Nonviolence
Nonviolence is the tactical practice and philosophical belief that there is a better way to resolve and engage in a conflict than fight or flight. Nonviolent action is the direct application of nonviolence with the willingness to bear the consequences of one’s action. Nonviolence is the willingness to confront a wrongdoing without submitting to or imposing our will upon the wrongdoer; to confront an injustice and a wrongdoer to reach a win-win situation rather than a win-lose situation. Refusing to act in any way that degrades or dehumanizes your opponent, nonviolent action is taken, ultimately, to effect social change.
The recognition of an injustice, the refusal to cooperate with injustice, the willingness to listen to the wronged and the wrongdoer, and the direct, open and compassionate confrontation of the parties carrying out an injustice are steps of nonviolence for social change. Nonviolence can be interpositioning yourself between Israeli tanks and Palestinian civilians, or standing with Iraqi families as their backyards become a proving ground for the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen. It can also take form in speaking truth to the power of a state’s legal system, refusing to accept one people as fundamentally “evil” and another as “good,” and refusing to bankroll war, terror and occupation. It is also facing the consequences of these and many other nonviolent actions in solidarity with those who, at the will of powers beyond their control, must live under the shadow of violence.
Where you stand determines what you see, and in nonviolence you first stand with the oppressed and the marginalized.
“We are constantly being astonished at the amazing discoveries in the field of nonviolence. But I maintain that far more undreamt-of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.”
—M. K. Gandhi“Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lies; it doesn’t establish truth…. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.