Rachel, as always, I appreciate your invitation to think harder and meet thought with embodiment. As I consider the useful distinction between sabotage and violence, I am reminded of the most cogent expression of this by Kimberly Latrice Jones. I encourage your readers to check out this 6-minute video. What Jones explains relates. https://youtu.be/llci8MVh8J4?feature=shared
Another powerful piece Rachel, thankyou for prompting me to think and write.The rhetoric of non-violence remains understandably strong in liberal democracies, but the data sets and work of the likes of Chenoweth and Stepan, and their defense of nonviolent activism's superiority have been well-criticised (not least by Andreas Malm, as you allude), and there is always a threshold beyond which self-defense against assault and violence must be physical, embodied and direct to be effective. As we descend back through authoritarian nationalisms and feudalisms, albeit in new technological and religious garbs, I suspect and fear these lessons in body-politics must be learnt once again (not that they need to be learnt by women or colonised peoples). A need for a renewal of Fanon’s call for violent reisistance against colonialism perhaps, albeit directed towards new forms of both cognitive and bodily extraction and enslavement.
I diverge, I think, in your analysis, in terms of your championing of the human and in terms of the nature of the battle. We are today imbricated in energy, informational and technological systems and assemblages that have transformed both what it means to be embodied as human and that which we must fight. We live, for want of a better phrase, in an Age of Monsters, and, while I agree there is a need to fight, lest we lose everything (of value), the enemy is more expansive, invasive and aggressive than ever before. Two quotes recently came to mind, one from a scholar of Amerindian indigenous worldviews, Viveiros de Castro, noting how within such an indigenous world “there is scarcely an existent that could not be defined in terms of its relative position on a scale of predatory power” and another, a pointed comment from David Frum, that “[f]or Trump the predation is the end.” My point is simply that we live in a world where the scale of predatory power has shifted - and not for the better - and how we resist and/or respond to it must shift too.
I suspect that seems a bit weird, but I think reality is increasingly weird. But in terms of how we resist predation, well, nonviolence probably won’t cut it.
One of the most riveting and powerful pieces I have read by you Rachel Donald. Thank you for that.
I took your words and meaning to the inside. I put them in my mouth. I swallowed them whole, savory and bitter. And, yes, our caring is physical, our love tactile, and our fury a stave of footprints like black musical notes inked onto unbleached parchment.
Agreed, this is the most f&%(&#! powerful and riveting piece I've read by Rachel Donald (and from anyone in long time). You changed how my heart was beating. You are absolutely right that the defense of our planet and bodies should not require us to respond without physical sabotage to physical violations of countless stripes. Rachel's writing also resonates with my experiences of physically standing up for my right to live unaccosted in my own body. Freedom has been won by a willingness to fight. (And thank you for acknowledging that your rugger/ex-lawyer partner is a part of your safety in this physical world where the size of the creatures that we are really does matter.)
Spot on. Speaking what many feel but are afraid to say, or rather, don’t want to. It’s time to lay our differences aside, come together and ORGANIZE. All blessings.
Lest this turn into debate about the efficacy of nonviolent or violent resistance or direct action, which isn’t my intent and doesn’t seem implied by Rachel’s post either (rather a clarion cry for embodied resistance and self-defense), a quick clarification to my earlier comment.
First, there is immense value in nonviolent direct action methods. The works of the likes of Gene Sharp, past nonviolent struggles and civil rights movements and more recent works like Otpor! and Popovic’s 'Blueprint for a Revolution' are all great and to be looked towards for inspiration.
However, some of the claims for Chenoweth and Stephan’s research on the superiority of nonviolent approaches can be misleading and have been misused or misread. They themselves have admitted that they aren’t offering predictors of success in future struggles (and they have responded to the limitations of their datasets). Moreover, the nature of the struggles they are addressing don’t fit squarely onto some of the key struggles of the 21st century (e.g. for environmental justice or against extractive and polluting industries). See, for example, Gelderloos’ ‘Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance’ for one of the more pointed criticisms (https://roarmag.org/essays/chenoweth-stephan-nonviolence-myth/ )
More importantly, in most struggles for change and resistance against oppression and violence, there has been a plurality of approaches in the activist’s toolkit. For a more diverse, pragmatic and less idealistic approach to activist reisistance, see something like Aric McBay’s Full Spectrum Resistance.
My own point is that in an age of mass surveillance, mass misinformation, mainstream conspiracism, greater wealth inequality than ever before, a multitude of new and transformative technologies, and unfolding ecological and sustainability crises, the nature of resistance needs to change. Gandhian ahimsa may not be sufficient.
