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.
Mr. Baroud's reference to the poll of Palestinian youth, 70% of whom are reported by the poll to consider that using violence to resist their oppression by Israel is "not helpful", is very interesting for the manner in which many might think this poll illustrates the psychological toll of unnaturally suppressed anger.
First of all, the facts reported by Mr. Baroud leave out some crucial information. We are left to presume that if Palestinian youth do not think that violent resistance to Israeli oppression is "helpful", they must therefore favor non-violent resistance. Perhaps they do, (and I have no idea what they think or favor), but Mr. Baroud does not report this. It is entirely possible that these same youth, a stunning 80% of whom are reported to be "depressed" (with a staggering 55%, a majority of Palestinian youth, reported to be "extremely depressed") also do not think that non-violence would be "helpful." Recognizing that feelings of extreme hopelessness are a major characteristic of clinical depression, it is certainly not hard to imagine that people who are feeling hopeless might not think that any tactics, violent or non-violent, would be "helpful."
Virtually any psychologist would tell you that "depression is anger turned inward." Likewise, any psychologist would tell you that the expression of anger is almost always the first sign of a person's emergence from clinical depression. When we do not find ways to adequately express our legitimate and appropriate anger, we somehow pervert that anger against ourselves, and we punish ourselves through self-deprivation. We deprive ourselves of good feelings. We feel gloomy and sad. As we sink deeper into the depths of clinical depression, we deprive ourselves of Hope itself. We shut our feelings down. We feel emotionally dead. We don't feel at all.
As we contemplate this tragedy of 80% of an entire nation's youth in some stage of depression, it is interesting to consider, in regards to our discussion of non-violence, the relationship between anger, violence, and depression. We could speculate that since the practice of non-violence involves suppression of anger, those who try to practice it might very well be more prone to depression over time. We could also speculate that people who are actively expressing their anger in a violent response to oppression, would not likely be feeling 'depressed.' But people who have felt and expressed extreme anger without having their anger 'rewarded' with a rectification of its causes might also be very prone to depression, as they turn their anger on themselves and punish themselves for their failure.
While the above is no more than speculation into the possible mechanisms of the depression of Palestinian youth, surely we have little difficulty in instinctively understanding the tragedy of the staggering fact of the mass depression of this population. Surely we can instinctively understand that the constantly oppressive humiliation that these people are forced to endure would engender anger in any human person, and that when that anger is unable to find a solution to its causes, and the humiliation simply continues, depression in the humiliated population would naturally follow.
The decision of whether an oppressed population should employ violent or non-violent tactics, at any given time, belongs to that population alone. It is the height of arrogance for people living in relative safety and comfort to judge people who are suffering under severe oppression for the tactics they use in their struggle against that oppression. And I think that Mr. Baroud is entirely correct in his implications that the widespread propaganda supporting non-violence serves the interests of the oppressive powers-that-be, who would much rather that people would respond to their oppression non-violently, rather than take up a violent struggle.
The question of whether or not the doctrine of satyagraha (non-violence) would have been effective in opposing Hitler is entirely relevant to the tragic plight of the Palestinians. All clear- thinking people can see the morally depraved racism being exhibited by the Zionist oppressor. When we hear them express their belief that they are God's own 'chosen people,' it is easy to recall Hitler's beliefs in the superiority of the Aryan race. When we witness the horrific and abject depravity of the Gaza bombardment, or when we remember the depraved massacres at Saabra and Shatilla, or the tens of thousands of innocents slaughtered by these crazed Zionists in Lebanon, (or any of dozens of major incidents of Zionist moral depravity), when we witness the ongoing cruelty of their daily humiliation of an entire nation of millions of people, it must surely be obvious to us that the Palestinians must face the question that was posed to Gandhi. Will the doctrine of non-violence, which depends on a sense of moral decency in the oppressor, be effective in opposing an oppressor whose racist beliefs have robbed him of moral decency?
I presume that the chances are that anyone reading this note is, like me, living in relative safety and comfort. It is just simply not ours to judge the actions, or state of mind, of those living in the aftermath of Gaza, (and all the other Israeli atrocities). How would any of us feel if our children were in immediate danger, or were made to suffer the humiliation of daily degradation? Or worse, how would we feel if we had dug our children's bodies from the rubble? What do we think we would think, in those circumstances, of comfortable people telling us we must adhere to non-violence no matter how egregious the provocation?
I know what I would think. (And I have a pretty good idea of what I would do.)
Ray Zwarich__
(Follow-on comment [2] by Raymond Deane, Dublin, April 22, 2009):
This analysis is very sharp and I regret to say that I agree with it pretty much fully.
The activities of Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army, violent activities, definitely played their part in driving out the Brits - it was a kind of "good cop [Gandhi]/Bad Cop [Bose]" routine.
However, the 1st Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993) was a predominantly political uprising of huge sophistication. Its strategies would surely be worth looking at again, although the situation in Israel itself has changed so much since then (no Palestinian labour, to begin with).
Raymond Deane
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