0:00:00.360,0:00:04.494 In half a century of trying to help prevent wars, 0:00:04.494,0:00:08.009 there's one question that never leaves me: 0:00:08.025,0:00:11.725 How do we deal with extreme violence 0:00:11.725,0:00:15.226 without using force in return? 0:00:15.226,0:00:17.777 When you're faced with brutality, 0:00:17.777,0:00:20.693 whether it's a child facing a bully on a playground 0:00:20.693,0:00:22.393 or domestic violence -- 0:00:22.393,0:00:25.309 or, on the streets of Syria today, 0:00:25.309,0:00:27.860 facing tanks and shrapnel, 0:00:27.860,0:00:31.207 what's the most effective thing to do? 0:00:31.207,0:00:33.805 Fight back? Give in? 0:00:33.805,0:00:37.146 Use more force? 0:00:37.176,0:00:41.138 This question: "How do I deal with a bully 0:00:41.138,0:00:44.888 without becoming a thug in return?" 0:00:44.888,0:00:47.904 has been with me ever since I was a child. 0:00:47.904,0:00:50.455 I remember I was about 13, 0:00:50.455,0:00:55.441 glued to a grainy black and white television in my parents' living room 0:00:55.441,0:00:59.706 as Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest, 0:00:59.706,0:01:02.505 and kids not much older than me 0:01:02.505,0:01:05.006 were throwing themselves at the tanks 0:01:05.006,0:01:07.174 and getting mown down. 0:01:07.174,0:01:10.975 And I rushed upstairs and started packing my suitcase. 0:01:10.975,0:01:13.689 And my mother came up and said, "What on Earth are you doing?" 0:01:13.689,0:01:15.971 And I said, "I'm going to Budapest." 0:01:15.971,0:01:18.605 And she said, "What on Earth for?" 0:01:18.605,0:01:20.654 And I said, "Kids are getting killed there. 0:01:20.654,0:01:22.506 There's something terrible happening." 0:01:22.506,0:01:24.523 And she said, "Don't be so silly." 0:01:24.523,0:01:27.123 And I started to cry. 0:01:27.123,0:01:29.338 And she got it, she said, 0:01:29.338,0:01:31.105 "Okay, I see it's serious. 0:01:31.105,0:01:33.939 You're much too young to help. 0:01:33.939,0:01:36.574 You need training. I'll help you. 0:01:36.574,0:01:38.739 But just unpack your suitcase." 0:01:38.739,0:01:42.305 And so I got some training 0:01:42.305,0:01:46.238 and went and worked in Africa during most of my 20s. 0:01:46.238,0:01:49.939 But I realized that what I really needed to know 0:01:49.939,0:01:52.338 I couldn't get from training courses. 0:01:52.338,0:01:54.524 I wanted to understand 0:01:54.524,0:01:58.974 how violence, how oppression, works. 0:01:58.974,0:02:03.922 And what I've discovered since is this: 0:02:03.922,0:02:07.988 Bullies use violence in three ways. 0:02:07.988,0:02:13.291 They use political violence to intimidate, 0:02:13.291,0:02:18.705 physical violence to terrorize 0:02:18.705,0:02:26.229 and mental or emotional violence to undermine. 0:02:26.229,0:02:29.456 And only very rarely in very few cases 0:02:29.456,0:02:32.972 does it work to use more violence. 0:02:32.972,0:02:39.181 Nelson Mandela went to jail believing in violence, 0:02:39.181,0:02:41.205 and 27 years later 0:02:41.205,0:02:43.188 he and his colleagues 0:02:43.188,0:02:45.173 had slowly and carefully 0:02:45.173,0:02:50.139 honed the skills, the incredible skills, that they needed 0:02:50.139,0:02:54.339 to turn one of the most vicious governments the world has known 0:02:54.339,0:02:56.205 into a democracy. 0:02:56.205,0:03:00.937 And they did it in a total devotion to non-violence. 0:03:00.937,0:03:08.104 They realized that using force against force 0:03:08.104,0:03:13.300 doesn't work. 0:03:13.300,0:03:15.493 So what does work? 0:03:15.493,0:03:18.962 Over time I've collected about a half-dozen methods 0:03:18.962,0:03:20.795 that do work -- of course there are many more -- 0:03:20.795,0:03:23.141 that do work and that are effective. 0:03:23.141,0:03:24.508 And the first is 0:03:24.508,0:03:27.026 that the change that has to take place 0:03:27.026,0:03:31.491 has to take place here, inside me. 0:03:31.491,0:03:35.591 It's my response, my attitude, to oppression 0:03:35.591,0:03:38.442 that I've got control over, 0:03:38.442,0:03:40.742 and that I can do something about. 