Protest never works, except for when it does

Original Post 2022/11/08

After serving as campaign manager in two elections that were defined by historically low voter turnout, I’m surprised as anyone that the Ontario government did a complete U-turn in response to the threat of a general strike.

At the same time, once Premier Ford and Minister Lecce preemptively used the notwithstanding clause, this was the only way that it could end.

When Bill 28 was read in the Ontario legislature last Monday, it was clear that this was where we were headed. To recap, Bill 28 used Section 33 (the “notwithstanding clause”) in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to take away one union‘s right to strike.

People started paying attention– 80% were aware according to a poll and support for the union was over 60%. If education workers could lose their Charter rights, then anyone could lose their rights.

If one union could be targeted, then any union could be targeted. So unions started lining up for a general strike. At a press conference yesterday morning, leaders representing millions of workers were pledging their support.

A general strike occurs when multiple unions, or even individuals not in unions, across multiple sectors withhold their labour in solidarity with each other.

There was only one significant general strike in Canadian history, so it’s instructive to look at why that one failed (in the short term), but the threat of a general strike worked this time. There are a lot of similarities between the two contexts.

Winnipeg General Strike, 1919

The strike occurred from 15 May to 25 June. Fifty unions and almost every worker in the city participated. At the time, Winnipeg, Manitoba was the third largest city in the country with a population of 179,000. The strike spanned both private sector (factories, retail, and trains) and public sector (fire, police, postal, and telecommunications).

The organizers were likely aware of a one-day general strike in Vancouver the previous year.

City leaders, the federal government, and newspapers worked together to oppose the strike. They demonized workers and labeled the strike as a revolutionary plot from Eastern Europe. Union leaders and members were arrested. On Bloody Saturday (June 21), police mounted on horseback charged protesters, beat them with clubs, and fired revolvers in the crowed. Thirty were injured and two died.

There are a number of similarities between 1919 and today. Inflation was high and people were finding it difficult to afford housing and food. Our unemployment rate today is numerically higher, but then there was greater unease and no gig economy.

“After the First World War, many Canadian workers struggled to make ends meet while employers prospered. Unemployment was high, and there were few jobs for veterans returning from war. Due to inflation, housing and food were hard to afford. Among the hardest hit in Winnipeg were working-class immigrants.”

Canadian Encyclopedia

Winnipeg, 1919Ontario, 2022
Inflation Rate9.53%6.9%
Unemployment Rate4%5.9%
First off the jobTelephone operators, who were predominantly femaleEducation workers who are 70% women
Number of unions50TBD
Leading MomHelen ‘Ma’ ArmstrongLaura Walton (@WaltonMom)
Public SupportWidespread60-70%, depending on poll
Divided by ClassBusiness owners vs. low wage workersAverage education worker salary: $39,000
MPP salary: $116,500-$165,850

Unfortunately, the strike failed in the short term. The action ended with no concessions and lots of penalties. However, it was a watershed moment for Canadian labour. They had won the hearts and minds of the public. One of the leaders, J.S. Woodsworth, went on to form the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which is a forerunner of today’s New Democratic Party (NDP).

Why did Ontario, 2022 succeed?

Single-factor explanations are rarely sufficient to explain a complex phenomenon, such as a U-turn in government policy. From the outset, the Ford government held all the cards. They had a majority in the legislature, so they could pass any bill they wanted. The voter turnout in the June election was only 43.5%, so citizens were disengaged. It was early in the mandate, any sins would be largely forgotten over the next four years.

Rights, not dollars

As I mentioned last week, neither side smells like roses at the end of a fraught labour negotiation. Consequently, the general public, who is usually not paying close attention, has trouble figuring out who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist.

But the use of the notwithstanding clause changed the calculus. “Should people have the freedom of association?” is a much easier question to answer than “do these workers deserve an 11% pay increase?”

Organization before demonstration

In the days before social media, significant organizational capability was required in order to coordinate a mass gathering. This is no longer the case when thousands can be summoned using media that is essentially free. Consequently, mass gatherings have become devalued in political discourse and the ruling class no longer fear them. Organizational capability is necessary to press the point, through lobbying, letter-writing, policy planning, campaigning, and creating programs and services.

