 But welcome, everybody, to this workshop. We're so excited to have you with us. The title of this session is Advancing Nonviolent Civilian-Based Defense and Religious Peacebuilding, The Case of War in Ukraine. So my name is Eli McCarthy. I'm a professor at Georgetown University in Justice and Peace Studies. I had a chance to take a couple trips to Ukraine last year. One was an interfaith delegation. The second one was meeting with about 25 local peace builders and nonviolent resistors in Ukraine in the city of Kiev. And we heard a lot of amazing stories of people doing non-cooperation in really difficult situations, farmers refusing to sell grain to Russian soldiers, school directors refusing to teach Russian curriculum, and civilians hiding them so they would be protected. But the practitioners in Ukraine also asked that their stories were shared more broadly. They asked for help with training, like how to run a strategic campaign, digital security. They also asked for help with advocating their government to generate a strategy of non-cooperation that they could all participate in in the occupied areas. So last point here. And then I'm going to pass it over to our moderator and our speakers. I talked with a friend who went to Ukraine a couple weeks ago into the Zaporizhstan region, which is where the nuclear plant is. And they were talking with many civilians about how to establish a safety zone and different things like that. And they were told a particular story that before the Russians controlled Zaporizhstan, the military was trying to get into that region. And the civilians, for six straight days, gathered on the streets and blocked the access to the Russian military. And the Russians did not get in. Finally, on the seventh day, they blocked them again. And then when they left in the evening, the Russians came in at night. They killed some Ukrainian National Guardsmen. And then they had control of Zaporizhstan. So six straight days, they were able to hold them off through this kind of spontaneous civilian-based defense. So we're going to learn a lot more about this. Marie Dennis is going to be our moderator today. She is the senior director of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative with Pax Christi International and a very inspiring, amazing person. So let me hand it over to you, and we'll get rolling. Thank you, Eli, and welcome again, everyone. This session will engage the question of how to develop nonviolent civilian-based defense for large-scale conflicts, with the example of Ukraine providing a critical illustration of the need for such development. After learning of proven examples and understanding their dynamics, the session will challenge participants to imagine and create a sequence of critical steps to develop a systemic, nonviolent, civilian-based defense for your own context. In a related effort to break cycles of violence, this session will also explore the intersection of religion and peace building in Ukraine, as well as ways to support such activity. In turn, this session will contribute to solutions that we hope can prevent war, minimize harm if war occurs, and generate a more sustainable peace. This is a session that is both by Zoom, as you can see, and in person. So we have the pleasure of welcoming to our circle three speakers who will lead our conversation today, beginning with Philippe Daza, who is a professor of civil resistance, public advocacy, and human rights in the Paris School of International Affairs of the Sciences Po University and Open University of Catalonia. For the past 20 years, he has engaged with nonviolent movements from the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe, and the South Caucasus. He has recently published an account of the civil resistance experience in Ukraine in the Ukrainian nonviolent civil resistance in the face of war. He is also a senior consultant for the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. So welcome, Philippe. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you very much. And thank you. I cannot see your face as I hope that the audience here will allow me to express their attitude to participate in this important conference. And, yeah, so as Dennis was mentioned, the report, I will share with you my screen so everybody can see it. One second. Yeah, no, much better. So, yeah, as he was mentioned already, I conducted, from the beginning of the last invasion, I conducted a research called Ukrainian nonviolent civil resistance in the face of war from the period of February 24 until June 30. But I continue conducting consultations and different meetings with activists at the end of 2022 and also at the beginning of this year. So we combined mapping around 2035 nonviolent actions. So Eli was already highlighting some specific actions. But only this 235 is just the peak of the iceberg. So there are hundreds of actions that they were not recorded in telegram or this disseminated in the national local media. But there are, day by day, we are recovering these stories. And I think that it's very important to recover these stories in order to talk about the memory and also talk about the recognition of the people that were behind this type of anonymous heroes that were confronting the invasion and they were supporting the people and saving lives. So from the majority of the comments I will say with you and the findings are basically systematized in this report. But I would like to start making general trends of the nonviolent actions from the period of February until June 2022. At the beginning of the invasion, we saw a predominant massive actions like public actions, expressions, actions in the country. Like we had different demonstrations in Hezone. For example, there were daily actions against the coup. We also saw different musical activities using the Ukrainian folklore. So all these specific acts of expression had a very important aim of maintaining the high morale and having a very clear message that this territory was Ukraine and that people were Ukrainian people. And it's very important because this also quite connected with the idea of basically consolidating and reinforcing Ukrainian identity, something that I will speak later on. So it's also true that from until the end of March, these actions were very frequent, especially in occupied areas. But when the basically the repression started to increase, especially in Hezone, Saporizhia, so these specific actions start to decrease. And then we start to saw a second wave of actions, more connected with more clandestinal actions in the ground. People start to basically hanging yellow, blue ribbons at night, making graffiti in the cities, showing that Hezone was Ukraine, hanging flags, or withdrawing even Soviet and Russian flags from public buildings. So it was also very important actions by the world clandestineans in order to avoid the risk