Peacemaking through Building a Social Movement to End Poverty

Kairos Center
Category: Events

This Spring, the Kairos Center is teaching a course at Union Theological Seminary entitled “The Tripartite Evils of Racism, Militarism, and Economic Exploitation: Peacemaking through Building a Social Movement to End Poverty”. Below you’ll find a description of the course, an overview of the syllabus, and a list of the sessions and the leaders coming in as guest speakers. The course is meeting on Friday mornings from 9am-12pm, and if you’re able to join us to sit in on one or more of the classes, please do!
(For those who are interested in the course but unable to join us in person, we will be video recording each session and will make the videos available online at a future date.)

The next class, on April 22nd, is: “Abahlali baseMjondolo, South African Shackdwellers, Poverty and Violence in Post Apartheid South Africa with Dara Kell, filmmaker (Dear Mandela).

Description:

At a time when political, economic, and social systems are breaking down, inequality, injustice, conflict, and repression are on the rise. As social justice advocates and religious leaders are increasingly and necessarily grappling with the intersection of religion and social justice, this course aims to look critically at efforts of peacemaking, conflict resolution and building a social movement to address these issues. The course is inspired by Gandhi’s statement, “poverty is the worst form of violence” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s teaching that, “peace is not simply the absence of tension but the presence of justice.” We will pay special attention to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s plans, announced in 1967, for a Poor People’s Campaign capable of connecting the evils of poverty, racism and militarism as inter-related and how that call is being taken up today. Our time together will include a set of critical comparative studies and presentations on social movements and related efforts in different parts of the world focused on how they are building peace and working for justice in their local context and globally. Students will have the opportunity to learn more about movement building and nonviolent direct action and gain practical experience in these areas.
Each week will feature a respected leader engaged in faith and social justice work. The class will open with an introduction of class themes, connecting to the specific topic and guest presenter for the week. The guest presenter will lecture, show videos, or do some other form of presentation for about 45 minutes. After the break, students will be invited to engage in group discussion and question and answer, weaving in themes from the course readings. In some cases, a biblical or other sacred text reflection will be integrated in this part of the class session.

Goals:

  • Connect the diverse struggles against poverty, inequality, racism, militarism, and ecological devastation
  • Achieve deeper understanding and learn from the better practices of scholars and activists in exploring religion and peacemaking in their social justice work
  • Equip students who will be serving as religious and community leaders in various capacities of clergy, non-profit leader, academic, etc., to make connections and learn vocational skills in the areas of the struggles for peace, dignity, and rights and religious traditions
  • Expose students to the theory and practice of conflict resolution, nonviolent direct action, and nonviolent civil disobedience

Sessions:

Note: * indicates that the exact date of this session hasn’t been confirmed: it might happen on one of the other Fridays. We’ll update this page every time a speaker is confirmed for a specific date.

Section 1: Peace building and Movement building: Introductions

Class one: Peace, Justice and Movement Building: Introduction of Course Themes
January 29, 2016
Overview of conflict and injustice worldwide today and how faith traditions play a role in confronting violence and inequality. Review of the Syllabus and Course Requirements. Use of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” and “Staying Awake During a Great Revolution” speeches to connect the issues of militarism, poverty, racism to a larger nonviolent social movement.
Readings:

Class two: Peace and War among US Veterans | Jose Vasquez, IVAW
February 5, 2016
Readings:

  • Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz. Winter Solder: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008.
  • Ferguson, Brian, “Ten Points on War”
  • Vasquez, Jose, “Conscientious Objector Statement”
  • George, Jacob, Soldiers Heart (Music album) Available on Amazon.com and title track at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpc5UlQL3E4.

Recommended readings:

  • Brock, Rita and Gabriella Lettini. Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War, 2013.
  • Casteel, Joshua, Letters from Abu Ghraib, 2008.

Section 2: Defining the Peace Issues of our Day

Class three: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Poor People’s Campaign | Willie Baptist, Kairos Center & University of the Poor
February 19, 2016
Presentation by Willie Baptist on the intersection of racism, poverty, militarism and ecological devastation today and how a global Poor People’s Campaign draws from the theories and theologies of Rev. Dr. King from 1967-68 and the struggles for peace and justice in a 21st century globalized world.
Readings:

  • Baptist, Willie, and Jan Rehmann. Pedagogy of the Poor: Building the Movement to End Poverty. New York: Teachers College Press, 2011. Introduction, Chapters 1 and 3.
  • The Poverty Initiative. A New and Unsettling Force: Re-igniting Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign. New York: Poverty Initiative, 2009. Chapters 1 and 2.
  • King, Martin Luther King Jr., “Nonviolence and Social Change” from Trumpet of Conscience, 1968.

Class four: Violence, Globalization, Human Rights and Liberation Theology | Larry Cox, Kairos Center and Alex Wilde, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University
February 26, 2016
Readings:

  • Wilde, Alex, Religious Responses to Violence: Human Rights in Latin America Past and Present. American University, 2016. Introduction and Chapter 5.
  • Cox, Larry, A New and Unsettling Force for Human Rights, December 2105
  • Anderson, Carol, Eyes Off the Prize. Cambridge University Press. 2003. Introduction and Chapter 1.
  • Moyn, Samuel. The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2010. Chapter 2.

