John Dear, author and activist in Kansas City

Author and activist John Dear discussed “Living The Nonviolent Life,” 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Saturday, March 7, at Whitfield Center, Avila University, 11901 Wornall Road, Kansas City, MO, and “The Nonviolent Path as Illuminated by Jesus,” 2-4:00 p.m., Sunday, March 8, at Community of Christ Temple, 1001 W. Walnut, Independence, MO.  This episode of Radio Active Magazine features an interview with him about his work by co-host Reverend Jim Hannah and Radio regular, Spencer Graves.

The following is a transcript of this episode:

Spencer Graves 0:00
This episode of radioactive magazine features an interview with John Dear, a Catholic priest and a leading advocate of nonviolence. He is a convicted felon with over 75 arrests for act of nonviolent civil disobedience against war and nuclear weapons. Just a disclaimer: He is being interviewed by two people who are currently on probation for trespassing on Memorial Day last year May 27, on the Kansas City National Security Campus, which makes or procures 85% of the non-nuclear parts used in US nuclear weapons. Jim Hannah was sentenced to 50 hours of community service because of his serious recidivism in this regard. Spencer Graves was sentenced to only 20 hours of community service, because he is only a first offender. For more on that trespassing on the Kansas City National Security Campus, you can check out last week’s episode of radioactive magazine under kkfi.org, “News and Public Affairs”, then Radio Active Magazine.

So, John, what brought you to Kansas City?

John Dear 1:22
Well, thanks for having me, Spencer and Jim. Well, Jim brought me to Kansas City, to speak in the Community of Christ and to do a day long workshop on active nonviolence at Avila University.

Spencer Graves 1:36
So Jim, why did you bring him to Kansas City?

Jim Hannah 1:40
Well, he was here six years ago, and I was really moved by what he shared with us, and we had some follow up, which actually led to the creation of the Greater Kansas City Justice and Peace Action Team, which is actually the group that invited john to come to the event.

Spencer Graves 1:57
So John, what are the most important things you think KKFI listeners ought to know?

John Dear 2:06
Well, it’s obvious we’re in a terrible moment in time, in history. As Greta Thunberg says, “The world house is on fire. We started we better start acting like it.” You know, we’re in an epidemic of global violence and permanent warfare and extreme poverty with a few billionaires dead set on destroying the planet. We’re closer to nuclear war than ever. We’re well into catastrophic climate change. And the world is changing by the minute for the worse.

And all of this is to be expected given our addiction to violence in depth. So you know, I was talking yesterday and today [Saturday and Sunday, March 7-8] about the only alternative is active, creative nonviolence and resistance to structured injustice and evil and living an entirely new nonviolent life and building a global grassroots, bottom up, people power movement of nonviolence, the likes of which the world has never seen. Remember what Dr. King said the night before he was killed: The choice is no longer violence or nonviolence. It’s nonviolence or non existence. And that was over 50 years ago, and that’s happening right now. I mean, with climate change, and / or nuclear war, we’re headed towards hundreds of new wars in 100 years. It’s just unbelievable. But I studied the science actually. So we have to do something. We all have to wake up. If you’re an activist, you’ve got to redouble whatever you’re doing. If you’re not an activist, wake up and get with the program. The work to do is to abolish war and nuclear weapons, and fossil fuel drilling, and all the other metaphors of death like racism and poverty and sexism, which lends up into homelessness and executions, and mass incarceration. All this violence has to stop.

So we have to start practicing total nonviolence like Martin Luther King. And we have to all get with the movements of nonviolence — that’s the only way change happens — to work, first of all, here in Kansas City, toward a new nonviolent Kansas City to really get Kansas to become totally nonviolent in every aspect of life, and, and then be part of the global mass movement to disarm the United States and the world and start protecting creation and the creatures and the poor. That’s the task. And we have a tool. We have a methodology to do this. Gandhi and King showed it: Active grassroots nonviolence organizing. And we now know that it works. Violence is a total failure, and greed and nuclear weapons. So we all have to really, really pitch in like never before. Some of us have been activists all our lives. We have to keep at this like never before till the day we die. And we’ve got to keep inviting everybody in to build this movement of resistance. So that’s my message to Kansas City. And I know there’s a lot of good people doing a lot of good things, but it’s not enough. We have a lot more work to do.

