The Lie of Non-Violent Protest
I struggled with how I wanted to title this essay. I couldn't encapsulate in an eloquent manner with what I wanted so I went with what you see before you. With that said, let's move on.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
The concept of power is a notion that has been studied throughout human history. Each individual wielding the aforementioned concept brandished it in their own way with their own title: chief, shogun, queen, boss, banker, employer, officer, etc. Power can mean the ability to merely influence and sway; power can mean the ability to force and coerce through strength of arms; power can mean the ability to threaten through behind-the-scene cloak-and-dagger maneuvers.
When an individual or agency has power, what do we as singular beings do to rectify that? Put another way, if those with power act in ways that those without do not want them acting, what do we do to change that?
The Pavlovian response to challenging power is to recite the mantra of non-violent protests and the ballot box.
The latter suggestion can be rigged and manipulated beyond belief. The ballot box is a tranquilizing drug offering a semblance of choice that is of no threat to power. A checkmark on a piece of paper is not a demand; therefore, power has no reason to concede to it.
That brings us to non-violent protests. The concept is that by massing large numbers of people to have demonstrations and speeches, that those in power will get fearful and acquiesce to the demands. Martin Luther King Jr. will then quickly be trotted out as a successful example of the power of non-violent demonstrations and actions. Of course, this rhetoric sanitizes and eliminates those who had to actually fight against the established power, such as Malcolm X and the Black Panthers.
The modern rendition of non-violent protests is ridiculous, laughable, and utterly absurd. One example is middle-to-upper class people donning knitted, pink hats terrifyingly called "pussy hats" and bringing their $10 cups of Starbucks coffee to stand neatly in Washington D.C. From such harsh rhetoric, President Trump automatically resigned and the nice protesters were able to make it in time for brunch.
Why is there such a devotion to non-violence? While there are methods of non-violent protest that could actually be effective - such as general strikes and economic boycotts - those are never utilized and hardly even mentioned. The concept of non-violence has not only been programmed into people, it has been done so throughout the ages.
Those in power and their assortment of gatekeepers can purr about the significance and elegance of non-violence. They parade it as what enlightened people do. But yet, those in power do not believe in non-violence; they crave violence.
To start, one of the gatekeepers to power is religion. If one examines various religious theories and sects, we see that non-violence is an oft-cited doctrine. Christianity, for instance, praises non-violence through the word of Jesus. We are meant to turn the cheek if we are hit; we are meant to accept the abuse and violence of the rich and powerful. But don't worry folks, the rich and powerful won't enter Heaven.
Let that sink in for a moment. You, the peasant, the pleb, the average Joe, you are not meant to get justice on Earth. No, justice will come once you die. Do not worry about the injustice on Earth because Earth is immaterial. Life everlasting is what is important.
What better way to keep the populace pacified and controlled than to tell them that while the rich and powerful are bad and won't get into Heaven, that we shouldn't do anything against them and wait until after we die to get our reward through a relationship with God.
And so, the rich and powerful are able to commit atrocity after atrocity, but don't worry, their retribution will come later, once they are dead.
Occupy Wall Street was a non-violent protest of individuals camping in parks to protest against the actions of Wall Street. Of course, power went in and brutalized them, cracking their heads and showing them what power will always do. Even though Occupy Wall Street was not a threat to power, power went in to showcase that they themselves are a threat.
The rich and powerful only care about money and power. Anything done to either gain or solidify their gains is justified in their eyes. War, torture, rape, starvation, it doesn't matter. They use violence all the time for their own gain. And yet, we never hear about the violence of the rich, the violence of the powerful.
Currently, the Yellow Vests in France are protesting against Macron. It is a varied mix of working-class people of various political orientations fighting against the banker-elite Macron. Of course, the upper class, elites, and gatekeepers are falling on their fainting couches as the peasants burn trash cans and are being mind-controlled by Putin.
This will be a first for me and that will be quoting Pamela Anderson:
I despise violence...but what is the violence of all these people and burned luxurious cars, compared to the structural violence of the French -and global - elites?
Our current system is violence.
The rich and powerful waging war across the world, through Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, throughout the whole of Africa, and more is violence.
The rich and powerful slowly killing off the masses through capitalism is violence.
We've allowed ourselves to be conned into this notion of violence vs. non-violence. I do not see what the people throughout history have done, through protests, through riots, through revolutions as violence.
It is self-defense.
The people of France are defending themselves against the violence of the elites and the powerful.
The people of Standing Rock, even through non-violent protest, were defending themselves against the corporations.
Power concedes nothing without a demand, and that demand must be shown. When the powerful commit violence against us, we must defend ourselves. We are not committing violence; they are.
Comments
One of the great piss-me-offs of the 80s was that the
same right-wing politicians who supported the whole "you'll take my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" shtick, simultaneously argued that Mandela and the ANC should disavow violence as a tactic.
