Since it’s Martin Luther King Day, and Washington, DC is braced for another armed attack, it’s worth thinking for a moment about political violence. Every schoolchild knows that King, in his struggle for civil rights, preached non-violence. What I fear many children and adults were not taught is that when King preached non-violence, he was talking not only, or even mostly, to Black Americans. He was talking to the United States government.
Thank you for this post, we heard in some comments after the January 6 attack on the Capitol the terms "banana republic" and "third-world country" as a reference point for what occurred that day - how many times has instability in other nations been caused directly by or funded by the USA, I was appalled by the slur, the violence brought to other countries on behalf of all Americans is the most immoral exercise of abuse of power, we are a morally bankrupt country from the inside out, what we witnessed two weeks ago - just a small glimpse of that reality.
Nonviolence is always the harder path. But also the only path to a world beyond domination. My favorite take on this these days comes from Kazu Haga (himself a practitioner in the Kingian tradition); he offers this:
"We are in need of a truly nonviolent revolution, not just of systems and policies, but also of worldviews and relationships. We need to understand that people are never the enemy, that violence and injustice itself is what we need to defeat, and that the goal of every conflict must be reconciliation."
You are entirely correct about state-sponsored violence and I agree with your basic premise. Committing violence in the name of justice is clearly not meant to be a part of a nonviolent effort to bring about change.
You did not really address the violence (looting, fires, etc.) committed by those who are angry and desperate about racism, Policing, and other injustices -- sometimes led by white supremacist agitators, as in Minneapolis.
How should we approach and respond to that violence if we truly support nonviolence?
Thank you for this post, we heard in some comments after the January 6 attack on the Capitol the terms "banana republic" and "third-world country" as a reference point for what occurred that day - how many times has instability in other nations been caused directly by or funded by the USA, I was appalled by the slur, the violence brought to other countries on behalf of all Americans is the most immoral exercise of abuse of power, we are a morally bankrupt country from the inside out, what we witnessed two weeks ago - just a small glimpse of that reality.
Nonviolence is always the harder path. But also the only path to a world beyond domination. My favorite take on this these days comes from Kazu Haga (himself a practitioner in the Kingian tradition); he offers this:
"We are in need of a truly nonviolent revolution, not just of systems and policies, but also of worldviews and relationships. We need to understand that people are never the enemy, that violence and injustice itself is what we need to defeat, and that the goal of every conflict must be reconciliation."
(Elaborated more here: https://citizenstout.substack.com/p/democracy-in-america-a-day-in-infamy)
You are entirely correct about state-sponsored violence and I agree with your basic premise. Committing violence in the name of justice is clearly not meant to be a part of a nonviolent effort to bring about change.
You did not really address the violence (looting, fires, etc.) committed by those who are angry and desperate about racism, Policing, and other injustices -- sometimes led by white supremacist agitators, as in Minneapolis.
How should we approach and respond to that violence if we truly support nonviolence?