BAYNVC: Creating a Nonviolent World

By Dian Killian

I first met Marshall Rosenberg when I was assigned by a local paper to cover one of his "Nonviolent Communication" training seminars. Disturbed by the inequalities in the world and impatient for change, I couldn't imagine what use a communication technique could be in solving problems such as global warming or the debt of developing nations. But I was surprised by the visible effect Rosenberg's work had on individuals or families caught in conflict.

Nonviolent Communication, or NVC, has four steps:

• observing what is happening in a given situation
• identifying what one is feeling
• identifying what one is needing
• making a request for what one would like to see occur

It sounds simple, yet it's more than a technique for resolving conflict. It's a different way of understanding human motivation and behavior.

Rosenberg learned about violence at an early age. Growing up in Detroit in the early thirties and forties, he was beaten up for being a Jew and later witnessed some of the city's worst race riots, which resulted in more than forty deaths in a matter of days. These experiences drove him to study psychology in an attempt to understand, as he puts it, "what happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, and what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances."

Rosenberg decided that violence did not arise from pathology, as psychology taught, but from the ways in which we communicate. At times, [Nonviolent Communication] has literally saved his life.

On one occasion in the late 1980s, he was asked to teach his method to Palestinian refugees in Bethlehem. He met with about 170 Muslim men at a mosque in the Deheisha Camp. On the way into the camp, he saw several empty tear-gas canisters along the road, each clearly marked "Made in U.S.A."

When the men realized their would-be instructor was from the United States, they became angry. Some jumped to their feet and began shouting, "Assassin! Murderer!" One man confronted Rosenberg, screaming in his face, "Child killer!" Although tempted to make a quick exit, Rosenberg instead focused on what the man was feeling, and a dialogue ensued. By the end of the day, the man who had called Rosenberg a murderer invited him home to Ramadan dinner.

While this example may seem a bit extreme, it is actually fairly typical of the transformations that many people have experienced in their work environments and relationships by just staying present and focusing on feelings and needs. As Rosenberg says, "I never listen to what people think... I only hear what they need."