict, aligning with nonviolence, and more. Recently, I have made the decision to bring that chapter to a close and offer similar calls to activists anywhere, a way of responding to a larger and clearer need.

Who Are These Calls for?

These calls are for activists, everywhere, who are seeking to align their activism with the principles I outlined above. My intention is for these calls to be based on deep trust and the willingness of all of us to lean into the radical learning edges of deep collaboration.

It is a source of great joy, deep learning, and companionship for me to offer all I have learned over the years – the ideas, insights, principles, frameworks, and tools – to those who are actively open to receiving them.

Please think carefully before choosing to come, as the purpose is to bring questions and dilemmas from your work and receive coaching from me about the topics I name here. Over time, I imagine we will become clearer on whether and what constraints there may be about what types of activism are more or less suitable for these calls.

What Are the Calls for?

My hope in offering these calls is to support activists in empowering themselves within their groups and movements to increase capacity to align means with ends so as to transform cultures of burnout, conflict, mistrust, blaming and shaming into environments of solidarity, trust, experimentation, and increased capacity to move towards the possibility of a livable future.