Nonviolence

theory, practice, criticisms

Lecture 7
Monday February 7 2011

PEACE ST 1A03: Introduction to Peace Studies

Dr Colin Salter, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University

1
 Outline

• What is nonviolence?
• Contradictory approaches?
• Criticisms

2
 Questions

• Like Peace, we often hear references to

nonviolence, yet what does it actually mean?
• Is there a universal or popularly adopted definition
of nonviolence?

3
 Nonviolence

Taken literally, ‘nonviolent action’ would mean any form

of action that does not involve violence or force such as
beating, torture, imprisonment or killing.
In practice, ‘nonviolent action’ has come to refer to a
range of methods of social action that neither involve
violence nor are routine parts of life or politics.
Brian Martin (2001)

4
5
 Examples

• resistance in Finland to Russian attempts to

dominate, 1899-1905
• thwarting of the Kapp Putsch in Germany in 1920
• nonviolent insurrection to overthrow the
dictatorship in El Salvador in 1944
• resistance against the Nazi occupation, 1939-1943,
especially in Norway, Denmark and the
Netherlands

6
 Examples

• the US civil rights movement in the 1950s and

1960s
• thwarting of the 1961 Algerian Generals’ revolt
• Czechoslovak resistance to the 1968 Soviet
invasion
• the Palestinian intifada, 1987-1993, challenging the
Israeli occupation

7
 Examples

• collapse in 1989 of repressive Eastern European

regimes
• the removal of the racist and oppressive apartheid
system in South Africa in the 1990s
• Tunisia and Egypt (2010-11)

8
Most of these people will never make the headlines and
their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when
years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth
is focused on this marvellous age in which we live--men
and women will know and children will be taught that
we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble
civilization--because these humble children of God were
willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

9
 Trident Ploughshares

• Nonviolent disarmament
• Civil disobedience

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88451

10
11
I am for violence if non-violence means we continue
postponing a solution to the American black man's
problem just to avoid violence.
Malcolm X

12
I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not
plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any
love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and
sober assessment of the political situation that had
arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and
oppression of my people by the Whites.
Nelson Mandela

13
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability, and beauty if the biotic community. It is wrong
when it tends otherwise.
Aldo Leopold (1981)

14
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will
make violent revolution inevitable
John F. Kennedy, 1962

15
 Uncivil disobedience

• To inflict economic damage on those profitting from

the destruction and exploitation of the natural
environment.
• To reveal and educate the public on the atrocities
committed against the earth and all species that
populate it.
• To take all necessary precautions against harming
any animal, human and non-human.

16
17
 Summary

• Satyagraha • (Black) Liberation

Theology
• Christian Pacifism
• Radical perspectives

18
 Citations & further reading
Paul Amar (2011) ‘Why Mubarak is Out’, Jadaliyya, February 1.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/516/why-mubarak-is-out

Peter Gelderloos (2005) How Nonviolence Protects the State, AK Press.

David Kirkpatrick and David Sanger (2011) ‘A Tunisian-Egyptian Link That Shook
Arab History’, New York Times, February 13.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/world/middleeast/14eg ypt-tunisia-
protests.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Brian Martin (2008) ‘How nonviolence is misrepresented’, Gandhi Marg, Vol. 30,
No. 2: 235-257. http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/08gm2.html

Brian Martin (2001) ‘Nonviolent futures’, Futures,Vol. 33: 625-635.

http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/01futures.html

19
 Image sources
Peace flag, original source unknown.

Marc Riboud. Jan Rose Kasmir, protest against the Vietnam War outside the Pentagon, Arlington County,
Virginia, Saturday, 21 October, 1967 — http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Rose_Kasmir

Elisa Iannacone. As leaders of the G20 nations gathered in Toronto, Canada, protesters took to the streets
[caption]. ‘G20 summit protests in Toronto :Your pictures’, BBC News, 27 June 2010 — http:// www.bbc.co.uk/
news/10427404

‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ reproduced from Jürgen Fauth’s Muckworld — http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/02/14/the-
us-vs-john-lennon/

Britches (1985) sourced from http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/lab.htm

20