Most of the comments here so far seem to be missing what I believe is the primary pointing of this very real and beautiful essay, which I strongly feel attempts to pull aside some of the more privileged and foolish veils that middle class comforts have been weaving before the world's eyes for a long time...
A kind of pointing (nudge? push?) that for this one is clearly woven through the whole of it, and I think most exemplified by these simple words: "...all throughout history, civil campaigns were won by the presence of a radical flank who went beyond words. Their existence is critical to making the moderate flank — the MLKs of the world — look rational and reasonable and worth speaking to."
To repeat a metaphor, this forest is not all about trees...
Empirical evidence shows that violence is not, actually, more effective. Most certainly not in the long term, but over the past 125 years studied, non-violent civil resistance has had an overall success rate of 50%, whereas for violence it's around 10%.
Calling it self defense doesn't make a difference. The fascists won't care about your distinction. They will declare martial law, bring out their most brutal, imprison and murder until there's nothing left. In America especially, we are not going to beat the world's most advanced, well-funded, highly trained military and law enforcement with a few guerilla warfare tactics.
Movements around the world have shown the truth: Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Otport in Serbia, Armenia, Egypt, Bolivia, Bangladesh, South Africa—all with non-violent resistance success against tyrants. The authoritarian pushback since the Arab Spring is a direct result of the people WINNING. They're afraid of us.
Erica Chenoweth, preeminent scholar on civil resistance:
You are looking at a primeval forest and seeing merely trees...
Much more importantly though, you are missing what I believe is the primary pointing of this very real and beautiful essay, which I strongly feel attempts to pull aside some of the more privileged and foolish veils that middle class comforts have been weaving before the world's eyes for a long time...
A kind of pointing (nudge? push?) that for this one is clearly woven through the whole of it, and I think most exemplified by these simple words: "...all throughout history, civil campaigns were won by the presence of a radical flank who went beyond words. Their existence is critical to making the moderate flank — the MLKs of the world — look rational and reasonable and worth speaking to."
In other words this essay is not speaking about as you say: "a few guerilla [sic] warfare tactics.."
Or, to repeat my metaphor, this forest is not all about trees...
I'm not missing anything. She is very clearly promoting the idea of violence and that is specifically what I responded to. My words on tactics come as a criticism of Malcom X, who she quoted and even gave examples. Did we even read the same piece here?
edit: "He also vehemently argued that destruction of private property, such as pipelines and bank windows, is not violence."
If you think this sort of thing can take place without inevitably leading to physical violence against law enforcement, you're fooling yourself.
My words, and metaphor, stand as they are... You are speaking and apparently only seeing binary possibilities, which tends to be all that conditioning and held onto ideas, aka identification with the past, produces...
The forest is real, far far more than just the trees, and can never be apprehended through binary imagery and concepts... Just like Rachel is pointing to so beautifully, bodies are real, life is diverse, and evolution as well as potential transformation events involve all of our responses, collectively...
You like to use a lot of words to say very little, while judging my thoughts and bias. I made an objective statement based on facts, concerning a very clear, objective statement made by Donald; "And it’s more effective than non-violence."
Your obfuscating that with vague metaphor still does not change that. I haven't said nearly enough here for you to even attempt to judge what and how I think.
So in the quote, you're juxtaposing "non-violence" with "more effective self defense?" That doesn't make much sense. How do you use self-defense that is neither violent or non-violent? Maybe the issue here is that you think "non-violence" refers to pacifism? That certainly isn't what MLK, Lewis, and Gandhi did. It's not what the Orange Revolution in Ukraine did or Otpor in Serbia.
Maybe we're arguing over mere semantics here, but if so, I'm really not sure what you're trying to say. Maybe you could spell it out for me.
There are deeper implications and pointings here that you are clearly unable to grasp... Rather than acknowledge such, which would allow for some different, nuanced and more subtle understandings to maybe enter your awareness, you keep doubling down on a rather narrow and extremely limited mental/conceptual position...
It is only someone living in affluent, privileged and protected circumstances, comfortably behind "walls" of state enforced violence in the form of police, the military and legal systems hugely biased towards property, affluence, power and privilege, and with all of that dependent upon some extremely leveraged economic and industrial as well as physical violence inflicted on a living natural world and on "other" peoples in "distant" lands, who can get away with insisting on this privileged position you keep defending...
