On Violence for Nonviolence

For violence to succeed, it must always be accompanied by the threat of more violence. No one would yield to an attack if they believed that the force that attacked them was spent. They yield so they don’t have to endure continuing or future attacks. It’s the threat of more violence to come that makes violence work.

Some people would have us believe that nonviolence works for the same reason — because of a threat of violence in the background. In this view, authorities eventually accommodate peaceful protestors out of fear that otherwise violent protests will escalate. Successful nonviolent movements require an alternative track, one showing a willingness to use violence if necessary.

Advocates of this view often cite the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, and claim that the radicalism of Malcolm X and others was crucial to the gains achieved by the nonviolent movement personified by Martin Luther King Jr. A good example of this argument can be found in Jay Moore’s recent posting for Monthly Review.[1] Moore paraphrases Malcolm in Selma as warning, “If the white racists did not want to deal reasonably with King, then beware; the alternative was having to deal with people like himself,” and then comments, “Some members of the ruling elite got the message.” To Moore, a “more radical” second track that wants “to push the envelope further” is essential to the success of nonviolent confrontation.

This is a deeply cynical view of the world. It reduces efforts of all kinds, whether violent or nonviolent, to a single common denominator: In the end, the only thing that really works is the threat of violence. Nonviolent protest is just the front end, the initial face of that threat.

This view is also, in my opinion, very much mistaken, and can be shown to be mistaken by reflecting both on how violence is deployed in the world and on how nonviolence works in practice.

Whose violence?

The state wants a monopoly on violence and equips itself to maintain that monopoly — through the military, police, courts, prisons, and various adjuncts of those institutions, like the “intelligence community” and the rest of the “national security” apparatus. In the United States, the “security” role of the government is about the only one that receives near universal support. Politicians willing to cut almost any government program still manage to increase the defense and homeland security budgets. Local governments close parks, schools, and libraries, but try diligently to maintain police and fire departments.

We Americans seem to be particularly fearful of what might befall us, and want the security of well-armed protection. I think that’s partly because of our history of violence and a tacit understanding of what we have done to other people around the globe. We fear what we ourselves have turned loose in the world. But in large part it’s also because of the great economic inequities in our society, and our lack of much shared common wealth (universal health care, adequate retirement, good and extensive public education, reliable housing, cheap and readily available public transportation, affordable child care, and so on) — which means we are to a large extent on our own and vulnerable.

So we are vigilant for any signs of chaos or disorder that might disturb our fragile islands of well-being. And we look to the state to protect us and give it great latitude in how it deploys its violence. Consequently, it deploys it willingly and without much constraint. The examples abound: Drone strikes in multiple countries. Three-strikes laws and long prison sentences. More border guards, immigration raids, and deportations, including many that separate parents from their young children. Secret operations by special forces all over the globe. A huge prison population with little official attention given to prison conditions or rehabilitation. Zero-tolerance policies for anyone receiving government assistance. The war on drugs. Vast exports of arms to client regimes. More and more of our diplomacy now conducted by the Pentagon in military-to-military relations with other countries. Laws that criminalize living outdoors while homeless. Sentence enhancements for hate crimes and gang affiliation. Sex offender registries and restrictions. School suspensions and expulsions for small or first-time infractions. The denial of civil liberties and government benefits to ex-felons. Ever increasing budgets for weapons of all kinds, including nuclear weapons. A multitude of restrictions on public gatherings and protests. Conspiracy prosecutions for organizing civil disobedience and resistance. The militarization of domestic police forces. And on and on. It’s as if the application of violence — coming down hard with a heavy hand — is the only way we have to address a problem.

In this environment, it’s a mistake to suppose that the state fears violence from grass-roots movements. It is well-equipped, trained, and ready to counter any violence that people might throw at it. Countering violence to maintain its monopoly is what it’s most prepared for. Agent provocateurs incite violence in peaceful protests not only to discredit the protesters, but also to give the state a reason to ratchet up its own violence — to do what it’s best prepared to do and is most comfortable doing. You could even argue that the state prefers violent confrontations to nonviolent ones, since they are easier for it to deal with.

Authorities also know that a fledgling movement that countenances violence will not get very far in this country. Most ordinary people, vulnerable as they are and wary of threats and disorder, will turn against the movement and condone state repression at the first sign that it tolerates property destruction, street fighting with the police, or other violence. Initial supporters, not willing to waste time on a project going nowhere, will also fade away. The protestors will quickly be separated from their potential base of support.[2]

How nonviolence?

