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Send to friendIn this third instalment in our series on nonviolent struggle, we look at a common confusion between a set of beliefs called "pacifism" and the practice of nonviolent action, and the crucial distinction we should make between a religious or faith-based creed and the pragmatic adoption of effective methods of struggle. If you prefer, you can also download this piece as a PDF.
“An apostle of nonviolence.” “Preaching nonviolence”. We hear these expressions so often, we don’t question them. But there is a crucial difference between soporific preachifying and nonviolent action. So let's clear this up.
The fact that people come to struggle using nonviolent methods has nothing to do with faith or a hardcore belief in nonviolence as a panacea for the world. There are no such requirement, no need to buy into a philosophical "package" before groups can start using nonviolent action. Nonviolent struggle is not a dogma, a religion, an abstraction. Most of those who have used nonviolent tactics successfully didn’t even call them nonviolent.
People of faith and strong believers in anti-war principles have played a major role in many nonviolent movements. But some of these movements have at times faced serious opposition from religious leaders and prominent pacifists. One reason is that nonviolent organizers do not shy away from conflict. They "wage" conflict, like armies wage war. This displeases those more comfortable with an unjust status quo, than with stormy disruptions in the service of justice.
Pacifism is based on a philosophical rejection of violence. “Violence is bad, so it must be rejected.” But knowing that violence always involves a measure of injustice and death doesn’t mean that we can easily dispense with it. Faced with a life-threatening disease, a potentially harmful medicine is better than no medicine at all. If violence serves a purpose, then that purpose must be served by other means, before one can refuse violence.
Nonviolent struggle is such an effort aimed at shifting the balance of power. Thought, creativity and planning serve to devise tactics on the battlefield of public opinion. It is a practical method, not a philosophy.
A Necessary Tension
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."
“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."
"My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth."
"Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help [humanity] rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brother[sister]hood.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Alabama, April 16, 1963
"The alternative to violence is not reconciliation, it is not peace, it is not love, all of which belong to categories of a different order. The alternative to violence is — and can only be — nonviolent action. Nonviolent action truly is of the same order as violence: it serves the very function that violence claims to serve; it sets in motion a strategic struggle against injustice; it aims to create a contest for power in favour of the oppressed, to get their rights recognized and respected."
— Jean-Marie Muller
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Philippe Duhamel
interTactica — a liberation blog
Watch this space over the next few weeks as I'll be adding to our "Why Nonviolent Struggle" popularization project. Please contribute your comments to help improve these drafts.
Previous piece in this series. Next piece.
Philippe, I've been reading
Philippe,
I've been reading your entries on "why nonviolence?" with great interest. I appreciate the time you've put into this as it is helping me in my own work promoting ANV. I'd like to offer a criticism of #3 here, even in my own great ignorance of the field.
On reading #3 (Nonviolent Struggle & Religious Pacifism: Not Wed Together) I feel it lacks clarity and a fully convincing argument. On one hand it seems to me that you are trying to argue that nonviolence is active, not passive and that there needs to be a clear separation of those points of view. And that a clear tactic is to heighten tension and conflict, and be masters of the tactics at doing so nonviolently. Agreed.
On the other hand you are arguing, in your title and the body of the article, that the confusion between active and passive nonviolence springs from religious origins. I disagree. I think the 'confusion' is more a fear of destabilising the status quo, usually in an economic or political sense.
Why should religious conviction may deter from building tension. I'm thinking of the Berrigan brothers pouring out their blood in military installations and that seems like good old religious tension-building to me! I'm thinking of Jesus going through the temple and walking boldly towards Jerusalem, knowing the deadly risks to his self. Reading Walter Wink we can see quite clearly that "turn the other cheek" and "walk another mile" has nothing to do with passivity, but challenging power structures and the underlying conflicts. I'm sure we could look at other faiths engageing with nonviolence and quickly see there was nothing passive in their stance. Indeed you have a picture of Martin Luther King Jr on the page. Someone who was wedded to his faith and nonviolence.
