Chapter 2: Weaving a Web of Nonviolence

We know how to structure violence. The military industrial complex and its auxiliary institutions, such as the private weapons and securities industries, are prime examples. When we use the Galtungian lens and add ecoviolence to Johan Galtung’s classic direct–structural–cultural violence triangle, we get a violence diamond, or perhaps more accurately, a web of violence (see Turpin & Kurtz, 1996). To what we often think of as violence (which is direct), we must add the institutions structured to harm individuals, groups, cultures, and the ecosphere itself. We could, however, build sustainable development with direct, structural, cultural, and ecological nonviolence. We already have institutions that structure nonviolence – or often both violence and nonviolence in contradictory simultaneous ways: families, faith and cultural institutions, and friendship networks. We also have numerous peaceful societies, economies, and cultures that provide models such as Bhutan’s Happiness and Well-being paradigm. Jennifer Turpin and I wrote about the Web of Violence in 1996, which we collectively weave from micro to macro levels of life, but we also need to attend to and weave a Web of Nonviolence. This chapter investigates how we can be more intentional and systematic in weaving a nonviolent web, following a three-step Gandhian process: research, analyse, and mobilise.