Our Belief
"Peace Movement" is considered a subcategory of Social Activism. The purpose of both is to "relieve conflicts." Our obsession to frame peace as "absence of wars" has proven to be a myth, which produces the exact opposite. It's time to turn the page.
"The Peace Movement" is considered as a subcategory of "Activism,". "Peace Movement," is a label, an identification, defined by those who write and speak about peace with a myopic perspective on conflicts. According to them, "wars" are the reason (cause) why there's no peace (effect). This logic is not only flawed, but has weakened the cohesion inside the entire collective of Activism. In fact, Activists can't see how true purpose of their civic engagement, is to realize peace, because they have been conditioned to think that antiwar-Activists control that category. This is a fallacy, which paralyses social engagement.
War&Peace is a dogma
Radical change is impossible without confronting fallacies, and Repeace aims at radical change through the way we view and name Activism. Applying old, stale ideas and methods to traditional activism is getting us nowhere near justice, or freedom, is it? War&Peace is a deeply rooted dogma in our language. Despite the overwhelming fact that we use the word peace in so many different contexts, and that plenty of authors and journalists call many unarmed conflicts “wars” (*1), we witness the perpetuation of the myth that peace = absence, opposite of wars.
Born out of the Civil Rights Movement, The Peace Movement, has been a vague coalition of antiwar-, antinuclear weapons- and Non-violence-advocates. It must be assumed, that more, specific organizing, by class (women, veterans for peace), or more of the "raising awareness about the true motives behind wars," are somehow leading humanity to less wars. Well, it clearly isn't.
We have been so conditioned to think in terms of War&Peace, that even the term "Peace Process" is defined as "the steps taken by countries or groups that are trying to end a war." This narrative is taken directly from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. However, decades of failure of the Middle East "peace process," and the endless rise in U.S. military involvement, clearly show that "Peace Process" has little or no meaning in real life. It is tragic, that the most outspoken authors, are silent about this, and hence, perpetuate a myth.
Misconceptions about the Peace Movement have not yet been the subject of proper inquiry and debate, because few dare to question the prevailing approach to Pacifism, or the methods of NonViolent Resistance (Activism). Repeace confronts both, by challenging the widespread fallacies around the prevailing use of the term "peace." The proof is in the proverbial pudding, since, what we witness, is anything but a reduction in armed conflicts, nor progress in civic engagement [1]; [2]; [3]; [4].
Notable leading figures and heroes of social change have already found it neccessary to point out the inaccuracies about the widespread myth about peace. We know why and how those observations were more than just personal opinions:
In 50 years of activism we have only glorified the "Self" and undermined "the collective." We love to blame the 1% for dividing and conquering us. However, organizations, movements, groups, thousands of culture critics, historians, writers, social scientists, have been incapable to solve the biggest of all conflicts, "conflict of interests," a problem well described by Malcom X).
The crowd of Activism in the U.S. alone has grown steadily to 2.5+ million organizations, groups, movements, charities. Such boom is seen as a triumph of good will, but what kind of formal change is it actually delivering?
The 1% has always managed to oppress, exploit, divide and conquer the middle class, dissolve organized protests and movements. It is so evident, that it's not even a secret. The 1% educate their managers to dissolve and discourage any type of resistance.
Activists call for unity on one side, but build more organizations on the other. What thrives is not peace, but the "Non-profit Sector."
What is the reaction by the institution of Activism to a growing divisive trend? It builds more NGOs. What they're good at is washing out activism in more groups, movements, Facebook pages, blogs, communities, parties, hashtags, and more petitions on an steady rising number of petitions' sites.
Only appreciating the abysmal depth of our divisions, the nature of our competitiveness, can lead us to a coalition of thought, and the security of a unified will.
What is Activism anyway?
Activism is a movement of movements, made by all kinds of people, who, individually, or in groups, organise to relieve real conflicts. Peace is already inherent part of solving problems.
