COOS BAY — Southwestern Oregon Community College is pleased to host “Lessons in Nonviolent Conflict Resolution,” a lecture and discussion being given by Thomas Nahimana, a Catholic priest from Rwanda. Nahimana will speak at 7 p.m. March 16, with a question-and-answer period afterward, in the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on the Coos Campus of Southwestern, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay. The program is free and open to all in the community.
According to organizers, Thomas Nahimana believes that peaceful conflict resolution and true reconciliation are primarily based on Gandhi and Tolstoi’s principles of nonviolence philosophy (ahisma/satyagraha). These principles are very useful in resolving conflicts at all levels: inter-personal, family, school, community, national and international levels. Moreover, these nonviolence principals can be used not only as a philosophy but also as a strategy and a means to achieve political and social change.
Participants will learn about “Our Three Attitudes” towards conflict and violence in order to avoid and better meet the challenges of the “spiral of violence.”
Born in 1971, Thomas Nahimana grew up in Rwanda and experienced civil war and genocide from 1990 to 1994. He then devoted his life toward peaceful conflict resolution and reconciliation. He launched and monitored the training of 2,500 “peace artisans” and “reconciliation mediators” in the Cyangugu Catholic Diocese.
Mr. Nahimana studied in Rwanda and France. He holds degrees in theology and law, and he is finishing his dissertation for a PhD in philosophy. He holds a diploma as a Nonviolence Trainer delivered by the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Since December 2005, Thomas has been living in exile in France, where he mainly works in family conflict resolution. In 2013, he and his friends launched a political party, the ISHEMA Party, with nonviolence as a strategy to achieve democratic change in Rwanda. Currently, the ISHEMA Party leads the “New Generation Leadership Movement.” In 2015, Nahimana was nominated as a presidential candidate by the congress of his party and will soon return to Rwanda to register his party and challenge the dictator Paul Kagame in the 2017 presidential elections.