Peace March Research Articles

Possibilities and limits of political humour in a hybrid regime

This article focuses on the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP), which can be defined as a joke party. MKKP uses humour to criticise the corruption flourishing around the governing party Fidesz as well as its simplified and racist form of political communication. However, MKKP’s critical stance extends to Hungarian politicians and the political system in general. This visual ethnographic research focuses on the activities that MKKP organised during national days in Hungary between 2017 and 2022, which included a space launch, a peace march and an alternative national day celebration on 20 August. The events can be defined as parody performances. The field material is complemented by a semi-structured interview with the party activists. MKKP’s humour is critical and revealing in nature, aiming to expose the powerholders’ agenda. However, instead of ridiculing, MKKP’s humour is primarily corrective and supportive. As such, it has the potential to alleviate polarisation. In MKKP’s activism, creativity and cynicism exist in close proximity to one another. Humour also functions as a powerful antidote against simplified populist truths that rely on fearmongering and enemy images. In a hybrid regime, absurd humour can be used to reveal the inherent absurdities of the political reality. MKKP has occasionally succeeded in entering the state-controlled public sphere. During recent years, the party has started to address societal matters more seriously, without abandoning its roots as a humour party.

The legacy of loss: a contemporary take on the Bengal partition of 1947 through the lens of art

ABSTRACT Sample this: a hypothetical menu book of fish recipes from both sides of the Bengal border; a barbed wire running through the Ichhamati, showing the river’s indifference to political borders; a sandstone and fabric pillar standing as a metaphoric monument of unity between religions, commemorating Gandhi’s peace march in Noakhali in 1946; an accordion book opening out, unfolding narratives immortalised in Ritwik Ghatak’s films. These are some of the artworks that were showcased at The Legacy of Loss: Perspectives on the Partition of Bengal, an Art Exhibition that the Kolkata Partition Museum Trust (KPMT) organised in collaboration with the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), to commemorate the 74th anniversary of India’s Partition. The Exhibition ran from 17 to 29 August 2021 at KCC, and was supported by Tata Steel and the Emami Foundation. Conceptualised and conceived by the late art historian, Dr. Rajasri Mukhopadhyay, and curated by KCC, this was an unique Exhibition on the Bengal Partition by five contemporary artists – Paula Sengupta, Vinayak Bhattacharya, Debasish Mukherjee, Amritah Sen and Dilip Mitra – each with a distinct style and perspective on the theme. As Rajasri Mukhopadhyay put it, Partition provided ‘the psychological topography for this Exhibition. The pictorial narratives … [found here] are embedded in the geographical sites of ancestry, the physical border, the trajectories of nostalgia in refugee colonies, and stories of inherited memories.’ This paper will delve into the uniqueness of this Exhibition and argue for the importance of the Arts in preserving cultural memory, something that KPMT strongly believes in.

(S)he Walks: Gendered Audiences, Memory and Representation in Post-Yugoslav Space

Based on ethnographic studies carried out during commemorations in Vukovar‎ and Srebrenica, this paper analyses gendered representations of said mnemonic‎ events. Specific practices that incorporate both military and civilian ‎components, as well as discourse on heroism and victimhood, lay at the focus ‎of this research: the Column of Remembrance in Vukovar and the Nezuk to ‎Potočari Peace March.‎ Following the theoretical findings on the nexus between memory and gender,‎ the main actors and their agency are studied from the gender perspective.‎ The symbolic capital of the two sites of memory and transformations of memorial‎ practices impact the representation of gender on both state and grassroots‎ levels and give an insight into the questions this paper asks:‎ Why are women present in such large numbers in both Vukovar and in‎ Srebrenica? How is gender represented in the course of these commemorations?‎What are the political implications of such choices? What kind of strategies‎ are used in official and grassroots initiatives? Finally, how is it connected‎ to gender?‎

Polski etap „Marszu Pokoju Hiroszima–Auschwitz” 1962‒1963. Buddyjsko-pacyfistyczne i polityczne konteksty byłych niemieckich nazistowskich obozów koncentracyjnych jako miejsc pamięci o Zagładzie i II wojnie światowej