of the arbitrary detention. It's very important to highlight that these actions had a very important, of course, goal to maintain again the high morale of the people. And we need to understand that the Russians were not expecting the specific resistance in this area. There were especially the areas of Hezone that were traditional, more exposed to the Russian influence. They were, it was expected more, it was expected more support, even to embrace the invasion. And this specific resistance was something that affected and demoralized the Russian soldiers. In the beginning of April and June, we start to see a new wave of actions more connected with non-corporation. Eli was mentioned some of them, but I think these non-corporation actions were critical. We saw non-corporation actions from the health sector, for example, from different workers in malls or public workers that refuse to build barricades for the Russian soldiers. And especially the actions from the local authorities, like local authorities refuse, for example, to deliver the public census to the Russians in order to conduct the pseudo-referendums. This had a very important impact in terms of undermining the military goals of the coup d'etat. After this period, after June, we see in the last picture of the situation, we saw a very important decrease of actions. I think that the areas of Saporizhia, the situation is very, very risky. Areas like Donetsk, Luhansk, you know, the frontline is very difficult to see like specific non-bion actions. But still, for example, in Crimea, there's a very strong cultural resistance movement that are Crimeans are organizing different, different types of actions connected with culture, with music, showing their identity and connected their identity with the Ukrainian symbology and Ukrainian flags and basically nation. And this is something that is still ongoing, again, in combination with the Yellow River campaign in some of the Coup d'etats as well. I would like to move on now into more into the complete impacts and some challenges. So, first of all, it's the specific impacts on undermining the military goals. I will say that at the beginning of the invasion, the specific actions regarding physical interposition of the military convoys or, for example, like construction of barricades in some cities, it really slowed down the movements of the Russian troops' direction to Kiev. This has a specific impact. But at the same time, in areas occupied areas like Hezhar and Saporizhia, when these areas were already occupied, then the Russians had also two fronts. One was to combat the Ukrainian army in the frontline and the second one also was to control the urban areas because there were, again, daily demonstrations by the local residents against the invasion. All the specific impacts are very important. I think that non-violent is one of the most important capacities, is basically the capacity to provide answers in the armed conflict. And one of these needs is security, is the protection of civilians. So, we observe how the civil society has led a solid security system of protection for example, from the evacuation of local residents in the occupied areas, and the transportation to safe places. Also, the provision of Sikosoza support in the West areas. So, all this specific protection system was organized by civil society, by non-violent activists, and especially by women. So, women had a very important role in the evacuation phases and the transportation of local residents and citizens to the safe places. Another important element that we observed was the capacity to establish dialogue with Russian army. Again, in the occupied areas, we recorded, we registered cases where civilians, local residents were able to enter into dialogue and negotiation with the Russian soldiers to release citizens of the world under the tension. This has, we have several cases of this situation. And also, we had cases where there were situations of even fraternization with the Russian soldiers. One of the concrete examples was the case of Eslabutich, which is the town of the workers of Chernobyl. It is a city located in the north of Ukraine. And when the city was occupied on March 26, the whole city go out to the streets, organize in the public hall in the main square, and then they move direction to the occupiers. The occupiers were, you know, they were completely super-factored by the situation, but there was a very constant movement of the local residents towards them, with music, with flags, with smiles. And there was a moment, there was a confrontation, very confrontation face-to-face between Russians and the local citizens. And in this moment, there was these forces, the non-violence force, and then in the other side, this military force, there were a space, you know, for fraternization and for forcing a negotiation. This negotiation was the release of the mayor who was captured some hours before, and also the withdrawal of the Russian army two days later. Another important element is that the non-violence also affecting the pillars of power of the Kremlin. We can observe that it's not only affecting the military goals, you know, in Ukraine, but also affecting the domestic politics inside Russia. For example, if we observe the evolution of the Russian propaganda, how Putin and the different ministers were changing and changing the narrative and the justification of the special operation, it's also connected with the evolution on the ground, not only with the military defeats, but also with the incapacity to demonstrate or to justify the liberation of the Ukrainians when you have people every day demonstrating the streets in the squares of the cities, saying that this is Ukraine, so you don't have too many evidence, you know, to show to the people that you are saving lives, you know. This is also connected and is connected with one another research I'm now conducting, but why, you know, for example, Russia is now increasing the use of private armies, like Butler Group. So this is also connected with the incapacity and the difficulties to have more military mobilizations in Russia. We have already 1 million people that has left the country, and many people don't understand in Russia why, what is the reason of this war, right? So another area of impact, I will say, is the community resilience, and this is very important. So contemporary conflicts, in the contemporary conflicts, motivation is very important. And then we can see the difference between what is happening inside Russia and what is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine is very clear that people is fighting for the territory, for the people, and for their identity. They consider this war as a battle of self-determination and social emancipation process, and they are really, really convinced that they need to win. And this is creating a very strong solidarity, a very