Inunimmi '11 1111 Amimmilik P " NM R""
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111 11111111 1111111 inunimmi '11 1111 AMIMMIlik P " NM r"" R I - JAPA N tiso MT% teE)- (-6, I-1307 RS INTERNATIONAL JAPAN GROUP I-6,/-1307, ASAHIWICHE, ABeA10,034144, JAW it 2- Lloo- WHAT IS NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION? * This is a digest of the first part of an article 2 CONTENTS entitled 'A Note on Contemporary Violence', which page number first appeared in Japanese in the collection I. "VIOLENCE" AND "NON-VIOLENCE" ANAKIZUMU TO GENDAI (Anarchism and Our Time), A. What is Non-Violence= 4 edited by Osawa Masamichi, San-Ichi, 1975. The What is Violence? original version was written in June 1970 and B. kr serialized in the paper 'Jiyu Rengou ( Free II. PSEUDO-NON-VIOLENCE OF THE SYSTEM Federation), put out by the Free Federation Group NATURAL NON-VIOLENCE OF THE PEOPLE in Osaka,from June through September of.that year. A. Popular Non-Violence and the Popular View Kou Mukai,who was editor.and publisher of this paper, 'of Violence '0 is also secretary of WRI-JAPAN,a poet,and active B. The Pseudo-Non-Violent system(?) in the anarchist movement in Japan. III. CHANGING THE NATURE AND THE METHODS OF OUR STRUGGLE ** The translation is by Wat Tyler of the ' Libero A. The People,the Rulers International' Editorial Collective. ' Libero The people International' is an English-Language magazine B. Armed Struggle and 17 focussing on issues concering anarchism in Asia, IV. DIRECT ACTION AND PRODUCTIVE WORK 20 also published in Osaka. A. What is Direct Action B. Direct Action and Self-Management V. WHAT IS NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION? A. Opposing Everything which is "Pseudo" 23 B. Non-Violent Direct Action in Practice: 6 Ways of Interpretation 24 4 WHAT IS NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION? I."VIOLENCE" AND "NON-VIOLENCE" VI. WHY NON-VIOLENCE DIRECT ACTION THEN? A. Armed Struggle? or Non-Violent Direct Action? 3o A.What is Non-Violence? B. Throw Out the Old Struggle Concepts, (D. When someone suddenly comes up and punches you, you get Initiate a New Fighting Technique 3% ready to defend yourself. "What is the game?!" And if the other person doesn't leave off, you hit them back. P. response on this level is a pretty fundamental one, not requiring any particular conscious choice. In other words, responding to violence with violence is a customary reaction. * MANIFESTO OF WRI-JAPAN 35 0. "Non -resistance",in a situation like this,would involve abandoning yourself to being beaten— you don't run away, nor do you try to defend yourself. You just stand there ( or lie there) ,relying on inoffensiveness as a way to handle the violence. In so doing-,you are not offering any action in direct response to the other person,What action there is, is merely self - restraint;the effort to resist the urge to offer violence in return. ItIt is a self-directed expression of your own conscious will; it is not a response. Second,when the assailant becomes aware that he is obliged to 6 go on hitting indefinately, he must inevitably ponder upon the O. Is the Christian doctrine of "offering the other cheek" meaning behind his blows in order to do so. then really advocating "non-resistance"? Third,the victim must offer his or her self up to be hit in I certainly do not believe so,because,in the first place, the direct proportion to the fierceness and the duration of the blows. act of "offering" your other cheek constitutes adirect response Fourth,the other person can't go on hitting you forever. The to your assailant. You make yourself an easy target,designating futility,the weight of such a burden would be so unbearable, so your other cheek,for the benefit of the other person,asa "place fearful,that they would have to give up in the end. It would to be hit". By "offering" that cheek,you are really giving him amount to hitting one's self at the same time. or her an incentive,saying "hit me please:" By successively offering the left,then the right,then the left,you end up going Q Seen from this angle,non-violence is certainly not the beyond your attacker's original intentions .This is not non- same thing as non-resistance. It allows one to respond,but with- resistance. out any resort to violence. Non-violence, while different from If we then compare this with a violent response, we can make physical coercion,is still a kind of coersion. the following observations: In other words,non-violence embodies,asaresponcetoexternal, First,instead of repaying violence with violence,you repay it physical force,a force which originates in the internal ,spiritual by allowing yourself to be hit. Instead of a oneway flow from sphere.Therefore,non-violence goes beyond a mere ethical stand, the assailant----the person who does the hittingto the or one based on faith. victim----the person who gets hit,it is,rather,quite an equal Precisely because of its strength,for example,it is often relationship; just as much as that which exists when a blow is described as "verbalviolence",distinguishable only by the lack returned for a blow. of physical force. a "Life" is sustained by a mysterious source of energy *The enforcement of one's own position , or, the denial of 8 impossible for us to comprehend clearly. Let us call it,for the another 's existence, or ,'-the rejection of dialogue. moment, the "life force". This "force"is manifested as the energy Violence which entails all three of these prerequisites, it which produces and governs our approaches to external phenomena. should be kept in mind,is manifested most clearly in "one-to-. "Force" is generally manifested on two levels:"physicalforce" one" relationships,in other words,individual violence. The and "spiritual force"----or,"violence" and "non-violence". In essential elements of violence,therefore, must be understood so far as they constitutethe"life force",there is no contra- as rooted first of all in the individual. diction and no clash between these two. The. " life force " embraces both and turns them into one. Ca "Violence" is truly violence only when all three of Consequently,what the world generally refers to as "violence" the preceding characteristics are present.Should even one of is only truly so when one side of the "life force" has been them be missing,an action may be violent, but. it does not over-emphasized at the expense.of_the other which is therefore, constitute true violence. Or rather,"violent", and what is • obliterated.The same applies to non-violence,whenusedto imply generally considered to be its complete,opposite,"non-violent" force. are purely relative, representing a continuum on which- their point of junction is indistinguishable,because both represent force. B. What is Violence? Hence,to put it in the way least likely to be missunder- stood,the "problem" of violence,as long as it is seen in terms 0. The characteristics which justify the appellation of of one-to-one,individual violence,does not present any problems "violence" can be defined as follows: for us after all. * The application of physical pressure; Why? Because individual violence inflicted without legitimate *A deliberate intension to cause injury; reason is perverse and anti-social.The assailant would find I0 himself one against many,without support or sympathy,consequently II.PSEUDO-NON-VIOTFNCE OF THE SYSTEM, deprived of the very means of existence. He,therefore, can only NATURAL NON-VIOLENCE OF THE PEOPTF keep up his attack for a short time,whereas we,who are many, are A. Popular Non-Violence and the Popular View of Violence strong and can hold out for much longer. In short,we can always overcome such violence. Q. "Daily life":making a home with the people you love, bringing up children, living and laughing together;producingand Viewed in this way,individual violence,howeverpowerfullybrought to bear,may be seen to be no more than a temporary affair, doomed creating the things you need;and,working every day.Need I go on? Since people first walked the earth,this has been the stuff of from the start to failure.Which means that individual violence, as such,may be readily handled within society,and need not pose any history, repeated times beyond nuMber.These things come to us so naturally that to refer to them as "history" seems extravagant. particular problem for us here. What we have each of us expressed in living that history is peace;or,more succinctly,the natural non-violence of us ,the people. But,precisely because we ourselves do not have any clear wareness of our own history,its living meaning has been always taken over and distorted by authority. What we have been taught in the name of "history",therefore,is an account crammed full with stories of congtiest and subjugation, nation-states and wars.Whatever the period,the "heroes"who strut upon the stage of history are always the same handfull of rulers accompanied by their acolytes. The people,meanwhile, however POW°P-1 countless,are nowhere to be found. And every page of that history tom, in order to maintain itself in power it must exercise its 12 is strained red with blood shed through violence, for no other day-to-day control over the people through non-violent means". reason than the fact that this history is the history of the However,we ourselves have not yet woken up to the fact that rulers, the men in power. the ruling elite's power is based upon our own everyday non- A histary of this kind is obviosly at odds with the daily lives violence; to such an extent is that non-violence an instinctive, of us the people.