There have been many public peaceful demonstrations in recent years, ranging from protests against the war in Iraq to Occupy Canada, from Climate Strike on Fridays to Black Lives Matter – Toronto, that have not moved the needle on any policies. Furthermore, some protests that have been crushed by police, such as the G20 protests in Toronto and Wet’suwet’en pipeline blockade.

The threatened general strike drew its strength from both traditional organizational capability and social media reach. Unions have organizational capability in spades. And members of the public were brought in short notice using platforms such as the web, Twitter, and Facebook.

Outside support

Governments in positions of power do not easily capitulate, so pressure is needed from outside support. Countries that violate their citizen’s human rights face sanctions from other countries. The fledging United States of America benefited from materiel support from France in the War of Independence with Great Britain.

"I go to France for more funds
Lafayette!
I come back with more guns
And ships
And so the balance shifts..."

--Hamilton, the Musical

The small union, the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), had 55,000 members. They were part of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Ontario, who in turn had allies provincially and federally. A general strike would have had a lot of impact.

Beyond unions, and this is important, there were other sources of outside support. The federal government could have disallowed the law and Prime Minister Trudeau was critical of Bill 28, suggesting that it could happen. Premiers in other provinces, especially conservative ones, likely provided their input in back channels. They likely were concerned about the implications of a general strike in their jurisdictions. Finally, business leaders may also have weighed in. Donors and supporters to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario are another source of pressure to avoid a general strike.

Given that the government was holding all the cards, this kind of criticism was necessary for Premier Ford to appear in a press conference on Monday morning on the second day of the strike and completely capitulate.

Premier Ford and Minister Lecce were obviously uncomfortable at the press conference. Premier Ford fumbled the opening words when reading the prepared statement from the teleprompter. He even read his answers from a teleprompter.

What’s next?

Now that we’ve stepped back from the brink of a general strike, where do we go from here?

Collective bargaining

The government needs to repeal Bill 28 and that is expected to happen next Monday (November 14) when MPPs return from a break. And they need to arrive at a contract with OSBCU. Let’s hope that it contains a fair wage and appropriate working conditions.

Unions will likely use their newfound solidarity to their advantage when bargaining other contracts. Let’s hope this means more labour peace. The first test will be the current GO Transit strike.

Minister Lecce will likely keep his job. Bill 28 was a big step and took weeks to prepare. He wasn’t a loose canon. Although we haven’t seen his ministerial mandate letter, he’s been in conflict with unions since 2018. Prior to the COVID pandemic, teachers were engaged in rotating strikes and work to rule actions.

Legislative agenda

There are other bills that are worthy of public protest, but are unlikely to receive it to the same degree. Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 seeks to remove environmental protections on wetlands and allow construction on previously protected spaces. This bill reverses a 2018 election promise to not touch the greenbelt.

Source: @jamesdifiore on Twitter. Video of Doug Ford promising “Unequivocally, we won’t touch the Greenbelt.”

Regardless of your position on urban density and affordable housing, it’s not a good idea to build on flood plains during especially when global warming is bringing more extreme weather events. Will these homes even be insurable? When, not if, people are flooded out of their homes, they are going to look to government for help, both with the immediate disaster and subsequent remediation.

Bill 124 Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019 should also be repealed. The bill imposed a contract that limited wage increases to 1% on unionized and non-unionized public employees. Our health care system is currently experiencing staff shortages and long wait times due to this underfunding. This bill is under going a Charter challenge in Ontario Superior Court. Based on precedent, the challenge will likely succeed.

An item that should be on the legislative agenda is raising ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) rates. A single person on ODSP receives $14,000 per year, well below the poverty line of $19,930 in Ontario. It’s difficult to afford food and shelter on these rates. If we doubled the rate, the amount would be similar to the CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) payments that was handed out during at the start of the COVID pandemic.

More general strikes?

Unions banding together was an exceptional accomplishment. It hasn’t happened for a hundred years, roughly the same amount of time since the last pandemic. As Tom Jokinen wrote in 2019 in The Walrus,

It was an off-script moment—that’s not the way it’s ­supposed to go now that labour strength and collectivity are at an ebb. But commerce sometimes forgets what happens when it backs people into a corner, as it did in 1919, when workers got their act together and shut down a city.

