Cumming, Lisa

Lisa Cumming

The surprising popularity and effectiveness of nonviolence

1 June 2016Feature Lisa Cumming

Lisa Cumming reports on three-day seminar on nonviolent resistance at Leeds Beckett University

By FEMEN Women's Movement (Flickr: FEMEN Calls for Sex-Boycott) [CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Imagine a foreign army were about to invade your town, what would you do? Would you take up arms, run away, surrender – or undertake some form of civil resistance? My unimaginative but honest response is that I would probably run to the hills. This question was posed to us by Dr Maciej…

Syrians speak out on the war

1 April 2016News Lisa Cumming

Lisa Cumming reports on the West Yorkshire Nonviolent Network's event 'How will peace be built in Syria?'

‘We’re not coming for a better life, we’re simply searching for life itself.’

I’m reminded of this simple statement as I watch the Sunday night news. BBC footage shows yet more people arriving on boats in Lesbos. The reporter tells the husband of a five-month pregnant woman from Syria that they’ve missed the deadline and might be sent back to Turkey due to the new agreement with the EU. The husband’s eyes say everything. Another man quietly asks for mercy.

Sleman…