La'Onf: The Making of an Iraqi Nonviolence Movement

by Preston Davis

Helpless victims or heartless terrorists? For years, these two stereotypes have framed U.S. perceptions of the people of Iraq. Whether Iraqis are the targets of violence or are perpetrators of it, many Americans have argued the need for U.S. intervention to “keep the peace.”

La’Onf defies this simplistic and dualistic view. La’Onf, which translates in Arabic as “no to violence,” is a network of Iraqi organizations committed to enabling the agency of the Iraqi people in determining a peaceful future through active nonviolence. As La’Onf representative Abdulsattar Essmat Younus stated upon receiving the 2009 Pfeffer International Peace Award from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, “For a peaceful and democratic Iraq to emerge, we must get there through nonviolence. That is the way.”

La’Onf works tirelessly to turn the tide of violence in Iraq by organizing at the grassroots level. La’Onf’s inception, however, developed in the most unlikely of times. In 2005, two years after the U.S. invasion and the year of Iraq’s first post-invasion national elections, the country plummeted into ethnic and sectarian violence. A civil war erupted, which in some regions was cast in religious terms — set between historically dominant Sunni communities and newly empowered Shiite groups. The news reported a grim picture of Iraq’s present and future, marked by suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices.

Yet within that difficult reality, a collective of human rights activists responded — not through picking sides with either the American occupation forces or resistance fighters, but by organizing local communities to engage in a common effort to oppose all violence.

Before the U.S. invasion in 2003, Ismaeel Dawood ran a shoe shop in Baghdad and studied statistics. His life changed dramatically. Amidst the devastation of war, Dawood began collecting stories of civilian casualties and worked with others to compile information about the detention of Iraqis in U.S. military prisons.

Dawood’s effort to document the impact of American military and Iraqi sectarian violence on the Iraqi people led him to Jean-Marie Muller, a French expert in nonviolence, and Martina Pignatti Morano from Un Ponte Per (formerly Bridges to Baghdad), an Italian NGO established after the 1991 Gulf War to organize humanitarian aid for the Iraqi population and to fight the embargo imposed on the country. Muller and UPP began organizing nonviolence trainings for people in Baghdad, most of whom were connected with the al-Mesalla Centre, a community-based human rights center working to strengthen the role of the Iraqi civil society.

Iraqi human rights activists received training in nonviolent theory and practice by studying the lives and work of practitioners such as Bacha Khan, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Abdulsattar Younus’ participation in the training was a life choice in stark opposition to his past. “All I saw from when I was a child was killing and war. My father was forced into the army. So was my brother. That’s the way it was for many families.”

For Younus, Saddam Hussein’s war crimes against the people of Iraq — including the Dujail massacre and the torture of women and children — as well as the broader shadow of intimidation and fear that the Baathist leadership cast over the nation, clarified for him that the only path to peace is through nonviolence. As he began his studies of nonviolence, he found deep inspiration in the lives of Gandhi, King, Mandela, and Khan. “Their experiences,” Younus says, “encourage all of us who are struggling for human rights and peace.”

While the La’Onf network grew steadily, the outside world only saw a violent picture of Iraq. Ethnic and sectarian killings had dramatically escalated, particularly in Baghdad. In March 2006, the published death toll of civilians rose to over 12,000 — the highest count since the invasion.

Within Iraq’s fractured state, La’Onf carved out a new path toward peace — but it was controversial to both the occupiers and occupied. “If you speak about resistance you are accused of supporting terrorists and advocating violence,” says founder Dawood, “but if you speak about nonviolence you are accused of supporting the occupation. La’Onf seeks to create a third way with its message that nonviolence is a tool to resist occupation, terrorism, and corruption.”

In that spirit, newly-trained activists organized a “week of nonviolence” in the neighborhoods of Baghdad in May 2006. La’Onf organizers held public forums in open settings such as shops, mosques, and schools. They spoke to people at police stations and even Iraqi and U.S. military bases about their nonviolent vision. They also gathered signatures toward a petition endorsing nonviolent approaches to rebuild their country. The activities conducted during the first week of nonviolence fostered a movement that extended nonviolent training to others, influencing those in political positions as well as members of civil society. Two member of the Iraqi parliament participated in the nonviolence training.

In May 2007, a second week of nonviolence took on a more national scope, involving 42 organizations from ten different governorates of Iraq. Eventually, membership and trained nonviolent activists expanded to all 18 governorates of Iraq. As Iraqi governorate networks grew, they took a more structured approach by electing a coordinator and a board to lead La’Onf in each district.

