peaceful, non-violent protests are the way to change the exsisting balance, or imbalance of power...
Published on Monday, September 20, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Seeking Real Resistance to the War
On the Need to Bring Nonviolence to the Peace Movement
by Gordon Clark
I winced when the reporter from the Washington Post asked me on the 2nd anniversary of the war, what happened to the mass protests that I had forecast back in early 2003 should Bush actually take us to war in Iraq. I had predicted social disruption the likes of which we hadn’t seen since Vietnam. As I fumbled for an explanation, he reassured me that this was not my singular mistake - "lots of activists told me the same thing," he said.
What happened? How could so many seasoned activists and organizers be so profoundly disturbed by the pending war, predicting "no business as usual" should it start, and yet when the war actually does start, our protests and actions all peter out... and only now are building back to pre-war levels?
I believe a key to this dilemma lies in nonviolence, and its current marginalization in the contemporary American peace movement.
Nonviolence, and specifically nonviolent resistance, is probably the single most misunderstood concept in the peace movement. Many committed peace activists believe that nonviolence means simply the absence of violence. Others now use the terms "protest" and "resistance" interchangeably, as if they were equivalent.
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