The Polish stage of the “Hiroshima-Auschwitz Peace March” 1962‒1963. Buddhist-pacifist and political contexts of former German Nazi concentration camps as places of remembrance of the Holocaust and World War II As a result of the increased activity of organizations for former prisoners of the concentration and extermination camps, shortly after World War II, the memory of events at KL Auschwitz-Birkenau reached a global scale. In February 1962, an interreligious group of four young people, led by Satō Gyōtsu (1919‒2018) – a monk from a Buddhist order named Nipponzan-Myōhōji (Nichiren tradition) – undertook to march between Hiroshima and Oświęcim. Their purpose was to tell the truth about the crimes committed in both cities and spread the ideas of pacifism and disarmament. Within ten months, they visited 22 countries. The article primarily analyzes the Polish stage of the “Peace March,” based on an analysis of materials written by veterans and former prisoners of the camp in Auschwitz as well as texts published in the daily press. The second part of the article deals with the religious aspect of the “Peace March” in a broader context, discussing the complicity and collective responsibility of religious organizations, including Buddhist, for the drama of World War II. This “Peace March,” according to the author, was a form of confession of repentance and religious redress.

The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles

Reviewed by: The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles Angelica Lawson (bio) The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles University of Oklahoma, 2019 SARA WILES'S PHOTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC BOOK The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation highlights the lives and significant events surrounding twenty-two featured individuals, their extended families, and friends. Following a forward by Jordan Dresser (Arapaho) and a brief introduction, the book is divided into three sections, organized chronologically beginning in the early 1900s and concluding in 2017. After publishing Arapaho Journeys in 2011, Wiles sought to add more personal and historic depth to this second volume of Arapaho ethnography by including more family and historic photographs alongside her own and by placing biographical stories within larger historical contexts such as the boarding school era, the occupation of Alcatraz, and the early days of the American Indian Movement. The layering of family stories, as in the opening section "Connecting Families through Photographs and Oral Histories," adds depth to her photo-ethnography. "Discovering Matilda Spoonhunter" comprises the entire first section; this is an intriguing story accompanied by thirteen black-and-white photos. The narrative examines interactions between two families—Matilda's (Arapaho) and Minnie's (non-Arapaho) during a tenuous time, when homesteading was taking place near the newly created Arapaho reservation. Wiles does not problematize the negative impacts of homesteading in Arapaho territory; instead, she focuses on the friendship between Matilda and Minnie, who became fast friends after saving a child's life together. While the story lacks exegesis, it is lovely in how it highlights "the founding mother of two prominent Arapaho families," Matilda Spoonhunter, who until now had been hidden in the shadows of her more famous brother, Sherman Sage. Matilda's story shines among the photos of generations of her descendants and is one of many examples of fascinating women's stories in this collection. The many biographies of Arapaho women are especially compelling and cover a wide range of topics and time periods beginning with Matilda's story and ending with Nora Oldman's, who along with her husband William C'Hair, participated in the protests at Standing Rock. These stories are a positive [End Page 192] aspect of the collection and cover a wide range of topics. A favorite is Rubena Hernandez's story. With thirty years of flagging experience, Rubena began working on the Seventeen Mile Road project when she was seventy years old. Wiles contextualizes Rubena's biography by telling a story of personal significance to the Arapaho people of the Wind River Reservation—about a project that sought to improve the safety of an extremely dangerous road on the reservation. Wiles adds depth to her photo-ethnographic project by strategically pairing stories. Chapters pair themes of attending high school and college off the reservation, as well as themes of performance and rodeo. The most powerful pairing comes near the end of the collection with chapters about a recently committed hate crime and Arapaho tribal member Ron Howard's efforts to organize a peace march in the aftermath. The chapter explores racist attitudes toward Arapahos and hatred toward homeless Native Americans, in particular. It is followed by a chapter about one of the victims of the crime, James Goggles Jr., who was shot in the head by a non-Indian intent on murdering homeless Native Americans. Goggles was one of two men who were shot and the only survivor. Pairing—essentially layering these stories together—helps to humanize the stereotyped homeless Arapahos derogatorily referred to as "park rangers" (182). Although Wiles shines a light on the deeply entrenched racism surrounding Arapaho communities, she only slightly contextualizes that racism within the larger history of resource extraction, water wars, and other policies and practices that led to the disenfranchisement of Arapahos by neighboring towns. Readers looking for a highly academic or nuanced critique of settler colonialism's impact on this reservation community will not find it here; yet there is value in these very intimate and distinctly Arapaho stories and photos. Wiles states in the introduction that these are photos of friends and people...