If nonviolence doesn’t depend on a background threat of violence to succeed, the question becomes how and why it does work. I think the answer is complicated, but some elements are reasonably clear. First, nonviolence is open and available to anyone. It doesn’t require a cadre, secretive plans, special equipment, martial skills, or even good health. It puts everyone who participates on an equal footing, and therefore invites people to join and builds community. Second, it places the focus on the people who participate, on their dignity and worth. In essence, it counters the state with the people themselves. Third, it attacks the state where it matters most, at its legitimacy. It is people actively withdrawing their consent from the corporate state and confronting its offending institutions. If the state uses violence against nonviolent people, as Bull Conner did in Birmingham and the pepper-spraying cops did in the early days of the Occupy protests, it further delegitimizes itself. If the state avoids naked violence but nonetheless criminalizes the protest, its claim of justice is called into question by so many people willing to openly violate the law. And if the state does nothing, it cedes its power and authority.

Further, nonviolent confrontation makes a moral claim, and therefore is strongest when it’s wedded to a moral vision and discourse, as it was during the civil rights era. A moral vision is not a program or a set of policy prescriptions (it’s not, for example, single payer, or stopping the Keystone pipeline). Rather, it explores and gives voice to a set of underlying principles or values (for example, that everyone, regardless of their circumstances, has the right to the best in medical care, or that life on earth is precious and we should not damage what sustains it). From that foundation and in that light, it goes on to analyze our current history and imagine a departure from it. It is prophetic: It describes the dimensions of a possible and more just future. It articulates where we desire to go and why the struggle to get there has meaning.

A moral discourse grounds a movement. For one thing, it informs the actions the movement takes so they don’t become self-indulgent — don’t become actions simply to satisfy the need for action or simply to display the righteousness and anger of the participants. Rather, it helps ensure that actions are anchored in an analysis of our current situation, are focused on where we need to go and what we need to do to get there, and are designed to illuminate that destination as well as the obstacles and injustice that stand in the way.

By being peaceful and open, by building community, by not being passive in the face of injustice, nonviolence itself demonstrates an aspect of a movement’s moral vision. The means reflects the end being sought; it illuminates the larger vision.[3]

Movements then and now

The Occupy Wall Street movement in the fall of 2011 took some solid steps in the direction of a moral discourse:

  1. It was organized around a set of grievances, not a list of demands. Many people share the grievances, but only a few would start out agreeing with particular demands. Moreover, the list was long, so it showed that the organizers understood that seemingly separate issues — climate, war, health care, foreclosures, and so on — were in fact interconnected.
  2. Because its target was Wall Street, the groundwork for it had already been laid by the mainstream media in its coverage of the financial crisis. So an implied analysis of underlying injustice was in place, requiring little in the way of elaboration. The occupiers were consequently seen from the outset to be acting on behalf of society at large, not themselves specifically, at least in New York and initially elsewhere.
  3. It was a sustained confrontation, not a one-time event. It was not a replay of old actions that had been tried before, repeatedly, with little effect. The commitment required to remain in Zuccotti Park and make the encampment work gave it some moral force.
  4. Everyone was invited in — not just in the message (“We are the 99%”), but in practice (general assemblies, consensus building, work groups, common kitchen, child care, library, and so on). Everyone was, nominally, of equal importance.
  5. It was nonviolent in practice.

But, despite this beginning, the Occupy movement has so far not developed much of a moral narrative. Perhaps, because of the strictures it placed on itself, it was not structured to provide one.

During the civil rights movement, “Freedom Now” was a slogan that echoed a moral vision, and that vision was the subject of a lot of other discourse at the time, including every one of Martin Luther King Jr’s speeches. King and others spoke about the sought-after future, dissected its meaning, analyzed conditions in the country, and described the obstacles standing in the way. That was the basis when they discussed and debated the direction the movement needed to take.

“We are the 99%” doesn’t have the same kind of echo, and there is little discourse emanating from Occupy itself about any vision for society or any underlying moral principles or foundations. To the extent that it is present, it is implied. The slogan had the great virtue of highlighting inequality, but a discourse about that inequality and a principled examination of it have not emerged. The grievances could have been the starting point for a more in-depth discussion, but it hasn’t really happened yet.

I think three aspects of Occupy Wall Street as it played out across the country inhibited the development of a moral narrative:

Perhaps, despite these difficulties, Occupy Wall Street has sown the seeds for a larger discourse about the extreme concentration of private wealth and the concurrent dismantling of our common wealth. Perhaps it, or its offshoots, will provide the moral focus needed to push back against the ascendant right-wing narrative which promotes that concentration and advocates for that dismantling. A counter narrative will not come from the liberal establishment, whose tepid and compromised policies have failed to address underlying problems and done little to benefit ordinary people. It must come from people organized in resistance — that is, from movements like Occupy. But it can only come, I believe, with a commitment to nonviolence. A moral narrative that’s credible cannot emerge from the ambiguity of a “diversity of tactics.”