Jim Hannah 5:25

We had about 95 people who were at the workshop at Avila University yesterday who received John’s message. And I think we’re highly motivated. John considers himself a coach. And I love that image because the coach is one who inspires you and says, “Hey, get out there and do it and get her done.” And that’s what you did. And now we have to find out ways to put wheels under the deal. And part of what I really liked about the way you approached this deal was that you took these three sessions that we did, where you make a presentation we had small group discussion then a large group consideration. The first one was nonviolence to oneself. We thought that was a fascinating place to start. Why did you start there?

John Dear 6:06

Well, I had been grappling with nonviolence since I was a boy. And you know, I grew up in Washington, DC, a very politicized family. And I vividly remember the killing of Dr. King. My father then took me down town to see the riots and the poor people’s campaign and said, you’re never to forget this. And my life was kind of downhill since then, in a certain sense. I became — my neurotic side, which we’re not going to talk about — obsessed with death. And I couldn’t find, “What’s the meaning of life?” And you know, I wanted to be a rock star. And I went to Duke, and I ended up majoring in African American history. And then just decided, well, if you kill the greatest person we produce and the second greatest person — Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, formative moment in my life — there’s nothing you can do. So I’m just gonna be a priest and be a pious priest. But I got knocked off that plan and realized the point of Jesus is movement building. He’s totally nonviolent, and he gets out there and he’s organizing. And that’s what Dr. King taught: active nonviolence.

Well, I’ve been talking about it for 40 years. My latest book is my 38th book. I’ve written a book a year. And I’ve talked to probably millions of people all over the world and been in 25 war zones. How do you talk about nonviolence? What, and you know, there’s not that much, although in the last 10 years, there’s a lot.

So I wrote this book called The Nonviolent Life. And I’m trying to put it in really simple ordinary language that all of us can understand. And I’m saying that this dramatic, holistic, full-on nonviolence of Martin King and Mahatma Gandhi can be summed up in three simultaneous attributes. By that I mean, you can’t do just one. You have to do all three, and you have to do all three at the same time.

Even there, proposing it, it’s very hard just in terms of communication. Because even though you said the first thing, why did you start there? Well, it could have started with any of them. But I’m saying number one, you have to practice total nonviolence to yourself. And I’ll come back to that. Second. Number two, you have to practice meticulous interpersonal violence toward every human being on the planet, and all the creatures and Mother Earth. We need to be nonviolent to everybody, and the creatures and the earth.

Jim Hannah 8:39
That’s why you’ve written some books about nonviolence

John Dear 8:41
to the earth

Jim Hannah 8:42

environment.

John Dear 8:42
And the third thing is you have to be involved in the movement, the anti war movement, the movement to house the homeless, movement to abolish nuclear weapons, movement to end the death penalty. The environmental movement. Part of me doesn’t care, as long as you get involved in one of them or all of them. And I mean, put your money there, put your time there, go to meetings, your acts and flyers. It’s hard work. But I started with that. And my thought is that we’re very, very, very sick, as Americans. Now, I’m just quoting the Dalai Lama there. He comes here and goes, Oh my god, these people are sick.

Now you’re in Kansas City. Independence. The guy who dropped the atomic bomb lived and died here. He was a very sick man. And he’s the epitome of us. He the best of us, Harry Truman, what’s not to like?

Well, the day the bomb dropped, Mahatma Gandhi said — this guy is such a genius — he said, “Well, we’ve seen the effects of the bomb on the people it was used on. Those Americans vaporized two hundred thousand Japanese. It’s too early to see the spiritual consequences upon the people that built it.”

Well, here we are, 75 years later, coming upon August 2020. And we’re sick. I think we’ve lost love so much. We’re so divided. But fundamentally, we all hate ourselves in America, because we were taught to be violent. We’ve been wounded since we were born. We grew up in war and racism and sexism. That’s all we’ve known. We’ve totally internalized it. So I’m telling you to go and be nonviolent to everyone, and be part of the global grassroots movement. But so many of us cultivate violence inside us.