In other words affluent and privileged members of Empire, the ultimate wielder of extreme and deadly violence...
But, hey, this may be too many words for you again, and/or too much metaphor, so rather than confounding you any further, and because you mention them as justification for your misunderstandings, let me offer first some Mahatma Gandhi on this subject:
"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor." - Young India (August 11, 1920)
"Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission." - The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
And now Martin Luther King Jr.:
"The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi, who sanctioned it for those unable to master pure nonviolence." - From "The Social Organization of Nonviolence" (1959)
"MLK maintained a firearm in his home for protection during the height of the civil rights movement and threats against his family."
I have read the ahimsa. You cherry pick without understanding. Gandhi believed that in the presence of a person fully dedicated to non-violence, a violent person's heart could be changed. I have, in fact, done this myself.
You denounce the state violence, but then suggest (without elucidating, but rather deflecting) that we should do the same. You are just replacing one tyranny with another. Again, there is empirical evidence from Erica Chenoweth that violent civil resistance has a much worse success rate, both short term and even more long term.
So there is hard evidence that what I'm saying is true, but you continue to claim that there's some mystic metaphor in your words. The truth is, you don't actually have an argument, so you just dither. Goodbye.
Bloody hell Rachel. Your words are green shoots breaking through concrete. Sunlight cracking walls. Wind blown dust wrecking gears. Rain pelting our faces just as it quenches us.
You can feel the true balance of nature in your delivery, I feel the forest in you. The power and anger of mother. Deep bows.
Hackles up. Keep snarling. The pack listens, it bites together or not at all.
Rachel, thank you for posting this. There seems to be a good few articles on this same theme.
For me, the 'against' (which is Freedom From something), has to become Freedom For something. There are of course people who are good at one or the other but not both. I wrote about it here:
concur - excellent piece the west has a thing about the body (and sex lol and also shit arse snot puss etc) i blame adam n eve meself and also plato and christianity thought the empirical world a world of error and sin lol - its soooo manichaen sooo binary...sigh xxxx
Reading your piece reminded me of so many dystopian stories (Cloud 9, Altered Carbon, Elysium). Some were more mind provoking than others and then there is your piece. I fear for the future generations will be slaves to the wealthy and powerful if we don’t stop them right here and now.
Not necessarily with physical violence but given the game is rigged, how else?
Not all self-defense is non-violent. Just as the destruction of property is not necessarily non-violent. What about the Klan burning down the home of a black sharecropper? Non-violence is not necessarily passive, just as it is different when applied in a personal versus society wide context. Why not give active nonviolence a chance? Violent resistance and self-defense (always of, by and for men), whether it be in Gaza or Ukraine has utterly failed to protect ordinary people, who for most part just want to live in peace. Armed self-defense has completely played into the hands of those whose capacity for and willingness to use violence is starkly greater than those who use violence for resistance. Law, morality, religion and personal values likewise, have done little or nothing to stop the disproportionate violence once it inevitably spirals out of control.
Why not try a different – nonviolent – kind of self-defense. An active non-violence that relies on non-cooperation, civil disobedience, boycotts and general strikes. With the possible exception of Nazi Germany and the United States, the British empire was one of the most brutal, inhumane and barbarous colonial administrations of all time. With little resources other than his spirituality, Gandhi was able to resist and defeat the abomination of British colonial oppression. It is now time for all of us to give active nonviolence – and peace – a chance.
You make a good case, but accepting the use of violence makes me incredibly uneasy. I agree that sabotage is different, but personal physical violence always seems to escalate. Non violence is a major difference between an XR action and the ugly spectacle of a Tommy Robinson march. Would XR or JSO have been more effective if they had engaged in combat with the police or angry motorists?
Non-violent resistance isn't achieved through words alone; it often involves physical action. For instance, your own example of blocking immigration vans is a non-violent action. It seems you may not be aware that much of the research on this topic contradicts your views. Most scholars agree that history demonstrates civil resistance is more likely to succeed than armed revolutions. I encourage you to conduct further research and broaden your understanding beyond personal feelings. We may soon face a situation involving martial law, and everyone will need to choose a side, and take responsibility for their stance if they find themselves on the wrong side of history.
Rachel, as always, I appreciate your invitation to think harder and meet thought with embodiment. As I consider the useful distinction between sabotage and violence, I am reminded of the most cogent expression of this by Kimberly Latrice Jones. I encourage your readers to check out this 6-minute video. What Jones explains relates. https://youtu.be/llci8MVh8J4?feature=shared
She’s amazing. So wise.
