Reactionary pacifism

When is it right to use violence? This is a rather big question and one whose answer says much about a person or nation. Recently there has been violent demonstrations around the world as a result of the Muhammad cartoons controversy. There are a lot of issues tied up in this one incident: respect, self-censorship, freedom of the press, freedom of speech. It's a complex issue with varied consequences yet the violence that erupted from a minority of the world's Muslim's overshadows much of what Islam is about and what its adherents hold dear. We tend to label all Muslim's as reactionary, violent, fundamentalists and perhaps uncivilized. This is unfortunate.

A coworker and I were discussing the idea of when violence is a viable option for change. He has a friend who lives in China who has come to the point of advocating for violent revolt within China. He feels that China is so repressive and secretive that violence is the only option left. I don't know. My first thought was of this ...

For half an hour a lone Chinese man stared down a line of tanks and won. The protests that occured in China's Tiananmen Square during the spring of 1989 were seen around the world as was the courage of this lone individual. What would have been the outcome if he had lobbed a molotov cocktail at the tanks? He would surely have been killed on the spot. Instead of violence he chose non-violence and won. Violence begets violence we are taught.

Another great example of non-violent resistance is the Salt Satyagraha by Mahatma Ghandi in the spring of 1930. India was suffering under the represive British colonial government and yearning for its freedom. One of the ways in which the British kept the people under thumb while propping up the regime was through a salt tax. To protest not only the represive tax but the represive regime, Ghandi marched 240 miles to the sea and made salt, illegally.

This is marked as a turning point in the struggle for Indian independence. Ghandi knew his opponent when he said "that the British Government, powerful though it is, is sensitive to world opinion which will not tolerate repression of extreme political agitation which civil disobedience undoubtedly is, so long as disobedience remains civil and therefore necessarily non-violent." The power of his actions came not from violence but from non-violence.

Another famous example of non-violent civil disobedience is the march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama in the spring of 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong adherent to non-violent action and as a result with the help of millions of like minded Americans helped to change their country for the better. The civil rights movement of the 1960's was perhaps the most important issue in America over the past half century and it came about due to non-violent action.

There is something ennobling about the strength, determination and character that these people express through their actions that a multitude of violent protesters just can't match. When a person's inner strength is so intense and their identity as a human being so keen that despite what other's do to their bodies their inner strength and dignity shines through their wounds all the fiercer people cannot help but be changed.

To me the preeminent example of this principle is found in the person of Jesus. Not only did his actions change minds and hearts, nations and empires, he changed me.