03/10/2025
Opening Speech by Dr. Ogarit Younan at the 4th Online International Fellowship Program on Nonviolence and Peace (IFPNP), 2025–2026:
Good day from Beirut, from AUNOHR, the University for Non-Violence and Human Rights, Lebanon and the Arab world.
To our partners,
Dr. Siby K Joseph, Director, JBMLRCGs, Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Wardha, MS India
Dr. D John Chelladurai, Dean, FIDS, MGM University, Chh. Sambhajinagar, MS India
Prof. Michael Sonnleitner, Portland Community College, Portland, Oregon, USA
Dr. Dorcas Ettang, Acting Director, ICON., Durban University of Technology, South Africa
Mr. Louis Campana, President, Gandhi International, France
To the Fellows in this Program, the 80 applicants from 20 countries,
Gambia, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Kwale, Nigeria, Congo, Bangladesh, Sudan, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, South Africa, Haiti, Cameroun, USA...
I met Dr. Siby for the first time in 2022, In Sevagram – Wardha in India… and here we are partners in a continuing program of training on nonviolence and Gandhi values…
Dear all,
We are here today, for a day full of lessons, the birthday of the iconic symbol of the Non-Violence, Mahatma GANDHI.
Thank you, Dr. Siby for the initiative of IFPNP, for your invitation, and especially for your persevering in celebrating Gandhi every year with concrete way by organizing this program.
We congratulate everyone around the world celebrating the Non-Violence Day.
October 2nd had become the International Day of Non-Violence. At the initiative of the State of India, a United Nations resolution was issued in 2007 to adopt the date of Gandhi’s birth as a day for the culture of Non-Violence worldwide.
As for Lebanon, October 2nd had become a “National Day for the Culture of Non-Violence”. At the initiative of our university, the Academic University for Non-Violence and Human Rights - AUNOHR, the Council of Ministers issued an official decision in October 2016 to honor this day at the national level. It was a first initiative of its kind not only in Lebanon but in the Arab world.
Gandhi elaborated the word “NON-VIOLENCE” in the mid of 1919, and since 1920 he has devoted this word to history to become a new concept for the civilizations.
On 2020, we celebrated the anniversary of the first century of the word “Non-Violence”, by issuing a beautiful reference book, in Arabic and English, titled “Quotes in Non-Violence”, bringing together for the first time the largest number of pioneers who explained the meanings of nonviolence in all fields, through their famous sayings.
And so, we have already embarked on its second century.
The concept of Non-Violence is a philosophy of humane values and a strategy for social change. It is both of them together. Indeed, it is a great vision, of course in constant conflict with the world of violence, but as Walid SLAIBY said: “We are not in a world where violence has won; We are in a world where Non-Violence has not won enough yet.”
Walid SLAIBY, the nonviolent thinker in the Arab world, my lifelong companion for forty years, passed away two years ago... He left a legacy for generations...
For us, the story began four decades ago…
To spread Non-Violence in Lebanon and in other Arab countries: it was a challenge, an adventure. Especially since we set out when we were young in 1983 in the midst of the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). Our path made its way between the war barriers that smashed the country, while we insisted on acting and going to all regions, and on more than one occasion we were exposed to the danger of death or disappearance...
From the very beginning, we understood that it was all about “nurturing” NON-VIOLENCE, marginalized, unknown and even refused by many glorifying violence. Thus, it seems that our hope in Non-Violence was a struggle and daily efforts with a perseverance given the
exceptional context of violence in which we embarked in favor of Non-Violence. It was the Truth we were looking for, just like Gandhi who offered us “Non-Violence” (a-himsa) with the (Satyagraha).
What we have done established Non-Violence forever and made it rooted in society.
It’s done. This is history. It was the first opportunity of its kind for the Arab Non-Violence to be built in such depth and breadth, without meaning that there were no nonviolent people before us in Lebanon and the Arab countries.
For us, we have made it a choice for life.
Our latest achievement was the creation of a University with a master’s degree in Non-Violence fields: AUNOHR, a first of its kind in Lebanon and the region, and unique in the world, officially recognized since 2014. The university came as the culmination of our founding journey since 1983, where we contributed day by day to instill and institutionalize Non-Violence in all areas and regions of the society: NGO, unions, schools, universities, medias, books, research, translations, reconciliation, struggles, manifestations in streets, inside prisons, changing laws in the parliament, working with youth, workers, teachers, women, trainers, religious leaders, political activists, civil campaigns, Arab groups…
Lately, we concluded an agreement with the Ministry of Education to introduce the culture of Non-Violence into the national curricula for all schools in Lebanon from kindergarten to secondary classes. This is an unprecedented initiative.
On 2022, we were honored, Walid and I, with the Gandhi International Award, which I received it in India on a special visit for two weeks. I told the young Indians whom I met in many regions in India, to impress us, and a new Gandhi would appear among them, a young man or young woman… I think very much that it is very much possible, in India as well as in Lebanon and everywhere... We need it, not to be another Gandhi, but to Be nonviolent and to “Be the Change that You want to See in the World” (as Gandhi said).
Let’s imagine together,
What if Gandhi did not exist!?
What if he did not rise up on that day in the train accident in South Africa and completed his entire life, day by day, just as a nonviolent militant!
What if he hadn't invented the word "NON-VIOLENCE"!?
What if he did not live by itself this “Non-Violence”!? in appearance, in behavior, in thoughts, in values, as well as in means and ends for social and political struggle.
What if!?
It would be a loss to humanity. for history.
How grateful we are to have had Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi!
How wonderful it is that History has won itself and forever by adopting his philosophy and strategy of “Non-Violence” and being inspired by his life experience!
Today we are honoring the dissemination of the culture of Non-Violence, it is a sustainable and continuing path, we are not on a beginning… But, still to do more…
For a nice coincidence, every year while I taught Gandhi, I talked about the ‘house’ of Mahatma (my photo with Dr. Siby). Students used to compare Gandhi’s humble house with the wooden house of the pioneering nonviolent thinker Henry David Thoreau who chose to live in the woods in a small cabin he made himself with the help of his brother! As you know, Gandhi was very influenced by Thoreau's political thought, with the concept of civil disobedience that Thoreau launched in 1848, which Gandhi discovered it after years while he was in prison in South Africa, and since, he put it on the table next to him as an inspirational book.
As you may know, the word Non-Violence is evident in its rejection of violence and its confrontation with violence. It consists in placing the NO before the word ‘violence’, and Gandhi insisted on this, in order to remind us that our attitude will be definitely a No to violence, a warning to us, for every person, not to start or chose violence to solve problems and conflicts, a warning to the oppressed as well as to the oppressor. This NO is crucial to make peace and to change history.
It is as Walid Slaiby wrote:
“Non-Violence is two ‘NOs’: No to self-violence, and No to the others’ violence, to injustice.
The first No is individual ethical; and the second No is an efficacy both social and political. Therefor Non-Violence is four ‘Yeses’: Yes to love, yes to ethics, yes to justice, yes to efficacy”.
However, it is interesting to note that wherever you go in the world, you say "Gandhi" and everyone knows the name! His name has become a label enough by itself, positive, valuable, as if everyone agreed on it. Even someone who doesn't know much about him, when you said “Gandhi” everyone shows peace, love, smile and even expresses pride.
But it is remarkable that many love Gandhi and do not like Non-Violence! How? Once you see people like this, and they are unfortunately many, you know that they don't know anything about Non-Violence. Gandhi embodied Non-Violence in his behavior, values, thoughts, writings, social and national struggles, clothes, etc. His name did not become this well-known distinguishing milestone except because
he fought the political struggle and national liberation with Non-Violence from the beginning to the end of his life, his assassination. He was and still the symbol of Non-Violence. So, how can we love him and not love what he was!
This shows us that the greatness of any human being and the greatness of any cause, can only be completed for generations to come, by awareness, training, education and the transfer of ideas, experiences and lessons.
Thus, the most wonderful thing is that THOUGHTS / IDEAS are in a permanent travel, visiting people everywhere; like us, like you from everywhere, united here in this program... Of course, it needs a human life full of love to carry it and travel with it. Gandhian values will remain a perpetual traveler, a transient of time and place, needing no permission, no passport… They simply enter into minds and hearts as well as noble ends and effective means, bearing Non-Violence as a gift to “continue to nurturing - educating generations and liberating nations,” as Gandhi himself said.
Education is a gift. Education on Non-Violence is a Gift for Life.
This is one of the meanings of this Program which we are offering to you…
Dears,
To Lebanon, the Arab world, and all the countries suffering from many kinds of violence,
We deserve to be a model of society in the path of Gandhi, especially today to live the spirit of the nonviolence and the strategy of nonviolent resistance, leading to rebuild Hope, Justice and Peace.
Gandhi published one of his first books under the title of “Nonviolent Resistance.”
This is exactly what we need in Lebanon today, what we need in Palestine today, as well as in the whole world threatened by wars and by an atmosphere filled with the drums of wars...
The suffering Lebanon will find no way to address internal crises, as well as Israeli occupation and external hegemonies, except through creative and courageous nonviolent alternatives. We are in dire need of a moral political imagination that saves the country.
Allow me to think, at this moment, about the people of Gaza, the people in South Lebanon, about all nonviolent activists around the world, and to raise our voices for justice in Palestine...
To conclude, I echo some words quotes of nonviolent pioneers:
With Tolstoy: “Don’t resist to evil by evil, to violence by violence”.
With Henry David Thoreau: “The conscience is the supreme law”.
With Martin Luther King Jr.: “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”
With Bertrand Russell: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest”.
We hope to celebrate Non-Violence every day, on the path of Gandhi's values, by celebrating nonviolent achievements for justice and peace, not just a birthday, at least if we want Gandhi to celebrate it with us, to be happy with us...
I would like to end by what Gibran Khalil Gibran wrote in his book "The Storm”:
How generous you are, Earth,
and how strong is your yearning for your children
lost between that which they have attained and that which they could not obtain.
We clamor and you smile;
We flit but you stay!
We extract your elements to make cannons and bombs,
but out of our elements you create lilies and roses.
And, to say it in Arabic, in Gibran’s mother language,
ما أكرمك أيتها الأرض وما أطول أناتك.
ما أشدّ حنانك على أبنائك المنصرفين عن حقيقتهم إلى أوهامهم، الضائعين بين ما بلغوا إليه وما قصروا عنه.
نحن نتذمّر وأنتِ تبتسمين.
نحن نعبُر ونتلاشى وأنتِ تبقين.
نحن نتناول عناصرك لنصنع منها المدافع والقذائف وأنتِ تتناولين عناصرنا وتكونّين منها الورود والزنابق.
جبران خليل جبران؛ كتاب "العواصف".
THANK YOU
Wishing you all successful program.
Ogarit Younan
Founder of the University for Non-Violence and Human Rights – AUNOHR
Beirut, 2 October 2025