"Non-violence is noble but this world is not." - Powerful, true.
Another powerful piece Rachel, thankyou for prompting me to think and write.The rhetoric of non-violence remains understandably strong in liberal democracies, but the data sets and work of the likes of Chenoweth and Stepan, and their defense of nonviolent activism's superiority have been well-criticised (not least by Andreas Malm, as you allude), and there is always a threshold beyond which self-defense against assault and violence must be physical, embodied and direct to be effective. As we descend back through authoritarian nationalisms and feudalisms, albeit in new technological and religious garbs, I suspect and fear these lessons in body-politics must be learnt once again (not that they need to be learnt by women or colonised peoples). A need for a renewal of Fanon’s call for violent reisistance against colonialism perhaps, albeit directed towards new forms of both cognitive and bodily extraction and enslavement.
I diverge, I think, in your analysis, in terms of your championing of the human and in terms of the nature of the battle. We are today imbricated in energy, informational and technological systems and assemblages that have transformed both what it means to be embodied as human and that which we must fight. We live, for want of a better phrase, in an Age of Monsters, and, while I agree there is a need to fight, lest we lose everything (of value), the enemy is more expansive, invasive and aggressive than ever before. Two quotes recently came to mind, one from a scholar of Amerindian indigenous worldviews, Viveiros de Castro, noting how within such an indigenous world “there is scarcely an existent that could not be defined in terms of its relative position on a scale of predatory power” and another, a pointed comment from David Frum, that “[f]or Trump the predation is the end.” My point is simply that we live in a world where the scale of predatory power has shifted - and not for the better - and how we resist and/or respond to it must shift too.
I suspect that seems a bit weird, but I think reality is increasingly weird. But in terms of how we resist predation, well, nonviolence probably won’t cut it.
One of the most riveting and powerful pieces I have read by you Rachel Donald. Thank you for that.
I took your words and meaning to the inside. I put them in my mouth. I swallowed them whole, savory and bitter. And, yes, our caring is physical, our love tactile, and our fury a stave of footprints like black musical notes inked onto unbleached parchment.
Beautiful!
Agreed, this is the most f&%(&#! powerful and riveting piece I've read by Rachel Donald (and from anyone in long time). You changed how my heart was beating. You are absolutely right that the defense of our planet and bodies should not require us to respond without physical sabotage to physical violations of countless stripes. Rachel's writing also resonates with my experiences of physically standing up for my right to live unaccosted in my own body. Freedom has been won by a willingness to fight. (And thank you for acknowledging that your rugger/ex-lawyer partner is a part of your safety in this physical world where the size of the creatures that we are really does matter.)
Spot on. Speaking what many feel but are afraid to say, or rather, don’t want to. It’s time to lay our differences aside, come together and ORGANIZE. All blessings.
Lest this turn into debate about the efficacy of nonviolent or violent resistance or direct action, which isn’t my intent and doesn’t seem implied by Rachel’s post either (rather a clarion cry for embodied resistance and self-defense), a quick clarification to my earlier comment.
First, there is immense value in nonviolent direct action methods. The works of the likes of Gene Sharp, past nonviolent struggles and civil rights movements and more recent works like Otpor! and Popovic’s 'Blueprint for a Revolution' are all great and to be looked towards for inspiration.
However, some of the claims for Chenoweth and Stephan’s research on the superiority of nonviolent approaches can be misleading and have been misused or misread. They themselves have admitted that they aren’t offering predictors of success in future struggles (and they have responded to the limitations of their datasets). Moreover, the nature of the struggles they are addressing don’t fit squarely onto some of the key struggles of the 21st century (e.g. for environmental justice or against extractive and polluting industries). See, for example, Gelderloos’ ‘Debunking the myths around nonviolent resistance’ for one of the more pointed criticisms (https://roarmag.org/essays/chenoweth-stephan-nonviolence-myth/ )
More importantly, in most struggles for change and resistance against oppression and violence, there has been a plurality of approaches in the activist’s toolkit. For a more diverse, pragmatic and less idealistic approach to activist reisistance, see something like Aric McBay’s Full Spectrum Resistance.
My own point is that in an age of mass surveillance, mass misinformation, mainstream conspiracism, greater wealth inequality than ever before, a multitude of new and transformative technologies, and unfolding ecological and sustainability crises, the nature of resistance needs to change. Gandhian ahimsa may not be sufficient.
