126 years ago tomorrow, June 28, 2021, one-third of the Doukbohors in the Russian Caucasus joined in a daring protest of burning guns — all their killing weapons.
The significance of the Burning of Arms event for the Spirit Wrestlers / Doukhobors is enormous then and now. Why?
This concrete act catapulted the Russian group into the international arena. Civilization was presented with a nonkilling alternative strategy of living instead of the use of violence from the gun, the bomb and other weapons of mass destruction.
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'Arms Burning by Russian Doukhobors in 1895 by William Perehudoff, 1969. Click picture to enlarge. |
Today the precarious international relations with world nations demands the same serious attention that Doukhobors applied to guns 126 years ago. No more killing! No more wars! It's time for the leaders of the world to make war illegal as a crime.
More
- List of all my previous Peace Day Messages.
- Russia: The Doukhobor 1895 Arms Burning is Relevant. Posted by Transcend Media Service, June 28, 2021.
- 'Does Canada Contribute to World Peace?' An open letter to the Prime Minister of Canada. Posted in World Beyond War, April 28, 2021.
- 'Historic 1895 Burning of Guns, selections and translations.' June 26, 2020.
- 'Tolstoy and the Doukhobors. Lessons from Nonkilling Leadership Experiences', at the First Global Leadership Forum, Hawaii, November 1-4, 2007.
- Peter's Day Commemorations, Doukhobor Calendar of Events Throughout Canada, USCC Doukhobors website.
- The Doukhobor Arms Burning of 1895, by Larry Ewashen.
Thank you for your continuing persistence at ensuring humanity is working towards becoming a better people, Koozma.
ReplyDeleteThank you Kòozma for your work for a non killing world. Your continuing efforts are an inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI admire the irrepressible power of endurance in pursuit of a nonviolent world that you and your spirit-wrestlers demonstrate tirelessly. As you know, I'm with you in this struggle, but in view of the rapidly progressing militarization of the human world across the globe, I fear it'll take a massive self-destructive event to silence those who are willing to pull the trigger on the weapons they have gone to such lengths (and cost) to manufacture.
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly for your learned comment on my most recent Spirit Wrestlers article on the 1895 burning of arms event in Russia. Yes, I hear you that it would take massive efforts to silence those who are addicted to pull the trigger when disagreement arises. In any case, I still feel it is worthwhile to make this story known to the wider public -- so as to encourage the growth of wisdom in the new generations.
DeleteI don't agree with criminalizing war, as an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. We just need to stop.
ReplyDeleteEssentially I agree with you that we need to stop making and using guns and other weapons of destruction. This will require massive public education over many years, beginning with ourselves.
DeleteThanks much for the reminder of the burning of arms event. I still think it is indeed a most significant moment in history to have the history of that recorded. Covid now slowing down a bit here, and more opening happening. The Mennonite Heritage Village has recently set up a Mennonites at War exhibit to say what the arms burning was all about.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Koozma. I do know the origin of the Doukhobor Peter's Day in June. In fact my cousin Louise who lives in LaSalle, Ontario came to Kamsack, Saskatchewan and sat with the dignitaries because her Grandfather Lebedoff was the first man to throw his gun into the bonfire. Then how did a radical sect... resort to such violence when they moved to British Columbia. I certainly am not proud of them. Where are they now?
ReplyDeleteGlad to. know that you have not forgotten the St. Peter's Day or Peace Day event that characterizes t the essence of the Doukhobors.
DeleteThe zealots or so-called Sons of Freedom are really another tribe. Because of their actions of violence and nudity, they have essentially kicked themselves out of the Doukhobor movement. However, that is not how they see themselves -- because they think they are the central part of the movement. This is a clash of two different cultures. Please have a look at my feature article on the group 'The "Sons of Freedom" -- a Flashback to 1956', in my Spirit Wrestlers website with the link to the article being: http://goo.gl/OkXDKV.