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Critique of Nonviolent Politics

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Critique of Nonviolent Politics Critique of Nonviolent Politics From Mahatma Gandhi to the Anti-Nuclear Movement by Howard Ryan ([email protected]) Preface 2 Part I Problems of Nonviolent Theory 1 Nonviolent Philosophy 6 2 Moral View: Violence Itself Is Wrong 9 3 Practical View: Violence Begets Violence 13 4 Nonviolent Theory of Power 21 5 Voluntary Suffering 24 6 Common Nonviolent Arguments 34 7 A Class Perspective 49 Part II Gandhi: A Critical History 8 Father of Nonviolence 56 9 Satyagraha in South Africa 59 10 Textile Strike 66 11 Noncooperation Movement 1919-22 70 12 Religious Conflicts 80 13 Salt Satyagraha 87 14 Congress Ministries 97 15 The War Years 101 16 Independence and Bloodshed 111 Part III Nonviolence in the Anti-Nuclear Movement 17 Nonviolent Direct Action 120 18 Consensus Decision Making 123 19 Open, Friendly, and Respectful 136 20 Civil Disobedience 142 Epilogue 151 Notes 154 ©2002 by Howard Ryan. All rights reserved. Readers have my permission to use and distribute for non-profit and educational purposes. Critique of Nonviolent Politics 2 Preface (2002) Critique of Nonviolent Politics may be the only comprehensive critique of nonviolent theory that has been written. I wrote it between 1980 and 1984, while living in Berkeley, California. Since 1977, I had been active in the movement against nuclear power and weapons which, in California, focused its protests at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant near San Luis Obispo, and at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore Labs where nuclear weapons are designed. Nonviolence was the prevailing political theory in the movement, especially in the "direct action" wing which organized mass blockades and occupations at nuclear facilities. Nonviolence informed our tactics and strategies, our group processes, and our general ethos and outlook. As I engaged in the movement, I was drawn to nonviolent theory and became an avid student. In early 1980, I began a writing project--a positive explanation of nonviolent theory to serve as a guide for anti-nuclear activists. The project would also help to clarify my own developing political philosophy. My working draft was soon challenged by a politically astute friend, who introduced me to Marxism. While grappling with these ideas, I remained active as an anti-nuke activist but became critical of various movement practices that were influenced by nonviolent theory. I also encountered books by Indian historians who pointed out the elite biases in Gandhi's thought and practice. A year after embarking on my positive nonviolence guide, I was writing instead a full-scale critique of nonviolence. By 1984, when I set the project aside, I had written a book-length treatment. In 1996, I extracted the document from very old computer disks and did some editing. I dropped a concluding chapter on anti-nuclear strategy, adding in its place a new epilogue. But the document remains largely as originally written. Preface (1984) Nonviolence is a model of social change rooted in religious pacifist teachings and fashioned into a mass protest technique by leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and A.J. Muste. Today, the tradition is carried by anti-nuclear groups committed to nonviolent direct action. Tens of thousands of protesters have applied the Gandhian technique of mass civil disobedience at nuclear facilities and military bases in Europe, Australia, the U.S., and Canada. Most of these protests are guided by nonviolence codes of conduct and a nonviolent philosophy. My own introduction to nonviolence came in 1977 when I joined the anti-nuclear movement in Southern California. After a period of fascination and learning, I became a doubter and finally a firm critic of nonviolent philosophy. The reasons for my change were twofold: Critique of Nonviolent Politics 3 1) I discovered that Mahatma Gandhi, the father of modern nonviolence, was not the progressive leader hailed by nonviolent advocates. Rather, Gandhi closely controlled the movements he led, opposed independent movements of workers and peasants, and sought to counter the revolutionary potentials in India. Gandhi's nonviolent doctrine was integrally tied to these aims. 2) I began to recognize problems in the anti-nuclear movement's processes and strategies which hindered its mass organizing efforts. I traced many of these problems to the influence of nonviolent theory. It became clear to me that there is a need for critical discussion of nonviolence as a model for social change, and I decided to write this book as a contribution to that discussion. Nonviolence is an attractive philosophy for people dedicated to social justice, and especially so for peace activists working to stop the violence of the military machine and its nuclear buildup. Longstanding pacifist groups such as the War Resisters League and the American Friends Service Committee have for decades provided support and leadership to peace and disarmament efforts, draft resisters, conscientious objectors, and civil rights strugglers. There is much in their history and present work in which nonviolent activists can, and do, take pride. At the same time, there are problems in nonviolent political theory which can hinder the work of activists. Nonviolent proponents have misread and distorted history, exaggerated the accomplishments of nonviolence, and been slow to recognize the problems nonviolent theory has posed for people's movements. The drawbacks of the nonviolent model of change are suggested most dramatically in the campaigns led by Mahatma Gandhi, and seen also in today's anti-nuclear movement. While the scope of this book is limited to these two cases, future studies might apply a critical eye to other movements guided by nonviolent philosophy such as the U.S. civil rights movement. I hope this book's critique will be a helpful, provocative challenge to the nonviolent community, while contributing to the progress of the anti-nuclear movement. Part I examines major problems in nonviolent political theory. Part II explores the political history of Mahatma Gandhi, the century's most influential practitioner of nonviolence. Part III looks at the impact of nonviolent philosophy in the direct action/civil disobedience wing of the anti-nuclear movement. Certain groups and individuals figure large in my critique of nonviolent theory, whether because of their influence or because of their many writings on the subject. The first is Movement for a New Society (MNS), a nonviolent training network with a small press, New Society Publishers, based in Philadelphia. MNS, along with the Quaker-connected American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), has played a particularly large role in bringing nonviolent theory and consensus decision making to the U.S. anti-nuclear movement. The War Resisters League (WRL) is one of America's largest pacifist organizations, has been active in anti-militarist movements since its founding in 1923, Critique of Nonviolent Politics 4 and is currently active in campaigns against nuclear weapons. Gene Sharp, a fellow of Harvard's Center for International Affairs, is probably today's leading theorist of nonviolence. He has written several systematic studies, of which his three-volume Politics of Nonviolent Action is most notable, and he is widely cited in the nonviolent literature. Of course, Mahatma Gandhi is an important reference throughout my book as both a theorist and activist. Critique of Nonviolent Politics 5 * * * * * There were two "Reigns of Terror" if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor terror, the momentary terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold insult, cruelty, and heartbreak? What is swift death by lightning compared with slow death by fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by the brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by the older and real Terror--that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. Mark Twain Critique of Nonviolent Politics 6 Chapter 1 Nonviolent Philosophy Life must be saved by nonviolent confrontations and by what the Quakers call "bearing witness."…We must obstruct a wrong without offering personal violence to its perpetrators. Greenpeace1 Aggression, conquest, and brutality are the defining masculine characteristics. War, feminists believe, is a function of masculine (phallic) identity. Andrea Dworkin2 Nonviolent philosophy comes in many shapes and sizes, from simple opposition to war, to belief systems encompassing a total way of life. Some pacifists* are concerned mainly with individual resistance to war, such as refusal to pay war taxes; others emphasize mass action and radical changes in society; still others are non-political but pursue personal or spiritual growth. This treatment addresses the more radical schools of pacifism, though it certainly applies to other forms. In particular, it critiques the theory of nonviolence evolved from the Gandhian tradition and which guides the direct action anti-nuclear movement. Radical pacifist theory includes three main elements, the first being its opposition to violence. Some activists
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