by SGI Quarterly
Painting by Charlotta Janssen based on mug shots of James Lawson after his arrest for a nonviolent protest in Jackson, Mississippi; courtesy charlottajanssen.com
Interviewer’s Preface: In the late 1950s, James Lawson moved to Tennessee as southern secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, where he began training students in Nashville in nonviolent direct action. Prior to that, he had spent a year in jail as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, and had also trained in nonviolence at various Gandhian ashrams in India. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as “one of the foremost nonviolence theorists,” Rev. Lawson, now in his 80s, still remains a vibrant voice for social justice. SGI
SGI Quarterly: Do you remember a particular moment after you became involved in the Civil Rights Movement when you felt afraid?
James Lawson: I recall a number of moments of fear. But, I should say to you that those are isolated moments, and that from the beginning of my involvement character requirements froze out any fear. I was going to finish my graduate degree and then probably move south to work in the movement. I had spent three years in India, 1953-56, and then came back to Ohio for graduate school. I shook hands with Martin Luther King for the first time on February 6, 1957. By then I had been practicing and studying Gandhian nonviolence for ten years. And so as we met and talked, he said I should come south immediately. I said to him, “OK, I’ll come just as soon as I can,” which meant that I dropped out of graduate school and moved. There was no fear in making that move.
I don’t recall a single moment as I traveled around the South that I was frightened or fearful. And as we began the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville, I wasn’t aware of any moment of fear there either. I was expelled from the university and was made the target of many public attacks.
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by William J. Jackson
Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid of the San Francisco 49ers kneel in protest during the national anthem prior to playing Los Angeles Rams in NFL game; courtesy Getty Images
(1) New forms of nonviolent protest, and renewed uses of old forms, are in the headlines; the kneel-in, for example, a protest that has recently spread among athletes. Many people are not aware of the history and the philosophy involved. Not knowing the background, some critics misunderstand and grow angry. Even the liberal and usually knowledgeable Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg called the kneel-in “dumb” and “disrespectful.” (Soon thereafter she took it back: “Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh.”) Many people seem unable to put kneel-ins in a historical perspective. So I feel it might help deepen our understanding to look into the background, the meanings, and intentions of some of these practices. Maybe being better informed could help critics comprehend what is happening. (1)
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by David M. Craig
Dustwrapper art courtesy zedbooks.co.uk
Reflecting on the writer’s internal struggle between the sense of futility and the need to persevere, the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald described the “test of a first-rate intelligence [as] the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” (1) Stellan Vinthagen’s book, A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works (London: Zed Books, 2015), passes a similar judgment on Mohandas Gandhi. Even if Gandhi resisted the “Great Soul” title of Mahatma, his genius included a capacious imagination and experimental creativity that not only embraced opposed ideas, but also put them into action simultaneously. Some of the contradictions in Gandhi’s nonviolence are familiar. His aspiration for spiritual purification could sometimes conflict with his political strategizing. The nonviolent resister’s opposition to oppressive rules and roles stands in tension with solicitude for the people who support and benefit from the status quo. Vinthagen multiplies the contradictions inherent in nonviolent action, interpreting them as “a creative tension, a dynamic that gives nonviolence its social ‘force.’” (Vinthagen, 321)
Vinthagen’s original contribution is to map out these tensions in a general sociological theory of nonviolent action. For Vinthagen, Gandhi is the primary source and theorist for all discussions of nonviolence, but he also draws Gandhi outside of his historical context and religious identity. A good illustration is Vinthagen’s disagreement over the role and significance of suffering in nonviolence. Gandhi links suffering (tapasya) to a Hindu ideal of renunciation. In his re-reading of Krishna’s advice to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita, Gandhi exhorts everyone to follow the sannyasi’s practice of renunciation and always renounce the fruits of one’s actions. In place of personal goals, right action aspires to Truth. The clearest sign that devotion to Truth has displaced personal goals is a person’s openness to suffering even to the point of losing one’s life.