Creeps.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
And of course, there is Twain on the matter of
French history:
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
MLK was shot dead.
Ghandi was shot dead.
John Lennon was shot dead.
JFK was shot dead.
Four students in Ohio were shot dead.
So far, one elderly woman in a yellow vest has been shot dead.
Make of it what you will.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
And RFK
by someone from the middle east, no less.
Excellent Essay! I Agree. It's Not Even the Violence, It's
the fear of violence that is the key motivator. Violence, once it breaks out is highly random and chaotic. It rarely delivers as intended.
Love the fact that you cited Establishment Violence and things that don't seem to raise up to the level of violence these days. I'd like to add something I came to a while back that affected me. I hope it's not seen as trivializing this essay or getting off topic.
About 10 years ago I came to the realization that roadkill left rotting on the side of the road is violence. It wasn't long until I saw construction trucks as violence as well. It might seem a bit esoteric, perhaps, but it was a very real and very genuine realization on my part. It had great affect on me. I'm dealing with it better now, but it's still an ugly sore to me when it comes to thinking about life and the Way of things.
peace~
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Great essay
As I stated in Big Al's essay it's not the protesters who start the violence, it's the cops and then some outside agitators who then show up who are possibly cops or someone in government. Why are we supposed to just take what they dish out?
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
I don't know...it's complicated.
I agree almost entirely, and.. also want to point out that and there has been a lot of historical rewriting of our recent past. MLK is trotted out by the powers that be to suggest only nonviolence is the way. And. Also...look at how McCain and Bush have been treated as heros. Gives the term whitewashing a another meaning.
Meanwhile, The Black Panther Party was made up of more women then men and was mostly non-violent. What violence there was was usually instigated 1st by J.E.Hoover's FBI.
Nonetheless, the media write about MLK as totally nonviolent and Hampton, Malcom et al. as practicing violence daily. Bullshit. Breakfast for poor kids and education and uplifting young people and saying "enough!!" seems to me should be more of their legacy. How many violent acts did the panthers commit without FBI involvement?
And then there is Occupy. You seem to completely dismiss that action. I think it woke up a lot of folks, educated them and changed things a lot. If there was any violence in the beginning, I'm not sure that would have happened at all. Perhaps the fact that heads were cracked in taking them down was just another symbol of the powers that be objecting to their presence in this world. Just like the did with the Black Panther Party. Except yeah, in the case of the BPP, they just out and out murdered the leaders.
I go back and forth a bit on violence. I'm for whatever gets the inhabitants of the planet to a peaceful place the soonest.
I should say though, punching nazis in the face? I'll always be Ok with that.
@peachcreekMeanwhile, The Black
To start, with the Black Panthers, yes, the media definitely played their role in vilifying them. It's not that I believed they were this ultra-violent, rebel faction. The thing is that the Black Panthers were prepared and were ready to defend themselves against power. So here, self-defense against the powerful is construed as violence, not only by the media arm of the powerful, but by power itself.
Regarding OWS, while yes, they have changed the American language with terms such as 1%, the question then turns to "now what?". Education is essential, but if we constantly spin our wheels in merely educating our fellow man without taking action against the systems we decry, then what are we doing? The capitalists will not stop merely because we ask. I mentioned effective non-violent methods but as I said, those methods are never utilized and hardly discussed.
We are facing socipaths; people who have zero hesitation on killing anyone who gets in the way of their goals, whether it power, or fame, or money, or what have you.
There was a lot more to MLK's method
than merely "non-violence". And in my view, there's no comparison between the civil rights activists of the 1950s and '60s, and the pink pussyhat wearers of 2017-18. I'm also not sure how effective MLK's form of activism would be today.
MLK practiced civil disobedience; specifically, a form of passive, non-violent resistance that had been used to good effect by Gandhi, among others. (The method practiced by Gandhi is called satyagraha.)
Civil disobedience = refusing to comply with orders given by those in authority.
Non-violent = because it consisted not of blowing things up or shooting people, but of putting their physical bodies on the line. No matter how the authorities responded, often violently and usually with arrests, they maintained their stand and did not react in kind. It was a very risky business.
Rosa Parks, as a simple example. MLK and the march on Selma, AL, during which dogs and firehoses were used against the protestors. The sit-ins at "whites only" lunch counters across the South.
A more recent example is Standing Rock. We know how the authorities responded to that: dogs, firehoses in sub-freezing weather, and all.
Can you imagine how a pink pussyhat marcher would deal with the treatment given the noDAPL protestors?
I don't see the pink pussyhat folks as either violent nor non-violent. There was very little risk taken by them. In fact, the marches appeared to be big "feel-good" events for the participants.
A big reason why Gandhi's and MLK's method was effective was that it allowed the general public to see the inhumane brutality of the powers that be. MLK's activism counted on and played to the public's basic human decency; that we would be appalled at the inhumane brutality and would be open to change.