strong resilience between the people. But of course, this is not enough. You need to create a strong communication system, to convey this solidarity. I have recorded stories from activists from Sumi region, the north of the country as well, every day making stories about supporting people, about resisting, and these communication systems are really, really important to maintain resilience. And this again, this is connected with the idea of these clandestine actions, to like the Yellow River Campaign, maintain the high morale, even in context of occupation. So another, I think this is connected again, and maybe my colleagues will develop later on better, the concept of the Ukrainian identity, but again, in this process of self-determination, so the consideration of the Ukrainian identity is very, very important. I think Ukrainian identity is one of the key topics now that are being discussed in the liberated areas. So what means to be Ukrainian, and what means, you know, what it's going to be, to be Ukrainian in the modern Ukrainian nation. One key component that I would like to highlight as well is the local governance. I think that the non-violence is also intimately connected with the idea of community organizing. So all the community organizing around non-violent actions are really important. And we observe, you know, the emergence of self-organized groups, groups composed by ordinary citizens, people that they never had, they never engaged in social activism, with people that they have, there are professionals, people from, you know, professional NGOs, that they moved to the rural areas to support the families, to support the people at local level. So this composition, these self-organized groups are authentic schools of, you know, social and political empowerment. So we have now multiple leaders at the community level. There are people that they have recognition, credibility, legitimacy by the whole community because they were doing a very important work in the most difficult times, and the siege by the Russians and the occupation. So these people can be the future leaders at regional level or even a national level. It's very important to continue supporting this process. But again, these people's power that is evolving at a local level is very important for the future, for the democracy in Ukraine. A democratic process that started decades ago, as you know, in the 2014, after Euromaidan, there was a very important package of reforms. One of them was the decentralization process, to bring more power to the local level. And if the local communities are more ready, more and have more capacities, and of course, more experience and practice, on dealing with the local issues that we are going to have a more healthy democracy. And the final company is the accountability process. So in the face of our conflicts, so people need security, people need recovery, but also people need to confront impunity. And we consider all the dramatic consequence of this work and all the human tragedies. The accountability company is very important. And here the human rights organization, the coalition, for example, 5AM, or important organizations like Civil Liberties Organization, has created a very sophisticated and professional infrastructure for monitoring world crimes, and in order to increase the accountability basically to the aggressors. So I will, this is the part of the impacts, and I will finalize with some ideas just for the debate. So if we are thinking about developing non-violent civilian-based defense systems for our conflicts or large-scale conflicts, I think it's very important to the starting point of the civil society. Civil society is essential, and to have a very strong civil society with a very diverse ecosystem of organizations, like human rights organizations, for example, communities of mediation and dialogue, peace-building organizations, independent journalists. So this is very important in order to have the base of this system. And another connection with this key element is the idea of where the power is. The power in Ukraine was at local level. So everything happened at local level, even though that we have some networks and some systems that there were national they had a national perspective, like for example, the Monetary World Crimes, the majority of the non-violent actions were decentralized and were occurring at a local level without a hierarchical system. And I think that this is also another value when it comes about large conflicts because it can confront centralized armies. So this decentralization is also another value to confront this type of modern armies. And... Flipp, can you hear me? Just about one more minute, okay? And then we have to move on to the next speakers. Perfect. And then at local level, we need to put attention on the centers of local power. So in Ukraine, the local power was cultural centers, youth centers, the small charts in Meditopol. So these are the places where all the local life and the people is organized and articulated. Again, community and resilience and the concept of motivation is really important. I will keep it here. And then the concept of every format, self-organized groups try to reinforce and to create spaces of coordination between professional organizations, grassroots organizations and ordinary citizens. And finally, the role of women. I think it's very, very important also to ensure a very important, or to provide answer to very important needs in the context of our conference. I will keep it here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Flipp. Your research is making a tremendous contribution to this conversation. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Tatiana Kalenyachenko, who has a PhD in sociology, the sociology of religion. Her thesis was on the religious component in sociopolitical context, conflict in Ukraine between 2013 and 2017. With her colleagues, Tatiana created an initiative called Dialogue in Action that aims to develop a culture of dialogue in territorial communities in Ukraine, uniting secular and religious leaders. Welcome, Tatiana. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you so much for an honor to present and good afternoon, good evening for those who are listening and for you. I will talk briefly and I will hope to keep a timeline about religion at war and a special phase-based peace-building practices in Ukraine. And I will talk from both perspectives of academia person and practitioner. As soon as I think in the phase-based peace-building is a special part of peace-building practices now and especially after the full-scale invasion in 2022. So just in general, just to remind and to those people who are not so, it's such an Ukrainian religious context, here you can see some ordinary photo of all Ukrainian council of churches and religious organizations representatives. For United, 95% of all religious organizations in Ukraine, there are several Christian denominations, Muslim denominations, Jewish, and non-Christian and others. And there's a special platform since 2004 where they're trying to get consensus decision and to get a mutual position of religious organizations of Ukraine. Anyways, it's not the only one form and I will talk briefly about different forms of activities. But as for me, that's one of the official organizations which could be like an image of multi-religious context and landscape of Ukraine. And definitely it's not only Christian, it's not only about orthodoxy, but it's about celebrating diversity in all measures of religious, national, civil identity and also attempts to rethink peace-building because in 2017 they created a special strategy on building peace in Ukraine. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to do it so, but anyway, in general, religious leaders and active believers are ready to do something. Still they need to understand what they mean by peace. Definitely we've got rapid changes after 2014 and especially after the last year. And on the photo you can see one of the typical ruins because we've got hundreds of ruins of religious objects in Ukraine now. And it's a special moment, I would say, of physical existential ruin for people. And definitely I will just talk briefly about overall general trends for religious organizations at war without specifics. So definitely there is a need for public positioning and response to all range of crises. So we've got social economical, political crisis, COVID, which didn't help a lot for religious organizations. Full scale invasion as the recent one and also it's a need to adapt all the time. That's the reason why we are so much focused now on the frames of adaptive peace-building because it's possible to understand how it can be flexible in responses to ongoing crises. There is still a trend of politicization and instrumentalization of religion not only about politicians but also for businessmen for other forces because it's not only about religious conflicts which we're dealing with but it's more about resource-based conflicts which involves religious component or religious organizations into it. There are several conflicts among different denominations. And mainly I've got an example of Protestant communities in Ukraine and Russia and Orthodox communities because they've got the coverage for not only Ukraine but Russia and they've got a strong ties between each other and it's really important just to see the dynamics of relationship between people and a special focus with this part of religious organizations. Definitely all religious organizations should deal with internal dilemmas like, for example, how to deal with occupation and how to stay on non-government-controlled areas if it's possible and what should be direction and some instructions for those leaders on the ground, how to deal with different political views by people and by lady who are attending services and attending prayers, how to deal with different leaders and to position themselves in terms of war and in terms of different social dilemmas they've got. There is a huge need of revision of theological explanations and reflections not only on Ukrainian level but on global religious level too. And we've got a special developments called like theology of peace and theology of war in trying to understand how religious leaders should act, how it's possible to explain on existential level for believers and how it's possible to do something in future and what should be the basis on. And of course, it's a need to form international global communication because even orthodox, if we take into account orthodox dilemma that you create today, that's not only about Ukraine, that's about global orthodoxy in the world. We've got a lot of public practices of peace building and by peace building, I mean a wide range of activities in not only in social cohesion but in general on nonviolent resistance, on dealing with humanitarian crisis and a lot of which Philippe already mentioned. And it's quite symbolical photo on one of the shelters during the bombing an air arm when you can see among preaching of people who are there, probably not all of them are Christians, but at least they're trying to take this role of psychosocial support and the role of some stability in life and existential presence even for those who are not believers at all. We've got several public practices like public praise for peace and we've got a lot of religious representatives gathering in the main sense of your cathedral doesn't matter are they Christian or not, but it's like a symbolical place of a cathedral of ninth century but they gather together with president mainly and prime minister and praying for peace for Ukraine. Also as a presence on social, political level and different political processes and trying to understand how the processes should be and especially in terms of war because active phase of war is not a time when we stop any kind of peace building activities. There is a huge need and still ongoing process of commemoration of war victims. Still it's needed to be understood who do we mean by war victims and how we should make the frame of it. And in general, how we should commemorate not to forget anyone, but also to get this is a platform not only for sadness, but for future. Of course, it's all Ukrainian council churches and religious organizations events and on a global level on a special on a platform of OAC. But I would say that the special role is now dedicated for military chaplains. Those who are standing with not only militaries but with all people on the frontline together dealing the same dilemmas and the same troubles every day. And they are those people who are standing on the frontline and trying to respond to all the crises and the God and critical questions too. And of course, it's a whole range of social ministry. And one of it you can see in a train that's like a moral support for kids who are evacuated from the war zone. And there are all the types of social services with God, especially in humanitarian crisis and humanitarian interventions on incorporation sometimes with secular activities, but sometimes when it's impossible for international foundations or secular initiatives to come in and to serve and to get any kind of services for people, then religious leaders who are staying in a gray zone, who are staying under occupation. They're the only one people who are getting this possibility to evacuate even from Lugansk Donetsk today, which are occupied for years. They've got some shelter, they've got a lot of monasteries and camps for refugee hubs, exchange of prisoners. And also that was a special mission of Orthodox Church to Mariupol when they were trying to negotiate with the Russian side and to get people free. Also that's humanitarian aid in