#8 || Transcending a lineage of violence

01/21/16 • 34 min

"I called myself a Karma King, because I was distributing the shit that had been given to me." The finale of Season 1 features Daniel Gallant, a former violent extremist turned anti-violence activist, counselor, and scholar. Violence is what he experienced growing up, what he became a perpetrator of, and what it has been a phenomenal feat for him to overcome.

Today, Daniel is the founder of anti-violence organization Exit Canada, and a J.D. candidate at Thompson Rivers University. May we take this story — albeit difficult — as an opportunity to understand what motivates extremist violence, and draw hope from one person's ability to transcend it.

Previous Episode

#7 || Emergence of a conscientious objector

'I realized that my excuses for justifying war had nothing to do with what we were trying to achieve. I justified war because I wanted to believe that the things I’d done were right, and that my fellow soldiers hadn't died in vain.' Those are the sobering words of Afghanistan war veteran and conscientious objector, Brock McIntosh. Through his experiences in Afghanistan, he lost faith in the Afghanistan war, and then in war altogether. Growing up, McIntosh had taken his ideological cues from the institutions in his life — military, church, and family — and in the process of applying for conscientious objector status, he found himself wrestling with his inherited beliefs and renegotiating his relationships with these institutions. His process of becoming a conscientious objector became a portal through which to challenge and reconstitute his most fundamental beliefs. The overarching shift: from fearful rigidity to brave open-mindedness. Today, McIntosh is a peace activist pursuing his Master's of Public Policy at NYU.

Next Episode

#8.5 || Behind The Mic

There's so much that goes on behind the microphone, and I'm going to start bringing you back here. This is the inaugural 'Behind The Mic' piece, stay tuned for more. For this first one: what is Reckonings, and why did I create it?