Think of Activism as a very large file cabinet in a library. You will find a file for the US Peace Movement of the 60-70 (anti-Vietnam war) a Peace Movement for the UK, a file for France, Italy, Germany, a file for national efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons, a large file for all movements aimed at dismantling nuclear power, etc.
The problem is that the file cabinet with all the thousands of petitions and movements, is illogically framed as Activism, when the whole thing should be called Peace Movement to begin with. In case you still don't see the dilemma, you have to decide, whether Spartacus and the 3rd Slave War, in 72 B.C., is to be filed under slavery, inequality, wars or “Roman human rights struggles.”
Since more protesting and objecting to the many injustices we face, is only getting us to be more trashed by the elites, with a long list of slurs, we're suggesting to focus on the positive values we all share, on a global level, and promoting ourselves as #repeacers in a #repeace movement. Now that's different.
*1. A long list of recent social battles, that have already been framed as "wars." What more evidence does one need? List of the term "war" in thought provoking, unconventional referential framing:
- ‘Business Elites Are Waging a Brutal Class War in America’ (here)
- The Third World War has long begun - Jean Zigler (here)
- The Washington Post Has Declared War On Peacemakers - Dennis Kucinich (here)
- The Feds Have Turned America Into a War Zone (here)
- The Great American Class War. Plutocracy vs. Democracy - Bill Moyers (here)
- There Is A Real War On Americans (here)
- ‘When Did Americans Become the Enemy?’ (here)
- The Washington Post Has Declared War On Peacemakers(here)
- House and Senate Republicans Have Declared Economic War On Average Americans (here)
- ‘Call it what it is: A class war’(here)
- ‘Banks, corporations wage war on working class Americans’ (here)
- The Bitter Consequences of Corporate America's War on Unions (here)
- The War on Democracy (John Pilger Documentary) (here)
- The War on Democracy (here)
- The Democratic Establishment’s War on Progressives (here)
- Robert Reich: Most economic policies are just an ideological war on the poor and the disenfranchised (here)
- ‘Is America Ready for a New War on Poverty?’ (here)
- ‘The Origins of the Neoliberal War on the Poor’ (here)
- With 'Carefully Calculated Strategy' to Slash Safety Net Underway, White House Claims War on Poverty 'Largely Over'(here)
- ‘Report on the War on Dissent.’ (here, here, here, here)
- America's War on Dissent Began a Century Ago (here)
- 'The Unwinnable War on Dissent.' (here)
- When the Government Views Its Own Population as the Enemy (here)
- The Saga of Barrett Brown: Inside Anonymous and the War on Secrecy (here)
- US "Waging War" on Whistleblowers’ (here, and (here)
- ‘How America's Great University System Is Being Destroyed’ (here)
- ‘War On Health - The FDA's Cult of Tyranny’ (here)
- ‘There is a War on Journalism: (here, here)
- How a NeoCon-Backed “Fact Checker” Plans to Wage War on Independent Media (here)
- Juvenile Justice And The War On Teens (here)
- Born Disposable: Trump's War on Youth (here)
- ‘Anatomy of the War on Women.’ (here)
- War on Women Continues With 'Atrocious' New Anti-Choice Law in Kansas (here)
- ‘Fine Print of the Food Wars’ (here)
- The War on Savings: the Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, and the Push to Go Cashless (here)
- War on NGO’s: Facing Government Crackdown, Greenpeace India 'Refuses to be Intimidated' (here)
- Civil War Rages On for Black America (here)
- ‘Ferguson Looks like a War Zone. Here’s why’ (here)
- The War on Black America (here)
- Ahead of Grand Jury Announcement, Are Ferguson Police 'Getting Ready for War'? (here)
- (Australia) John Pilger: The secret country again wages war on its own people (here)
- No Progress on Nuclear Weapons Control – As Planned. Disarmament isn’t Happening…(here)
- A Sinister War on Our Right to Hold Cash (here)
- How a NeoCon-Backed “Fact Checker” Plans to Wage War on Independent Media (here)