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And once again, the intentions of the "establishment" come into question. One has to wonder, if Abu al-Aish would have responded with the resolve of so many grieving parents who vowed to "never leave"; to "rebuild"; to "resist until victory or death in its pursuit," would he still be recognized for his efforts to promote peace among Palestinians and Israelis?
Just why does the UNDP find it fitting to highlight a survey that concludes that most Palestinian youth find violence "unhelpful" at such a time? And why does the world renown a man who calls for reconciliation, a term that somehow suggests a conflict between people of equal standing, while his daughters rest in fresh graves? Some may suggest that non-violent resistance in such situations is the embodiment of the dignified struggle.
Others might call it surrender.
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
(Comment [1] by Ray Zwarich, Boston, April 22, 2009):
Thanks for sending this thoughtful and quietly provocative article by Ramzy Baroud.
The tactic of non-violence has certainly been highly propagandized, to the point that many of us have erroneously come to believe that it was non-violence, as practiced by Gandhi, that freed India from British colonial rule, and that it was the nonviolence of Dr. King that won the victories for minority rights in the US. The lessons suggested by the actual history of these struggles is obscured when we elevate this propaganda to accepted dogma, as so many of us seem to.
In reality, the Indian struggle against British rule was characterized by the release of significant degrees of civil violence, which had a great effect upon the decisions made by the British. To suggest that Gandhi's non-violence was the only factor in winning Indian independence is simply false, and even arguing that it was the most important factor is highly problematic.
Gandhi himself was a controversial figure among many factions that were a vital part of this struggle. He was often highly criticized, and sometimes even reviled, by others in this movement, for the decisions he made, and for the actions he took, which many considered to be highly counter-productive to the movement. Often huge amounts of resources and energies that were invested into building actions of resistance were wasted when Gandhi pulled out at the last minute if the least degree of anger, suggesting possible violence, was expressed during preparations. He was perceived by many in this movement as completely undemocratic in this regard. If he did not have his own way, he would (figuratively) take his ball and go home.
The role that Dr. King played in the American civil rights struggle is likewise greatly exaggerated. Like Gandhi against the British, the role he played was clearly crucially important, (and I am NOT suggesting that these men do not deserve our reverence; I, myself do revere them), but as in India, considerable degrees of violence were released in the course of the civil rights struggle, and this violence played a significant role in the victories that were won.
We are clearly under the influence of propaganda, (which, as Mr. Baroud points out, certainly seems to serve the 'powers-that-be'), when we pretend that the non-violence advocated and practiced by Dr. King played a greater role in the victories that were won by the American Civil Rights Movement than the efforts of people like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rapp Brown, and, of course, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, and their cohorts in the Black Panthers.
Most of us, in fact almost all of us, are able to imagine situations in which violence is the most appropriate response to a perceived threat. Any of us who are parents, for example, would surely not hesitate to use violence if it were the only way to protect our children from a violent threat. Few of us would hesitate to use violence to protect ourselves from the same. In the context of a political struggle, violence, as an expression of people's angry response to a threat to their safety, is generally commensurate with the degree of the threat. An immediate and deadly threat will more likely provoke a violent response than a milder and/or more remote threat. It certainly seems to me that people who are suffering under degrees of oppression are themselves best qualified to judge the degree of threat they face, and therefore the most appropriate response.
The political tactic of organized non-violence can be very effective in certain situations of political oppression, but we must recognize that it depends entirely, for its efficacy, on the basic moral sense of human decency on the part of the oppressor. The rationale of non-violence is that the oppressed will inhabit a position of moral superiority, by suffering under the miseries of the oppressor without responding in kind, and will therefore, over time, cause the oppressor, under the influence of his basic moral decency, to perceive the injustice and cruelty he is perpetrating, which will eventually cause him to desist from it.
Surely we can recognize that when the oppressor is devoid of a sense of moral decency, this tactic of non-violence is not likely to be effective or appropriate. Would non-violence have been effective against the moral depravity of Hitler and the Nazis?
This question was often posed to Gandhi himself, and he affirmed his belief that satyagraha, (the doctrine of non-violent struggle), would be effective against any evil, but he warned that it always involved great sacrifice. We may or may not agree with Gandhi that non-violence could have been effective against the Nazis, but common sense tells us that when an oppressor is morally depraved, (and who would argue that Hitler was not?), the suffering he will wreak on those who would struggle against him non-violently will be horrible.
As much as I revere Gandhi, my own common sense tells me that the idea of using non-violence to oppose a morally depraved monster, (like Hitler), is completely absurd. But even if we do accept, for the sake of argument, the highly questionable assumption that non-violence would be the morally superior response to egregious social depravity, we must surely recognize that real world human beings are simply not capable of that degree of moral nicety. Masses of real world human beings would simply never agree to restrain their own angry and violent responses when treated with depraved cruelty. And we must also recognize that whenever people do suppress legitimate and entirely appropriate anger, there is often a heavy psychological toll to pay.