In the 1960s, the news media reported on the civil rights movement, consistently and in depth, day after day, so we got to see plenty of brutality, and we were appalled.
We don't seem to have the same environment now. How many mainstream news reports did we see about Standing Rock? Few, if any.
In the US, at least, the public's current capacity to tolerate displays of inhumane brutality seems endless. "Another unarmed person killed by police for no reason? Oh, well. Now, where's my latte?"
Look at the public reaction to Kaepernick, who used a form of non-violent protest to draw attention to people of color being brutalized. "How dare he disrespect the national anthem!? He should find a more acceptable way to protest that doesn't hurt anyone's feelings."
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Rosa Parks were doing her thing now. She refuses to move to the back of the bus, the bus driver pulls over, police arrive. Smartphones come out, video goes viral, people start twittering:
"How dare that woman hold up an entire bus full of people at rush hour?!! Couldn't she find a better way to protest that wouldn't inconvenience anyone?!"
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Outstanding comment!
This comment summarized a lot of my own thoughts. Basically, I am a believer in non-violence, but I realize that any time people rise up against the establishment, there will be violence.
The problem today is that the establishment knows that civil disobedience can work, so they work to get ahead of the "peaceful" protestors narrative by creating the opposite marrative of "violence," usually by the insertion of agent provacateurs. I believe we were seeing some of those in the yellow vests protests over in France right now.
However, I still believe in the power of numbers. That said, in order to create that power of numbers, people must be willing to risk themselves. Up to now, we Americans have been unwilling to risk our lives and our paychecks even as we see our ability to put food on the table being steadily eroded.
I think what we are beginning to see is that people realize that it is only going to get worse and maybe now they are willing to put themselves out there. The most dangerous person in the world is the one who has nothing left to lose. To quote the immortal Kris Kristofferson "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." I believe that we have reached a critical mass in this country of people with nothing left to lose.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Violence works maybe more indirectly
Much of the gains of the Civil Rights movement was due to a reaction to the violence of racist authorities. In this sense, violence works as it provokes a counter reaction. OWS didn't gain much national attention until some cop pepper sprayed a number of women behind a barrier.
Of course, the use of violence depends where one sits. Most people supported the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government. But those same people would not support a violent take over the Ferguson government. Okay to send arms to Syrian rebels, but not to oppressed black people in America.
Just about OWS. While the people occupying various places were violently put down, they raised class consciousness without the use of "Marxist terms". They gave Americans an language of 1%ers that is now common currency. I would even argue that it helped defeat Rommeny especially after his comments on what percentage of people were abusers of the system.
Good essay
If we don't "go there", we at least need to get the travel brochure. The one thing I keep forgetting is that Bernie lit up what looks like the real middle of the political spectrum.
Wrong question
Organization is the key, plus education of the people.
Non violence is the greatest act of violence
We are all fighting on Blair Mountain, like it or not. We shouldnt be debating about the need for violence we should be planning tactical strikes.
We cant fight a conventional war. Terrorism is a tool of the state. We must fight two ways. The anarchy way and the assassins.
fine essay, and thank you, strife delivery.
i do have a Q, though. in the end, you seem to be speaking of 'violent protests', say in france, as 'violence to property, not people', yes? perhaps it did happen during Occupy days, but i've always thought that from the photos the 'black bloc anarchists' were agents provocateurs, remember all the photos with close-ups of cop issue vibram soles?
this has always been one of my several big chiches against chris hedges: 'the cancer in Occupy'
not only do i believe his central thesis fails:
(and yes, the movement stopped...to discuss total nonviolence and diversity of tactics, whatever folks decided in GAs that meant). nor do i think referencing some 'official black bloc group's self-directives brings light to his essay as he psychologically profiles 'them'.
but he never even understands that many of the rock throwers, window smashers....in black ski masks, bellaclavas...were more likely to be agents provocateurs.
i'm straining my brain to remember how and why gene sharpe's 'non-violent revolution' turned out to be a bit of a con (well, anti-socialist, Milosevic,for one thing, hugo chavez for another.). Milosevic was posthumously found innocent of charges, i'd kinda covered part of the reason on my paul kagame genocidaire diary.
but violence against property? big difference from violence against other humans, but da, that just reminded me: 'and you ask me about violence???'
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2BIZy0HScM]
Turning the other cheek
Is often cited as a form of passive resistance, but Walter Wink has argued that these teachings were designed as subversive acts of resistance that turned the table on oppressors.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
That's interesting
I was reading something, a theory, that Christianity might have been an invention of the Romans. To divide the Jews and introduce a pacifist component to quell possible uprisings, and to "render unto Ceaser what is Ceasers, and to God what is Gods". Talk about turning tables.
Yeah I heard about this
I was unconvinced.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg