Only if they remain civilians will their deaths be counted and mourned by white peace activists who will, one of these days, muster a protest large enough to stop the war. People in Latin America must suffer patiently, like true martyrs, while white activists in the US “bear witness” and write to Congress. Then, they believe, change will surely come. They must wait for enough people of color who have attained more economic privilege (the “house slaves” of Malcolm X’s analysis) and conscientious white people to gather together and hold hands and sing songs. He is the co-facilitator of a workshop on the prison system, and is also involved in independent media, copwatching, anti-oppression work, and anarchist organizing.“People of color in the internal colonies of the US cannot defend themselves against police brutality or expropriate the means of survival to free themselves from economic servitude. He is the author of Consensus: A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social, and Environmental Groups and a contributor to Letters From Young Activists. Peter Gelderloos is a radical community organizer.
Ultimately, does nonviolence protect the state?.How does pacifism reinforce the same power dynamic as patriarchy?.Does nonviolence intersect with white privilege and the dominance of North over South?.Is nonviolence effective at ending systems of oppression?.Many North American activists fail to scrutinize the role of nonviolence, never posing essential questions: In a call bound to stir controversy and lively debate, Peter Gelderloos invites activists to consider diverse tactics, passionately arguing that exclusive nonviolence often acts to reinforce the same structures of oppression that activists seek to overthrow.Ĭontemporary movements for social change face plenty of difficult questions, but sometimes matters of strategy and tactics receive low priority. How Nonviolence Protects the State challenges the belief that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. Today protest is often shaped by cooperation with state authorities-even organizers of rallies against police brutality apply for police permits, and anti-imperialists usually stop short of supporting self-defense and armed resistance. Since the civil rights era, the doctrine of nonviolence has enjoyed near-universal acceptance by the US Left.
0 kommentar(er)