Class five: Poverty and the Freedom Church of the Poor | Onleilove Alston, Faith in New York
March 4, 2016
Readings:

  • Baptist, Willie, and Jan Rehmann. Pedagogy of the Poor: Building the Movement to End Poverty. New York: Teachers College Press, 2011. Chapters 5, 7, 9.
  • Kairos Center, Poverty Fact Sheet. 2015.
  • The Poverty Initiative. A New and Unsettling Force: Re-igniting Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign. New York: Poverty Initiative, 2009. Chapter 5.
  • Baptist, Willie and Liz Theoharis, “Reading the Bible with the Poor” in Reading the Bible in an Age of Crisis: Political Exegesis for a New Day, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2015. Chapter 1.
  • Textual Study: Matthew 21: 12-14, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech

Section 3: Case Studies

Class six: Sisters in Islam, Gender, Islam and Peace | Dr. Sheherazade Jafari
March 11, 2016
Readings:

  • Nair, Sheila. 2007. “Challenging the Mullahs: Islam, Politics and Women’s Activism, Interview with Zainah Anwar.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 9(2): 40-248. (Please read this article first.)
  • Basarudin, Azza, Humanizing the Sacred: Sisters in Islam and the Struggle for Gender Justice in Malaysia, University of Washington Press, 2015. Chapters 2, 3, and 4
  • The Kairos Center. “Women, Islam and the Secular-Religious Divide: An Interview with Dr. Sheherazade Jafari” in Spirit of Struggle: Writings on Religions and Human Rights, 2015.

Recommended readings:

Class seven: Climate Change, Ecological Devastation and the Movement for Environmental Justice | Karen Savage, Bridge the Gulf; Karenna Gore, Center for Earth Ethics; and Catherine Flowers, CEE, ACRE and Equal Justice Initiative
March 18, 2016
Readings:

Recommended readings:

  • Shiva, Vandana, Violence of the Green Revolution, Zed Books Limited and Third World Network, 1989, Introduction, Chapter 1 and 5.

Class eight: The Struggle for Racial and Economic Justice | Roz Pelles, Director of Repairers of the Breach
April 1, 2016
Readings

  • Barber II, Rev. Dr. William J. and Barbara Zelter, Forward Together: A Moral Message for the Nation. Kent, OH: Chalice Press, 2014.
  • Barber II, Rev. Dr. William, “A Moral Movement for the Nation”, in Spirit of Struggle: Writings on Rights and Religions, Kairos Center 2015.

Section 4: Personal Narratives of Peacemakers and Freedom Fights

Class nine: War, Peace, and the Financial Scene over Sixty years | Ed Long, Union Alumni, James W. Pearsall Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Theology of Culture, Longtime Peace Activist
April 8, 2016
Readings:

  • Neibuhr, Reinhold, Leaves from the Pages of a Tamed Cynic.

Class ten: The Kiota Community in Niger, Sufi Islam and Mysticism | Adam Barnes, Kairos Center
April 15, 2016
The originally scheduled class, with Bob Zellner on SNCC and the Forward Together Moral Mondays Movement, has been canceled. The fight to save Belhaven hospital, which Bob has been playing a major role in for two years now, is in a critical stage, and the hospital building is threatened with demolition. Bob has decided to stay in Belhaven and help make sure the hospital is not destroyed. However, he’ll still be joining us for a free online seminar on Monday, April 18th, at noon Eastern Time. You can sign up for that seminar here.

Readings for “The Kiota Community in Niger”:

  • Barnes, Adam, “The Kiota Community”, in Spirit of Struggle: Writings on Rights and Religions, Kairos Center 2015.
  • Barnes, Shailly, Religion, Social Capital and Development in the Sahel: the Niass Tijaniyya in Niger, (An earlier version of this article was published in the Journal of International Affairs, 2009)
  • Sölle, Dorothee. The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. Minneapolis (Minn.): Fortress press, 2001

Readings for “SNCC and the Moral Mondays Movement”:

  • Zellner, Bob, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, New South Books, 2008.
  • The Kairos Center. 50 Years of Poor People’s Organizing: An Interview with Bob Zellner. 2015.
  • Zinn, Howard. The New Abolitionists.
  • Jealous, Ann, and Caroline Haskell, Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Greif About Racism, Potomac Books, 2013. Selections from chapters 3 “Guilt” and 8 “Resistance and Freedom”
Class eleven: Abahlali baseMjondolo, South African Shackdwellers, Poverty and Violence in Post Apartheid South Africa | Dara Kell, Dear Mandela
April 22, 2016
Readings

  • Pithouse, Richard, “The Struggle is a School: The Rise of a Shack Dwellers’ Movement in Durban, South Africa”, Monthly Review, Volume 57, Issue 9, 2006.
  • Kell, Dara and Christopher Nizza, Dear Mandela, Sleeping Giant Productions, 2013.

Class twelve: Racism, Police Brutality and the Fight for Racial and Criminal Justice* | Michael Velarde, Communities United for Police Reform
April 29, 2016
Readings for “Racism, Police Brutality, and the Fight for Racial and Criminal Justice”