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