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by Stephan Brües
Youths in Ecuador painting peace symbols; courtesy wagingnonviolence.org
Editor’s Preface: We have previously posted, from the War Resisters’ International archive, two historical articles about nonviolent resistance in Latin America, which can be accessed at this link. This article updates the information, and the struggle. Please consult the Editor’s Note at the end for further biographical information and acknowledgments. JG
Blas Garcia Noriega, a small man who wears glasses, is thoughtful and vivid, especially when he talks about his activities with Servicio Paz y Justicia, or SERPAJ. Founded 40 years ago in Medellin, Colombia, SERPAJ promotes nonviolent resistance and peaceful conflict resolutions throughout Latin America.
“SERPAJ is not an NGO, but a social movement,” Garcia said. “We are doing big things with little resources.” In words like these, it is possible to hear the challenges of this kind of work and the pride he takes in doing it. Peace activists like Garcia who oppose all forms of violence — whether from the state, guerrillas, drug sellers or militias — are caught between many armed groups in Colombia.
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by Matt Meyer
Book jacket art courtesy wipfandstock.com
Editor’s Preface: The following, previously unpublished essay was presented to the Alternative Defense Commission, as part of the War Resisters’ International Peace Education Project, c. 1987. It continues our series of discoveries from the WRI archive. Please see the notes at the end for acknowledgment, archival reference, and biographical information about the author. JG
To many western activists it may seem that revolution and nonviolence are clear contradictions. Nonviolence is often seen as passive, utopian, naive, or as a bourgeois luxury that we in the West arrogantly urge upon our Central American sisters and brothers. However, revolutionary nonviolence is not passive, reformist, or romantic. It is a powerful means of social change, which confronts the roots of militarism; its use in Central America has often been ignored.
Western pacifists may well be challenged about their commitment to nonviolence even in the war zones of Central America. “What do you know?” someone might ask. What we know, and what we believe history has taught us, is that revolution is a long process, with many difficult questions and no easy answers. We know that to strive for an end to war, we must first struggle for the elimination of the causes of war, including racism, sexism, class structures, and imperialism. We know that any revolution, including nonviolent revolution, will suffer bloodshed and innocent casualties, and we continue to experiment with diverse forms of resistance to minimize bloodshed and maximize lasting social change. Above all, we know that we cannot begin to talk about nonviolent revolution until we place ourselves firmly in solidarity with those already in revolutionary struggles throughout the world.
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by Stop Napalm Production Subcommittee
Napalm protest, 1966, photo by Harvey Richards; courtesy hrmediaarchive.estuarypress.com
Editor’s Preface: The Quaker Action Group convened a meeting in January of 1967 to discuss a nonviolent strategy for protesting the use of napalm in the Vietnam War. The two documents posted here in succession are unpublished internal memos outlining a strategy against Dow Chemical, the principle manufacturer of the deadly weapon. Among the members of the subcommittee were George Lakey, Lawrence Scott, and George Willoughby. These documents are especially noteworthy for their adherence to several Gandhian nonviolent civil disobedience principles, especially studying the opponent, and determining the weak point. They are another in our series of discoveries from the War Resisters’ International archive. Please see the note at the end for archival reference and acknowledgment. JG
You sit down to write a nice, dispassionate report on what napalm is. The paper is there, the pencils; all the facts you need to demonstrate the horror of this weapon. And you read this (New York Times, December 10, 1967):
“It comes premixed and packaged in thin-skinned aluminum tanks. There are three sizes of which the largest, a tank of 120 gallons weighing 800 pounds, and ten feet long and about three feet in diameter at its thickest point is most frequently used . . . About 1,500 tons of napalm are dropped in an average month in South Vietnam . . . Unlike conventional bombs most tanks of napalm are not provided with fins. Instead of spinning, they tumble, spreading the flaming fuel over an area in open country of about 150 feet along the path of the plane and about 50 feet wide.”