0:03:40.742,0:03:44.925 And what I need to develop is self-knowledge to do that. 0:03:44.925,0:03:47.424 That means I need to know how I tick, 0:03:47.424,0:03:49.675 when I collapse, 0:03:49.675,0:03:54.009 where my formidable points are, 0:03:54.009,0:03:56.507 where my weaker points are. 0:03:56.507,0:03:57.975 When do I give in? 0:03:57.975,0:04:03.238 What will I stand up for? 0:04:03.238,0:04:08.377 And meditation or self-inspection 0:04:08.377,0:04:10.911 is one of the ways -- again it's not the only one -- 0:04:10.911,0:04:12.029 it's one of the ways 0:04:12.029,0:04:16.146 of gaining this kind of inner power. 0:04:16.146,0:04:18.628 And my heroine here -- like Satish's -- 0:04:18.628,0:04:21.661 is Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. 0:04:21.661,0:04:25.294 She was leading a group of students 0:04:25.294,0:04:27.694 on a protest in the streets of Rangoon. 0:04:27.694,0:04:31.877 They came around a corner faced with a row of machine guns. 0:04:31.877,0:04:33.044 And she realized straight away 0:04:33.044,0:04:36.962 that the soldiers with their fingers shaking on the triggers 0:04:36.962,0:04:42.660 were more scared than the student protesters behind her. 0:04:42.660,0:04:45.365 But she told the students to sit down. 0:04:45.365,0:04:52.661 And she walked forward with such calm and such clarity 0:04:52.661,0:04:56.111 and such total lack of fear 0:04:56.111,0:05:00.211 that she could walk right up to the first gun, 0:05:00.211,0:05:04.287 put her hand on it and lower it. 0:05:08.564,0:05:12.082 And no one got killed. 0:05:12.097,0:05:16.039 So that's what the mastery of fear can do -- 0:05:16.039,0:05:18.340 not only faced with machine guns, 0:05:18.340,0:05:22.506 but if you meet a knife fight in the street. 0:05:22.506,0:05:24.871 But we have to practice. 0:05:24.871,0:05:26.772 So what about our fear? 0:05:26.772,0:05:31.726 I have a little mantra. 0:05:31.726,0:05:35.167 My fear grows fat 0:05:35.167,0:05:37.384 on the energy I feed it. 0:05:37.384,0:05:39.671 And if it grows very big 0:05:39.671,0:05:42.033 it probably happens. 0:05:42.033,0:05:46.468 So we all know the three o'clock in the morning syndrome, 0:05:46.468,0:05:49.184 when something you've been worrying about wakes you up -- 0:05:49.184,0:05:51.574 I see a lot of people -- 0:05:51.574,0:05:55.184 and for an hour you toss and turn, 0:05:55.184,0:05:56.862 it gets worse and worse, 0:05:56.862,0:05:59.984 and by four o'clock you're pinned to the pillow 0:05:59.984,0:06:02.187 by a monster this big. 0:06:02.187,0:06:04.121 The only thing to do 0:06:04.121,0:06:05.955 is to get up, make a cup of tea 0:06:05.955,0:06:11.271 and sit down with the fear like a child beside you. 0:06:11.271,0:06:13.752 You're the adult. 0:06:13.752,0:06:15.639 The fear is the child. 0:06:15.639,0:06:17.084 And you talk to the fear 0:06:17.084,0:06:20.270 and you ask it what it wants, what it needs. 0:06:20.270,0:06:24.887 How can this be made better? 0:06:24.887,0:06:26.637 How can the child feel stronger? 0:06:26.637,0:06:28.086 And you make a plan. 0:06:28.086,0:06:30.091 And you say, "Okay, now we're going back to sleep. 0:06:30.091,0:06:33.858 Half-past seven, we're getting up and that's what we're going to do." 0:06:33.858,0:06:39.590 I had one of these 3 a.m. episodes on Sunday -- 0:06:39.606,0:06:43.591 paralyzed with fear at coming to talk to you. 0:06:43.591,0:06:45.589 (Laughter) 0:06:45.589,0:06:47.096 So I did the thing. 0:06:47.096,0:06:51.225 I got up, made the cup of tea, sat down with it, did it all 0:06:51.225,0:06:55.381 and I'm here -- still partly paralyzed, but I'm here. 0:06:55.381,0:06:59.780 (Applause) 0:06:59.780,0:07:02.296 So that's fear. What about anger? 0:07:02.296,0:07:06.698 Wherever there is injustice there's anger. 0:07:06.698,0:07:09.546 But anger is like gasoline, 0:07:09.546,0:07:13.000 and if you spray it around and somebody lights a match, 0:07:13.000,0:07:15.000 you've got an inferno. 0:07:15.000,0:07:20.117 But anger as an engine -- in an engine -- is powerful. 