Most of the comments here so far seem to be missing what I believe is the primary pointing of this very real and beautiful essay, which I strongly feel attempts to pull aside some of the more privileged and foolish veils that middle class comforts have been weaving before the world's eyes for a long time...
A kind of pointing (nudge? push?) that for this one is clearly woven through the whole of it, and I think most exemplified by these simple words: "...all throughout history, civil campaigns were won by the presence of a radical flank who went beyond words. Their existence is critical to making the moderate flank — the MLKs of the world — look rational and reasonable and worth speaking to."
To repeat a metaphor, this forest is not all about trees...
🙏🌻
Empirical evidence shows that violence is not, actually, more effective. Most certainly not in the long term, but over the past 125 years studied, non-violent civil resistance has had an overall success rate of 50%, whereas for violence it's around 10%.
Calling it self defense doesn't make a difference. The fascists won't care about your distinction. They will declare martial law, bring out their most brutal, imprison and murder until there's nothing left. In America especially, we are not going to beat the world's most advanced, well-funded, highly trained military and law enforcement with a few guerilla warfare tactics.
Movements around the world have shown the truth: Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Otport in Serbia, Armenia, Egypt, Bolivia, Bangladesh, South Africa—all with non-violent resistance success against tyrants. The authoritarian pushback since the Arab Spring is a direct result of the people WINNING. They're afraid of us.
Erica Chenoweth, preeminent scholar on civil resistance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-JPdSs7_4I&list=WL
You are looking at a primeval forest and seeing merely trees...
Much more importantly though, you are missing what I believe is the primary pointing of this very real and beautiful essay, which I strongly feel attempts to pull aside some of the more privileged and foolish veils that middle class comforts have been weaving before the world's eyes for a long time...
A kind of pointing (nudge? push?) that for this one is clearly woven through the whole of it, and I think most exemplified by these simple words: "...all throughout history, civil campaigns were won by the presence of a radical flank who went beyond words. Their existence is critical to making the moderate flank — the MLKs of the world — look rational and reasonable and worth speaking to."
In other words this essay is not speaking about as you say: "a few guerilla [sic] warfare tactics.."
Or, to repeat my metaphor, this forest is not all about trees...
🙏🌻
I'm not missing anything. She is very clearly promoting the idea of violence and that is specifically what I responded to. My words on tactics come as a criticism of Malcom X, who she quoted and even gave examples. Did we even read the same piece here?
edit: "He also vehemently argued that destruction of private property, such as pipelines and bank windows, is not violence."
If you think this sort of thing can take place without inevitably leading to physical violence against law enforcement, you're fooling yourself.
My words, and metaphor, stand as they are... You are speaking and apparently only seeing binary possibilities, which tends to be all that conditioning and held onto ideas, aka identification with the past, produces...
The forest is real, far far more than just the trees, and can never be apprehended through binary imagery and concepts... Just like Rachel is pointing to so beautifully, bodies are real, life is diverse, and evolution as well as potential transformation events involve all of our responses, collectively...
🙏🌻
You like to use a lot of words to say very little, while judging my thoughts and bias. I made an objective statement based on facts, concerning a very clear, objective statement made by Donald; "And it’s more effective than non-violence."
Your obfuscating that with vague metaphor still does not change that. I haven't said nearly enough here for you to even attempt to judge what and how I think.
Hi Ian, I didn’t promote violence, I promoted self-defence and sabotage, arguing both are a physical thing, as clearly repeated throughout.
So in the quote, you're juxtaposing "non-violence" with "more effective self defense?" That doesn't make much sense. How do you use self-defense that is neither violent or non-violent? Maybe the issue here is that you think "non-violence" refers to pacifism? That certainly isn't what MLK, Lewis, and Gandhi did. It's not what the Orange Revolution in Ukraine did or Otpor in Serbia.
Maybe we're arguing over mere semantics here, but if so, I'm really not sure what you're trying to say. Maybe you could spell it out for me.
A lot of words...? Hmmm...
There are deeper implications and pointings here that you are clearly unable to grasp... Rather than acknowledge such, which would allow for some different, nuanced and more subtle understandings to maybe enter your awareness, you keep doubling down on a rather narrow and extremely limited mental/conceptual position...
It is only someone living in affluent, privileged and protected circumstances, comfortably behind "walls" of state enforced violence in the form of police, the military and legal systems hugely biased towards property, affluence, power and privilege, and with all of that dependent upon some extremely leveraged economic and industrial as well as physical violence inflicted on a living natural world and on "other" peoples in "distant" lands, who can get away with insisting on this privileged position you keep defending...
