Non-violent social movements don't happen spontaneously. They are well planned, methodically practiced actions that confront and expose a corrupt system in order to create radical change. The results can be breathtaking.
A true story (paraphrased). Told during a weekend training in non-violence taken with FOR (Fellowhip of Reconciliation). (see schedule of trainings) http://www.forusa.org/programs/nvtraining/basic_schedule.html
This story happened during the civils rights movement at one of the sit-ins at a segragated lunch counter. It happened to a man who was well trained in non-violence.
A white man and an african-american man had been sitting at a lunch counter in a small town in the South. They had been there 2 days without being served. Local people had been gathering around them and tensions were mounting. Finnally the white man was told; "I'm gonna give you one minute to get out of here nigger-lover, before I run this knife into your heart" The man seated at the lunch counter, was staring at the knife and thought to himself, "well at least he gave me a minute." Then he forced himself to look up into the face of man holding the knife and saw such hate and rage, the likes of which he had never seen before. Though frightened, the man at the lunch counter replied; "well brother, you do what you have to, and I'm going to try and love you just the same".
There was a long silence. Then the hands of the man holding the knife began to quiver, and finally the knife fell to the ground. The man quickly turned to leave, but not before someone noticed him wipe a tear from his eye.
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GANDHI'S PRINCIPALS OF NONCOOPERATION
- For Gandhi, the Sanskrit work Satyagraha defined how to wage a struggle for justice. It means a struggle in which we do not seek to exterminate our opponent, but through love and a willingness to suffer, we seek to create with our opponent a just resolution of the conflict. It means love force, soul force, or truth power.
- Swaraj, home-rule for India, would come only when every Indian exercised swaraj, self-rule, in his or her own life. The imposition of British rule was made possible by Indian cooperation, and could be ended by noncooperation. Indians had to learn to respect themselves, o throw off the limitations of untouchability and of their own reverse racism; Indians had to learn to govern their own desires for wealth and property; Indians had to refuse to surrender to their centuries of conditioning to caste division so that they would work together for freedom.
- What Gandhi called for and sometimes achieved was a struggle within each person's soul to take responsibility for the evil (or injustice) in which she or he was complicit, and having taken responsibility, to exercise self-control and begin to change.
- Gandhi's refusal to see the British as solely responsible for the situation of India was key to Indian independence.
- We must recognize our cooperation with evil (or injustice) and withdraw it. It is essential to the struggle for social change.
- So often people feel powerless to create change for those in power who are held responsible for our situation do not listen to our voices. This is true. They exist to hold power of make profit. However, we tend to overlook that while systems do not listen to people very well, they are in fact made up of the very people to whom they do not listen! The existence of the system depends upon the cooperation of all the players. If we withdraw our support from the system, then change will begin.
- In noncooperation, there are logiceal steps in recognizing our responsibility and withdrawing our complicity:
a. Know what it is that is wrong enough to justify noncooperation
b. Know how we are involved in supporting it
c. Know how best to withdraw our support
d. Know what to do with the support that is withdrawn from the system
- Noncooperation may includes marches, boycotts and tax refusal, but it also includes and inner dimension: the refusal to allow our minds to be manipulated, our hearts to be controlled. Refusing to hate those who are identified as enemies is also noncooperation.
- Negativity is never enough. It is not enough to oppose the wrong without suggesting the right.
- We are they! Both we and our opponents are caught in the same evil (or unjust) system.
- No one person owns the truth- each one has a piece of it, as Gandhi said, and if we can put all our pieces together we may find a bigger truth.
- Recognizing our own complicity in an evil (or unjust) system means that we can take responsibility for it through noncooperation. It also means that w can confront our own failures, forgive ourselves, and from that process learn compassion.
- Even when we feel that the people who range themselves against us have become close-minded or unreasonable, we do not have to retaliate in kind. We can find the places in ourselves where we are close-minded and unreasonable, and understand the fear behind such feelings. We can forgive and refuse to be drawn into a cycle of hate and fear.
- The power of nonviolence lies in facing ourselves with love and compassion, while honestly confronting our own evil, and then in facing the evil of our opponents honestly, while confronting them with love and compassion. Nonviolence is an invitation
a. To nurture the good
b. To confront the evil (or unjust) and in so doing
c. To build a new community which will bear in it the best of the old