Letters

I know you can’t get everything in but it wouild have been nice to have had a mention of the Peace History conference.There must have been time — conference ended on 14th — and you did have a nice PN exhibition Also did you ever mention the Nobel book by Fredrik Heffermehl? Launched in the bookshop [Housmans] below.

Thank you for Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem beautifully reproduced in June PN – looks like a silkscreen? It stirs memories and inspires ...

I am writing with reference to your article “Pacifist First World War veteran dies” on p3 of issue 2534. To link Harry Patch with Claude Choules as a pacifist is fair enough, but it is misleading to suggest that Harry refused to take part in WWI commemmoration events. Harry Patch laid a wreath on the Cenotaph at the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day.

Described by one Pentagon adviser as an “industrial scale counter-terrorism killing machine”, the US’s ongoing Kill-Capture campaign in Afghanistan has killed over 3000 Taliban fighters in the last year, according to The Times’s Stephen Grey. I would be interested in how Nick Kent [PN2534] squares these mass targeted killings with his belief that the NATO mission in Afghanistan is “a peacekeeping force”?

I would like to belatedly thank Robbie Spence (PN 2528) for his clarifying comments on my summary of nonviolent communication (NVC). I agree entirely that a focus on understanding and compassion is the core of NVC. The article plunged straight into the detailed process only because I thought that might best list types of non-judgemental communication and I couldn’t think of a better way of explaining what “type of thing” NVC is. (As someone who only occasionally puts it into practice, I find following the formula sometimes provokes defensive responses at first because my attempt to be honest and understand and empathise unsurprisingly is not trusted, so the compassionate focus is important.)

Secondly, I did understand that Marshall Rosenberg intended a distinction between protective “force” and “violence”, but the exact method of determining which was which wasn’t explicit. Where do various reasons for incarceration fall, for example? They appear to rely on a decision not to listen to and respect needs of an individual.

I am as one with Robbie on his final point, that NVC can have a role in challenging “domination culture”; indeed I suggested the article because I hoped it resonated with PN’s aims as printed on p2 of each issue.