Commemorating by Marching: Memorialization and Resistance Practices of the Srebrenica Genocide

AbstractUsing the case-study of the Marš Mira, a peace march to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide of July 1995, this article explores how practices of memorialization of genocide and resistance against denial of genocide intersect, in order to gain more insight into the challenges post-conflict societies face. The march retraces the steps that the Bosniak men and boys took while fleeing the Serb army after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave. It is a powerful means of commemorating the genocide and, as such, highlights the importance of space within memorialization. Simultaneously, walking the march serves as an act of resistance to Serb narratives of denial. We argue that resistance against genocide denial and memorialization of the genocide are intricately interwoven in the incentives of Bosniaks participating in the annual Marš Mira, and that they manifest themselves in the use of the landscape in which the march takes place. Through an analysis of four incentives for walking the Marš Mira, we shed light on the challenges that Serb denialism poses to the ability of the Bosniak community to deal with the past of the Srebrenica genocide.

Of Dhammacārinī and Rematriation in Post-Genocidal Cambodia

The literature over the last three decades has been trying to account for the stories of resilience by Cambodians both in their homeland and diasporas through performance and literature, visual culture, and religion to undo the legacy of displacement and traumatic experience of the Cambodians during 1975–1979, known as the Khmer Rouge Genocidal period. The repatriation of Khmer refugees to their homeland during 1992–1993 poses a question of to what extent the physical return could replenish the richness of people’s lives deprived by war-time atrocities. Dhammayietra (peace march; 1992–2018) originated by and centered around the spiritual leadership of late Maha Ghosananda has, being an exemplar, tackled this challenge. Yet, are there any significant moral contributions and ethical leadership from other sources? This paper therefore seeks to highlight the under-recognized stories of ‘Dhammacārinī’ (Buddhist Woman Leader) of Cambodia in the light of the spirituality that emerged in the post-conflict reconstruction. Based on my ethnographic accounts and engagement with Dhammayietra (2009–2018), archival research and biographical and dharma books published by the two dhammacārinīs of Cambodia, I argue that these Buddhist woman leaders attempt to offer the people of Cambodia ‘rematriation’, where the ethics of care, nurture, interconnectedness and healing join forces to counter the legacy of devastation and desperation.

Walking the Past, Acting the Past? Peace March to Srebrenica Commemoration

AbstractThis article is based on an ethnographic study carried out during the Nezuk-Potočari Peace March in the framework of Srebrenica genocide commemoration. A more than 100-kilometer procession, attracting each year around 5,000 participants, represents the reverse route of the so-called Death March, the local population’s way of escape from the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. Following theoretical insights from both memory studies and cultural geography, this article’s aim is to analyze mnemonic practices commemorating the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, it explores the social processes through which such memory is produced, performed, and maintained. While applying participant observant methodology, I have engaged in conversation with residents and main actors taking part in the Peace March. Finally, the notion of collective memory is approached from the perspective of spatial mobility engagement of people visiting commemorative events and monuments dedicated to the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Faith in Action:

On 29 July 2003, thousands of unemployed farmworkers and their families who had been evicted from coffee estates in the province of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, joined a peaceful march. “The March of the Hungry,” as they named their public demonstration, was not hyperbole....

Meaning by Doing: The Making of Endurance Activism on the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament

This article offers a consideration of physical activity within the contexts of social movement philosophies, decision making, strategies, and tactics through an examination of the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. Drawing from interviews with twenty activists on the Great Peace March, the author argues that physicality and endurance actions—literally, but also symbolically—signify particular meanings of movement for social movements, such as persistence, focus, and determination, to stretch sociopolitical limits and boundaries. Participants endeavor to accomplish difficult physical challenges and maintain the solidarity of their communities to analogize the coming into existence of equally extraordinary visions of social or political transformation. Physical and symbolic expressions of what the author terms “endurance activism” sustained the marchers’ vision of community and the survival of their organization. The article encourages sport historians to use a wider framework to interpret the links between physical activity, social activism, and oppositional movements.

