The Challenge of Nonviolence

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary -- the evil it does is permanent.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

The problem with nonviolence may be with those of us who say we believe in it.

Nonviolence rooted in the teaching of Jesus derives from his unequivocal exhortation to love even our enemies and his radical demonstration of the redemptive power of suffering love. Mahatma Gandhi took the principle of nonviolence and turned it into the formidable political power of satyagraha, or "truth force," and used it to defeat the British empire peacefully. In our own country, Martin Luther King Jr. further developed it into "soul force," and led a nonviolent movement that overthrew the entrenched racist system of legal segregation.

But in the years following those great movements, nonviolent actions have become increasingly symbolic rather than transformative, conceived in reactive protest more than in proactive alternatives to violence and injustice. There has indeed been much to protest. U.S.-sponsored wars in Southeast Asia and Central America, the danger of an escalating nuclear arms race, and countless military and paramilitary interventions by both superpowers all over the world have provided an urgency to nonviolent protest. Such protest has often been both faithful and courageous and has, arguably, made a real difference in many circumstances. Yet it has not revealed, beyond the power of protest, the nature and shape of alternatives to the proposed solutions of military violence.

The present cases of Somalia, Bosnia, and other potential arenas of conflict make that weakness clear. Nonviolence was easier to embrace in reaction to brutal and stupid wars, nasty interventions, and insane arms races. But in response to the enormous human suffering in Somalia or the barbarism of the "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnia, nonviolence must now demonstrate alternative solutions to the problems that military force purports to resolve. Because of this complexity and difficulty, many former "protesters" now support military interventions, and advocates of nonviolence sometimes find themselves confused, conflicted, and on the defensive.

To navigate our way through this difficult passage, three qualities will be absolutely necessary -- honesty, humility, and fidelity. We need to be honest about the situations we are confronting and reject easy or facile answers to complex and compelling human tragedy. We need to be humble about the limitations of our present imagination and our commitment to embrace fully the risks that nonviolence might entail in these difficult situations.

Finally, we need to be faithful to our convictions, especially those that are theologically and spiritually rooted, and be willing to stick to them even if we are not yet sure how we will do it. The search for new expressions of the way of nonviolence likely will be what opens up the path to comprehending its deeper, and perhaps more costly, meaning. That could open up new possibilities for conflict resolution as we move into what looks like a very tumultuous future.

WAR IS NOT merely an activity; it is a system. It is a system supported by economic and political assumptions and by structures that drive us toward conflict, which is then resolved by chosen methods of violence. The history of those systems and assumptions is deeply imbedded in the present conflicts we are now confronting. It is those assumptions and institutions that we must begin to question.

Any idea of nonviolent conflict resolution must be based upon a realistic assessment of our human condition, and not be predicated on illusive notions of human perfectibility. In other words, human beings will inevitably become engaged in conflicts -- in their relationships and families, between groups, and among nations. Human conflict will not be ended; to assume that it can be is both politically naive and irresponsible. It is our ways of handling human conflict that must be re-examined.

While human conflict is inevitable, military solutions are not. War is only one system for resolving human conflict. But its costs and consequences are simply too high -- for its many victims, for the planet -- especially with the dangerous escalation of violence that the scope and power of today's modern weapons now make possible.

Just as most once believed that it was naive and impractical to think that we could live without slavery, most people today have no imagination of how we could live without military violence. The creation of that imagination is the essential job of nonviolent peacemaking.

We must begin to discover that there is a better way. First of all, nonviolent resolution of conflict and strife has worked in a great variety of situations. Gandhi and King are but the best known practitioners of nonviolent movements that have secured freedom, established justice, defended others, and made peace without recourse to violence. Similarly, whole groups of people and even nations have lived their lives and sustained their security for long periods of time by neither making war nor seeking its protection.

The truth is that most nations, most of the time, resolve their conflicts with other nations by means of diplomacy, negotiation, the imposition of various forms of economic and political sanctions, mutual security agreements, and the mediation of international bodies. Nonviolent peacemaking is a strategy to expand the scope and number of conflicts that can be resolved without military violence.

It must be said that the non-military means to resolve conflicts, respond to humanitarian crises, or to protect human rights and lives are often far too passive and incomplete. Why should such means remain passive while military means become so quickly aggressive? For example, economic sanctions and political isolation are often half-hearted and inconsistent. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, Serbia should and could be almost completely isolated and internationally named as an outlaw nation. With war crimes tribunals for its leaders and policies, its economy totally cut off from the rest of the world, and its political identity subject to the shameful judgment of history, the murderous Serbian regime might be undermined. And why should we even be negotiating with "warlords" in Somalia?

Nonviolence is not passive. In confronting the kind of naked aggression, cruel brutality, and stark human suffering we face in Bosnia and Somalia, for example, any nonviolent response must find a "moral equivalent" to war, with commensurate courage, risk taking, and sacrifice. Most pacifists aren't ready for that; pacifists are still mostly known for what they won't do, rather than for what they will do for the sake of justice, freedom, and peace.

Perhaps it is time to explore the meaning of a "nonviolent army," of which Gandhi dreamed. Trained and disciplined -- but unarmed -- people could be deployed in sufficient numbers to make a strategic difference in many situations of conflict; but only if they were prepared to make sacrifices and suffer casualties just as soldiers are.

Thousands of people are now trained and experienced in nonviolent action. Many might be ready for a further step if the inspiration, initiative, and organization were offered. It is possible, and the time to act may now be upon us. Surely this is a profound challenge, but only the strength of such an alternative has any hope of replacing the system of war.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.