Abstract:
This article presents the conclusions of a group that met as part of the 1999 IFTA Congress in Akron, Ohio. The group explored the implications and responsibilities of enhancing our awareness about both societal and interpersonal violence in our daily personal and professional lives. In its report, ethical parameters in our daily praxis were proposed: Let us maintain a reflexive and militantly non-violent stance in our daily life. Let us enhance our voice toward non-oppressive, non-violent, non-sexist, non-classist, non-racist, culturally-sensitive practices in our homes, in our working environment, in the organizations of which we are a part, and in our communities. Let us sensitize ourselves to our complex personal social network and treat it as the valuable resource it is. At the same time as we address the structural and cultural roots of violence, let us understand acts of violence as multi-level, complex crisis, in order to help re-story those events so as to empower the victims and to re-socialize the perpetrators. In sum, in the face of violence of any kind, not only we should refuse to become perpetrators, but we cannot be bystanders: it makes us, in fact, victimizers.
