nonviolence

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Nonviolence (or non-violence), whether held as a moral philosophy or only employed as an action strategy, rejects the use of physical violence in efforts to attain social, economic or political change. As an alternative to both passive acceptance of oppression and armed struggle against it, nonviolence (also known as nonviolent resistance) offers a number of tactics for popular struggle ranging from education, to persuasion, to civil disobedience, to nonviolent direct action, to noncooperation with political, economic or social authorities. While frequently used as a synonym for pacifism, since the mid 20th century the terms nonviolence or nonviolent resistance have been adopted by many movements for social change which do not focus on opposition to war.

As technique

As a technique for social struggle, nonviolence has been described as "the politics of ordinary people", reflecting its historically mass-based use by populations throughout the world and history. Struggles most often associated with nonviolence are the non co-operation campaign for Indian independence led by Mohandas Gandhi, the struggle to attain civil rights for African Americans, led by Martin Luther King Jr., and people power in the Philippines.

The central tenets of nonviolent philosophy exist in each of the major Abrahamic religious traditions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) as well as in the major Dharmic religious traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism). It is also found in many pagan religious traditions. Nonviolent movements, leaders and advocates have at times referred to, drawn from and utilised many diverse religious basis for nonviolence within their respective struggles.

Likewise, secular political movements have utilised nonviolence, either as a tactical tool or as a strategic program on purely pragmatic and strategic levels, relying on its political effectiveness rather than a claim to any religious, moral or ethical worthiness.

People come to use nonviolent methods of struggle from a wide range of perspectives and traditions. A landless peasant in Brazil may nonviolently occupy a parcel of land for purely practical motivations. If they don't, the family will starve. A Buddhist monk in Thailand may "ordain" trees in a threatened forest, drawing on the teachings of Buddha to resist its destruction. A waterside worker in England may go on strike in socialist and union political traditions. All the above are using nonviolent methods but from different standpoints.

Nonviolence has even obtained a level of institutional recognition and endorsement at the global level. On November 10th, 1998, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millennium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.

How it works

The nonviolent approach to social struggle represents a radical departure from conventional thinking about both power and conflict, and yet appeals to a number of widely shared values and everyday ethics.

Central to any understanding of nonviolent strategic theory is the idea that the power of rulers depends upon the consent of the populace. Without a bureaucracy, an army or a police force to carry out his or her wishes and the compliance of key sectors of the population, the ruler is powerless. Power, therefore, depends largely on the co-operation of others. Nonviolence seeks to undermine the power of rulers through the deliberate withdrawal of this consent and co-operation.

Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. When Gandhi said that "the means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree," he expressed the philosophical kernel of what some refer to as prefigurative politics. Proponents of nonviolence reason that the actions taken in the present inevitably re-shape the social order in like form. They would argue, for instance, that it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society.

Some proponents of nonviolence advocate respect or love for opponents. It is this principle which is most closely associated with spiritual or religious justifications of nonviolence, as may be seen in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus urges his followers to "love thine enemy," in the Taoist concept of wu-wei, or effortless action, in the philosophy of the martial art Aikido, in the Buddhist principle of metta, or loving-kindness towards all beings, and in the principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence toward any being, shared by Buddhism, Jainism and some forms of Hinduism. Respect or love for opponents also has a pragmatic justification, in that the technique of separating the deeds from the doers allows for the possibility of the doers changing their behaviour, and perhaps their beliefs. Martin Luther King said, "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." The Christian focus on both nonviolence and forgiveness of sin may have found their way into the story of Abel in the Qur'an. Liberal movements within Islam have consequently used this story to promote Islamic ideals of nonviolence.

Finally, the notion of Satya, or truth, is central to the Gandhian conception of nonviolence. Gandhi saw truth as something that is multifaceted and unable to be grasped in its entirety by any one individual. All carry pieces of the truth, he believed, but all need the pieces of others’ truths in order to pursue the greater truth. This led him to believe in the inherent worth of dialogue with opponents, in order to understand motivations. On a practical level, willingness to listen to another's point of view is largely dependent on reciprocity. In order to be heard by one's opponents, one must also be prepared to listen.

Why nonviolence?

Most advocates of nonviolence draw their preference for nonviolence either from religious or ethical beliefs, or from political analysis. The first justification for nonviolence is sometimes referred to as principled or ethical nonviolence, while the second is known as pragmatic or strategic. Commonly, both of these dimensions may be present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals.