AGITATIONAL DYNAMICS IN THE KASHMIR VALLEY AND ITS IMPACT

The state of Jammu and Kashmir (now a UT after the abrogation of article 370) is not only the casus belli of three wars between India and Pakistan but is also a possible nuclear flashpoint. Thus the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is a cause of concern not only for the two states but also for South Asia and the entire world. The state-sponsored proxy war in J&K and the resultant militarization of the entire state has turned the situation into a vicious spiral that threatens to go out of control every few years since the 1980s. The dynamics of Kashmir valley have also oscillated from peaceful marches on one end to the forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, mass murders by the terrorists, heavy-handedness by the security forces, and violent protests across the Kashmir valley. Amongst this melee of constant violence and curbs on a day to day freedom, the ultimate losers are the people of the state. The aspirations and happiness of these common people have somehow been lost on the state and national governments, the curbs on the flourishing of civil society, and the environment of fear generated by the so-called militants and militarization of the state. An analysis of these mass protests gives out the general mood of the public if not the actual aspirations of the people. The factors causing the security situation in the valley to deteriorate need to be taken cognizance of not only in the domain of law and order but also in the modifications to the approach required to renew and reestablish a compact with the people of the state.

‘It was you who taught me that peaceful marches did not work’, Uncivil Disobedience and the Hong Kong Protests

Hong Kong’s one country, two systems model denies meaningful political equality for citizens. Instead citizens have engaged government in dialogue and have been granted a foothold in politics through protest. However, this equilibrium was upset in 2019 to 2020. Protests took place that were unprecedented in their scale, duration, widespread support and participation. And yet, government refused to engage in any kind of dialogue or deliberative action. This refusal, along with the use of excessive force by police, provoked an unprecedented escalation from civil disobedience to principled uncivil disobedience. This article argues that the escalation of principled uncivil disobedience was not only justified, but satisfied a duty that citizens have to resist injustice. It relies on the legal and political theory of Candice Delmas, arguing that while citizens have a prima facie obligation to obey the law, where law or policy becomes unjust, citizens may have a duty to resist that injustice, even if it means breaking the law. To illustrate this point, one type of principled uncivil disobedience that has become prevalent – graffiti – is used as an analytical lens. Graffiti communicates protestors’ grievances and subverts authority by reclaiming the space. It is allegorical of both the movement and the city; just as the cityscape has been permanently altered by the protests, so too has Hong Kong been changed by this period of unrest.

Does Climate Protest Work? Partisanship, Protest, and Sentiment Pools

This study demonstrates whether and how climate protest increases or decreases the “sentiment pools” available to the climate movement. Using an experimental vignette survey design ( n = 1,421), the author finds that compared with a control condition, peaceful marches are effective for both independents and Democrats, while civil disobedience has a positive effect among Democrats. These effects are isolated to those who are most certain of anthropogenic climate change. No effect is observed among Republicans. Despite evidence from other studies suggesting the possibility, no “backfire” effects are observed for any group or protest type. This study (1) lends supports to the use of tactical diversity within the climate movement and (2) demonstrates how the broader forces of partisanship interact with protest to shift the pool of supporters available to movements, extending our nascent collective knowledge of how partisanship shapes the outcomes of social movements and protest.

Landscape after genocide

The March of Peace (Marš mira) is a 63-mile, 3-day walk through eastern Bosnia organised in memory of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide and traces in reverse a death march. Marchers take a trail from Nezuk, stopping at mass graves found along the way, arriving at the memorial cemetery in Potočari a day prior to the annual mass funeral for victims who have been recently exhumed. This article charts the journey from the death march to the peace march and asks the reader to assess the efficacy of embodied memory-work and the ethical responsibility to undertake – and responsibilities when undertaking – alternative memory-work in post-genocide landscapes and sites of mass murder, through a series of rhetorical shifts. A number of frames are enacted to challenge other more linear and conventional approaches, allowing the sociological and political productivity of engaging with post-genocide landscapes in a post-conflict state to emerge, referencing dissident forms of remembrance through the method of walking-with others while traversing this post-genocide landscape on foot. Travelling-with around 8,000 mourners, some of whom were survivors of the death march, the aim here is not to simply describe what is taking place; rather, the journey is undertaken in order to activate a space – a space within which I might engage with issues of landscape, conflict and memory in the context of their current discussion within cultural and political geography, genocide studies and memory studies, and more importantly to speak of genocide and a post-genocide landscape.