Will there be another general strike here? Impossible to know. This one took an exceptional misstep by the government.

General strikes receive little coverage in traditional media, but they are happening if you look. There was one in the West Bank last week. There is one occurring in South Africa right now. There will be one in Greece tomorrow. Another is being planned in Korea for the end of the month.

France seems to have its share of general strikes and massive street protests, such as the yellow vests and farmers. I’ve read that the French are more accepting of protests, because they identify as citizens first and are more likely to act in solidarity with other citizens. This attitude hasn’t inoculated them against the same unrest as the rest of the world, but it does present another model of civic engagement. This model is a big topic, and we can get deeper into this on another day.

I’m still surprised that I called the Premier and Minister of Education and it worked. I’m not used to winning and definitely not so dramatically. Protest never works, except for when it does. The most important takeaway from this event is citizens don’t need to wait for election day to hold their government accountable. The public has been increasingly cynical and disengaged, and that’s the real problem with low voter turnout. Citizens are disconnected from their leaders, and they feel increasingly powerless and cynical when policies they don’t like are enacted.

Now, are you paying attention?

A line in the sand

Image of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Source: Government of Canada

Original post 2022/11/04

When I was a teenager, I had the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on my bedroom wall. It had pride of place right next to pinups of Duran Duran and Corey Hart. As an immigrant and racialized person, it appealed to me. The idealism of everyone being equal and having the same rights made sense to my analytical mind and stood in contrast to the baffling prejudices I experienced in my daily life.

Although Canada was founded in 1867, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was patriated only in 1982. It was authored by the first ministers– the Prime Ministers and Premiers of the ten provinces. Of course, the final deal was determined by a group of white men ensconced in a room. In this case, the room where it happened was the kitchen of a conference centre.

The Prime Minister in 1982 was Pierre Trudeau, father of our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. 

A key part of the deal was the inclusion of Section 33, the notwithstanding clause, which allows parliament, provincial or territorial legislature to declare a law to be exempt from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was added because provinces did not want their authority diminished. As envisioned, Section 33 would be used only in exceptional circumstances after fulsome debate about the trade offs between group and individual rights. It was a compromise– not ideal, but it got the job done. I’m confident that Charter would not have passed without it.

Yesterday, the Ontario government passed legislation to prevent a labour union from going on strike. As I wrote previously, Bill 28 preemptively invokes the notwithstanding clause. In other words, the government knew that the law violates the rights in Sections 3, 7, and 15 of the Charter, and they were going to do it anyways.

The Section 2 rights being infringed were “freedom of peaceful assembly” and “freedom of association.” Section 7 provides legal rights and “…the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” Section 15 provides equality rights, and the protected categories are: race, national or ethnic origin; colour; religion; sex; age or mental or physical disability.

The bill was rushed through in less than a week. There was no court challenge. There was no public debate. They hadn’t even exhausted all of the mechanisms for bargaining with a union. It was just bullying. The government has crossed a line in the sand.

So you can see why a kid who was enamoured with the Charter had to show up to protest. Normally, labour negotiations are messy. If the answer was clear, the dispute would be resolved before there’s any coverage in the media. But the invocation of the notwithstanding clause changed the calculus of the dispute. Whereas percentage wage increases are negotiable, charter rights are fundamental.

If Charter Rights and Freedoms can be taken away when they are inconvenient for a government, then no one is safe.

Today’s protest included parents, children, and representatives from many unions, including 5 unions that endorsed the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in the last election in the spring. The atmosphere was festive– there was music, an African drum circle, a conga line, and an activity tent for kids. There was a picket line around Queen’s Park and eventually traffic was stopped entirely on Queen’s Park Crescent. I saw Fred Hahn and got to talk to Laura Walton.

Forty years later, the Charter does show its age. For example, the opening sentence is: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law…” If we were writing the Charter today, we probably wouldn’t use this language.