In the west, nonviolence has been used extensively by the labor, peace, environment and women's movements, that is, sectors without mainstream political power. Less well known is the role that nonviolence has played and continues to play in undermining the power of repressive political regimes in the developing world and the former eastern bloc:

In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations ... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa ... the independence movement in India ...) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world.

—(Walter Wink, as quoted by Susan Ives in a 2001 talk)

Nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp, in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, suggests that the conspicuous absence of nonviolence from mainstream historical study may be due to the fact that elite interests are not served by the dissemination of techniques for social struggle that rely on the collective power of a mobilised citizenry rather than access to wealth or weaponry.

Methods

Nonviolent action generally comprises three categories. The first, Acts of Protest and Persuasion, which include protest marches, vigils, public meetings and tools such as banners, placards, candles, flowers and the like; secondly, Noncooperation, the deliberate and strategic refusal to co-operate with an injustice; and thirdly, Nonviolent Intervention, the deliberate and often physical intervention into a perceived unjust event, such as blockades, occupations, sit-ins, tree sitting, truck cavalcades to name a few.

Hunger strikes, pickets, candlelight vigils, petitions, sit-ins, tax refusal, go-slows, blockades, draft refusal and public demonstrations are some of the specific techniques that have been deployed by nonviolent movements. Throughout history, these are some of the means used by ordinary people to counter injustice or reveal oppression or bring about progressive change.

Tactics must be carefully chosen, taking into account political and cultural circumstances, and form part of a larger plan or strategy. Walter Wink points to Jesus Christ as an early nonviolence strategist. Many of his teachings on nonviolence are quite sophisticated in the cultural circumstances. For example, among the people he was speaking to, if by collecting debts a person drove someone indebted to him to be naked, great shame fell on the debt collector, not the naked man. So Jesus' suggestion - that if someone asks you for your coat you give him your clothes as well (Luke 6:29) - was a way to bring shame upon the debt-collector and symbolically reverse the power relation while drawing attention to its imbalance. ^{[citation needed]}

In early Greece, Aristophanes' Lysistrata gives the fictional example of women withholding sexual favours from their husbands until war was abandoned.

A useful source of inspiration, for those seeking the best nonviolent tactics to deploy, is Gene Sharp’s list of 198 methods of nonviolent action, which includes symbolic, political, economic and physical actions.

Activist/researcher George Lakey says there are three applications of nonviolent action, being for:

• social defense (as in protection of a neighborhood or country from outside invaders);
• social change (its most known form, for advocating either reform or revolutionary changes); and
• third-party nonviolent intervention.

^{[citation needed]}

As a method of intervention across borders to deter attack and promote peaceful resolution of conflicts, the latter has met with several failures (at least on the level of deterring attack) such as the Human Shields in Iraq because it failed to ascertain the value of the goal compared with the value of human life in its context of war; but also many successes, such as the work of Project Accompaniment in Guatemala. Several non-governmental organizations are working in this area including, for example: Peace Brigades International and the Peaceforce. The primary tactics are unarmed accompaniment and human rights observation and reporting.

There are also many other great nonviolence leaders and theorists who have thought deeply about the spiritual and practical aspects of nonviolence, including: Leo Tolstoy, Lech Wałęsa, Petra Kelly, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, Albert Einstein, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, David McReynolds, Johan Galtung, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Ida Ford, Daniel Berrigan,Bacha Khan, Mario Rodriguez Cobos (pen name Silo) and César ChávezLeanne Perry.

Many leftist and socialist movements have hoped to mount a "peaceful revolution" by organizing enough strikers to completely paralyze it. With the state and corporate apparatus thus crippled, the workers would be able to re-organize society along radically different lines. ^{[citation needed]}

Living nonviolence

The violence embedded in most of the world's societies causes many to consider it an inherent part of human nature, but others (Riane Eisler, Walter Wink, Daniel Quinn) have suggested that violence - or at least the arsenal of violent strategies we take for granted - is a phenomenon of the last five to ten thousand years, and was not present in pre-domestication and early post-domestication human societies. This view shares several characteristics with the Victorian ideal of the Noble Savage.