This is an old teaching, love thy neighbor as thyself, and we don’t talk about loving yourself. But what does that mean? If you use a Gandhian, Kingian, hermeneutic of nonviolence, Jim? It means being nonviolent to yourself. So we’re not going to beat ourselves up. We’re not going to put ourselves down. We’re going to try to be kind to ourselves. Befriend yourselves. I can be really outrageous and say, practice unconditional friendliness to yourself. A lot of people, that’s impossible. And that’s what we need to have to help one another do. So that then they can go and make friends with others, and then love their enemies and make friends with the enemies of the United States.

But this is good news because it’s not fun, being violent to yourself and continually putting yourself down and being full of self hate. We want to try especially as spiritual people, as church people, as religious people, to create a space of peace for the God of peace to live within us. So yesterday I was saying, Well, you’ve got to figure out how to do that. And it’s in many ways, we’re all on our own how to do that. But I was saying prayer and meditation. By that I mean, you need to go off quiet time in the park and be with God. And begin to make friends with God and hand over all your wounds and hurts to God. Forgive everybody who ever hurt you. Forgive yourself and start treating yourself kindly and learn to enjoy the simple things of life, especially as the world gets worse and especially as you’re going to get involved with the movement and all you need to be cultivating peace because we want to be authentic peacemakers.

Spencer Graves 12:22
Okay, so you are listening to an interview with nonviolent activists John Dear, who was in Kansas City last weekend giving a workshop last Saturday on “Living the nonviolent life: a day long workshop exploring active nonviolence” at Avila University and a sermon last Sunday on “The nonviolent life as illuminated by Jesus.”

So, John, you talk about your three points. So you’ve also got this — What is it called? — cities campaign or something? Talk about what you want people to do in terms of getting organized.

John Dear 13:05
Well, the question is, how do we organize? And, you know, I entered the seminary not to become a movement organizer. But Jesus was a movement organizer and Gandhi and King were movement organized and this is — how do you change the world? There’s only one way, bottom up, people power grassroots movements, from the abolitionists to the suffragists, the labor movement, civil rights movement, anti Vietnam War movement, and the women’s movement, environmental movement, and others, thousands of movements. So my friends and I are always interested in how we can help each other organize.

So my group is “campaignnonviolence.org“. I hope people will go and look it up. It’s great. We do a national week of action every September. Last September, we had 3300 actions across the country against all the issues of violence such as racism, poverty, war, environmental destruction and for a new culture of nonviolence.

But the other big project we’ve organized is called the nonviolent cities project. And what we’re trying to do is to get cities to organize around the vision and principle and methodology of nonviolence to apply Gandhi and Martin Luther King to your city. This is something that you all could do here. I don’t know in the Greater Kansas City, Independence, Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, area, the whole idea is what’s your future? It should be a nonviolent city, where everybody’s nonviolent. And you can laugh at me and say that utopian.

Oh, well, you like having a violent city? And building nuclear weapons? No, that’s not a future. That’s an end zone of death.

So what would that look like? It would mean every aspect of the community has to practice nonviolence and organize and help each other become nonviolent. Now I have 20 cities actually working on this right now, to varying degrees, and really big ones too. And it’s changing the whole movement, the way people are organizing and thinking, and they’re bringing in the city council and mayors and all the religious communities. And I think it’s a really great tool.

What would it look like? Well, we have this lovely brochure which people could get and from the Greater Kansas justice and peace group, but the idea is the activists can’t just meet with activists anymore. If you formed a nonviolence Kansas City committee, where you first of all would start dreaming, envisioning what would that look like? What would a totally nonviolent Kansas City look like? And I’m serious about that. Because I think what we’re experiencing is a loss of the imagination. People can’t even think of a better future now. Can you imagine a world without nuclear weapons, a world without war? People think you’re crazy.

This is totally doable. This is how movements always work. The abolitionists began to envision a world without slavery. Mandela says, you know, you can have a South Africa without apartheid. What? No. There’s nothing you can do. And we’re working. We’re working to abolish the death penalty. Anyway, you need to spend time dreaming and then putting the vision into concrete strategies of how do we get there and then working toward it systematically. This is all doable. People are doing it. I can show you chapter and verse how to do it. Well, it would mean you’re meeting with the City Council and the mayors and seeing our future’s a nonviolent Kansas City. You mean with the police department saying look, bullying, racism, police brutality doesn’t work. It’s not going to help. You need to learn how to have a nonviolent police force.