More significantly, we collectively have changed. Politics is less collaborative, and more about scoring points. Disputes were more genteel in the 1980s and 1990s. It felt like parties across the political spectrum were working towards a common goal of a better Canada. We might disagree on how to get there, but at least we agreed on the project. When a right-of-centre party was elected, it didn’t feel like an existential threat. It felt like letting another member of the family choose what we were having for dinner. It sounds quaint now.

I don’t even know how to charitably describe right-of-centre parties today. It’s not just that they have different ideas about fiscal policy or the speed of social change, but rather we are living in different worlds with alternative facts, personal attacks rather than policy proposals, and different bounds of good behaviour. To be clear, I’m talking about only Canada in the current article. But this fracturing is playing out all over the world.

We probably wouldn’t be able patriate a Charter of Rights and Freedoms today. Or even amend it to remove the British monarchy as the head of state, to add protections for sexual orientation, or to remove the notwithstanding clause.

This dispute will play out in the coming days. The union called the gather today a political protest and not a strike. No one has been charged under the new law. Prime Minister Trudeau has expressed his disapproval of the law. It may be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada. Separately, a transit union has called a strike for Monday. The hashtag #generalstrike was trending on Twitter. Stay tuned.

Putting children first

Original post 2022/11/01

The Ontario Legislature is currently debating Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022. The purpose of the bill is to prevent education workers from going on strike and imposing a settlement on them. The worst parts of this bill are 1) preemptively invoking the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution and 2) circumventing the Ontario Human Rights Code. This is no way to run a government. It’s not how the notwithstanding clause was meant to be used and human rights aren’t limited to when it’s convenient.

If you want to learn more about the labour conflict, there’s lots of material. If the government wants to put children first, the solution is easy: pay fair wages, so schools can hire and retain qualified people. Of course the government should be responsible holders of the public purse. So that means staying at the bargaining table and making reasonable offers. Not by fast-tracking legislation that a priori takes away rights.

Why shouldn’t we use the notwithstanding clause?

Section 33 of the Canadian constitution allows governments to exempt laws from the Bill of Rights. Since Sections 2 and 7-15 of the charter protects individual rights, it was felt that some kind of mechanism was needed to supersede individual rights in an exceptional circumstance after careful consideration. The Province of Québec has been a heavy user to shield their language laws. The constitution probably would not have ratified without it

33 (1) Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15 of this Charter.

Unfortunately, the clause is being used like a cheat code when the game of governing gets to be too hard. This is the third time that the Ford government has attempted to use it.

What can I do?

Rather than ranting on social media, here are a few actions you can take. Actions at the top of the list tend to be more effective and less effort. Do one or more than one. It’s up to you.

Option 1: Contact Premier Ford, Minister Lecce and your MPP

Call Premier Ford: 416-325-1941
Call Minister Lecce: 416-325-2600

You can email too, but call is better. Premier Ford pays attention to the feedback that comes in each day and his phone is answered 24/7.

If you are just as stunned by @fordnation & @Sflecce‘s use of the Notwithstanding Clause to trample education workers’ rights, don’t just tweet. Call them.


Ford: 📞416-325-1941
Lecce: 📞416-325-2600


I am a parent. I want my child in class as much as anyone else. Not like this.” — Danyaal Raza (@DanyaalRaza) October 31, 2022

When you call, make your points and be polite. The people on the phone are just doing their jobs.

Here’s what I said.

“I’m concerned about Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act. It uses the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution and sets aside the Ontario Human Rights Code. This is not a good law. The government should get back to the bargaining table and give education workers a fair deal. Their wages should keep up with inflation and schools should be able to hire qualified people to do the work.”

You can also contact your MPP by phone or email. You can find your MPP by using your address. If your MPP is not a Conservative, it’s less effective, but still worth doing.

I emailed using basically the same words as I did over the phone.

Option 2: Write to Prime Minister Trudeau and your MP

The federal government can disallow a law passed by a provincial government. It hasn’t been used for many years, but in the past it was used a lot. Bill 28, if it’s passed, would set a bad precedent and it’s worthwhile putting up a fight.

