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Stories of successful actions that helped bring peace and friendship can provide encouragement to young people to learn from these actions and to imagine new ones. Here is a collection of short stories with examples of creative nonviolence, peacemaking, reconciliation and mutual cooperation. I hope they will encourage you to find new ways of helping create a better world. OUR FATE IS IN OUR HANDS Among a Native American tribe, there lived a malicious young man with the name Evil Spirit. He kept doing harm to others like opening gates to let their horses run away, hiding tools, stealing eggs, and so on. Each time he was caught and brought before the Wise Old Man to be reprimanded. He hated the Wise Old Man and one day decided to trick him. He found a small bird who had just left his nest, picked it up, hid it inside both of his hands so that only the tail was sticking out, took it to the Wise Old Man and asked him, "Is this bird dead or alive?" He had decided that if the Wise Old Man were to say, "It is alive," he would crush it before showing it and prove him wrong. If the Wise Old Man were to say, "It is dead," he would let it fly away and prove him wrong again. But the Wise Old Man said, "The fate of this bird is in your hands." He realized his responsibility and let the bird fly away. So it is with what we have learnt. We can forget it and let it die, or we can nurture it, share it with others, and keep it alive. Our fate is in our hands. THE ORIGINS OF PEACE RESEARCH Johan Galtung, born 1930, refused to do military service in Norway. He did one year of civil service as a ditch-digger and (lousy) cook, the same amount of time as those who do military service, but refused to serve an additional six months as penalty, arguing that those who do military or civilian service should be treated equally. Or, if not, that at least those extra six months should be for peace. So he was sentenced to six months in prison in winter 1954-55. While in prison, he completed his first book, "Gandhi's Political Ethics", with his mentor, the philosopher Arne Naess. Before that, in fall 1951, he had studied in Finland, and had asked the librarian for any books about peace research. But he was told, "No such books exist." He found it strange that thousands of books have been written about war and military strategy, but none about research for peace. He saw this as a missing academic discipline, and vowed to help create it. Ever since then, he has worked tirelessly to study, write and teach about peace in all of its many aspects. By 2004, he had published 140 books about peace, development, human rights and other fields. He has also helped mediate in over 50 conflicts from the individual to the global level all over the world. In 1959, Galtung founded the first institute in the world with the word peace in its name, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). In 1969, he founded the Journal of Peace Research. In 1979, Professor Anita Kemp from the University of Nevada conducted a survey among the members of the International Peace Research Association, which Galtung had helped found in 1965. To the question, "Which person, dead or alive, has influenced your thinking the most", many names were given, but nearly half (44 percent) mentioned Johan Galtung, with the next runner-up receiving 12 percent. He has been able to help inspire a generation of dedicated peace workers around the world. STEVEN SPIELBERG When Steven Spielberg (born 1946), the award-winning movie director, was a young boy, he was plagued at school by a big bully who regularly ridiculed him, hit him, or put his head under the water fountain. One day, Steven's mother gave him a movie camera for his birthday. He decided to make a movie in which he needed someone to play the role of a bully. He asked the boy who had repeatedly harassed him if he would play the role of a bully in his movie. He accepted with delight, and played the role very well. In this way, that boy became Steven's friend, and protected him against other big boys if they tried to hurt him. A proverb says, "The only way to get rid of your enemies is to make them your friends." EXPRESSING NEEDS A father and mother quarreled again, as they did frequently. He had forgotten to take out the garbage, and she whined, "You are so irresponsible. You never remember what you promised to do." He: "This is the first time this year that I forgot to take out the garbage, but I had more important things to worry about." She: "That is always your excuse. I can't stand it!" Their nine year old daughter said to mother, "Why don't you simply tell father what you need?" Mother said what she wanted, and to her surprise, the father agreed. She asked her daughter in amazement: "Where did you learn that!?" "At school." the daughter replied. The daughter had gotten a day of training in "nonviolent communication". It avoids blame or praise, it only expresses appreciation for help received. It emphasizes saying what we need, and express a request, not a demand. A request is something the other party can say no to without reprisals, whereas a if a demand is denied, there are bad consequences. Mother asked her daughter, "Can I learn this, too?" The daughter said, "In a month, the same training will be offered to parents." Mother did not want to wait, and signed up for a course in a neighboring town where she paid for registration. (Freely recounted after Marshall Rosenberg, who developed the techniques of nonviolent communication) WORLD GAME Buckminster Fuller designed a "world game," in which the players assume the role of heads of state, and their goal is to meet the needs of their people. They can try to do so through trade, investment, conquest, anything they choose. If a random group of schoolchildren or adults off the street are invited to play this game, and explained the rules, within the first few minutes they usually conclude that they are all better off if they mutually eliminate all their military spending, because then they have more resources available to meet their people's needs. It is unfortunate that our leaders do not have the wisdom of children. ALEXANDER YAKOVLEV In 1956-57, the first delegation of thirty Soviet