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VIOLENCE vs
NONVIOLENT ACTION
The classes in
power have ample resources to supress all revolts,
especially if they are ill-planned and badly organised.
Even in cases where revolts have been successful they
were so only for a short time,
too often the upper classes again regained the lead, and
often took bloody revenge. Liberation must come by
peaceful means. Hatred and violence intensify fears of
the others; leads to chaos; deepens brutality of the
oppressor; increases the bitterness of the oppressed; is
the antithesis of creativity and wholeness; destroys
community and makes brotherhood impossible; is a
descending spiral that multiplies civil and multiples
violence. Violence has been the inseparable twin of
materialism, the hallmark of its grandeur and misery.
Martin Luther Kinf Jr. often said tha at the centre of
nonviolent action one finds the principle of love. It is
this active love that fuels the fires of the nonviolent
warrior. Gandhiji called love " the most powerful
force in the world, yet the humblest imaginable."
Nonviolent activists learn to deal with conflict and
differences in creative manner. Nonviolent action breaks
the chain reaction of evil, has a majestic sense of
spiritual power,seeks to elevate truth, beauty and
goodness, and provides a health way to deal with
understandable anger. Despair Vs. Hope
Despair and hope constantly come to birth from each
other. We see this in ourselves, as we weather a crisis,
and face life anew. Hope is bound up with human life.
Hope comes from the right brain activity of intuiting. It
finds its root in God. It is a common experience and a
universal attitude. Hope lies at the heart of all human
plans and activities. Hope is vital, if it dies, life
snaps. Where hope perishes, people end their life,lose
their mind, or drift aimlessly and rudderlessly.
We have plenty of reasons to lose hope in our world. But
hope is incurable, it is basic to human life. As we see
breakown of values, terrorism gaining ground all over the
world, the onset of decay and the collapse of the
system--each of us has a part in it. This does not happen
all of a sudden or due to the wrong doing of one man or
two. The collapse is a long process in which cell after
cell got infected
It is the collaboration of most of us that brings it
about, so we need to take it as a challenge to stop the
downward cycle and swoop upwards in hope and care for our
world. Hope looks towards the future and empowers us to
struggle for it.
Utopia is hope for the world. The movement from despair
to hope, from terrorism and chaos to Utopia can lead to a
new synthesis. Utopian persons bring a taste of the
Kingdom of God to the World-- Tolstoy, Gandhi, JP.
Narayan, Martin Luther King, etc. Each cycle of this
spiral has a death and rebirth experience which moves us
and our world along on our journey.
The thesis of hope becomes the antithesis of anxiety.
Both these opposites are necessary,and they must be both
understood and lived before the synthesis of the opus can
be achieved. As the thesis, hope, narrows itself to a
specific desire, it generates anxiety, which is its
antithesis; and the tension between them builds in the
vacuum of the present moment where they meet. The urge to
achieve a synthesis of these opposites and thus relieve
the inner tension increases, and different
"types" respond differently. We need patient to
await the synthesis.
Hope is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of
facts that oppress and repress is not the last word. It
sees that the froniers of the possible are not determined
by the limits of the actual, and that in a miraculous and
expected way, life is preparing the creative events which
will open the way to freedom and resurrection.
Hope and suffering live from each other to achieve this
synthesis. Suffering without hope, produces resentment
and despair. Hope without suffering creates illusions and
naivete. We must suffer to win and to convert the
opponentto your views and aims.
MOVING TOWARDS A
NEW SOCIETY
Everyone yearns
for enough food, clothing, shelter and health for all,
equlity, non-explanation, work, democracy, wholeness,
community, freedom, ecological harmony, a world
community. To get this we must form a new society with a
new economic system. People must choose to live more
simple life-styles so that there is enough for all. This
needs frugality, neighbourliness, decentralization and
self-reliance. Each person must live responsibly
combining personal creeativity with community efforts to
create choices.(See box below).
The wise worker for social change recognizes that
revolution is a continuing process rather than a
once-and-for all transformation. An authentically radical
movement should combine struggle with personal sharing
and support for the participants, should link analysis
with development of alternative institutions.
We need a vision and a strategy for getting to tat vision
and training in skills for living the new values now.
There will be no radical changes without radical
consciousness. Longfellow said : "We must be hammers
shaping a new society rather than anvils molded by the
old. This will not only make us new men,but will give us
a new kind of power--It will be power infused with love
and justice,that will change dark yesterdays into bright
tomorrows, and lift us from the fatigue of despair to the
buoyancy of hope. A dark desperate, confused and sin-sick
world waits for this new kind of man and this new kind
power".
How
We can Move Towards a New Society
- Conscientization
and nonviolence training -- Internalise
new values through personal conversion
- Value
wholeness more than material possessions
- Value people
above things
- Become aware
of situations in your own surroundings,
State, country and world at large and
decide to stand for truth
- Read more,
share information and join hands with
others
- Live by what
you say
- Confront
corruption
- Boycott all
luxury materials
- Support of
Gandhi’s village industries
- Join with
others to feel solidarity
- Help womens
organisations to fight for liberation --
sign pledges, etc.
- Deal with
conflict and differences creatively
- Focus on
issues and act on them
- Do
nonviolence training in regional
languages
- Educate youth
for change programme
- Write and
propagate action songs
- Use the media
to spread nonviolent action.
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The situation in
India today is far more hopeful than it was in 1947. At
that time, the masses blindly followed the leaders --
there were a few eblightened people with Gandhiji, but by
far, the masses were bound by poverty and ignorance.
Today thanks to the timeless efforts of many good
leaders, who were ready to suffer and die, the masses are
no longer slaves. It is true, poverty has increased and
physical bondage with it, but people have freed their
minds, spirits, and hearts and are rising up all over the
country to get their rights. No good leader lives or dies
in vain. They keep alive a set of values for the new
society, they forge it afresh. They organize people to
get the new society. In every movement we see people
taking back their power.
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