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There's a Compassionate Rebel in Everyone Who is a compassionate rebel | The bully | Having a voice | Future rebels By Carriann Mikish Rebecca Janke and Bert Berlowe feel they have discovered a hidden culture. It's a culture populated by people who are making changes in the world around them. Not necessarily huge changes, but small significant changes that make an impact on those with whom they come in contact. They discovered this counter culture while writing their soon to be released book, "Compassionate Rebels", a book that gives a voice to the peacemakers. Who is a compassionate rebel Janke's description of a compassionate rebel doesn't fit most people's perception of what a peacemaker should be. "Being a peacemaker isn't someone who is always so full of love and so kind," she says. It's using one's negative emotions and uncomfortable feelings as fuel to energize oneself to action. "What I was beginning to see was that there were people who by their anger, their disgust, their frustration, their disappointment were able to stand up and do something but were able to do it in a compassionate, kind of way," Janke says The bully Janke tells of a 7-year-old boy, who wanted to know more about a classmate who bullied everyone and was disliked. This young boy went to the bully's house one afternoon. He found poverty, bullet holes in the walls, and inadequate medical care. So this boy decided to be his friend's advocate at school, telling the other kids how "cool" the bully was. Berlowe says the boy, "hasn't done a major protest, he hasn't been part of a corporation, but he did this one act which was a compassionate and somewhat rebellious things." Having a voice Janke explains it; "The whole idea is about having your own voice instead of being a copycat." She supports using a combination of negative emotions, intelligence and creativity to come up with solutions in your own community to the problems you see. Berlowe feels that every person has the capacity to make a difference. "There is potentially a compassionate rebel in everyone, if you were really to sit down and talk to them. Maybe it hasn't come out yet, but it is potentially in there. Future rebels Berlowe and Janke want their book to have impact on the future. "We are timing this book to come out before the century turns, with the idea that we will have lots of people who take up this cause, particularly younger people," Berlowe says. "This will become more of a movement in the next century so a lot of the violence and injustice we have seen, perhaps can be turned around." | Read excerpts from the book | Peace Matters home |