On 06/02/2014, at 1:01 PM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
>> Would you care to explain why you believe 'nonviolence' is silly? What's wrong with the strategy of non-violence as you see it?
>
> I was a little too sweeping. There are plenty of occasions when
> nonviolent tactics [*not* strategy] are just the thing.
>
> What I think is silly is the *cult* of nonviolence -- people for
> whom it's a moral absolute. I don't think any significant social
> change ever happens without violence, or without, at least,
> the threat or imminent prospect of it.
Well we agree that non-violence as a fetish achieves little, but I think we are at odds about its strategic versus tactical value. This is no minor point, because no war is won without appropriate strategies. As Ho Chi Minh put it:
when the strategy is right and tactics wrong battles may be lost but the war will be won
when the strategy is wrong and tactics are right battles may be won but the war will be lost
I think this is beautifully put, not to mention absolutely accurate. As demonstrated so very well by the respective strategies of the Vietnamese and American forces in the Vietnam war. You will recall that the Americans won almost every battle, so demonstrating that their tactics were entirely adequate. However, they still lost the war. Their strategy was shit.
Their strategy was shit because they failed to appreciate that such a war could not be won by military force alone, there was a political aspect they had to win as well. But they had no appropriate political strategy. In fact they had no real grasp that such a thing as a political strategy might even exist. The poor saps didn't even know they were losing the war, right up until the last minute.
Those who issue knee-jerk denunciations of non-violent "tactics" likewise fail to grasp the important point. Non violence isn't a mere tactic, it is a strategy, a political strategy, designed to achieve victory on the political battlefront.
Its great beauty of course is that it is a strategy that is particularly effective against an enemy that has massively superior force of arms. It is a strategy which has been proven successful in many a struggle, large and small. So it is no longer even arguable that strategic non-violence is ineffective.
You may as well argue that the earth is flat.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas