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Sean Donahue has given workshops and talks at conferences, universities, schools, libraries, and churches throughout New England.
He is currently available to give the following presentations:
GREEN SPIRIT RISING
500 years ago, the conquest of the Americas, the fencing in of the commons, the suppression of the old religions that
tied people to the land, and the fear of women's power gave rise to a way of thinking that saw the world as a machine that
could be brought under human control. In medicine, religion, politics, science, and economics this mindset gave rise to systems
of colonizing land, cultures, bodies, minds, and spirits.
Today those systems of control are coming up against their limits and beginning to collapse. At the same time, older
ways of being and knowing that survived at the margins of the empire and continued to grow and evolve are re-emerging and
reasserting themselves.
Poet, journalist,activist, and heale Sean Padraig Donahue will explore the nature, origin, and failure of the mechanical
world view and the ways we can step outside it to (re)build a culture connected with the living Earth.
OAXACA: REPRESSION AND RESISTANCE
For decades, the people of Oaxaca have suffered extreme poverty and severe repression at the hands of a corrupt government
that has been selling their resources to multinational corporations. In June 2006, responding to a brutal attack on striking
teachers and their families, the people of Oaxaca rose up and took control of their own city, their state, their lives.
The state and federal governments cracked down hard with a military-style invasion in late October. Hundreds were arrested
and tortured. Over a dozen were killed and many remain missing. But the popular movement, which draws on a 500-year tradition
of indigenous resistance, remains strong.
In December, 2006, Sean Donahue traveled to Oaxaca to document the uprising and the severe repression that came in response.
He will share his stories, analysis, and experiences.
RESISTING THE NEW CONQUISTADORS
Throughout the Americas, indigenous people are rising up against the exploitation of their land and their resources, asserting
that their lives, their dignity, their sovereignty, and their homelands are not for sale.
Sean Donahue shares stories of resistance from Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico, and El Salvador, and places them in the context
of 500 years of genocide and struggle.
BEYOND RITUAL SACRIFICE: REIMAGINING NONVIOLENCE
Most Christian and Gandhian activists in North America view voluntary suffering as the essence of nonviolence. But doesn't
a philosophy that views voluntary suffering as inherently redemptive really just direct violence inward?
Drawing on feminist critiques of Gandhi's teachings, lessons learned from liberation movements in Latin America, and his
own experiences with nonviolent direct action, Sean Donahue explores alternative approaches to nonviolent resistance.
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