People are doing it in the United States. Every religious community, especially Christians, and Catholics in Kansas City need to be preaching morning, noon and night, the nonviolence of Jesus. And the point is we’e got to become nonviolent. Every school in Kansas City should teach morning, noon and night nonviolence. By that I mean, every class, every child is taught how to resolve conflict nonviolently, how to live nonviolently. This is doable.

People are doing this, but not in Kansas City. And if you did, and if you put money into it, like a couple of million dollars, which is a piece of cake for Kansas City, you’d get somewhere. And then we start working to dismantle racism. And then we get into the health care system, which should be totally nonviolent and equal. And we get into the prisons, where you teach restorative justice, nonviolent rehabilitation, deescalation, all these tools, we’ve got all the tools.

And I can go on and on. If you want to be in a nonviolent city, you have to end extreme poverty in Kansas City. Well, you can’t be building parts for nuclear weapons in Kansas City, period. That needs to be outlawed. You can’t be continuing participating, cooperating with the destruction of the environment. And that’s happening here. So I’m talking about holistic view that’s for the rest of our lives. This is good. And this is, I think, a new way of organizing. I think it’s bringing Dr. King to Kansas City in a whole new way. And I hope your listeners will start working.

Jim Hannah 18:40
Well, coach, you’ll be glad to know that several dozen people signed up to consider …

John Dear 18:45
Well, how could your listeners get involved in this? Give them a name or a website or something? What’s your website?

Yeah, the website for the Greater Kansas City Justice and Peace Action Team is JPATKC.org.

Wait: Justice and Peace at Kansas City. So JPATKC.org.

Okay, so people could go there and find information about Nonviolent Kansas City? Can you post something, or they could send you an email?

Jim Hannah 19:26
Yeah.

John Dear 19:26
And there’s going to be a meeting in the spring. See, I’m organizing here. Because otherwise what are we talking about? We can be very theoretical, very nice and theological and spiritual, even metaphysical if you want. That’s not nonviolence. This is action.

Yeah, for sure. Like I’ve been wondering about it like, you are an advocate of total nonviolence, you’re basically saying, you know, I’m not gonna hurt anybody, under any circumstances. And yet, it seems to me like you all the time received opposition, you received death threats. Why is it that you … you seem so harmless, you know? What’s with that?

Isn’t that funny, we kill nonviolent people.

Because there’s power in nonviolence. If all of Kansas City listened to me, it’s not me. This is the ancient wisdom of God. As Gandhi said, Nonviolence is as old as the hills. We are more powerful than the nuclear bomb factory here. This is way more powerful than Harry Truman. And it can become contagious in a positive healing ways as opposed to the corona virus.

Jim Hannah 20:36
So is the opposition a feared response?

John Dear 20:37
I totally fear the power of nonviolence and real teachers and organizers. And you know, I’m highly monitored, because they understand nonviolence more than we do. The government. And they say you don’t have any power. You can’t make a difference. The churches just do what we say. Be Republican and so-called pro life and support the wars and nuclear weapons. Go right along, because we’re afraid. Be afraid. There’s nothing you can do.

And I’ve lived and work with the greatest people on the planet my whole life. I’ve seen this work. I know it works. I’m nobody. But I’m teaching it and encouraging you all to go for it, too, because I know this works. We now have so many great studies coming out. But, you know, it’s upsetting, because we’re addicted to violence. Now, I can just say that. But I invite everybody really mull on that. Violence is in our bones. We’ve so normalized it that Harry Truman’s a great guy. And it’s okay to build nuclear weapons in Kansas City and destroy the planet. It’s too bad.

Total baloney. Has nothing to do with being a human being or a Christian or religious or a person of nonviolence. We have the power to disarm kansas city in the world, if we dare use it.

And that’s how change comes. It’s People Power movement. The leaders are the last follow, to change. They will only go when people lead them. And you need to be bold in your vision and your action and your work and creativity.

And I’ve lived and work with the greatest people on the planet my whole life. I’ve seen this work. I know it works. I’m nobody. But I’m teaching it and encouraging you all to go for it, too, because I know this works. We now have so many great studies coming out.