Framing and counter-framing a Peace March in Russia: the use of Twitter during a hybrid war

ABSTRACTFraming is vital to the capacity of social movements to enlist popular support and sustain contentious collective action. Using the case of a Peace March held in Moscow on 21 September 2014, the article examines how antiwar activists and their opponents framed a protest against Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The study argues that different interpretations of patriotism underpinned divergent evaluations of the conflict and the construction of opposing identities. An analysis of Twitter posts on the eve of the march shows that peace activists positioned themselves as citizens with high moral standards and a healthy dose of patriotism, criticized the Russian government for military intervention in Ukraine, and called for a peaceful conflict resolution. In turn, opponents of the march considered themselves as real patriots and their adversaries as national traitors, denied Russia’s military presence in Ukraine, and fomented an attack on critics of Russian foreign policy. The study contributes to social movement literature by analyzing the framing of antiwar activism on a social media platform in the midst of a hybrid war, marked by a great deal of ambiguity and deception about causes, dynamics, and consequences of military operations by state and non-state actors.

Holding Peaceful Assemblies in the Republic of Kazakhstan: Rights of Citizens and Administrative Liability

The article considers the matters of constitutional and administrative-legal regulation of the right to peaceful assembly in the Republic of Kazakhstan (RoK) and a number of foreign countries. Since there is a lot of publications dedicated to the study of compliance of this legislation to international standards, the analysis has been conducted by the following criteria: the general characteristic of the right to freedom of assembly from the viewpoint of international and constitutional law standards, the principles of organization and holding of public assemblies, the procedure of organization of a public assembly and its holding, and the liability for breaching this procedure. The author shows that the current incoherence of legal norms in this area prevents from developing a unified legal model for administrative liability for breaching public order and safety when holding mass events. Based on the study of normative and research materials in administrative and constitutional law, legal principles and approaches to freedom of assembly in international law and the law of a number of foreign countries, the author proposes options to improve the conceptual framework of legislation concerning assembly and mass events, to formulate proposals that will allow efficiently and legally applying administrative liability for breaching the RoK law concerning the procedure of organization and holding of peaceful assemblies, rallies, marches, pickets and demonstrations. Primary provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific and practical activity when considering issues of holding liable for offences infringing constitutional rights of citizens and the established procedure for organizing and holding peaceful assemblies, rallies, marches, pickets and demonstrations, and to reform the norms of legislation on administrative offences.

Tautai: Sāmoa, World History, and the Life of Ta'isi O. F. Nelson by Patricia O'Brien