all spheres and abroad too. And shelters abroad are working a lot on religious and faith-based basis. And of course, it's legal and social support, especially for families who lost their relatives and who are engaged in the military service. And that's actually what changed for the last year because before it was not so typical to get someone who is serving on a frontline in your family, but now it's almost impossible to find anyone who didn't get those relatives on frontline. And a special part of first spiritual and psychological help. And it's really important to divide those two types because it's not only psychological aid is needed, but a lot of responses on existential level too. And here you can see on the photo one of the public inter-Autodox dialogues. I would not say it's so resultive right now, but at least it's possible to unite and get any kind of safe space for meeting each other and for people with really different perspectives inside one Christian confession, but different jurisdictions. And we've got a lot of types of faith-based dialogues like official and official presentation on global level and when they're traveling abroad. And also that's about faith-based diaspora of Ukrainian people in all countries. That's a lot of Latin horizontal and shuttle diplomacy meetings and emphasize Protestant orthodox because when it's impossible, for example, to find your relatives or your friends who lost connection and who were specially forcefully moved to some regions of Russia, it's possible sometimes to find and to save people and children through religious networks who keep that connections. Also that negotiations aimed on humanitarian issues, sometimes water supplies or exchange of prisoners. It's a dialogue in a form of questions. That's a public 10 questions from Ukrainian Orthodox Church clergy and also 10 thesis from Latin people to Orthodox Church of Ukraine as one of the examples. And there are a lot of sexual and religious attempts to interact and to cooperate and that's the focus we've got in our dialogue and action initiative. But in general, I will use a symbolic photo of Yogi people in the center of Kharkiv with this rocket because it's a time and it's a lesson if you talk in general about faith-based faith-building in Ukraine today on the vision and mission, role and approach in faith-building and understanding that faith-building is possible during the active phase of war. It's needed and it's needed. It's a huge need to understand what kind of peace do we want in future years, how it's possible to see it, to get this vision and to get it on a practical level. And of course, taking the role in a mission of religious communities, which is a part of civil society and they shouldn't be excluded from international, from national and local processes. And they're really important in developing collective identity and responsibility not on a level of religious communities but on local communities in the forms of decentralization. And as you should pay a special attention for adaptive peace-building and it's possible to respond to deep crisis. And there are some current photos from our dialogue and action initiative. One of it on the right side that's actually taken in a shelter because no matter we've got alarm or not as we've got it right now, we're still working on and we try to meet offline and to keep interreligious and religious secular groups because it's really important if we get this opportunity to get the space for dialogue, safe meeting with each other and discussing how we can understand each other and cooperate without enforcing our own views on another person. So maybe I will stop here and thank you so much for your attention. Thank you so much, Tetsiana. The important role of religious peace-building in Ukraine. Our third speaker is Christine Schweitzer. Christine has spent most of her professional life working in non-violence and peace movements. She's from Germany. Currently, she is a researcher at the Institute for Peace Work and Nonviolent Conflict Transformation which Christine co-founded. She's the executive secretary of the German organization the Federation for Social Defense and co-editor of the bi-monthly magazine Peace Forum. Welcome, Christine. Thank you for being with us. Yeah, thank you for inviting me. I'll also share my screen. And while I'm doing so, just let me shortly introduce what I've been asked to talk about that is social defense or civilian-based defense. And so we're moving a little bit away from Ukraine now because I'm going to present this concept as a general concept, not as necessarily an alternative for Ukraine. At least in our context in Germany, where we're discussing it and we're developing this concept at the moment as an alternative for Germany. Although, of course, the war in Ukraine was one of the major impetus to return to this concept. It's not what I'm going to talk about. It's not social defense in Ukraine, but this concept of civilian-based defense is an alternative for actually any country. So let me shortly say what is it, what do I mean by social defense or civilian-based defense? It's just generally saying it's a special kind of civil resistance of the much larger field of civil resistance. And it just has been developed as an alternative for a nonviolent alternative for defense in two cases, occupational, so military attacks and coup d'etats as internally dictators who try to gain power in their own country. The basic idea of social defense or civilian-based defense is that people are the most important source of power, generally, it's not the only source, but it's without people, dictators cannot rule, occupiers cannot rule a country, nor can any government do much whether it doesn't have this cooperation. This idea is a very old one. It has been developed already in the 16th century by Etienne de la Boutier, but and it has been taken up by Jean Charpe, a name who's probably familiar to most of you as one of the great scientists, researchers on nonviolent action. He says that the basic idea is that of social defense is that the corporation is refused. So not the borders are being defended in case of an attack, but the freedom and the self-determination of people. And of course, the second basic idea is that nonviolence can be more powerful than violence. Of course, it may fail as violence can fail, as war can fail, but resuming resistance later might be more easy. Tactics and methods, and I think in Philip's presentation right now, we already heard many elements that are also elements or methods or tactics of civilian-based defense as it has been developed or proposed. One thing is symbolic activities, like just keeping or showing each other that you are part of a movement, that you are resisting. For example, Ukraine understand now that yellow ribbons are used as the symbol and they have been in other struggles, many other