Theory

PURPOSE: Gandhian nonviolence or ahimsa has its origins in Vedic Hinduism and in the 6th century BC Jain philosophy of “doing no harm” to living things. Jainism was a popular sect in the Indian state of Gujarat where Gandhi was born and raised. Gandhi did not like the word nonviolence, sometimes written as non-violence, which might be said to compound the misunderstanding. A better reading of ahimsa might be not-violence, admittedly awkward, but nonetheless conveying the sense that nonviolence is all that which does not belong to the category of violence, rather than its opposite. A satyagrahi needs to cultivate virtues, habits, and practices that are nonviolent; paramount are patience, forgiveness, and satyagraha or holding to the truth. Gandhi spoke of nonviolence as a way of life and virtue, in part as a counter-reaction to Rabindranath Tagore’s injunction that nonviolence could be used for good or evil. Those who would practice nonviolence must make themselves nonviolent to forestall its misuse. This section of our web site hopes to engage these sorts of definitions, discussions, and the effect of interpretation on current practices. Your contributions are welcomed. The Theory page is edited by Joseph Geraci.

Island of Peace: Lanza del Vasto and the Community of the Ark

Posted February 13th, 2014 in Constructive Programme, History, Theory

by Mark Shepard

Lanza del Vasto 1979; photo by and courtesy of Mark Shepard

We are accused of going against the times. We are doing that deliberately and with all our strength.
— Lanza del Vasto

The machine enslaves, the hand sets free.
— Lanza del Vasto

Tucked away in the windswept mountains of Languedoc in southern France is a small island of peace known as the Community of the Ark. Founded and formed by Lanza del Vasto—often called Mahatma Gandhi’s “first disciple in the West”—the Ark is a model of a nonviolent social order, an alternative to the overt and hidden violence of our times.

Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto (1901-1981) was an Italian aristocrat deeply concerned about this violence. In 1936, Lanza traveled to India to meet Gandhi, the one person he thought might know how violence could be uprooted. Gandhi gave Lanza a new name: Shantidas, “Servant of Peace.” And Lanza returned to Europe with hopes of starting a “Gandhian Order in the West”.

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Guest Editorial: Conscientious Objectors Needed Now More Than Ever

Posted February 13th, 2014 in Guest Editorials, Pacifism, Theory

by Ken Butigan

CO logo courtesy of War Resisters International; www.wri-irg.org

In our present age of permanent war, it is almost impossible to recall a time when armed conflicts clearly began and ended. In that ancient, bygone era, one could judiciously ruminate on an impending war before it got rolling and make a choice about it. Most people, even then, didn’t see it that way — for them there was no choice. If the government said, “War — jump to it,” invariably most of us said, “How high?”, whether that meant picking up a gun, plunking down our taxes, or throwing our full spiritual and political weight behind it. It seemed automatic and inevitable and foreordained. Choice, it seemed, had nothing to do with it at all.

But there was a choice, and some took it seriously. And even today, when war is on a dizzying spin-cycle whirling with such tremendous velocity that it virtually disappears before our very eyes — and when the ever-expanding remote-control battlefield increasingly exceeds every horizon — we still have a choice. Groping our way back to such a decision-point is crucial. Though it will be different than before — a choice made in the midst of the 24/7 careering, never-ending centrifugal spin and not amid the more contemplative lull that we once were afforded before all hell would break loose — this choice must be rescued and learned and applied, given the Pentagon and the National Security Agency’s monotonously relentless planning. What better teachers do we have than those who seized this opportunity in the past? Who better than those who chose.

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Give Nonviolence a Chance in Syria

Posted January 28th, 2014 in History, Islamic Nonviolence, Theory

by Amitabh Pal

A nonviolent movement survives in Syria. Overshadowed by violence on both sides and ignored by the media, activists are still peacefully defying the Syrian regime.

Pacifism has a long lineage in Syria. One of the foremost philosophers of nonviolence in the Muslim world, Jawdat Said, is Syrian. The octogenarian, sometimes referred to as the “Syrian Gandhi,” is renowned for his attempts to conceptualize Islam as a pacifist religion. Using the parable of Cain and Abel (narrated in the Quran, too), Said urges Muslims to take their lead from the Prophet Muhammad (who cited Abel approvingly a number of times) and embrace “The Doctrine of the First Son of Adam,” the title of his most famous book. Said has been jailed a number of times since his work became publicly known in the 1960s. After spending six months touring the United States and Canada last year, he returned to Syria in an attempt to keep the flame of peace alive in his country.

