Power of peaceful protest
EDITORIAL: WHAT OTHERS THINK
onviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
It was Martin Luther King Jr. who said that during his 1964 speech at the University of Oslo entitled The Quest for Peace and Justice. King wasn’t alone in his fervent belief in non-violent protest. Mohandas Gandhi is often considered a founder of the nonviolence movement. He employed those tactics as India sought independence from Britain. Cesar Chavez was another activist who employed the strategy to protest the treatment of California farm workers.
In other words, it can work. And we need it today.
On the weekend, far-right protesters in Quebec City had to be protected when a much larger group of counterdemonstrators tried to stop them from taking part in a march outside the National Assembly. Members of the anti-immigration, anti-Islam group La Meute (Wolf Pack) were penned inside a parking garage while police clashed with counter protesters outside.
Both gatherings were legal, but the counterprotest was declared illegal when participants began throwing rocks, smoke bombs and bottles at police. Not the anti-immigrant protesters mind you, but the other side. The ones who are supposed to be the good guys in the fight against racism, neo-Nazism and white nationalism.
Violent thuggery is just that regardless of who is responsible. There is no nobility, no moral high ground, for protesters who get violent with police or other protesters. In fact, by engaging in this sort of behaviour, the Quebec protesters demeaned the cause they — and hopefully most of us — stand for.
Why not revisit the tactics employed by Gandhi and King? Why not employ nonviolent action to achieve social change objectives and express opposition to bigotry and xenophobia?
Don’t confuse nonviolent action with pacifism. It can be proactive and assertive, not just reactive. It can be in-your-face without being violent. And it doesn’t imply tolerance, as evidenced by the fact from the mid-’60s until nearly 2000, nonviolent civil resistance played a major role in 50 transitions away from authoritarianism around the globe.
The so-called white nationalist movement likes nothing better than to be able to argue that the so-called left is violent. It makes their aggressive intolerance seem somehow less malignant. It brings the people standing against their toxic worldview down to the same level.
At least in terms of activism, violence is rarely accidental. It’s a strategic choice. Nonviolence can be a strategic choice as well. As King pointed out a half century ago, there is nobility in choosing nonviolence, while there is none in choosing violence.