Comment
by from discussion
intoronto

Option 3: Donate your “Catch Up Payment”

The Ministry of Education has a one-time program to give parents $200 per child ($250 for a special needs child) to help them “catch up” on learning gaps that came about as a result of the COVID pandemic. The program cost $365 million. As an individual parent, I can’t move the needle on three years of pandemic schooling with $200. But imagine what a teacher could do with $5400 or what an entire school could do with $140,000.

Apply for the payment and donate it.

I suggest CUPE, as they will be facing fines and legal fees. Email for Interac is info@osbcu.ca. You could also donate it to an opposition party. Or your favourite teacher.

Option 4: Join a picket line

Join a picket line to support them.

“Find a picket line here: cupe.on.ca/dontbeabully/” Source: @Yoequality on Twitter

I did.

How little I knew you Geraldine Ferraro

When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president in 1984, I had no idea what it meant to be a feminist and to be limited as a member of a marginalized group. But I did have the impression that Ferraro must have been a Very Bad Person, based on the people talked about her, both in terms of content and tone. It didn’t occur to me that her gender had anything to do with it. Her passing on the weekend provides me with an opportunity to reflect on how little I understood at the time about her and what she did for us.

That year, I was thirteen years old and in grade eight. I was not following politics at all. To me, the most significant event on the world stage was the birth of UK’s Prince Harry in September. I knew that there was a presidential election in the US and who candidates were. I knew that Geraldine Ferraro was running. I had no idea what the issues were in the election. But I did have the impression that Ferraro must be a Very Bad Person.

The news was always critical. She had said the wrong thing. She was doing things she shouldn’t have. Her past was questionable. More damaging than the facts were the implications, which read like a laundry list of words to marginalize someone: incompetent, immoral, not Christian, too uppity, exceeding her capabilities… The adults around me (both men and women) seemed to feel a sense of outrage; how dare she run for Vice President!

It did not strike me as remarkable that a woman was running for the position.  I had the mistaken idea that the world always was and will be this way. It didn’t occur to me that people expressed these sentiments about her, because she was a woman. I had the mistaken idea that men and women had equal opportunity in our society.

To give you an idea of how unenlightened I was, let me tell you about the most memorable scene (to me) from the move Top Gun. Maverick (Tom Cruise) had kept Charlie (Kelly McGillis) waiting, because he stayed to play beach volleyball with his mates. When Maverick arrived at Charlie’s place, he made weak excuses and asked her to wait some more while he had a shower. Charlie said no and made him talk to her un-showered. This scene amazed me, because it was an example of a woman not letting a man get away with bad behavior. In my daily life, male relatives often acted badly, and women just put up with it. It never occurred to me that there was something that we could do about it.

But, in a sense, there wasn’t anything we could do about it. On one occasion, I did resist and it didn’t work out well. My brother, sister, and I were supposed to take turns making lunch to bring to school. My brother, being the youngest and the only son, often shirked his duties with little reprimand from our parents. The job was often left to me and my sister. We probably should have just not made his lunch until he pitched in. But that was too blatant and would have drawn the ire of our parents. My sister and I hatched a plan: we would make his sandwich inside-out with the bread in the middle, the meat on the outside, and the condiments on top. We giggled like fiends as we prepared this messy revenge. When my brother came home, he was furious. (My husband says that it was probably because we embarrassed him in front of his friends.) He raged and yelled at us. And what did we do? We did what we saw our female role models did. We acquiesced and didn’t do it again. It’s astonishing, now that I look back on it. The me in 2011 would never put up with something like this. I don’t think we did our brother any favors either.

Reading Ferraro’s obituary gave me a new appreciation for what she did and how far I have come. I know what it’s like to be under attack. I know what it’s like to have special attacks lobbed at me with astonishing vitriol, because I was a woman and I dared. She held up remarkably against the barrage of attacks. She opened up possibilities for women who followed. Rest in peace, Geraldine Ferraro.

If a revolution were organized by women…

New York Times Magazine had an amazing article this week,
The New Abortion Providers, by Emily Bazelon. It talks about efforts over the last thirty years to make abortions a part of mainstream medical practice.