students who came to study for a year in the United States with a Fulbright scholarship included Alexander Yakovlev. Almost thirty years later, he became Gorbachev's key adviser for perestroika, glasnost and democratization. The few thousand dollars for that scholarship probably did a great deal more to help end the cold war than billions that the United States spent for weapons. KILLING BABIES A young woman working as salesperson for a major aerospace company was at an air show, praising the advantages of a new missile, how far it could reach, how fast it was, how big a payload it could carry, and how accurate it was. Someone asked her, "How many babies can you kill with this?" She was silent. She had recently had a baby, and the question deeply disturbed her. She quit her job and became a leading peace activist. THE OLIVE JAR A merchant in 8th century Baghdad went on a long trip to the orient. He sold his property, filled an earthen jar with gold coins, and covered it with olives. He asked his best friend to save this jar of olives for him until he would return from his trip, and the friend agreed. When the merchant did not return after three years, his friend's wife said, "Let's see what is inside this jar, your friend may never return." They removed the top layer of olives and found underneath the gold coins. They used the gold and spent it, living well. After seven years, the merchant returned from his journey, went to his best friend, and asked him to return the olive jar. His friend promised to return the jar by tomorrow. He went to the market, bought olives, and filled the jar to the top. Then he returned it. When the merchant was looking for his gold and found only olives instead, he felt betrayed, and went to the Calif, Harun al-Rashid. The Calif listened to the story of the merchant, and then to his friend, but did not know whom to believe, or how to prove who was right. The Calif regularly disguised himself as a common man at night and roamed the city to see if everything was in good order and to listen to what people might think about him and his government. That night he passed by a group of young boys who played out that dispute about which they had heard. The boy who played the Calif listened to the two disputants. Then he asked his aide to fetch an olive merchant. "Taste the olives from this jar, and tell me from what harvest they are." The olive merchant tasted several olives and said, "These olives are from last year's harvest." "Could they be seven years old?" the boy playing the Calif asked. "Impossible! They can only be from last year's harvest," the boy playing the olive merchant said. So the boy playing the Calif ordered the merchant's friend to fill the jar with gold coins and return them to the merchant. The real Calif was impressed with the boy's wisdom, and invited him to become his top adviser at his court. I have used this story to try to convince teachers that when they ask their students to do role plays of negotiations at the United Nations, they should not insist that they simply try to imitate present governments, in a "realistic" way, but should encourage them to try to be smarter and come up with better, more imaginative solutions than present governments do. RECONCILIATION IN BOSNIA In 2000, Dr. Hossain B. Danesh, the President of Landegg International University in Wienacht, Switzerland, was invited by all three nationalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs) to introduce education for peace, based on the principles of the oneness of humanity and unity in diversity. He started with a pilot project, teaching the basics to teachers and journalists in three cities: Sarajevo, Banja Luca and Travnik. In Travnik, there were two communities (Bosniak and Croat). For one and a half years of weekly lectures, they did not mingle at all. All the Croats, who are Catholics, sat on the left side of the room, along with a nun, separated by a walkway from all the Bosniaks, who are Muslims, who sat on the right side, along with an Imam. During breaks, they went to separate rooms for refreshments. One day, a Croatian mother of three children, whose husband had died during the war, died of an illness. The Croatian community attended the funeral, and announced they would be late. That day, Dr. Danesh changed his lecture, and spoke for two hours about untimely death and how people mourn the loss of loved ones in various religions and cultures. Everyone was moved. Suddenly, one of the Muslim men turned towards the Croats and said, "I have never told this before, but when my sister was caught behind enemy lines during the civil war (among the Croats in Bosnia) and became seriously ill, some members of your community drove her eight hours to the hospital in Zagreb and saved her life. I wish to thank you for this." He had tears in his eyes, and everyone was deeply moved. Some Croats told stories of how their relatives found refuge with Muslim families who were hiding them in their basements to protect them and fed them during the war, risking their own safety. This prompted other Muslims to tell about good deeds and help they had received from Croats, and so on. During the break, they mingled for the first time and members of the two communities became very warm towards each other. After the break, they did no longer sit separately, but mixed. This was a breakthrough, which contributed to healing and reconciliation. For Bishop Tutu in South Africa, who had grown up with the Anglican and Catholic practice of confessing sins and then have them forgiven, found it natural to apply that process in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. But in some cultures, people find it very difficult and a great loss of face to admit mistakes. It is easier to say kind things about former adversaries. In such cases, an alternative process of reconciliation is required. Based on this and many other relevant examples, Dr. Danesh has developed the parameters of a new approach to healing the wounds of large scale violent conflict. The approach is called, "Creating a Culture of Healing." CARVED IN STONE Ahmed and Bashir were walking through the desert. At some point during their journey, they had an argument, and Bashir slapped Ahmed in the face. Ahmed was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand, "Today my best friend slapped me in the face". They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where the decided to take a bath. Ahmed got stuck in the mud and started drowning, but Bashir saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, Ahmed carved into a stone, "Today my best friend saved my life." Bashir asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on a stone. Why?" Ahmed replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can blow it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it." WORDS CAN SAVE LIVES (A Sufi story by an unknown author) A group of frogs were walking through a forest. Suddenly, two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit and looked down over the edge. When they saw how deep it was, they told the unfortunate frogs they would never get out. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump out of the pit. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs listened to what the other frogs were saying and simply gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and suffering and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs asked him, "Why did you continue jumping? Didn't you hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was hard of hearing. "I thought you were encouraging me the whole time!" A tongue is not a bone, but it can break bones. It has power over life and death. An encouraging word to those who are down can lift them up, whereas a destructive word can take away their hope and kill them. Let's be careful in what we say. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times. Special are those who will take the time to encourage others. THE DONKEY IN THE WELL One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a dried out well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and could not work much longer, and the well needed to be buried anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement she quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit her back, the donkey was doing something amazing. She would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, she would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off! Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up. THE EAGLE WHO THOUGHT IT WAS A CHICKEN A farmer found an eagle's egg and put it in the nest of his hen. The eagle hatched with the other chicken and grew up with them. It clucked like a chicken, and learnt to pick the ground for worms and insects. From time to time, it flapped its wings a bit and rose a few feet above the ground, like the other chicken. One day, when it was already rather old, a magnificent big bird soared overhead, gliding in the wind with barely a flap of its huge wings. "What kind of bird is that?" the eagle on the ground asked the other chicken. "That is an eagle, the king of birds," they replied. The eagle on the ground admired its flight with slight envy. But it did not realize that it could fly like that as well. It died as a chicken, because it believed it was a chicken. Believe in yourself, and you can accomplish great things. HEAVEN AND HELL St. Peter showed a visitor heaven and hell. First they came to a large room crowded with people. There were pots full of delicious food, but they had long spoons tied to their elbows with which they could not reach their own mouths, no matter how hard they tried, and they were terribly hungry. "This is hell," St. Peter explained. "Now I will show you heaven." He took the visitor to another room, which looked exactly the same. The visitor asked, "What is the difference?" St. Peter explained, "Here they are feeding each other." STARFISH A boy walked along the beach and picked up starfish in the sand and threw them back into the sea. A wise old man watched him for a while, and then asked him, "What are you doing?" The boy said, "I am throwing these starfish into the water to save them, because otherwise they would dry out and die." The wise old man laughed and said, "My dear boy, there are millions of starfish, you can never save them all." The boy replied, "I know I cannot save all of them, but it surely makes a difference for this one, and that one. They feel much better in the water." The old man agreed and began to help pick up starfish and throw them into the water. Other people saw them, and began to join. This way, enough starfish were saved to assure their survival. Alone we can do little, but by working together we can accomplish a lot. HOW SARVODAYA WAS FOUNDED Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne ("Ari") was a high school physics teacher in Sri Lanka. But he felt that what he had to teach within the prescribed curriculum had little relevance for students' lives. So he founded a movement of volunteers to address the serious problems ordinary people were facing. In 1958, he chose one of the poorest villages and assembled all the villagers in a public meeting. He asked them what their greatest problem was. They told him that at the beginning of each planting season, a money lender would come to their village and lend them some money to buy seeds and fertilizer. At harvest time, he would come back, and with the accumulated high interest, almost the entire harvest belonged to him and they could hardly feed their families. Then he would again lend them a smaller sum so that they could buy seeds and fertilizer for the next crop. Ari asked them: "How much money would you need to become independent?" They said, "We would need 400,000 rupees (about US$ 8,000) to buy what we need at the beginning of the planting season." He said, "If you save 50,000 rupees, I will arrange a bank loan at a reasonable interest rate for you for the remaining 350,000 rupees." They told him, "We are too poor, we cannot save anything." He said, "Alright, then you remain poor" and began slowly to walk out of the room. They ran after him and said, "We will try to save something." They saved the 50,000 rupees and he helped them borrow the remaining 350,000 from a bank at a low interest rate. They worked very hard, knowing that for the first time in their lives the entire harvest would be theirs. They had a good harvest, and could pay back the entire