But, you know, it’s upsetting, because we’re addicted to violence. Now, I can just say that. But I invite everybody really mull on that. Violence is in our bones. We’ve so normalized it that Harry Truman’s a great guy. And it’s okay to build nuclear weapons in Kansas City and destroy the planet. It’s too bad.

No, that’s insanity. That’s like we’re living in the zombie movie. And the point is to become sober people of nonviolence. If a world is totally insane, a sane person is going to be called insane. And the problem — I mean, Thomas Merton wrote eloquently about this — that Adolf Eichmann at his trial was diagnosed as totally sane. So it’s the people who were against the Nazis, and there were only a handful, were the insane ones, who were locked up.

Well, that’s what that’s my experience of life. So, my family, my friends, my church, other priests totally think I’m nuts. but we killed Jesus. We killed Gandhi. We killed Dr. King. So I just figured this part of the job description.

In fact, Jim, if people are not upset with you, against you for your nonviolent work, or trying to arrest you. I question your sanity. There’s something wrong with you. If you’re not in trouble in this moment in history,

Spencer Graves 23:18
you’re not pushing hard enough?

John Dear 23:19
No, you’re not doing anything. No, forgive me, I get upset. You can go, oh, listen, John, I’m against nuclear weapons.

I’m like, prove it. If you’re not speaking out, how do we know? Your silence is pro active support for this culture, war and nuclear weapons, environmental destruction. You have to speak out and it’s gonna hurt and people are gonna get upset.

And now you get to practice nonviolence. Let’s see you be nonviolent, when people really turn against you.

And I’ve been in war zones around the world. I’ve spent a year of my life in jail. I’ve been kicked out of all kinds of places. I’ve had thousands of people walk out on me. Now I get to practice nonviolence. Jesus is the epitome nonviolence. I’m supposed to be a follower of his. So what the heck I’m doing.

But the thing is, Jim, it makes life very exciting. I don’t live a boring life in a real sense, and I’ve met the greatest people on the planet, and they’re my friends. And I’m telling you folks: Get with this. It works.

Spencer Graves 24:24
There was also there’s been a lot of talk recently about especially Islamic terrorism and so forth. But in fact, one of Gandhi’s protegees was a was a Muslim. Right? There was a, what was his name, Khan was a Muslim, Indian leader, advocate of nonviolence and so forth. Talk about that, and talk about how religious nonviolence and religious issues other than Christianity.

John Dear 24:52
So I worked for many years as the Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It’s the oldest peace group in the world. And Gandhi was part of that. Martin Luther King was taught nonviolence through FOR. And it has all the different religions in the world as part of it. So I discovered, not through books, but through meeting people around the world that nonviolence is at the heart of every major religion. And maybe our future is interfaith nonviolence. If we can all reclaim the nonviolence at the heart of our religions and work together as people of faith, then we’ll get somewhere.

So Christianity is about total nonviolence. It has to be, because Jesus practiced total nonviolence. You cannot be a Christian and support war, nuclear weapons, racism, greed, or violence of any kind. You are not following the nonviolent Jesus. You may be something, but you’re not following that guy.

But Judaism has a spectacular vision of “Shalom” which Jesus adhere to. The Prophet said someday. I mean, it’s extraordinary. Someday the peoples of the earth will come along and beat all their swords into plowshares and studying war no more.

That’s an oracle worth living by. And Jesus teaches how to do that by saying Love your enemies. But in fact, Isaiah went on in chapter 11, to say, someday there will be no more deaths. The lion and the lamb will lay down with a child. It’s a total nonviolent future. And that’s worth giving their lives for. Islam means peace. The word Islam means peace. I personally know hundreds and hundreds of Muslims radically committed to nonviolence, they’re telling me, because of the Quran.

And I’m going, “No, that’s not what George W. Bush said.” And I’m telling you, you know, most people on the planet think Christianity is about killing. It’s not. Most people in the US think Islam is about killing. It’s not. Everything is about nonviolence. So go and practice nonviolence.

Spencer Graves 27:01
Wonderful. On that note. I think we’ll have to wrap it up. You’ve been listening to an interview on nonviolence and the future of civilization with Father John Dear conducted by Reverend Jim Hannah and yours truly, Spencer Graves, for Radioactive Magazine on 90.1 FM, KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio.

 

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