symbols like that. Then there are strikes, non-corporation, human blockades, like what was mentioned at the beginning by Eli about human blockades and separation. And of course activating international support, dialogue with perpetrators, and so on and so forth. The concept of civilian-based defense or social defense, I would say has been developed in five stages. The first ideas were already there between, or even before World War I and then between the first and second World War. But the modern concept as we have it in the literature and the studies right now was developed since the 1950s in the light of the threat of nuclear war. There were both people from the military as well as peace researchers who said at that moment, well, defense in a third World War is not possible. We need an alternative because the third World War would just mean destruction for everyone. So this was the main impetus to develop this concept. It was broadened in the 1980s. We looked at many more different scenarios than just military occupation or puritas. Then I think we had a stage when people didn't really talk much about it. My own organization that was named Federation for Social Defense or for civilian-based defense. We have been asked in the last 20 years quite often, don't you want to rename yourself who's working on civilian-based defense anymore? But now I think in the last years, especially since 2020 to the interest really has come back quite a lot. The older literature since the 90s developed in the 60s, 70s, 80s has some classical cases that are very often quoted as examples for puritas or international attacks. It's not a bias by self-being a German, but strangely enough, there are two examples from Germany, a coup that happened in 1920 and the resistance against an occupation by France and Belgium troops. So we cover reparation payments in the Ruhr area in 1923. Then there are many examples of civil resistance in World War II, which might surprise some people because usually you think against an enemy like the Nazis, civil resistance is not possible at all, but there's a larger number and a growing number of cases. We know about, especially a French researcher, Jacques Samela, who I can recommend to document many of these cases. They were Algeria, they were truck in 1968 when a fledgling democracy movement was stopped by troops from the Warsaw Pact and people for maybe five or seven days resisted quite successfully against that occupation. They stopped the tanks, you can see the picture here on the right where they surround the tanks. They did not shoot, so it's nothing like what we have in Ukraine now, but they were actually quite helpless but then the leadership was abducted or taken to Moscow and made to sign an agreement which then ended that case. I said this was the classical time of the classical studies. We now have a much larger rich sources about civil resistance in general. Those of these studies that have been produced in the last 20 years do not use the term civilian-based defense. They speak about nonviolent resistance, civil resistance, nonviolent revolutions or whatever the terms are, but much of what they studied is on the one hand, they're useful also if we want to see what would work for social defense. And there are also some cases like in this book opting out of war by Mary B. Anderson and Dr. Marshall Wallace, that I would say are directly cases of civilian-based defense in cases of civil war. But as I said, they don't use the term but I think we can learn a lot for civil defense. There are several organizations as well as researchers who are working on it. And I think the main challenge that we have at the moment is to look at modern scenarios with modern weapons, the whole issue of electronic communication and so on, which was not considered in the old times that necessary to look at and to see how this could be done. And here in Germany, I mentioned that we just started a small campaign. It's difficult to translate to English. I chose the translation well fortified without weapons, which does not really catch the meaning of the campaign exactly. This is a campaign where we want to develop social defense or civilian-based defense at the local level. So I see there that this matches quite well with what Philip mentioned in his resume 10 minutes ago. So we try to see how in some regions here in Germany, what it would mean if we chose civilian-based defense and developed it. Of course, there are also mixed concepts. And I'll not go into details here, but there are concepts how to combine civilian-based defense with military defense. And my conclusion simply is that I think that military defense can get stronger in the sense of the total defense if civilian means are added. On the other hand, if you want to avoid destruction, if you want to avoid nuclear war like the scenario about which civilian-based defense was developed, then military means become problematic. So we have a lot of questions and challenges. And for that, I will end. We need to ask how to counter the current politics that are only based on the strength of arms and deterrence. How can we overcome the conviction that only violence helps what we hear everywhere? Does civilian-based defense have a deterrent value, something we need to discuss? How to update civilian-based defense? I'd mentioned that before. How to link it to conflict transformation, to dialogue? I think it's a very important question. And also we need to see how we can develop civilian-based defense without getting involved in right-wing thinking and stereotypes that are sometimes also talking about how can we prepare against war, like the proper scene that I think you have in the U.S. as well as we have here in Europe. So there are also traps and things we need to look at. And the last question, can we expect countries to introduce civilian-based defense so it's the only preparation that we could take nowadays? I mean, countries that are still in peace of what's called peace here, like civil resistance in the challenges that we face nowadays. Maybe that's, I think, the best preparation we can have. Thank you. I hope I managed in more or less in the 10 minutes I was given. Thank you. You did. Thank you, Christine. Thank you all. A very interesting series of presentations and we would invite your questions or comments, your ideas in response to any of the presentations. And just as people are thinking about your question, just a couple sentences about the Czechoslovakia case in 1968. This is a pretty profound case where the Soviets had invaded because they were upset with the present government. And the military and the president decided not to resist militarily, right? So the civilians kind of spontaneously said, we're not gonna just kind of sit back and let this happen. So they did a number of really creative things. You had strikes, you had refusing supplies to