Challenges to nonviolence
Challenges to nonviolence as a strategy for social change come from all quarters. Powerholders may attempt to demonise or stereotype a nonviolent movement as a threat to public order or institutions. Fellow activists may see civil disobedience as a threat to their organisation's reputation, or criticise nonviolence as 'too soft'. This clash of ideology has the potential to undermine the effectiveness of a nonviolent approach.
However, as one of the core assumptions of nonviolence is that conflict is both inevitable and necessary on the path to social justice, we should not fear such differences of opinion within our own movements.
Here are some questions that are commonly asked about nonviolence:
Aren't pacifism and nonviolence the same thing?
Pacifism is generally taken to mean moral opposition to war, refusal to bear arms or adopting a policy of non-resistance. Nonviolence, as the term is used here, is an active confrontation of injustice which excludes violence for principled and/or pragmatic reasons. The critics of nonviolence, and some of its more naive advocates, often falsely equate nonviolence with passivity or non-resistance.
Perhaps 'nonviolence' is a victim of its own terminology. To some, the word suggests the idea of giving up something. The strategies, tactics and methods of nonviolence may be more usefully conceived as psychological or spiritual 'weapons' with which a population can be equipped.
Hundreds of people died during Gandhi's campaign to win independence. How can you call this 'nonviolence'?
A nonviolent approach does not guarantee that violence against
movement participants will not occur. Powerholders may respond with
repression and violence. Nonviolence, however, reduces their ability to
do this by undermining their sources of power, including the
co-operation of soldiers or police.
Nonviolence is fine when you are dealing with opponents with some sort of conscience, but how is it supposed to work when they are completely immoral?
While nonviolent resistance may appeal to the conscience of opponents, it does not depend on the good conscience of rulers to succeed. More often, nonviolent movements achieve change through accommodation, where a ruler whose power is weakened voluntarily accedes to movement demands in order to prevent further erosion of power, through nonviolent coercion, where the movement is able to force change against the ruler's will, or through disintegration, where nonviolent resistance is so complete that conventional symbols and instruments of power lose all meaning and function. While all of these methods of change may operate independently of the conscience of the ruler, they still allow for moral conversion to take place.
Won't the authorities simply crush a nonviolent movement?
The ability of the authorities to do this depends on the
co-operation of other sectors of society, namely the police, military
or security forces. The interests of these sectors are not necessarily
identical to those of the elites, and are also subject to conflict and
dissent from within. While the authorities may order violence against
activists, a nonviolent movement attempts to weaken the chain of
command by presenting individuals which comprise the chain with this
dilemma: are you willing to do harm to those who offer no threat.
Of course, nonviolence is no more a guarantee of victory than the use of violence. Both violent and nonviolent movements have faced repression brutal enough to crush all resistance. However, in comparison to the use of violent tactics, nonviolence stands a greater chance of success because repression of movements that deploy even token violence (even stone-throwing) tends to work in favour of the oppressors, while repression of nonviolent movements undermines the moral legitimacy of the regime.
Are you saying I don't have the right to defend myself if the police attack me?
In the context of a nonviolent protest, the question of the right to self-defence is radically different to the same question in a private setting. Violent 'self-defence' in response to repression will frequently trigger an escalation of violence, and will be responded to with greater force, requiring a still greater force in reply, and so on. Nonviolence seeks to de-escalate this cycle.
Choosing the strategy of nonviolence means putting aside the fear of injury or hurt, and in doing so, neutralising the greatest weapon powerholders have against us. It also seeks to neutralise the fear felt by individual military or police officers, whose own motivation to hurt us often stems partly from their own fear of injury.
Why can't we combine a nonviolent approach with the use of violence where necessary?
A successful movement needs a strategy which is internally consistent. In other words, the tactics employed must support and strengthen one another, rather than weaken or undermine each other. Few would argue that a strategy depending on armed struggle would succeed if the soldiers occasionally put down their guns to appeal to the conscience of their opponents.
If anything, powerholders need movements to use at least some violence in order to justify violent repression. Nonviolence depends on a political dynamic and conception of power which is radically different to those which underlie armed struggle, and movements whose nonviolent discipline has been compromised by frustrated participants or infiltration by agent provocateurs frequently fail or take considerably longer to achieve their objectives.
What is violence anyway? Who says that I can't smash up windows or abuse the cops if I want to?
It is important that any group undertaking nonviolent direct action have consensus on their definition of violence, if its members are to avoid undermining the actions of one another. Nonviolence training should include discussion on definitions of violence and nonviolence for this purpose.
Property destruction and verbal abuse almost always come up as controversial topics in discussions on nonviolence. Rather than getting bogged down in definitions, we should decide whether particular actions enhance or detract from the political dynamic of nonviolence. Useful questions to ask include "Will this action cause others to fear for their safety?" and "Would it be easy to understand or sympathise if this action was done to me?"
The idea of proportionality also offers a way to resolve the question of whether a particular action is legitimate. The actions of Ploughshares activists in openly and publicly destroying military hardware, or environmentalists in removing genetically engineered crops from fields, are examples of forms of action that involve property destruction but are proportional to the threat, conducted openly, and do not threaten the safety of others.
NVDA trainers seem to have this thing about openness. Won't the police just prevent us from taking action if we tell them the whens, wheres and whats of our action?
While some groups have combined nonviolence and secrecy successfully, there are some strong arguments for adopting a policy of open communication with opponents.
Having informed the authorities of our intentions, we present them with the dilemma of repressing the action through arrest, imprisonment or violence, or allowing the action to proceed and achieve its goals. If the action is part of a coherent, powerful strategy, this puts powerholders in an unwinnable situation, as both responses work to advance the goals of the movement.
More pragmatic activists may choose to plan actions in secret to ensure that the action can be successfully executed, and then accept the consequences of the action, such as arrest and imprisonment. Principled nonviolent activists tend to reject this model for action as it undermines the fear-reducing dynamic of open communication with opponents.
Secrecy, it is argued, also tends to foster paranoia, and is almost impossible to maintain without adopting a closed, hierarchical model of organisation.