For many, practicing nonviolence goes deeper than withholding from violent behavior or words. It means caring in one's heart for everyone, even those one strongly disagrees with, that is who are antithetical or opposed. By extrapolation comes the necessity of caring for those who are not practicing nonviolence, who are violent. Of course no one can simply will themselves to have such care, and this is one of the great personal challenges posed by nonviolence - once one believes in nonviolence in theory, how can the person live it?

Green politics and nonviolence

Nonviolence has been a central concept in green political philosophy. It is included in the Global Greens Charter. Greens believe that society should reject the current patterns of violence and embrace nonviolence. Green Philosophy draws heavily on both Gandhi and the Quaker traditions, which advocate measures by which the escalation of violence can be avoided, while not cooperating with those who commit violence. These greens believe that the current patterns of violence are incompatible with a sustainable society because it uses up limited resources and many forms of violence, especially nuclear weapons, are damaging for the environment. Violence also diminishes one and the group.

Some green political parties, like the Dutch GroenLinks, evolved out of the cooperation of the peace movement with the environmental movement in their resistance to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

As Green Parties have moved from the fringes of society towards becoming more and more influential in government circles, this commitment to nonviolence has had to be more clearly defined. In many cases, this has meant that the party has had to articulate a position on non-violence that differentiates itself from classic pacifism. The leader of the German Greens, for example, was instrumental in the NATO intervention in the Kosovo, arguing that being in favour of non-violence should never lead to passive acceptance of genocide. Similarly, Elizabeth May of the Green Party of Canada has stated that the Canadian intervention in Afganistan is justified as a means of supporting women's rights.

This movement by Green leadership has caused some internal dissension, as the traditional pacifist position is that there is no justification ever for committing violence.

Revolution and Nonviolence

Certain individuals (Barbara Deming, Danilo Dolci, Devere Allen etc.) and partly groups (eg. Socialist Party USA or War Resisters League) have advocated nonviolent revolution as an alternative to violence as well as elitist reformism. This perspective is usually connected to militant anti-capitalism.

Criticism

Leon Trotsky, Frantz Fanon, Reinhold Niebuhr, Subhash Chandra Bose and Malcolm X were fervent critics of nonviolence, arguing variously that nonviolence and pacifism are an attempt to impose the morals of the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat, that violence is a necessary accompaniment to revolutionary change, or that the right to self-defense is fundamental.

In the midst of violent repression of radical African Americans in the United States during the 1960s, Black Panther member George Jackson said of the nonviolent tactics of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative."

Malcolm X also clashed with civil rights leaders over the issue of nonviolence, arguing that violence should not be ruled out where no option remained:

"Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks."

A new generation of historians of the civil rights movement criticise nonviolence as a failed strategy and argue that black armed self-defense and civil violence motivated civil rights reforms more than peaceful appeals to morality and reason (see Lance Hill's "Deacons for Defense")[1].

The efficacy of nonviolence was also challenged by anti-capitalist protesters advocating a "diversity of tactics" during street demonstrations across Europe and the US following the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington in 1999. American feminist writer D. A. Clarke, in her essay "A Woman With A Sword," suggests that for nonviolence to be effective, it must be "practiced by those who could easily resort to force if they chose." This argument reasons that nonviolent tactics will be of little or no use to groups that are traditionally considered incapable of violence, since nonviolence will be in keeping with people's expectations for them and thus go unnoticed. Such is the principle of dunamis (from the Greek: δύνάμις or, restrained power).

Niebuhr's criticism of nonviolence, expressed most clearly in Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) is based on his view of human nature as innately selfish, an updated version of the Christian doctrine of original sin. Advocates of nonviolence generally do not accept the doctrine of original sin (though Martin Luther King, Jr., did accept a modified version of Niebuhr's teachings on the subject).

Property or people?

One minor, but commonly debated issue is whether the destruction of or damage to non-living objects, as opposed to people is actual "violence". In much nonviolence literature, including Sharp, various forms of sabotage and damage to property are included within the scope of nonviolent action, while other authors consider destruction or destructive acts of any kind as potentially or actually a form of violence in that it might generate fear or hardship upon the owner or person dependent on that object.

Other authors or activists argue that property destruction can be strategically ineffective if the act provides a pretext for further repression or reinforces state power. Lakey, for instance, argues that the burning of cars during the Paris uprising of 1968 only served to undermine the growing working and middle-class support for the uprising and undermined its political potential.

