The Great Debate: Non-Violent Resistance

This week we debate the pros and cons of non-violent resistance. Does passivism give us a psychological upper hand over aggressive police forces? Or should we be prepared to use every trick in the book against those who have no qualms doing so?

FOR – Martin Eiermann

I admit: It can be hard to turn the other cheek, to resist arrest peacefully, to control one’s Luddite tendencies and to draw a clear line in the sand that says: This is a movement of non-violence. For some of us this is a principled conviction. For others, it is a tactical decision. Regardless of your motivations, there is no good alternative to non-violence.

The use of force “to maintain public order” is the strongest monopoly of the state. It controls a remarkable repertoire of physical resources and legal powers that can be utilized to quell dissent. The recent arrests under the Public Order Act are telltale signs of the state’s willingness to flex its muscle when necessary. Why would we want to engage the police where it is strongest?

Additionally, every instance of violence against the occupy movement thus far has only driven more people into the camps: The mass arrests on Brooklyn Bridge, the forcible eviction of the Oakland camp, the kettling during the recent student demos or the pepper-spraying of peaceful students at UC Davis. Thankfully, public opinion is rather acutely tuned to footage of uniformed weekend warriors beating and dragging peaceful protesters.

The simply fact is that most people reject the old Clausewitzian logic that violence is a legitimate part of the toolkit of politics. In strengthening power, violence undermines authority. The presence of riot police in the streets is the first sign of the failure of the state to address popular grievances. Rather than being an extension of politics by other means, it marks the end of politics. It is the state-level equivalent of an angry child that kicks its toys into a corner and starts pounding the floor. Next comes the crying.

We believe that a vast majority of the population is in agreement with our concerns and criticisms. The state is fighting an uphill battle; we are not. Our task is more simply: Most people do not have to be persuaded about political or economic criticisms. They merely have to be convinced to join the movement. Non-violence is expressive of our convictions and effective as a tactic. Stick to it.

AGAINST – Natalia Sanchez-Bell

No social movement has ever acted in a totally homogenous manner. Most non-violent groups have either shared their struggle with others wishing to achieve the same or similar ends by different means, or have become radicalised by increasing oppression, eventually resorting to more extreme tactics.

The suffragettes were initially non-violent, but eventually engaged in property destruction including the burning of churches. The Zapatistas are for the most part non-violent but do fight back against the Mexican army when no other option is left open to them.

Even Gandhi had his ‘violent’ counterparts in India’s fight for independence. The Chauri Chaura incident of 1922 saw a group of initially non-violent protesters turn into an angry mob after police fired into an unarmed crowd. They subsequently burned a chowki (police station) with 23 officers inside it.

It could be posited that such a contrast in methods is needed to remind those in power that they are as vulnerable to ultimate force as other human beings. More aggressive action can render non-violent resistance favourable, and force the powers that be to take the moderates seriously in the hope of avoiding a more militant alternative. By widening the landscape of resistance, forceful action can create a platform from which negotiations can take place.

In the civil rights struggle Martin Luther King’s success was achieved in part because he was seen as comparatively ‘moderate’ when contrasted with Malcolm X , who was willing to ‘take arms’. Malcolm X paraphrased Hamlet’s famous speech asking whether it was “nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in moderation, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them”.

George Orwell wrote that ‘pacifism in the face of fascism is objectively pro fascist’, and while we aren’t up against the same totalitarian forces he spoke of in the here and now, others elsewhere arguably are.

Of course context is all. Different situations require differing tactics, but just as violence is not always the most effective method, the same can be said of non-violence.