Nonviolence Radio

Michael Nagler opens this week’s Nonviolence Report with the story of the White Rose students who distributed anti-Nazi leaflets in Germany. From there, he turns to people building peace today: Jewish and Palestinian neighbors sharing community life at Neve Shalom–Wahat al-Salam, Colombian villages refusing to admit weapons and soldiers, and women trained by Nonviolent Peaceforce becoming mediators in South Sudan.

The report also highlights youth-led movements around the world, the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative’s efforts to challenge the acceptance of war, Baltimore’s Safe Streets violence prevention programs, and Afghan girls risking their safety to continue their education. Throughout, Michael reflects on the courage people discover through action, the power of grassroots organizing, and why democracy depends on nonviolence.

Key organizations and named mentioned: 

White Rose resistance movement

Traute Lafrenz

Neve Shalom–Wahat al-Salam (Oasis of Peace)

Father Bruno Hussar

Student List — Serbia

Rivera Sun (Nonviolence News) 

Palestine Action

Catholic Church

Ken Butigan

Catholic Nonviolence Initiative

Pope Leo

Nonviolent Peaceforce

Safe Streets — Baltimore

James Talarico

Global Campaign for Peace Education

Taliban

Jorge Majfud

Common Dreams

Ted Cruz

Retired Army Colonel and peace activist Ann Wright joins us to discuss the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and its efforts to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. Ann shares what it takes to participate, why extensive nonviolence training matters, and how people can support Palestinian freedom both at sea and at home. She also reflects on bringing her military and diplomatic experience to the work of peace.

Following the interview, we reflect on the relationship between courage and fear, healing moral injury through action, and why nonviolence is a lifelong practice. The conversation is a reminder that, even though it might not seem that way sometimes, we are all on the same boat.

At 18, Soul Tsalik refused to serve in the Israeli military and went to prison for his refusal. Now 20, he joins Nonviolence Radio to share how he came to see conscientious objection as a duty, and how he works with Mesarvot, a network supporting young Israelis who refuse military service. We talk about growing up in a militarized society, his commitment to Palestinian freedom for the “sake of all humanity,” and what it means to take responsibility for refusing to participate in violence. We also explore what his story can teach us about nonviolence and the significance of doing what we know is right, even when we can’t see where it will lead.

What happens when judges leave the courthouse to meet people in donut shops, community centers, and town squares? Danny Miller and Steve Silverman, organizers of Justice in Motion, share what they learned from taking judges on the road to connect with the communities they serve. Their conversation explores how public trust grows through personal encounters, how one person’s willingness to act can inspire others, and why protecting democracy requires participation beyond the courtroom. In the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler highlights cooperatives, constructive program, and the power of human connection to break cycles of violence.

Amir Bergen and Kanstantsin Tsiarokhin met as students at St. John’s College and began asking what the kind of dialogue they practiced there might offer a world divided by war. The Svet Peace Project began by bringing young people from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus together through literature, conversation, and shared inquiry, and has since grown to bring people together from around the world. On this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we hear the story of Svet and explore how education and dialogue can become practices of peacebuilding.

What does it look like when communities become active participants in their own safety rather than waiting for someone else to protect them? In this episode, we speak with Roz Lee, Head of the U.S. Mission for Nonviolent Peaceforce, about the growth of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) in the United States.

Although Nonviolent Peaceforce has long worked in places experiencing war and violent conflict, the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis—the city where the organization was founded—made it increasingly difficult to think of violent conflict as something happening only elsewhere. Since then, its U.S. work has grown to include partnerships with communities responding to hate violence and, more recently, harsh immigration enforcement and ICE activity. In Minneapolis, for example, NP has worked alongside interfaith leaders, grassroots organizers and neighbors to help keep people safe.

Lee emphasizes a difficult truth: there are social conditions that make it easier to recognize violence elsewhere in the world than to see the violence taking place within our own communities. Part of changing those conditions means talking to one another—and being willing to believe one another about the violence we experience.

With gratitude to Elizabeth High for her transcript support.

What does it mean for a revolution to transform not only political structures, but our understanding of ourselves?

On this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we speak with independent scholar and educator Safoora Arbab about the Khudai Khidmatgar, the remarkable nonviolent movement that emerged among the Pashtun people in the Northwest Frontier of British India.

Arbab challenges familiar accounts that portray the movement as the achievement of a single leader, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, or as an example of Gandhi bringing nonviolence to an otherwise violent culture. Drawing especially on the movement’s vernacular literature and women’s poetry, she shows how the Khudai Khidmatgar drew upon Islam, Sufi traditions, and existing Pashtun practices to transform ideas about violence, honor, gender, and resistance.

Their struggle against colonial rule was also a constructive effort to create something new: schools, systems of conflict resolution, political participation, and ultimately a different way of imagining society itself.

Michael follows the conversation with the Nonviolence Report.

How does nonviolence work? Is it the opposite of violence? What is the purpose of an ideal in nonviolence? What about skepticism? How do we "change" someone? And more insights and lessons drawn from the theory and practice of nonviolence on this episode. 

Technology doesn't develop in a vacuum. It reflects the values, assumptions, and stories of the societies that create it.

Anna Ikeda of Soka Gakkai International joins us to explore how nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, and other powerful technologies reveal deeper questions about human nature, security, and moral responsibility. We discuss Buddhism, grassroots movements, interfaith peacebuilding, and why humanity—not technology—will determine our future.

Michael Nagler follows with his Nonviolence Report highlighting practical examples of nonviolent change taking shape around the world.

Artificial intelligence is transforming our world, raising profound questions about technology, ethics, and what it means to be human. In this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we’re joined by Marie Dennis—co-director of Pax Christi International's Catholic Institute for Nonviolence and a founder of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative—to explore Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas.

Beginning with the Pope's reflections on artificial intelligence, the conversation expands into a thoughtful exploration of human dignity, Catholic social teaching, the Church's growing embrace of nonviolence, and the challenge of resisting systems of domination in an age of rapidly advancing technology. Marie also reflects on the significance of Pope Leo's call to move beyond just war theory, the work of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, and why cultivating a richer understanding of our shared humanity may be one of the most important tasks of our time.