Sabotage of machinery used in war, either during its production or after, complicates the issue further. Is saving a life by destroying property that will later be used for violence a violent act, or is passively allowing weapons to be used later the violent act (i.e. non-violence that leads to violence)? At a less abstract level, if someone is being beaten with a stick, it is usually considered an act of violence to take the stick away, but if the stick falls to the ground and you break it, is that still considered a violent action?

In all of these debates it is relevant to consider the question of whether the perpetrator or victim of violence determines what is "violent." Also, relative power of parties and the type of "weapon" being applied is relevant to the issue. Palestinian children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks as an example cited. Force itself here becomes a relative measure of power and petty violence by the disenfranchised may be violence, but ultimately is not the same as overarching "power" to destroy.

Organizations promoting nonviolence

• Albert Einstein Institution (study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world)
• Alternatives to Violence Project
• Christian Peacemaker Teams
• Educators for Nonviolence
• Fellowship of Reconciliation
• Food Not Bombs
• Worldwide Green Parties Peace and justice through grassroots nonviolent means by, and for, people, communities, and nations
• Green Party US
• Greenpeace
• Humanist Movement
• Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (Yasin Malik)
• Jonah House
• Nevada Desert Experience
• Nonviolence International
• Nonviolent Peaceforce
• Pax Christi
• Peace churches
• Peace Brigades International
• Peaceworkers UK British NGO providing training for potential peaceworkers in nonviolent, civilian techniques of conflict transformation
• Pentecostal Charismatic Peace Fellowship
• School Day of Non-violence and Peace (DENIP)
• Shahmai Network
• Soulforce
• United States Institute of Peace
• War Resisters' International

See also

• Ahimsa
• Anti-nuclear
• Anti-war
• Christian anarchism
• Christian nonviolence
• Civil disobedience
• Consistent Life Ethic
• Department of Peace
• Direct action
• Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
• List of nonviolence scholars and leaders
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Nonresistance
• Non-violent child discipline
• Nonviolent Communication
• Nonviolent Resistance
• Pacifism
• 1986 EDSA Revolution
• Satyagraha
• Soulforce
• Spiral of Violence
• Leo Tolstoy
• Turn the other cheek
• Weak theology

Further reading

• ISBN 0-87558-070-X Power and Struggle (Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 1) by Gene Sharp
• ISBN 0-87558-071-8 Methods of Nonviolent Action (Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 2) by Gene Sharp
• ISBN 0-87558-072-6 Dynamics of Nonviolent Action (Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 3) by Gene Sharp
• ISBN 0-87558-162-5 Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice And 21st Century Potential by Gene Sharp with collaboration of Joshua Paulson and the assistance of Christopher A. Miller and Hardy Merriman
• ISBN 0-8166-4193-5 Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Non-Democracies by Kurt Schock
• ISBN 0-8006-3609-0 Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets) by Walter Wink
• ISBN 1-57075-315-6 Peace Is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation by Fellowship of Reconciliation (U. S.)
• ISBN 1-57075-547-7 American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea by Ira Chernus
• ISBN 0-679-64335-4 Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Kurlansky
• OCLC 03859761 The Kingdom of God is within You by Leo Tolstoy
• ISBN 1-9307-2235-4 Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future by Michael Nagler
• ISBN 0-8156-3003-4 Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963, by Scott H. Bennett, Syracuse Univ. Press, 2003.

External links

Smaller organizations and projects offering training

This list includes only regional organizations that are not big enough to have a Wikipedia article and are therefore not included in the organizations list above.

• Nonviolence Training Project (Australia)
• Training for Change, training in nonviolence for movement groups (USA)
• INNATE - Irish Network for Nonviolent Action, Training and Education
• Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service
• Metta Center for Nonviolence Education (USA)

Other

• DirectAction.org offers online resources for nonviolent organizing
• Origin of Non Violence
• Power Under: Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change -- A book by Steven Wineman
• Nonviolence.org News and commentary from a pacifist perspective
• Gandhi Autobiography and Path to Peace: The Story of My Experiments with Truth Free e-text
• Critique of Nonviolent Politics: From Mahatma Gandhi to the Anti-Nuclear Movement
• Socratic Method Society - Uses a "modified version" of the Socratic method to resolve interpersonal conflict nonviolently
• DENIP: School Day of Non-violence and Peace

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