This approach reminded me of a discussion that I had with a couple of ladies at church. Despite their age (or because of it), they were die-hard feminists and progressive Christians. They talked about how their grandmothers were also feminists, but in a quiet way, behind the scenes. They opined that behind any social movement that was successful had women doing the cooking and organizing while the men were doing the blustering. But at the same time, they didn’t embrace the dominant narrative of feminism. Jo Cranson mentioned Ashley Montague interviewing a grandmother who ask why she should settle for equality when it’s less than what I had before. Robinmarie McClement cited Susan B. Anthony being very concerned about women losing their quiet power behind the throne, if they pursued feminism as a public battle.

Protests and gauntlets in front of free-standing clinics are effective because abortions are a marginalized medical practice. If more doctors performed abortions in their offices or in a hospital, it would make it much more difficult for protesters to single out patients. This change would involve making abortion a standard procedure in the practice of family doctors, internists, and OB/GYN.

In 1995, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education made abortion training a requirement for all OB/GYN residency programs, meaning that medical students would be receiving mandated hours of lecture on how to perform abortion. This motivation behind this move was to make abortion part of the professional qualifications of a doctor. Even if the student never performs an abortion, they needed to be educated about it.

The next step was to make in-roads into academic medicine by establishing fellowships to provide advanced training and to support research.

“A physician at the U.C.S.F. medical school set up the Family Planning Fellowship, a two-year stint following residency that pays doctors to sharpen their skills in abortion and contraception, to venture into research and to do international work. In recent years, the fellowship has expanded to 21 universities, including the usual liberal-turf suspects — Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, U.C.L.A. — but also schools in more conservative states, like the University of Utah, the University of Colorado and Emory University in Georgia.”

International work was an important component because it exposed the fellows to countries where back alley abortions were still common. Another side effect of the residencies is that the physicians need to perform enough abortions to “train to competency.” In other words, they need to do enough procedures to be able to handle complications. This process often involves performing many, many abortions in a hospital setting, because the complication rates for first-trimester abortions are so low (about 1%). This training usually occurs in hospitals, which means greater, safe access for women. Coming out of these fellowships, residents are equipped to make decisions about the place of abortion in their own practice. The decision whether or not to offer thee treatment is not necessarily a simple yes or no, but possibly choosing a cut-off, such as 7, 9, or 13 weeks.

These small changes are brilliant, because they don’t involve direct confrontation with the protesters on the front lines. They make abortion more available by changing the context. If physicians could bring the simple procedure into the medical fold, it would reduce the need for free-standing clinics and the vulnerability of their patients. (An abortion at 9 weeks gestation produces no recognizes fetal parts and takes less than five minutes by a skilled provider, using device that is “about 10 inches long, costs only $30 and looks like the kind of appliance you might find in a kitchen drawer.”)

There are still other obstacles in the way, such as hospitals being squeamish about associated with abortion and the cost of extra medical insurance, but change is afoot. Moreover, this is a change brought about largely by women for women, with the support of male colleagues, away from the glare of publicity and politics.

Many of the protégées Grimes is talking about are women. In the first generation after Roe, abortion providers were mostly men because doctors were mostly men. Since then, women have streamed into the ranks of OB-GYN and family medicine. They are now the main force behind providing abortion.

Let’s hear it for social revolutions organized by women.

Dreamboarding, not waterboarding

I saw this post today on dreamboarding, and the first thing that I thought of was waterboarding. It turns out that the two have nothing to do with each other, except for the coincidental use of the term “boarding,” but what if…

Dreamboarding is a technique for presenting your dreams or aspirations in a visual format. Kind of like a scrapbooking/collage/dreamcatcher mash up. It’s supposed to be done to celebrate the full moon, with the hope that the dreams will come true.

Waterboarding, in the other hand, is a torture technique. I blogged about this previously, but essentially it simulates drowning by pouring water into the victim’s mouth and nose.

What if dreamboarding was a peace-building technique where you poured dreams into your enemy until they drowned in them? By immersing him or her in one’s hopes, fears, aspirations, love, joy, sorrows, and nightmares, one could win over hearts and minds, rather than alienate them. War is waged only against the “other,” that is, against those who are not one of us. There is no “them,” there is only “we.” Resources, territory, and power are not zero sum games. Peace is not just the absence of war, it’s the presence of a stable, just, and fair community of people who are fed, clothed, healthy, and sheltered.