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The Syrian Revolution: Nonviolent Resistance and the Ensuing Armed Struggle

Posted January 28th, 2014 in History, Islamic Nonviolence, Theory

by Mohja Kahf

Logo of Syrian Nonviolence Movement; artist unknown; courtesy of SNM

Editor’s Preface: Syria commands the news daily, no less the atrocities of war committed there. Dr. Mohja Kahf’s courageous and comprehensive article chronicles an alternate, nonviolent resistance, overlooked or suppressed in the media. Since 2011, Quaker groups such as Friends for a Nonviolent World, have been “supporting Syrian nonviolent organizations and activists in their struggle for freedom, justice, inclusiveness, and democracy.” By 2012 the nonviolent movement was eclipsed by the armed struggle, but nevertheless carries on. If there are rebel groups with whom the UN can negotiate, there is also a nonviolent movement that can and must be engaged. The toll in Syria has been staggering and tragic. Now more than ever the efforts and courage of nonviolent resisters need also be supported and their stories told. JG

The Syrian uprising sprang from the country’s grassroots, especially from youth in their teens, and adults in their twenties and thirties. They, not seasoned oppositionists, began the uprising, and are its core population. They share, rather than a particular ideology, a generational experience of disenfranchisement and brutalization by a corrupt, repressive, and massively armed ruling elite in Syria.

The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions were empowering models for these Syrians. The uprising is characterized by wide geographic spread, significant rural and small-town involvement, and a basis in local communities organizing around local grievances, as well as in solidarity for each other. The protest movement did not mobilize around religious identity, showed a fundamental respect for the diversity of Syria, and included minority participants.

The Syrian uprising began nonviolently and the vast majority of its populace maintained nonviolence as its path to pursue regime change and a democratic Syria.

The uprising began nonviolently and the vast majority of its populace maintained nonviolence as its path to pursue regime change and a democratic Syria, until an armed flank emerged in August 2011. The Syrian Revolution has morphed. From midsummer to autumn 2011, armed resistance developed, political bodies formed to represent the revolution outside Syria, and political Islamists of various sorts entered the uprising scene. Since then, armed resistance has overshadowed nonviolent resistance in Syria.

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On Islamic Nonviolence

Posted January 28th, 2014 in History, Islamic Nonviolence, Theory, Women & Nonviolence

by Rabia Terri Harris

“Peace”; logo of Muslim Peace Fellowship; courtesy of MPF

Nonviolence is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language, and one of the most misunderstood ideas in the world. This confusion is not surprising, since the word means two things at the same time. And the one idea behind both meanings, though very simple, is not easy. It goes against the way many people think.

Here are the two different meanings of nonviolence.

Nonviolence is the life decision to live in harmony with the order of creation by giving up the domination of other people or the planet. Today, when put into community practice, this life decision is called culture of peace or peace-building.

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Martin Luther King: Nonviolent Insurrection for Economic Justice

Posted January 22nd, 2014 in Civil Rights & Martin Luther King, Jr., History, Theory

by Terry Messman

Martin Luther King, Jr.; with poster for Poor People’s Campaign; photo by Horace Cort; courtesy AP

Sometimes, in the midst of protest marches, a feeling springs up unawares, a feeling that Martin Luther King’s last dream can never die. His visionary dream of a Poor People’s Campaign remains an unsurpassed blueprint for the edifice of human rights we are still waiting to construct, the resurrection of the Dream.

For many years, everyone from well-meaning educators to White House officials has called on Americans to honor the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., by volunteering in community projects such as fixing up schools and community centers, removing graffiti and collecting food. These various proposals for a day of volunteerism to honor the civil rights leader fall tragically short of King’s dream of economic and racial justice, and an end to war. For, in his last days, Martin was on the move to Washington, D.C., not to participate in a feel-good photo-op at some community renovation project, but rather to launch a showdown with the federal government — a government that, even under the leadership of liberal Democratic Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, had refused to remove the burden of poverty from the backs of the poor.