Reviewed by: Tautai: Sāmoa, World History, and the Life of Ta'isi O. F. Nelson by Patricia O'Brien Brian Alofaituli Tautai: Sāmoa, World History, and the Life of Ta'isi O. F. Nelson, by Patricia O'Brien. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2017. isbn 978-0-8248-6653-2, xxviii + 399 pages, epilogue, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, us$72.00. Samoan nationalism is put on display with Patricia O'Brien's latest book, Tautai: Sāmoa, World History, and the Life of Ta'isi. The historiography of Western Sāmoa, as the first Pacific Island nation to gain independence in 1962 from a colonial power, has been dominated by the events that led to the historic Mau movement, which helped galvanize the Samoan people's vision for self-determination in the 1920s and 1930s. The term mau is defined as "opinion," and more specifically, the opinion of the Samoan people. This captivating read is centered on the life of Mau leader Ta'isi O F Nelson and his dedication to Sāmoa's cause during a tumultuous period in Samoan history. O'Brien describes the Mau leader as a tautai, a navigator who helped Sāmoa traverse "immense and troubled waters" during Sāmoa's push for independence (306). What O'Brien has given us is a detailed and intriguing narrative of Sāmoa during the Mau movement against the New Zealand colonial administration. The reader is immersed in Sāmoa's political and colonial history and the commitment of Ta'isi to further Sāmoa's cause at the international level. Naturally, during the colonial era, New Zealand leadership represented Ta'isi in a negative light as an exploiter of his own people and a power-mad capitalist. O'Brien addresses these characterizations and challenges how the body of work based on Ta'isi "has given us an incomplete picture" of one of Sāmoa's most revered and respected leaders (xxvii). Not only does Tautai enlighten readers about the Mau movement and Samoan efforts toward self-determination, but this book also chronicles the evolution of Ta'isi's patriotism, and, for the first time, provides an intimate look into his private world as a father and husband. Family members helped to flesh out "paper sources," including "previously untapped letters and documents and other archival data" (xxviii), allowing O'Brien to reexamine how Ta'isi became a central figure in Samoan history. At the start of the First World War in 1914, the western Samoan islands transitioned from German to New Zealand colonial occupation. Resistance against colonial rule in Sāmoa also took place against Germany under the leadership of Samoan orator Lauaki Namulau'ulu Mamoe from 1908 to 1909. Lauaki's Mau a Pule resistance movement received support mainly from the island of Savai'i. Later, however, it grew into the national Mau movement, ultimately supported by thousands (165). The Mau had multiple complaints against the New Zealand administrators, but a few principal reasons behind the movement were the lack of representation of native Samoans in leadership positions, the authority of the administrators to banish or deport Samoans and Europeans without a proper trial, and the denial of rights of Samoans to properly put forward their complaints before the New Zealand Parliament or the League of Nations. Ta'isi also challenged any notion of Samoan racial [End Page 560] and cultural inferiority. As a result, the Mau practiced civil disobedience by refusing to pay taxes, participating in peaceful marches, and preparing signed petitions. In addition, the Mau sponsored newspapers in both Sāmoa and New Zealand to help promote the Samoan cause. In this book, Ta'isi is portrayed as a global man and a refined individual with merging identities and deep connections as a matai (chief), 'afakasi (person of European-Samoan ancestry), businessman, staunch Methodist, national leader, and father. The Mau leader's affiliation with other political figures and his travels throughout the world connected him to an international exchange of opinions and philosophies that spanned seven countries: Sāmoa, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, and Switzerland (xxviii). The Samoan Guardian Mau newspaper tracked the fate of other...

Through the Iron Curtain. West German Activists and the 1961 San Francisco to Moscow Walk for Peace

In the summer of 1961 a peace march coordinated by an American non-violent protest organisation arrived in Western Europe on its way to Moscow. This paper tells the story of how West German peace activists helped this transnational peace walk pass through the Iron Curtain. Using archival sources and oral history interviews this paper examines the logistical, organisational, and transnational efforts required for this international peace walk to succeed. Importantly, this paper studies the creation of the transnational social space that allowed this international cooperation to take place.

90 poems I didn’t write for you for Jasmine Richards

Abstract In the long tradition of black women protecting and honoring black women, Jasmine Richards, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Pasadena California, was part of a group of activists who intervened in the arrest of a participant in a peace March in Pintroesca Parkin Pasadena on August 29th 2015. In a move designed to attack the Black Lives Matter Movement and to disrupt their work in Pasadena, Jasmine was arrested and charged with "felony lynching” a California law against taking a person out of police custody which carries a sentence of up to 4 years in prison. This summer after Jasmine began serving the 90 days she was sentenced to, I wrote (or didn’t write) the following poems as part of a project to send messages of love to Jasmine in prison. I sent the poem in the morning and later in the day I learned Jasmine was released from prison. This poem is for Jasmine’s freedom and for #blackgirlactivism, long may we love each other, remember each other and free the world.

The role of religious leaders in anti-Apartheid mobilisation: implications for violence prevention in contemporary South Africa

ABSTRACTThis study examines how South African religious leaders mobilised spiritual capacity and religious assets to resist and fight against state and structural violence during the 1970s and 1980s. Document analysis and qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with six key informants who were directly or indirectly involved in an interfaith Peace March in 1989 in Cape Town. Our analysis was aimed at identifying and understanding the factors, which enabled individuals from diverse religious backgrounds to work together to combat the Apartheid state and structural violence, drawing out possible roles for interfaith leadership within the prevention of direct violence in South Africa. The analysis shows that interfaith leadership was enacted as five kinds of performances: of safety in sacred spaces, solidarity and community, non-violence, voice and representation, and humanitarian relief and healing. These performances relied on specific religious assets, spiritual capacity and psychological and interpersonal qualities characteristic of transformative leaders. In conclusion, we offer some suggestions for how interfaith leadership alongside other social actors may contribute to the prevention of interpersonal violence.