0:07:20.117,0:07:24.283 If we can put our anger inside an engine, 0:07:24.283,0:07:26.066 it can drive us forward, 0:07:26.066,0:07:29.054 it can get us through the dreadful moments 0:07:29.054,0:07:33.017 and it can give us real inner power. 0:07:33.017,0:07:36.135 And I learned this in my work 0:07:36.135,0:07:38.399 with nuclear weapon policy-makers. 0:07:38.399,0:07:41.118 Because at the beginning I was so outraged 0:07:41.118,0:07:44.434 at the dangers they were exposing us to 0:07:44.434,0:07:49.568 that I just wanted to argue and blame and make them wrong. 0:07:49.568,0:07:52.101 Totally ineffective. 0:07:52.101,0:07:55.850 In order to develop a dialogue for change 0:07:55.850,0:07:57.923 we have to deal with our anger. 0:07:57.923,0:08:02.600 It's okay to be angry with the thing -- 0:08:02.600,0:08:04.700 the nuclear weapons in this case -- 0:08:04.700,0:08:08.551 but it is hopeless to be angry with the people. 0:08:08.551,0:08:11.166 They are human beings just like us. 0:08:11.166,0:08:13.817 And they're doing what they think is best. 0:08:13.817,0:08:17.800 And that's the basis on which we have to talk with them. 0:08:17.800,0:08:20.717 So that's the third one, anger. 0:08:20.717,0:08:22.117 And it brings me to the crux 0:08:22.117,0:08:25.351 of what's going on, or what I perceive as going on, 0:08:25.351,0:08:26.416 in the world today, 0:08:26.416,0:08:30.434 which is that last century was top-down power. 0:08:30.434,0:08:34.699 It was still governments telling people what to do. 0:08:34.699,0:08:36.734 This century there's a shift. 0:08:36.734,0:08:40.617 It's bottom-up or grassroots power. 0:08:40.617,0:08:43.833 It's like mushrooms coming through concrete. 0:08:43.833,0:08:50.514 It's people joining up with people, as Bundy just said, miles away 0:08:50.514,0:08:52.787 to bring about change. 0:08:52.787,0:08:57.053 And Peace Direct spotted quite early on 0:08:57.053,0:09:00.604 that local people in areas of very hot conflict 0:09:00.604,0:09:03.040 know what to do. 0:09:03.040,0:09:05.256 They know best what to do. 0:09:05.256,0:09:08.538 So Peace Direct gets behind them to do that. 0:09:08.538,0:09:10.737 And the kind of thing they're doing 0:09:10.737,0:09:13.905 is demobilizing militias, 0:09:13.905,0:09:16.508 rebuilding economies, 0:09:16.508,0:09:18.858 resettling refugees, 0:09:18.858,0:09:24.359 even liberating child soldiers. 0:09:24.359,0:09:27.225 And they have to risk their lives almost every day 0:09:27.225,0:09:30.444 to do this. 0:09:30.444,0:09:34.258 And what they've realized 0:09:34.258,0:09:39.191 is that using violence in the situations they operate in 0:09:39.191,0:09:43.710 is not only less humane, 0:09:43.710,0:09:45.845 but it's less effective 0:09:45.845,0:09:52.376 than using methods that connect people with people, that rebuild. 0:09:52.376,0:09:56.308 And I think that the U.S. military 0:09:56.308,0:10:03.188 is finally beginning to get this. 0:10:03.188,0:10:05.897 Up to now their counter-terrorism policy 0:10:05.897,0:10:10.730 has been to kill insurgents at almost any cost, 0:10:10.730,0:10:13.933 and if civilians get in the way, 0:10:13.933,0:10:18.199 that's written as "collateral damage." 0:10:18.199,0:10:24.932 And this is so infuriating and humiliating 0:10:24.932,0:10:27.282 for the population of Afghanistan, 0:10:27.282,0:10:31.630 that it makes the recruitment for al-Qaida very easy, 0:10:31.630,0:10:34.800 when people are so disgusted by, for example, 0:10:34.800,0:10:37.179 the burning of the Koran. 0:10:37.179,0:10:40.180 So the training of the troops has to change. 0:10:40.180,0:10:45.288 And I think there are signs that it is beginning to change. 0:10:45.288,0:10:48.072 The British military have always been much better at this. 0:10:48.072,0:10:53.754 But there is one magnificent example for them to take their cue from, 0:10:53.754,0:10:56.922 and that's a brilliant U.S. lieutenant colonel 0:10:56.922,0:10:58.587 called Chris Hughes. 