La’Onf supports a democratic Iraq by requiring each elected governorate board to include 30 percent women and at least one person from a group that is a minority within that governorate. There is also a strong commitment to including tribal leaders and Islamists, although there are no specific quotas. By the time elections had been held in each governorate in June 2008, well over 100 Iraqi organizations had committed to the principles of nonviolence and joined the La’Onf network. “We are affirmed and motivated that so many Iraqis have become involved in the nonviolent cause,” says Younus. “It proves that Iraqis want a unified peaceful country, and we can work together to create it.”

By August 2008, with the United States consumed with domestic pre-election madness and losing interest in Iraq, La’Onf had taken another major step. Though fighting had subsided from the year before, the country looked like a shattered shell of its former self. The infrastructure of the country was badly damaged and the national economy devastated, while random attacks and bombings remained an ever-present reality. Despite these life-threatening obstacles, representatives from 15 of Iraq’s governorates met in Erbil, Kurdistan for La’Onf’s first national meeting with a democratically-elected leadership structure. They shared experiences, discussed strategy, and finalized plans for La’Onf’s third annual week of nonviolence, which focused on creating an informed, free, and safe atmosphere for the 2010 elections. During the October 2008 week of action, organizers across the nation sought to educate voters about their rights.

La’Onf’s activities have not been limited to the political process. One of its most successful campaigns has been the promotion of a ban on war toys. Realistic-looking toy guns have been mistaken for actual weapons by occupation troops, who have tragically shot and killed young boys playing with them. In the governorate of Muthanna, a 2007 petition drive sponsored by La’Onf resulted in the outlawing of importation and sale of all war toys. In place of war toys, children were provided with soccer balls. La’Onf activists are now preparing a similar appeal to the national government in Baghdad.

La’Onf’s voice continues to grow throughout Iraq’s civil society. Trade unions, student organizations, and community associations from across Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups — including Kurdish, Sunni, Shiite, Assyrian, and Turkeman — are joining the movement for nonviolence. The timing is key: with national elections scheduled for January 2010, an escalation in violence is a grave threat.

La’Onf has also sought support from the international community. Peaceful Tomorrows — an organization founded by family members of those killed on September 11, 2001, advocating nonviolent options in pursuit of justice — has taken up the cause of promoting La’Onf’s work among American peace activists. Terry Rockefeller is a documentary filmmaker and project director at Peaceful Tomorrows. Her sister Laura died in the World Trade Center in 2001. Rockefeller met members of La’Onf during one of their trainings. “I was so struck by the vast differences between the images and stories Americans see of Iraqis and what it was like to talk with these visionary Iraqi advocates.”

Rather than hopeless victims, Rockefeller saw members of La’Onf as empowered collectives devoted to transforming Iraqi society through the agency of nonviolence. “We believe supporting La’Onf can be an important part of ending war and occupation in Iraq,” says Rockefeller. “It highlights U.S. responsibilities to support the reconstruction of Iraqi society by Iraqis.”

La’Onf is also committed to resisting violence against women. “We must work hard to stand up against the customs and traditions that justify violence against women,” says Younus. “Iraqi women have suffered under the previous authoritarian regimes, and by war, occupation, and sectarian violence, they paid the price in double and the result is the emergence of an army of widows estimated in the millions.” To create beneficial change for women and for Iraq as a whole, Iraqis must own their future, Younos insists.

In June 2009, U.S. forces met the deadline set for withdrawal of troops from Iraqi cities. In October, American troops levels in Iraq were still estimated at 120,000. Yet that was a decrease of more than 20,000 troops since the beginning of the year. U.S. forces will not substantially withdraw further until after the 2010 elections, and that is dependent on an assessment of whether the nation is still mired in violence.

Younus believes that change will happen due to the grassroots efforts of local Iraqis, not military forces. He argues that Iraq needs the work of La’Onf more than ever to strengthen self-empowered agency rooted in a nonviolent ethos; that process is what will overcome the fighting that has imprisoned Iraq in violence. “There is no alternative but a nonviolent popular struggle to bring and ensure human rights and social justice,” emphasizes Younus. “That has to be our path to bring back our beloved country.”

Preston Davis is a M.Div. candidate at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 2009-10, he is interning at the Fellowship of Reconciliation in communications and interfaith engagement.