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From song to strategy: CMU offers free nonviolent resistance training in response to growing injustice
Following the strong community response to its Singing Resistance gatherings, Canadian Mennonite University is offering a new public initiative that moves from collective expression to practical preparation. Living Resistance: Nonviolent Resistance Training will be offered over four Monday evenings in March, inviting participants to actively learn and practice the skills of disciplined nonviolent action.
Singing Resistance, launched earlier this winter, has brought together students, alumni, faith communities, and members of the wider public to sing songs of protest and courage in solidarity with communities in Minneapolis responding to escalating ICE enforcement and repression. Rooted in long traditions of music and nonviolent resistance, these gatherings have helped participants name grief, resist despair, and remember their collective power. Living Resistance grows directly out of that work.
"Making music together helps us find one another and remember what we are capable of," says Sandra Koop Harder, Vice-President External at CMU. "Singing is a powerful beginning. In moments like these, it must be joined with preparation and practice. Living Resistance is about learning how to act together with discipline, courage, and care."
The world has been watching as Minnesotans practice creative, brave, and highly disciplined nonviolent resistance. Again and again, ordinary people have disrupted ICE's repressive goals not through violence, but through coordinated action: singing, dancing, whistling, boycotting, showing up for neighbours, and refusing to be intimidated. Any turn toward violence would provide justification for greater repression. Nonviolence, by contrast, has proven to be strategic, powerful, and effective.
This is no coincidence. In recent months, more than 700,000 people across the United States have been trained in nonviolent resistance.
CMU faculty member Karen Ridd, who has a long history in nonviolent action and hands-on training, will lead the two-hour long Living Resistance session on four dates in March. These are not lecture-based events. Participants will learn to respond thoughtfully in moments of tension and risk through actively practicing nonviolent resistance techniques while exploring the strategy and history behind them.
"In a world where the spread of authoritarianism is no longer abstract, we need more than good intentions," says Ridd. "Nonviolent resistance is something people learn by doing, together. And it works."
The two-hour sessions are free and open to the public, but due to capacity constraints, registration is required to secure spots.
Living Resistance: Nonviolent Resistance Training
Mondays: March 9, 16, 23, and 30
Time: 7:00–9:00 PM
Location: Canadian Mennonite University, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Room S170 (Lecture Hall)
Living Resistance complements the ongoing Singing Resistance gatherings at CMU. Together, these offerings invite the community to move from voice to body and from concern to action.
The next Singing Resistance event will take place on Monday, March 2 at 7:00 PM at Marpeck Commons (2299 Grant Ave.).
For more information, please contact:
Kevin Kilbrei
Director of Marketing and Communications
Canadian Mennonite University
kkilbrei
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