invading troops, cutting airport services, blocking trains, switching radio signals, removing house numbers to protect leaders, undermining troop loyalty through fraternizing with the soldiers and this became a really critical process for that community to build this resilience and network that eventually led to their liberation in the 1980s. So they were able to get some political concessions kind of in the shorter term, but it really led to that kind of democratization process that FLEEP I think was pointing to earlier. So floor's open for your comments or questions. Yes, I think there's a microphone coming, thank you. So how might civilian based defense be limited by sort of population distribution and geographical features of a country? For example, Switzerland versus the United States? Would one of you like to answer that, Christine, perhaps? How would civilian based defense be limited by the geography of a country? For example, Switzerland compared to the United States and to the distribution of the population? I can't think so much how this might really affect it in terms of concept. I think it's more about the aims of the occupier if we talk now about international aggression. I think civilian based defense would work well if the aim is to establish a new political system if it's just about natural resources or about using the land as what was the aim of the Nazis in the Second World War, just to have land for their own population and it gets much more difficult. Although I mentioned that in World War II there was still civil resistance and successful civil resistance. But I mean, in terms of population distribution, maybe FLEEP has an idea, but I don't really have one at the moment or this might affect it. Thank you, Christine. Philip? Well, I don't have a specific complete answer regarding geographical perspective. The only thing that I was mentioning before is that of course, like large countries require also more armed forces. And at the same time, you will face with different, with more municipalities, with more local communities. And this component of decentralization, for my opinion, is another value when it comes about civilian defense because it creates different type of focuses, areas that you need to control. But if these areas are resistant, this will create some kind of difficulty on the military goals of the specific army. Thank you. Another question or comment? I would be very interested to know from any of you if you could say a little more about what kind of training and preparation and organization is needed in order to enable civil resistance or civilian-based defense to be effective. Christine, go ahead. Yeah. This is a much debated question. If we look at the cases of civil resistance and I mentioned that there are now, there's a huge volume of experiences. You see that most people did it quite spontaneously but still planned. And this is for example, one of the things that very clearly come out in the study that I mentioned opting out of war about civilian-based defense and civil war scenarios. They set together and planned what they did but they didn't do a non-violence training as we might do when we plan to occupy a nuclear power plant or coal mining area or something like that. Still, of course, it would be good and useful to have preparation but I think it's, yeah, it's maybe not that important to have this kind of trainings as people usually think but that's, yeah, that's my opinion. Thank you. Philippe, do you have a sense? I'm sorry, Tatiana, yes, please go ahead. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I would be more critical as soon as I was taking part in some non-violent actions and I was observing I was under occupation too and I would think that you do not require special training. Sorry. So you need a portion of realism and understanding of context analysis. Sometimes it's important and it's possible to do. Sometimes it's too dangerous. So it should be more about realism and understanding of what's going on and the different factors of influence. And is it possible to get non-violent resistance at all or it's better to keep those networks of cooperation which can be more useful in a long-term perspective. Like for example, those volunteers who are still acting in occupied territories and helping others to evacuate, to help people and to save them but they're not making it publicly. So that's more about self-recognition and understanding the context which helps you to save not only your life but all the lives too and to understand how it's possible to move on and how it's possible also to get supporters and support the network. Of course, we've got an example of individual protests in Russia for example and it was really powerful and public but still we need to sink in a perspective of impact and how it's possible to add more forces to get the result of it. Thank you, Christine. Philip. Yes, it's a bit interesting question because I would say that there are some basics regarding the civil resistance and the areas of non-violent discipline and non-violent strategy planning also understanding the opponent understanding the pillars of the power of the opponent and to have also some kind of understanding of the military capacity of the opponent. For example, in Ukraine, it was the partisans were very effective organizing sabotage actions to the military convoys and times because they knew this type of military architecture. But apart from that, I think that there is an area that we need also to explore is that how we can adapt civil resistance and civilian defense systems to the new forms of war like we are talking about proxy wars and hybrid wars. So if we take a look on this type of wars that are really focusing on affecting the society, affecting the resilience of the society, affecting the critical infrastructures, affecting the polarizing societies. So here non-violence has a very important role because we can see for example at the end of the year how the Clinton Society was organizing to provide the heater, shelter in the typical situations where Russia were bombing their energy central stations. So we can see that nobody's response to that. At the same time, polarization is very important. Russia was also tensioning and attacking the clivages in the Clinton Society as well. So here mediators, no-violence activists has a very important role to solve these local conflicts, to counter fake news and counter misinformation. So for example, now we are discussing with the youth centers in Ukraine how to develop a program of countering this information and fake news in different parts of the country. So I would say that this can be part of civil resistance in a way because we are confronting these type of specific proxy war strategies. Thank you, Philipp. Thank you all. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. That's Neco. Corey Walsh from Humanity United. I just have a question for Philipp. You spoke about social cohesion vis-a-vis the consolidation of Ukrainian identity. And I was curious in theory or in practice how this is done while avoiding hypernationalism, exclusionary identities, in-group, out-group dynamics and other things that in themselves become drivers of conflict. So as building social cohesion, how do you sort of think about mitigating those risks? Thank you for the question. Well, something that for me was that is called my attention when I started to work in Ukraine was the great community of mediation and dialogue that is established in the country. There are more than 3,000 professionals working on basically mediation and facilitation of dialogue at different levels. And this network is, of course, working in this concrete context. And we have been discussing this topic. I mean, there are concrete, of course, tensions in the society about basically the religion, of course. And there were also in the last month there were some discussions about the role of the Russian charts in Ukraine. There were also rumors that they found some weapons in the basis of some charges. Or there were some cases where some priests attacked people because of some arguments and discussions. I think that what is happening now in the society is that people are realizing that the identity language is important for their self emancipation, for the final liberation. So that they really need to consolidate this identity. This doesn't mean that their kind of identity is only national. I mentioned before that there are different ethnic minorities that are also recognized according to law in Ukraine. And they are part of the resistance. And you can see in the demonstrations that we recorded, we systematized it. We saw the Ukrainian flag, but also the Tartar Kremians. We saw that there are very specific actions of support from human rights organizations supporting the Tartar Kremians inside the peninsula. So this specific support is happening. But yes, it's true that the process is ongoing. It's not that these are really competing. And there are really discussions. I have, for example, cases where families that they went to the Russian Russian churches to pray that due to the situation and to the scandals of the Russian church in Ukraine, they start to move to the Ukrainian church. It was difficult, but there was also some internal inter-family discussions and processes that they allow this process. So I think that, again, it's an ongoing process. I think that what is very clear is that the Ukrainian identity, the consolidation of the Ukrainian identity, which is, of course, connected with religion, is a very, very important topic now today in Ukraine. And in many of the areas of the country, there are dialogue sessions, discussions at the level of communities, at the level of families, at the level of local government, discussing how to deal with this issue. So I will say that this is an ongoing process. And maybe my colleague Tatiana wants to add something from your experience. Thank you very much. Thank you for the question, and thank you, Philippe. I would just invite you all to take a moment as we are coming toward the end of our time together to imagine, in your own context, in the context where you live or the context where you're working or focusing, what would be a sequence of steps that might begin to move or to create a nonviolent civilian-based defense approach in your context. Does it seem possible? Does it seem impossible? How would you go about doing it? Maybe while you're thinking about that, I would just invite each of our panelists to say a last word or two, something that you would like to add that you haven't had a chance to say yet. Can we start with Christine? Yeah, I think it's a long topic, and I think it needs much further and much deeper discussion than we could have today. And for me, it's just important to say that what I presented as civilian-based defense was really in the context of our countries that are in peace. We are not only sometimes accused or tell Ukraine that they should go back to civil-based defense, and that's not my purpose. I think civil-based defense might have been an alternative earlier, but for now, the context we are working in is really our country. So exactly the question that you, Marie, asked, what could we do in our country? Thank you, Christine. Tatiana. Yeah, thanks. Maybe I will add that we've got, actually, the system of civil-based defense. And even before, but I don't think that it's working in terms of a current war. And what's important for me as soon as we've got this experience is it's a good time to learn some lessons for the future and to revise peace-building approaches which we've got because we still get a lot of problems which we've got on Balkans, in African countries, in other contexts. And we do not learn from that, not only in humanitarian aid, but also in civilian-based defense, in medial literacy, in all the spheres. So I would be really happy if we can learn our lessons and to put them on a different sphere of peace-building interventions in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Tatiana and Philippe. Yeah, so I will, yeah. I think that for me it will be very important if we can increase political recognition of non-violent activists, people that they have been, you know, they still today, they have been struggling against the invasion, against the consequence of this war and without, for many, many months, without the payment. So political recognition at least and try to also to increase disposable political and financial support for the grassroots organizations from different regions, areas that are, that were liberated a long time ago, like Chernihib and Sumi, or the areas like Hezone that are trying to attract the human capital again to start, for example, to cultivate. You know, we have cases of farmers that are, you know, removing mines with their own hands in the, from the agricultural sites. So I think that it's very important that for Ukraine and also for Europe and also for all the other regions to support non-violent activists and movements. And yeah, thank you. I wish you a fruitful event and the rest of the conference. Thank you very much. Thank you, Philippe and Eli. Last word. All right, well thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. This is, you know, really difficult but also really significant themes and imagination that we're hoping to stir and cultivate. So, you know, we hope you'll get involved to support these efforts in non-violent resistance and religious peace building and to work really strategically about how we can scale up investments, training and infrastructure for non-violent civilian based defense. So feel welcome to be in touch and we hope we'll see you again. Peace be with you. Thank you all. Thank you and have a good meeting.