I'll be upfront and tell you that I do align myself in the 'religious' (Christian even) camp, but cautiously so. I guess I see myself as "too secular to be properly religious and too religious to be a serious secularist". I even work for a Christian organisation. I see that many movements are steeped in religious cultures that can't be so easily excised from the equation. Yes, the ultimate goal is often "non-religious" but I think many people would agree to these goals as based in common human values and spiritualities. The Western view is that "religious" and "non-religious" are seperable. For many that divide does not exist.
I do think the point needs to be made that ANV includes and requires "conflict escalation". In a recent TRANSCEND conference conflict escalation was presented as a key approach of peacebuilding, which received many gasps of horror. So even peaceniks require "conversion" to this point.
I think a stronger case for your 3rd instalment should focus more clearly on the "conflict escalation" agenda and not cloud the issue with what seems like an unfounded attack on religion. Even as someone in "religion" I was first drawn to ANV through the idea of conflict escaltion, though it was a different phrase then: "rub raw the sores of discontent" by Saul Alinsky.
Your point on violence perpetrated by religion is well taken, but your double-standard criteria of blog #4 doesn't allow you to throw religion out as a viable source of ANV - "we tried religion and it didn't work". I might also say that this is a personal struggle of mine. How to reconcile these contradictory realities?
As I said earlier, I would argue that passivity and a rejection of activism and conflict escalation is more a function of the status quo than religion. Well, yes, religion has served the status quo in all-too-many situations, but it has also rocked the status quo - even the stodgy, conservative Catholic Church.
Well, that's my two-cents worth. Again, I appreciate your work and I look forward to what you are working on next.
Peace,
Chris
On Religion and Nonviolent Struggle
(In NewTactics' transition to the updated Drupal platform, I'm afraid the automated email notice I used to receive when new comments were posted was somehow disabled. That is why it took a random visit to this post before I stumbled upon your comment. My apologies.)
Dear Chris,
Thank you for expressing your perceptive concern. You have obviously thought long and hard about the nature of nonviolent struggle.
As you know, so much fluff gets merrily sprinkled around by well-meaning, but uninformed people when they talk about nonviolence -- confusing love and "peace" and understanding, one-to-one open-hearted dialogue and "conflict resolution" with what is at times a pretty hard core means of refusing all cooperation with oppression and disrupting the most fundamental workings of the power structure. Your clarity about how nonviolent action seeks to bring injustice out into the open and escalate the existing conflict as a means to force resolution in favour of the oppressed is refreshing and spot on. Hallelujah!
I fail to see, however, where in this short piece I seem to blame faith per se or religious people themselves for what, as you rightly point out, is essentially complacency with the status quo and fear of conflict. The point I am making is simple: the need to differentiate tactical and pragmatic nonviolence.
As Gene Sharp wrote : “The use of the term “nonviolence” is especially unfortunate, because it confuses these forms of mass action with beliefs in ethical or religions nonviolence (”Principled nonviolence”). Those beliefs, which have their merits, are different phenomena that usually are unrelated to mass struggles conducted by people who do not share such beliefs. To identify the technique, we here use and recommend the terms nonviolent action or nonviolent struggle.”
If we want the peoples of the world to adopt massively the methods of nonviolent action, then those of us who promote it must divorce it from our own specific religion. That is the point of this piece.
As you are well aware, and as the quoted words of King show, many who are religious (and non-religious, no doubt) show such an aversion for conflict that they will even oppose righteous nonviolent social movements. Nonviolent struggle requires that love of justice be greater than fear, or attachment to comfort.
Your rightly point out the role of great amazing shit-disturbers like the Berrigans, who were also deep deep Christians. I think the role of amazing and prominent faith-based organizers and activists has been recognized in the article. Agreed.
We just need to distance the method and strategic framework from the morals and the creed. This frees many who don't share our religion, or any religion, to see the usefulness of nonviolent struggle. The point being made here is just that.
Thanks for sharing, Chris. Much appreciated. And I've added your own blog as one I will follow.
Warm regards,
Philippe Duhamel
P.S. If there's specific wording you think might help dispel some wrong impression you seem to have drawn from this article, please volunteer. I'll be glad to consider. Thanks.
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Philippe Duhamel
Intertactica — a liberation blog