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by Stop Napalm Production Subcommittee
Basic Assumptions
(1) The focus of the action will be on Dow Chemical Company, as the nation’s primary producer of napalm.
(2) The program will be carried out in step-by-step fashion, over a specific time period, and moving from less to more intense action steps.
(3) The action will be carried out in a variety of locations and should be as nearly nation-wide as possible.
(4) A Quaker Action Group will initiate and carry out the program in accordance with its nonviolent philosophy. Cooperation from other concerned groups is welcomed. Members of such groups, who are in accord with the nonviolent discipline, may be coopted onto the Napalm Strategy Committee of a Quaker Action Group.
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by Gene Sharp
Book jacket assemblage courtesy rcnv.org
Editor’s Preface: This little known essay by Gene Sharp was discovered in the War Resisters’ International archive in a folder labeled “Ira Sandperl’s Speaking Tour of Western Europe, 1970: Background Reading.” The typescript seems to have been given to Sandperl by Sharp. We have not found any evidence that Sharp published the essay in this form, although he was to rework the material in later works, especially the section below “84 Cases of Nonviolent Action”. Sandperl was an interesting figure in the 1970s peace movement. A foremost member of the War Resisters League, (the U.S. branch of WRI), he might be better known to some as Joan Baez’s acknowledged mentor. Sandperl was also co-founder of the Peninsula Peace Center in California, which Baez also helped support. Please see the notes at the end for further information about Gene Sharp, archival references, and acknowledgments. JG
It is widely believed that military combat is the only effective means of struggle in a wide variety of situations of acute conflict. However, there is another whole approach to the waging of social and political conflict. Any proposed substitute for war in the defense of freedom must involve wielding power, confronting and engaging an invader’s military might, and waging effective combat. The technique of nonviolent action, although relatively ignored and undeveloped, may be able to meet these requirements, and provide the basis for a defense policy.
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by George Lakey
Woman protesting Thai coup, June 2014; photograph courtesy wagingnonviolence.org
I first encountered Gene Sharp when he was a young man in jeans and sneakers, working in a research institute affiliated with the University of Oslo. Not guessing that he would become a mentor of mine, I met him because one of my Norwegian professors sent me to him. Gene had already served time in a U.S. federal prison for draft resistance and then joined the War Resisters’ International [WRI] Peace News staff to report on activism in the United Kingdom. Now he was in a small cubicle with a typewriter, analyzing the Norwegian resistance to Nazi German occupation during World War II. A half century later, in 2011, Foreign Policy would list Gene among the 100 most influential thinkers in the world.
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by Narayan Desai
Demonstrators protesting peacefully, Harlem, July 1964; photo courtesy newyorknatives.com
Editor’s Preface: The background for this letter is the Harlem riots of July 1964. A fifteen-year old black youth, James Powell was shot three times by a white police officer, the second bullet killing him. Powell was standing at the time in the midst of a group of friends. There were at least a dozen witnesses; his death sparked six consecutive nights of rioting, spreading that summer to several other cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago. At the time of writing the letter Desai was acting secretary of Shanti Sena, which he’d helped to found, and Bayard Rustin was one of the most eminent leaders of the U.S. nonviolence movement. The letter is dated, 6 August 1964, when the riots were still raging, and was sent from Mandal Rajghat, the Shanti Sena headquarters in Varanasi, India. Please see the Reference and Editor’s notes at the end for further information and acknowledgments. JG
My Dear Bayard,
I have just read with great interest reports about the Harlem riots in Newsweek and Peace News. The Newsweek report gives more information while the Peace News article poses certain problems. Before giving my comments on the problems posed in Peace News, let me express my heartfelt congratulations for the part that you and James Farmer played during these incidents. You must have received many letters of congratulations for the Washington March as it was an obvious success. But a peace worker alone knows how greatly he needs to be congratulated for an effort where he has not achieved such clear-cut results. I really think you have done a great job at Harlem.
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