0:10:58.587,0:11:02.804 And he was leading his men down the streets of Najaf -- 0:11:02.804,0:11:04.972 in Iraq actually -- 0:11:04.972,0:11:10.005 and suddenly people were pouring out of the houses on either side of the road, 0:11:10.005,0:11:14.603 screaming, yelling, furiously angry, 0:11:14.603,0:11:19.071 and surrounded these very young troops who were completely terrified, 0:11:19.071,0:11:21.571 didn't know what was going on, couldn't speak Arabic. 0:11:21.571,0:11:25.821 And Chris Hughes strode into the middle of the throng 0:11:25.821,0:11:29.690 with his weapon above his head, pointing at the ground, 0:11:29.690,0:11:31.388 and he said, "Kneel." 0:11:31.388,0:11:34.188 And these huge soldiers 0:11:34.188,0:11:36.821 with their backpacks and their body armor, 0:11:36.821,0:11:41.295 wobbled to the ground. 0:11:41.295,0:11:47.380 And complete silence fell. 0:11:47.380,0:11:49.938 And after about two minutes, 0:11:49.938,0:11:54.214 everybody moved aside and went home. 0:11:54.214,0:11:59.696 Now that to me is wisdom in action. 0:11:59.696,0:12:03.862 In the moment, that's what he did. 0:12:03.862,0:12:09.624 And it's happening everywhere now. 0:12:09.624,0:12:11.533 You don't believe me? 0:12:11.533,0:12:15.192 Have you asked yourselves 0:12:15.192,0:12:19.632 why and how so many dictatorships have collapsed 0:12:19.632,0:12:22.983 over the last 30 years? 0:12:22.983,0:12:28.050 Dictatorships in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, 0:12:28.050,0:12:32.265 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, 0:12:32.265,0:12:35.151 Mali, Madagascar, 0:12:35.151,0:12:38.933 Poland, the Philippines, 0:12:38.933,0:12:44.016 Serbia, Slovenia, I could go on, 0:12:44.016,0:12:48.606 and now Tunisia and Egypt. 0:12:48.606,0:12:52.656 And this hasn't just happened. 0:12:52.656,0:12:55.807 A lot of it is due to a book 0:12:55.807,0:13:00.272 written by an 80-year-old man in Boston, Gene Sharp. 0:13:00.272,0:13:04.289 He wrote a book called "From Dictatorship to Democracy" 0:13:04.289,0:13:09.685 with 81 methodologies for non-violent resistance. 0:13:09.685,0:13:11.772 And it's been translated into 26 languages. 0:13:11.772,0:13:13.856 It's flown around the world. 0:13:13.856,0:13:21.043 And it's being used by young people and older people everywhere, 0:13:21.043,0:13:26.465 because it works and it's effective. 0:13:26.465,0:13:31.023 So this is what gives me hope -- 0:13:31.023,0:13:34.776 not just hope, this is what makes me feel very positive right now. 0:13:34.776,0:13:38.792 Because finally human beings are getting it. 0:13:38.792,0:13:46.410 We're getting practical, doable methodologies 0:13:46.410,0:13:47.994 to answer my question: 0:13:47.994,0:13:54.296 How do we deal with a bully without becoming a thug? 0:13:54.296,0:13:58.706 We're using the kind of skills that I've outlined: 0:13:58.706,0:14:02.424 inner power -- the development of inner power -- through self-knowledge, 0:14:02.424,0:14:05.990 recognizing and working with our fear, 0:14:05.990,0:14:09.508 using anger as a fuel, 0:14:09.508,0:14:12.073 cooperating with others, 0:14:12.073,0:14:14.008 banding together with others, 0:14:14.008,0:14:16.190 courage, 0:14:16.190,0:14:23.159 and most importantly, commitment to active non-violence. 0:14:23.159,0:14:27.273 Now I don't just believe in non-violence. 0:14:27.273,0:14:30.208 I don't have to believe in it. 0:14:30.208,0:14:33.758 I see evidence everywhere of how it works. 0:14:33.758,0:14:39.808 And I see that we, ordinary people, 0:14:39.808,0:14:46.126 can do what Aung San Suu Kyi and Ghandi and Mandela did. 0:14:46.126,0:14:48.849 We can bring to an end 0:14:48.849,0:14:53.848 the bloodiest century that humanity has ever known. 0:14:53.848,0:15:01.789 And we can organize to overcome oppression 0:15:01.789,0:15:04.407 by opening our hearts 0:15:04.407,0:15:10.257 as well as strengthening this incredible resolve. 0:15:10.257,0:15:14.857 And this open-heartedness is exactly what I've experienced 0:15:14.857,0:15:19.291 in the entire organization of this gathering since I got here yesterday. 0:15:19.291,0:15:21.412 Thank you. 0:15:21.412,0:15:25.981 (Applause)