In other words affluent and privileged members of Empire, the ultimate wielder of extreme and deadly violence...
But, hey, this may be too many words for you again, and/or too much metaphor, so rather than confounding you any further, and because you mention them as justification for your misunderstandings, let me offer first some Mahatma Gandhi on this subject:
"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor." - Young India (August 11, 1920)
"Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission." - The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
And now Martin Luther King Jr.:
"The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi, who sanctioned it for those unable to master pure nonviolence." - From "The Social Organization of Nonviolence" (1959)
"MLK maintained a firearm in his home for protection during the height of the civil rights movement and threats against his family."
🙏🌻
I have read the ahimsa. You cherry pick without understanding. Gandhi believed that in the presence of a person fully dedicated to non-violence, a violent person's heart could be changed. I have, in fact, done this myself.
You denounce the state violence, but then suggest (without elucidating, but rather deflecting) that we should do the same. You are just replacing one tyranny with another. Again, there is empirical evidence from Erica Chenoweth that violent civil resistance has a much worse success rate, both short term and even more long term.
So there is hard evidence that what I'm saying is true, but you continue to claim that there's some mystic metaphor in your words. The truth is, you don't actually have an argument, so you just dither. Goodbye.
Exceptionally crafted piece Rachael, It definitely brought pause!!
Bloody hell Rachel. Your words are green shoots breaking through concrete. Sunlight cracking walls. Wind blown dust wrecking gears. Rain pelting our faces just as it quenches us.
You can feel the true balance of nature in your delivery, I feel the forest in you. The power and anger of mother. Deep bows.
Hackles up. Keep snarling. The pack listens, it bites together or not at all.
Rachel, thank you for posting this. There seems to be a good few articles on this same theme.
For me, the 'against' (which is Freedom From something), has to become Freedom For something. There are of course people who are good at one or the other but not both. I wrote about it here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/vincentmcmahon/p/the-lightness-of-change-a-pathway?r=19i5c6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
concur - excellent piece the west has a thing about the body (and sex lol and also shit arse snot puss etc) i blame adam n eve meself and also plato and christianity thought the empirical world a world of error and sin lol - its soooo manichaen sooo binary...sigh xxxx
Reading your piece reminded me of so many dystopian stories (Cloud 9, Altered Carbon, Elysium). Some were more mind provoking than others and then there is your piece. I fear for the future generations will be slaves to the wealthy and powerful if we don’t stop them right here and now.
Not necessarily with physical violence but given the game is rigged, how else?
Not all self-defense is non-violent. Just as the destruction of property is not necessarily non-violent. What about the Klan burning down the home of a black sharecropper? Non-violence is not necessarily passive, just as it is different when applied in a personal versus society wide context. Why not give active nonviolence a chance? Violent resistance and self-defense (always of, by and for men), whether it be in Gaza or Ukraine has utterly failed to protect ordinary people, who for most part just want to live in peace. Armed self-defense has completely played into the hands of those whose capacity for and willingness to use violence is starkly greater than those who use violence for resistance. Law, morality, religion and personal values likewise, have done little or nothing to stop the disproportionate violence once it inevitably spirals out of control.
Why not try a different – nonviolent – kind of self-defense. An active non-violence that relies on non-cooperation, civil disobedience, boycotts and general strikes. With the possible exception of Nazi Germany and the United States, the British empire was one of the most brutal, inhumane and barbarous colonial administrations of all time. With little resources other than his spirituality, Gandhi was able to resist and defeat the abomination of British colonial oppression. It is now time for all of us to give active nonviolence – and peace – a chance.
You make a good case, but accepting the use of violence makes me incredibly uneasy. I agree that sabotage is different, but personal physical violence always seems to escalate. Non violence is a major difference between an XR action and the ugly spectacle of a Tommy Robinson march. Would XR or JSO have been more effective if they had engaged in combat with the police or angry motorists?
Hi Tim, At no point did I accept the use of violence!
Non-violent resistance isn't achieved through words alone; it often involves physical action. For instance, your own example of blocking immigration vans is a non-violent action. It seems you may not be aware that much of the research on this topic contradicts your views. Most scholars agree that history demonstrates civil resistance is more likely to succeed than armed revolutions. I encourage you to conduct further research and broaden your understanding beyond personal feelings. We may soon face a situation involving martial law, and everyone will need to choose a side, and take responsibility for their stance if they find themselves on the wrong side of history.