Personal Choices

After reading the articles by James, McAllister, and Kokopeli and Lakey I was left pondering the question of when do we need to move from nonviolent resistance to physical resistance? I chose here to not say "when do we move from nonviolent resistance to violent resistance" because in the situations that the authors discuss, they are talking about defending oneself through physical resistance, as a last resort. Pat James states that "Common sense as well as nonviolent principle dictate that an aggressive physical response to threat is the last choice for self-defense." After, exhausting nonviolent means of resistance, it is acceptable to physically resist an aggressor. However, James seems to somewhat discredit this argument when she goes on to give evidence for the usefulness of using physical resistance as soon as one feels that their person is being violated. James states that "The main reason for choosing physical resistance in a physical attack is that it is most likely to work. [...] The researchers report that the more quickly a woman responds with physical force, the less likely she will be raped, and that early recognition of danger is the single most important factor in preventing or deflecting an attack." In these circumstances though, I feel that the use of physical force to defend one's life is warranted. I understand that those who were part of the Civil Rights Movement and other nonviolent movements stayed passive when being brutally beaten. But that was their personal choice. Also, their nonviolent actions were part of a strategic campaign for social change. What social change can be brought be an individual who remains nonviolent while being raped in a back alley? Personally, I think that using physical force to defend one's life or the life of another, when it is sufficiently threatened, is absolutely justified. Is it nonviolent? No. But if I were being attacked or witnessed someone else being attacked, I would physically resist. What do others think? Do you think that in the case of self-defense, physical force is justified? Would you remain nonviolent even if you were being raped by an attacker?

However, the victim may not have to resort to physical force if they were to follow Pam McAllister's suggestion to "refuse the attacker's script." By refusing to show fear, the victim could potentially throw their attacker off. McAllister though goes on to endorse the notion that by clinging to nonviolent values, we can affirm our humanity. She says, "I refuse to be a victim and I refuse to endorse violence by resorting to it." While I can understand this argument in a wartime situation, I have a hard time believing that it applies to individual attacks on a person. I didn't really care for McAllister's arguments, and I am wondering what others think. Do you think that you're endorsing violence, if you use physical force as a form of self-defense?

In Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey's article, they look more at the connection between violence and nonviolence as related to masculinity and femininity. They say that "The ultimate proof of power/masculinity is violence." They go on to discuss how homosexual men face the same oppression as women, in a patriarchal society. I at first thought they were going to go on to advocate for a more feminine society. However, they are rather intelligent for articulating the need for a society that blends both masculine and feminine characteristics. This article leads me to question how accessible nonviolent resistance is to men, in our patriarchal society. If a man backs down from a fight he's usually called a "wimp" or a "sissy." However, no one seemed to call Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi a wimp. I think that men acting nonviolently is acceptable when its understood that they are part of a group and acting for some kind of social change. At the individual level though, a man acting nonviolently out of principle is socially unacceptable. Do you think that individual men can act nonviolent on principle in the present society? What do you think would have to change for men to act nonviolently, in all social situations, without being seen as a "wimp" or even worse, a girl?

Organizing a Movement

Organizing a Movement
It’s all about power. Taking the power of one group of people or person and shifting it to another. To do this, great organization is needed to utilize the people to put pressure on on group to shift the power to another. From a nonviolent perspective it is key to use love with power once a person has attained power. “King spoke eloquently about the importance of power and the need to combine it with love. ‘One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites… Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice’” (Cortright 192). Political power relies on two main factors of money and people (Cortright 192). This means that the organization of a group of people is imperative in gaining political power. Unfortunately most social organizations looking to advocate change, don’t have the same amount of money politicians do, so they must rely on their ability on the number of people they can successfully organize. Organization is changing drastically due to technology. The communication capabilities of the modern world far surpass those even a decade ago. However, the idea is still the same; “to mobilize people and resources for collective action” (Cortright 195) The internet has been irreplaceable in terms of getting word out about organizing a movement. A campaign against the war in Iraq was started via the internet in 2002. MoveOn organized meetings with Congress members who opposed war, and generated nearly a million signatures in under a week, and vigils in 140 countries. The internet was key because this medium of communication was able to get word out to millions of people within an extremely short amount of time and be easily available for translations to get word to foreign countries (Cortright 195-196). Common ground is also very important when organizing. A unity of the social group must be found for a cohesiveness to reach an ultimate goal.

Overall, a few ideas need to be looked at when organizing
Is there a clear over arching goal that all members believe in?
Is there a unity among members? Whether it be religion, geographic area, morals, beliefs, etc.
Can the media be involved as leverage?

Interpositionary Peacekeeping: Putting It All Out There (a little late... my B!)

Interpositionary Peacekeeping is arguably one of the most dangerous, gutsy, and profound actions of non-violence. I mean think about it. Traditionally it is putting yourself out there as a PHYSICAL shield! Letting it all hang out there. Not just putting your mind or words into a dispute, but physically trying to stop two conflicting forces from merging. It takes a HUGE leap of faith, a whole lot of moxy, truly you believe something 100% before you commit your physical body to the resolution of dangerous conflict. I watched a movie recently about the Liberian Woman’s Movement in… you guessed it… Liberia. To sum it up, there was a struggle between two factions for political power, and the result was a country torn apart by the carnage of war. It was such a moving thing to watch. Here were a group of average (arguably… you’ll see why) women who simply had had enough. Enough violence, enough poverty, enough fear. One woman was describing how she had to flee once from her home with her two small children to her and walking 7 hours to her parents village. When they got there they were famished. Her young son said all he wanted was a bite of a doughnut. All the woman could think about is “how do I get my son some doughnut?”. Inevitably this awakened a passion in the woman to cry out for the support of the fellow women to fight the war around them with non-violent action and protest. When she was giving her rallying speech, there also happened to be a Muslim woman in the assembly (church) as well. She felt moved and also called out to her community. The result was the coming together of woman of multiple backgrounds. OK, sorry, rant, long story short, the woman got the current president and conflicting rebels to agree to have peace talks, using non-violent tactics. However, at the meetings, the delegates tried to leave before they had reached any sort of agreement. The women said HELL NO and created a human chain around the building and FORCED the male negotiators to stay until the had reached an agreement. There was even a point where someone tried to violently jump over the woman, but they replied with pushing him right back in. (There is much more to the story, and I would recommend you watch Celia’s DVD on the subject… it’s really inspiring). Anyways, the ability for these mothers and grandmothers to take such a stand is really heart wrenching and inspiring at the same time. To see the pain they feel everyday thinking of the danger their children are in, and then having the courage to put themselves at risk. It makes me wonder a few things:

Do we understand the connections we have? As students? As whatever ethnicity we are? As whatever gender? Religion? Where do we have that connection? And even past that: where can we extend our connection to include others? Where do we find just ourselves as human beings? Would we have the power to call upon others and ourselves to do such displays of non-violence?

I guess the final thing I think to myself is: Would I ever be able to put myself on the line in the name of seeking a non-violent solution to injustice?