The trap

Finally, the great role and reach of official violence in America sets a cultural trap: We’re led to regard violence as a measure of our commitment and resolve — whether we’re urging the state to use it or expressing a willingness to do so ourselves. For example, those who support a military strike against Iran are taken to be more resolute about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East than those who favor the “weaker” approach of diplomacy and negotiation. In the 1960s and 70s, the Weatherman faction argued that if you really were serious about opposing the Vietnam war, you’d “bring it home” by setting bombs and blowing things up here. In writing, at least, Derek Jensen argues the same thing today with regard to the environment (see, for example, the two volumes of his Endgame). Advocates for hate-crime laws believe they are taking a strong stand against hate-motivated crime — never mind whether the laws they advocate would actually do anything to diminish either hate or crime; the mere advocacy of “toughness” demonstrates concern and resolve. Long sentences for drug possession are meant to show a similar concern about drug use. In fact, whenever there’s apprehension about any type of crime — embezzlement, domestic abuse, panhandling, whatever — there are calls for more punitive measures and tougher sentences; and, under public pressure, many get enacted. The President’s order to kill Osama bin Laden and his aggressive use of drones are cited as evidence that he is a strong, reliable, and competent leader of our foreign policy; a readiness to kill has become a qualification for high office. Zero-tolerance policies, as that label proudly proclaims, are meant more to display our lack of tolerance for bad behavior than to help solve any problem. Death penalty opponents believe they have to offer life in prison without parole as an alternative, or else be thought of as coddling criminals. The list goes on and on.

Advocates of a second track easily fall into this trap. To Jay Moore, the nonviolent confrontations in the civil rights era were “liberal” and the advocacy of Malcolm X was “radical.” Why these labels? They rest not on considerations of program, advocacy, analysis, or organizing, but solely on a judgement about nonviolence.

To me, it is essential that we take a step back and understand that we are all, to one extent or another, caught in the same trap, simply by virtue of growing up and living in this society. Just as many whites have struggled to understand and free themselves from culturally learned racism, we need to understand and free ourselves from culturally learned violence. We cannot effectively campaign against official violence if we ourselves use it as a measuring stick for commitment or as a gauge for how radical or revolutionary someone is. To make the real changes we want, we have to release ourselves from the trap and challenge the culture of violence that surrounds us.

Don Larkin
March 2012

Notes:

  1. ^   The Black Freedom Movement and Chris Hedges’ Misuse of History, dated February 16, 2012, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/moore160212.html.
  2. ^   Some use of physical force is not always inconsistent with nonviolence. Recently, the Arab Spring movements in Tunisia and Egypt were able to remain largely and successfully nonviolent while forcefully repelling police attacks and tolerating a degree of rock throwing and other violent acts at the margin. On the other hand, despite many nonviolent confrontations, the Palestinian struggle for freedom has never been able to escape its armed elements and become nonviolent in character, though that may be changing under a new wave of popular demands and a new generation of leaders.

    It appears to me that where physical force and violent acts have successfully co-existed with a nonviolent movement, at least one of three conditions has always obtained: (a) The armed and nonviolent struggles were completely independent of each other. The Indian National Army, which fought with Japan against Britain during the Second World War, is a case in point. It had no connection to the nonviolent movement for Indian independence led by the Indian National Congress. (b) The armed elements were supportive of and subordinate to the nonviolent movement. Jay Moore mentions the Deacons of Defense, who provided armed protection for civil rights protestors, and members of the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina, who broke up a Klan rally. The armed wing of the ANC in South Africa seems also to have deferred to the nonviolent struggle. (c) The violent acts were minor events in comparison to the overall movement. The movement itself remained overwhelmingly and consciously nonviolent. In Egypt, it came back after violent outbreaks with an even greater commitment of nonviolent force. In India, Gandhi would suspend demonstrations until nonviolence could be restored.

    In any case, it’s difficult for a nonviolent movement to overcome violent acts. As in Egypt, it must reassert its nonviolent character even more strongly. That seems feasible only for movements with great momentum — particularly large, popular movements opposing an occupation or a despotic regime. We are not at that point in this country; we delude ourselves if we imagine we are.

    It should also be noted that the Western powers learned their lesson from Tunisia and Egypt, and made sure that the Libyan and now Syrian struggles would be armed — the better for controlling the rebel forces, making them dependent on foreign patrons (for arms, intelligence, and military advice), and manipulating the ensuing political situation. Because popular nonviolent movements empower broad segments of the people themselves, they are harder to manipulate. This is but another example of state power’s preference for violence over nonviolence.

  3. ^   The moral dimension of nonviolent confrontation is why I reject the simple dichotomy that divides advocates of nonviolence into two groups — those who support it for tactical reasons and those who support it for moral reasons, the so-called “pacifists.” There are always both moral and tactical considerations in any nonviolent action. And in concrete situations, advocates always have both moral and tactical reasons for the positions they take.