Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. In this episode, we are going to wrap up our look at nonviolent action by looking at a unique group of nonviolent actors, Unarmed Civilian Protectors or UCPs. Now, remember when I first heard about UCPs. It was like maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago, and it was the first time I'd ever heard of them. I read about them in two books that I've recommended before and I'll put in the show notes.

One is called Is There No Other Way? And the other one is called Nonviolent Action. The concept of UCPs was strange to me. It was really counterintuitive, but it was also very alluring, very beautiful. And the more I've read about peace forces or UCPs, the more I think that it's absolutely amazing.

So let's dive into what UCPs are and what they have to do with our series on non violent action. UCPs are exactly what they sound like. They're unarmed civilians who protect other people. I constantly want to call them peacekeepers because that name sounds all nice and piecey, but that's actually the name that they give to UN soldiers who carry guns and don't really do what their name implies, at least to a certain extent. So what's the difference between a peacekeeper and a UCP?

Well, first obvious difference is that UCPs are unarmed. The second big difference is that whereas peacekeepers often live in compounds and post up on the outside of conflicts, UCPs typically enter conflict zones. Finally, whereas peacekeepers often keep the peace in the sense that they stave off extreme overt violence through their presence, they don't really resolve conflict. They don't have long term effectiveness. They leave and so does whatever short term shallow peace they brought.

UCPs, build relationships with those in conflict and attempt to be mediators who can resolve conflicts. They dig in, they enter the communities, they go in the danger zones without weapons. On the surface, I understand that this sounds really idealistic. How in the world would UCPs be able to help out where armed and trained personnel can't? There are a number of advantages that UCPs are able to leverage.

First, because they are willing to enter conflict zones, they're able to build relationships and rapport with both sides of a conflict. Since they're neutral outsiders, they can build inroads to each group and then bridges between those two groups. If one has rapport with each group, it makes it less likely that either group will bomb you while you're living with the other group or while you have close friends who are with the other group. Second, as you can see in the Waging Nonviolence article linked in the show notes, sometimes, UCPs are actually part of the enemy group. If you had an American citizen living with Iraqis, Israelis with Palestinians and so forth, a group is less likely to bomb its own citizens.

One can leverage the power of their enemy status against their own domineering armies and regimes. Of course, there's a great cost to that because if, you know, if I as an American go and live with Iraqis, I think Shane Claiborne did that, he tells a story about that in one of his books. But, you know, there are consequences that you face for doing that. Social ostracization but as well as, you know, sometimes financial penalties or jail time depending on what you do. Third, sometimes a group can leverage their powerful status as a third party.

It may not always be possible to build inroads between both groups in conflict, but one can still leverage their own power. And I've read many stories of US citizens who went down to, you know, places in South America where there are rebel forces and terror campaigns going on against villagers. American citizens would live in the villages which were under threat, which prevented attacks from guerrillas and terrorists. So the guerrillas and terrorists, sometimes guerrillas and terrorists funded by the US government, didn't dare risk harming American citizens because that could either bring down the wrath of the American Army or if it's a force that was funded by the US Army, they might lose funding because it would look really bad for The United States to fund killing its own citizens. That is more of a limited position, right, because not just anyone or any citizen can do this.

If you're from certain nations, it might not matter if your nation doesn't have that clout in the world. But especially as Americans, this is a significant leverage in many parts of the world where there are conflicts. Finally, depending on the culture, one can leverage protected classes. In some circumstances, being a child or a woman may offer one protection. And that's not always the case of course, and many times being a child or woman makes you actually more vulnerable.

But depending on the circumstances, there are groups which may be more highly revered that might offer one protection. So woman, child, being a priest or religious leader could be another one of these protected classes. And you just, I mean, you can see this a group is like, Well, we don't have a problem killing children, but they would never attack, let's say, a school because they're like, That would bring down international sentiment against us and we we might be able to deal with our enemy group but we can't deal with foreigners then putting pressure on us either economically or militarily. So sometimes it's out of a reverence for the group but other times it is just out of pragmatic purposes of not wanting to tick off the international community. So leveraging one's protected class might be a way to leverage power in a UCP situation.

As far as I know, UCPs have only been in use for about the last forty years. They're often small groups of people and it doesn't take but a handful in a village to offer protection to that location. Oftentimes a group will avoid conflict rather than risk harming even three or four UCPs, and a lot of times they wear like these bright orange vests so they're, you know, they're not trying to camouflage in, and groups don't want to risk backlash that they might receive for killing UCPs. Having outsiders there who can observe what's going on, which sometimes UCPs are called observers because if something bad does go down, they let the world know. They record things and take pictures and you can find some of those recordings of attacks online.

But just knowing that atrocities can't be committed without the world knowing is in itself a big deterrent. You know, a lot of times the people who are attacking, we're not saying that they're just out of the goodness of their heart, they just they won't kill people who aren't their enemies. A lot of times they don't have problems killing the UCPs that are there, it's more of the pragmatic consequence of if they do, what might that do to their cause, their movement, their power, etc. So there, UCP is doing something similar in many cities across The United States, and I would guess probably across the world. One example is the Peacemakers in Cleveland.

You can check out the link in the show notes, but they essentially dig into communities, inner city communities, they get to know gang members, they provide education, they and tutoring, they try to prevent people from joining gangs, they visit victims of violence while they're in the hospital and try to start the reconciliation process at that point before they get out, and they they try to help resolve conflict. They're doing the hard work of what the criminal justice system ought to be doing or what the church ought to be doing. Peacemakers are trying to be community and to build community. It's the kind of thing some people mean when they talk about defunding the police, pumping money into these types of groups that aren't just locking people up and slapping band aids on wounds or putting tourniquets around the bleeding, but who are trying to prevent injury, to change lifestyle and to bring the community into health. I'm not saying here that defunding the police a little or a lot is the right decision, that's not the scope of this podcast.

I just think that the issue has to be looked at and understood before decisions are made. And of course, are people saying very extreme and different things on either side. But point is that there are these peacemaker organizations that are doing work that I think is more in line with Christ than trying to put tourniquets on bleeding arteries. In my estimation, peaceful sorts of methods are not only effective, but they contribute to long term health and not just short term gain. It's not just cosmetic like the criminal justice system tends to be.

So UCPs or Peacemakers scale down nonviolent action. They still tend to work in groups and they leverage types of power oftentimes and types of influence, but they're less focused on toppling a power structure. Often, peacemakers are less about pitting nonviolent power against violent power to cause a regime change, but instead, they're using nonviolent power to protect a vulnerable group and to stall violence while making inroads into each group to facilitate conversation. Are UCPs perfectly effective? Of course not.

People die doing it, the people that they're trying to protect as well as the UCPs, and they don't always succeed at their mission. But for the limited amount of training, funding, and personnel that they have, it's amazing what they're able to accomplish. The video in the show notes points out that while casualties of war at the beginning of the 1900s were largely military, today the vast majority of casualties are civilian. So finding ways to protect civilians with civilians and being creative in our strategies is vital to protecting the vulnerable. UCPs are creative, brave and effective, not to mention efficient, cost effective.

You should definitely dig into this topic a lot more, and if I ever get to retire or if our situation ever allows it, I want to do this. Maybe I'll change my mind, but I want to do this one day. I understand that this is a very broad overview of the topic and I really do want to challenge you to check out some of the resources that I put in the show notes so you can hear more about some of the specific Peacemaker or UCP stories. That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.