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Some Thoughts on Darwin, Gandhi, and Einstein

Posted January 22nd, 2014 in Gandhi, Theory

by B.D. Nageswara Rao

“Famous Vegetarians”; artist unknown; courtesy of herenow4you.net

Abstract

Gandhi’s message of nonviolence, and the methods he devised to practice it, are widely acclaimed to be of historical significance. However, his altruism seems contrary to the central tenet of Darwinism that survival is optimized for those who are adapted to the environment, i.e. those who are best prepared for war have the best chance of survival in a world where disputes are settled through violence. Nevertheless he chose nonviolence as an inviolable constraint in addressing all types of human problems and proclaimed, “While there are causes for which I am prepared to die, there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.” His formulations of Salt Satyagraha, civil disobedience and non-cooperation movements are striking examples of profound analytical thought analogous (in my view) to Einstein’s formulation of the Special Theory of Relativity. Einstein was confronted with the experimentally proven fact that the velocity of light in vacuum is unchanged in a moving frame of reference. With this inviolable constraint he reformulated the laws of Newtonian mechanics by invoking a previously unthinkable requirement that mass, length and time change in a moving frame of reference, and thereby deduced the principle of mass-energy equivalence (E=mc2). Thus the Special Theory of Relativity was born, and a new era emerged in physics. Gandhi’s principle of nonviolence offered an alternative to war in solving global disputes, and thus ushered in a new era in human history. His message has influenced other reformers around the world, notably Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. That it is not widely embraced is an indication of the fact that, functionally, human beings are basically driven by primitive Darwinian pressures generated by the reptilian brain, and have not allowed themselves to be persuaded adequately by the capabilities of the human brain which gave rise to ethics, altruism, and egalitarianism in our societies.

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Guest Editorial: Ethical and/or Strategic Nonviolence

Posted January 17th, 2014 in Guest Editorials, Theory

by Sean Chabot

Editor’s Preface: An article by Nathan Schneider, which we posted 9 January, drew attention to a controversial essay by Sean Chabot and Majid Sharifi, which we also posted on the same day. Nathan’s article drew a flurry of comments, which bear consulting at this link, and to which Sean Chabot responded. Sean was also kind enough to answer some of our own questions and all of his comments have been edited into the following Guest Editorial. JG

First of all, I want to say that I am grateful to all those who have commented on the article I co-authored with Majid Sharifi, thus initiating a dialogue with critics as well as supporters. It is by sharing our relative (and therefore inherently flawed) glimpses of truth that we improve our individual and collective experiments with truth. I will try to reference the main disagreements and agreements in the hope of providing further clarity.

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The Violence of Nonviolence: Problematizing Nonviolent Social Movements in the Middle East

Posted January 9th, 2014 in Islamic Nonviolence, Theory

by Sean Chabot and Majid Sharifi

We vividly remember our hopeful sentiments upon witnessing thousands of unarmed people taking to the streets in the Middle East, starting with Iran’s Green Movement in June 2009 and culminating with Egypt’s uprising in January 2011. Like others, we felt heartened by the promise of nonviolent social movements in countries with populations that have long suffered from oppressive domestic governments and destructive foreign interventions. Soon, though, we realized that the people’s courageous struggles were in danger of perpetuating, rather than transforming, the human relations and global paradigm at the root of their suffering. We feared that promising manifestations of nonviolence would end up reproducing various structures and forms of violence. Unfortunately, we were mostly right in both cases. Although the Green Movement displayed the Iranian population’s capacity for resistance in the face of repressive domination, it did not bring down the Ahmadinejad government or contribute to improved social and economic conditions. And while Egyptians successfully overthrew the Mubarak regime, they eventually brought to power a president and a political party that have failed to enhance the quality of life and dignity of poor people in Egypt. What happened?

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Guest Editorial: Where Gene Sharp Departed from Gandhi, and Where it Leaves Us

Posted January 9th, 2014 in Gandhi, Guest Editorials, Theory

by Nathan Schneider

Gene Sharp collage; artist unknown; courtesy of Socialistplatform

There is something of a genre of critique, one sometimes lobbed at Waging Nonviolence, which considers the discourse of nonviolence to be wholly subservient to the U.S. foreign policy interests, and/or the CIA specifically. It’s a line of attack that has generally baffled us, since anything worthy of the name “nonviolence” would certainly run counter to the doings of the largest and most pervasive military machine in the history of the world. Occasionally there seems to be some truth in these critiques, but it’s hard to know where that begins and the conspiracy-theory nonsense ends.

Now I think I know where to begin to draw the line. The reason is a new paper published in the journal Societies Without Borders in September by Sean Chabot and Majid Sharifi. It’s called “The Violence of Nonviolence: Problematizing Nonviolent Resistance in Iran and Egypt.”

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“When planted in the garden, the mustard seed, smallest of all the seeds, became a large tree, and birds came and made their home there.” Luke 13:19

“For me whatever is in the atoms and molecules is in the universe. I believe in the saying that what is in the microcosm of one’s self is reflected in the macrocosm.” M. Gandhi