Nonviolence

Nonviolence is the use of peaceful methods to produce political or social change in a society. Nonviolence directly opposes war and other violent means of changing the world. Where war seeks harmony by eliminating opposition, nonviolence is meant to produce that same harmony by changing the minds of one's opponents. Practitioners of nonviolence might do this by sitting in at an establishment until some unfair rule is changed, disobeying oppressive laws and risking imprisonment, and engaging in hunger strikes as a form of protest. In these ways, nonviolent activists seek to make themselves suffer to produce positive change rather than making others suffer, as in war.

Numerous figures in history have practiced nonviolence in achieving their political and social goals. Mohandas Gandhi famously utilized nonviolence to protest British control of India from the 1920s to the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s, African American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. called for African Americans to resist racism in the United States using nonviolent means. American labor organizer César Chávez also used nonviolence to protest unfair treatment of California migrant workers in the 1960s. Nonviolence succeeded to some degree in all three settings.

Background

The most basic definition of nonviolence states that it is a principle calling for abstinence from all forms of violence. Other definitions of the word assert that it is the avoidance of violence in particular as a means of achieving social and political change. Nonviolence is generally used to eradicate oppressive and unfair laws without eradicating the makers of those laws, as violence would do. Practitioners of nonviolence usually hope to attract public attention to their peaceful acts of resistance. Widespread awareness of these actions is often necessary to inspire more people to take up whatever cause is being advocated.

Nonviolence is important to some protesters because of its moral implications. People calling for equality and fairness in a society do not want to taint their movements by becoming violent, for the use of violence to improve the world would undermine their principles. The refusal to resort to violence is therefore meant to make one's protest movement more attractive to the public.

Historically, nonviolent political activists have relied on a set group of methods to protest unfair laws. Protesting against offending governments or other organizations with picket signs and labor strikes is a common form of nonviolent protest. Other kinds of peaceful protest include holding vigils and sit-ins. Sit-ins involve protesters occupying a location and peacefully refusing to leave. Their occupation is meant to attract attention to their cause.

A somewhat more extreme type of nonviolent protest is a hunger strike, or fast. Hunger strikes are potentially long-term refusals to eat until an oppressive force gives in to one's demands for political or social reform. Hunger strikes depend on publicity for effectiveness. People who stage hunger strikes hope to elicit public empathy for their cause. They want the public to believe that a government or other organization is allowing them to continue starving by not yielding to their requests. With hunger strikes, it is the nonviolent protesters who suffer rather than their opponents. This refusal to injure anyone else exemplifies the core tenet of nonviolence.

Some observers of nonviolent political action have questioned the effectiveness of peaceful methods in actually bringing about real political change. In 2011, political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan published a study of violent and nonviolent efforts to produce change between 1900 and 2006. They discovered that nonviolent political campaigns were more successful than violent ones for several reasons. One was that they were safer, and so attracted greater participation. Another was that many twentieth-century nonviolent movements later inspired others to improve their own societies in some nonviolent way. Therefore, the original nonviolence continued to produce good in the world even many years later.

Overview

The Indian political activist Mohandas Gandhi prominently championed nonviolence as the best way to protest against British rule of India in the first half of the twentieth century. He adopted the ahimsa concept of Hinduism and other Indian religions into his own life. Ahimsa requires individuals not to harm themselves or anyone else and always to work toward peace and justice. Gandhi and his followers engaged in many forms of nonviolent protest. In 1930, Gandhi led a nearly 250-mile (400-kilometer) march across India to collect salt from the sea. The march was a protest against the British government's tax on salt, which Gandhi saw as unfair to India's poor. Later, Gandhi launched a hunger strike for class equality in Indian society. The British government reformed India's class system as a result.

In the 1950s, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. credited Gandhi with inspiring his own commitment to nonviolent protest against racism in the United States. King wrote that his philosophy combined Christian love with the type of staunch nonviolence practiced by Gandhi. Like Gandhi, King did not believe people themselves were evil. He considered only actions to be evil, and he intended his nonviolent protests to oppose these actions, not the people who committed them.

With these attitudes, King helped organize peaceful protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and 1956, in which African American activists stopped riding city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated bus seating. The boycott eventually led to bus seating being integrated throughout the United States. Political opponents later bombed King's house as a form of intimidation. King responded to this by continuing to preach love for all.

American labor organizer César Chávez similarly used nonviolent protests to reform the treatment of farmworkers in California in the 1960s and 1970s. As a youth, Chávez personally witnessed the poor conditions of farms throughout the state, with migrant workers paid little for their work and subjected to unsanitary migrant camps and racism. In 1966, Chávez famously led a march of striking grape pickers to Sacramento to demand the right to form a labor union. Growers later allowed the migrant workers to join the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. In 1968, Chávez fasted for more than three weeks to protest the growing movement toward violence in the UFW. Ultimately, Chávez's efforts helped to improve pay and working conditions for migrant workers in California and other nearby states.

Nonviolence successfully brought about political and social change in the cases of Gandhi, King, and Chávez. These men did this not by aggressively forcing their opposition to submit, but by inspiring the wider public to stop supporting unfair societal conditions. This public pressure convinced the oppressors to change.

Bibliography

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"Cesar Chavez." History.com, 2009, www.history.com/topics/cesar-chavez. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.

Gnoth, Aidan, and Jackson, Richard. "Peace Pacifism, Nonviolence: 21st Century Developments." International Studies, 23 Aug. 2023, doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.727. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025. 

Kohari, Alizeh. "Hunger Strikes: What Can They Achieve?" BBC, 16 Aug. 2011, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-14540696. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.

Lyubansky, Mikhail. "Is Nonviolence Effective?" Psychology Today, 13 Mar. 2014, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-the-lines/201403/is-nonviolence-effective. Accessed 21 Jan. 2025.

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