bank loan within one season. He met with the villagers again and asked them what they would like to do as their next project. To increase their harvest, they wished to rebuild the irrigation dams that had been destroyed in war during the 19th century. They calculated how many days of work would be needed, and figured out that the people from their own village could provide half of the needed labor. Ari organized a group of volunteers from neighboring villages to donate the remaining labor. After that, they built a new school, a health clinic, and were well on the path to development. A year later, two villages participated in this self-help movement. Two years later four villages. The number of participating communities doubled nearly every year. In the year 2000, 55% of all villages in Sri Lanka had Sarvodaya projects, and the movement had two and a half million members. This shows how far a good idea and persistence in pursuing it can lead. A SMALL DOG (by A.T. Ariyaratne, founder of Sri Lanka's Sarvodaya movement) A house was burglarized every night. Finally, the home owner had enough. He went to a pet shop and said, "I want to buy the biggest dog you have." The shop owner showed him his biggest dog, and he bought it and went home with it. He fed it very well, and was sure that this strong dog would scare off any burglar. But the next night, a burglar came again, and the dog slept right through and did not notice anything. The homeowner was furious. He took the dog back to the pet shop and said, "I want to return this dog. It is no use. It slept right through while my house was burglarized." The shop owner said, "Why did you not tell me that you want a dog to scare away a burglar? For that you need a small dog, which will wake up easily and bark loudly. But you also need the big dog. If a burglar sees only the small dog, he will not be scared. But the small dog will wake up the big dog, and then the big dog will chase the burglar away." The homeowner bought both dogs, and his house was never burglarized again. The big dog is like the government: it has a lot of resources, but it does not pay much attention to people's problems. The small dog is like the NGOs: they have little resources, but they are aware of people's problems and can raise their voices to mobilize the government to help solve the problems. We need both. RUFUS JONES Rufus Jones (1863-1948), a Quaker, who founded the American Friends Service Committee, went to England after World War I to help with the reconstruction. He noticed that there were large areas of public land around many cities, which remained uncultivated. He persuaded city governments to divide this land into small parcels and lend them to unemployed people so that they could grow vegetables to feed their own families and earn a modest income from selling what they could spare. One unemployed man was daunted by the task, but worked hard all summer, clearing the land from shrubs and thorns, fertilizing the soil, planting various vegetables, watering them regularly and removing weeds. He earned a rich crop in the fall. Rufus Jones said to him, "Is it not marvelous what God and you have done here together?" The man said, "Well, yes, but you should have seen it when God had it all to himself." Unless we do good work, it is not going to happen by itself! A GLASS OF MILK One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, How much do I owe you? You don't owe me anything, she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness." He said, "Then I thank you from my heart." As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but also had regained his faith. He had been ready to give up and quit. Many years later that same young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled! They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to her case. After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. As tears of joy flooded her eyes, she read these words: "Paid in full with one glass of milk" (Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly. The good deed you do today may benefit you or someone you love at the least expected time. If you never see the deed again, at least you will have made the world a better place and, after all, isn't that what life is all about? THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE When Ferdinand Marcos tried to rig elections to stay in power in the Philippines in 1986, two army units defected. He sent the rest of his army to crush them, but they were surrounded and protected by half a million unarmed civilians. When a nun kneeled in front of a tank, prayed and did not move, the tank driver finally pulled back, because he just could not in good conscience crush a nun to death. If a soldier had tried to stop the tank by firing at it with a machine gun, the tank driver would hardly have stopped. In the fall of 1989, when thousands of civilians held weekly demonstrations against the communist regime of the then German Democratic Republic in Leipzig, the police had orders to shoot at the demonstrators to disperse them. The police waited for some pretext, like a stone thrown at them, or a Molotov cocktail, but the demonstrators remained absolutely nonviolent, and the police and army never fired. Soon the regime fell. Violent demonstrations would probably have been brutally suppressed by the army. QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a quarrel, as it occasionally happens in a marriage. One word led to another, and suddenly Prince Albert angrily left the bedroom, went to his study, slammed the door and locked it. Queen Victoria ran after him, knocked on the door and demanded, "Open!" There was no answer. She pounded the door with her fist and shouted, "Open at once!!" No answer. She shouted at the top of her voice, "I am the Queen of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the Empress of India and of the entire British Commonwealth, I am the Commander in Chief of all the British armed forces, and I order you hereby to open this door!!!" No answer. Finally she said in a soft voice, "Albert, I am sorry, I love you and miss you." Now the door opened. This shows that nonviolence is more powerful than violence.
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