For you who wants to know more Nonviolence & Conflict Management
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- Nonviolence – A positive word
- The principles are the heart of the nonviolence body.
- Strategy is the brain of the body of nonviolence.
- Training is the backbone of the body of nonviolence
- Methods are the hands and feet of the body of nonviolence
- Blockades
- A nonviolence lifestyle is the blood of a non-violent body
- Resistance, struggle and revolution
- Questions about the flower of nonviolence
- Without-violence = Nonviolence construction N onviolence Anti-violence = Nonviolence resistance
- Forms for the construction of nonviolence
What is nonviolence?Imagine three people having a conversation on how they can best work for peace. The first says that his contribution to peace is to refuse to carry a weapon. The second says that all dictators must be killed to achieve peace. The third means that the only way is to break in to military bases and disarm all the weapons. Which of the three acted in a non-violent manner and under what conditions? It is not obvious what is meant by nonviolence. Here are examples of different interpretations: Nonviolence – a political method based on peaceful dialogue and distancing itself from violent action. Nonviolence implies to practise resistance without causing physical or psychological injury to living individuals Nonviolence implies actively reacting against violence and oppression in our surroundings. Nonviolence meets terrorism by demanding a non-terrorist response. Nonviolence – A positive word There is a problem with the word non-violence. The word is made up of two parts: Non which is a negation, and violence. The word non, a negation can be associated with many other words which are about not doing. Nonviolence can be associated with being passive. However if we look at the historical context we can see that the meaning is something entirely different. The word nonviolence comes from the word “ahimsa” which is Sanskrit. Ahimsa is the positive opposite of the word “himsa” which means, desire to injure. “Ahimsa” is an ancient word, which is found in Bhagavad-Gita which was written between 200BC and 200AD. Sanskrit functions in a different way than Swedish and English. In Sanskrit many words receive a positive meaning through placing a negation in the basic word. The word for love is “avera” which translated means not hate. The word for brave is “abhaya”, not afraid. Thus, “ahimsa” non-violence is not a negative tem, but fundamentally positive. A way of describing the essence of nonviolence could be using pictures. We will be presenting the pictures “The Body of Nonviolence” and ”The Flower of Nonviolence”.
Peace is more than the absence of war Nonviolence is more than the absence of violence Love is more than the absence of hate The Body of Nonviolence
Nonviolence is a fantastically rich conception which reaches over many areas of life. This model is an attempt to make clear and simplify this concept. One can, of course, regard nonviolence in many ways. Here is one way. In our model, the body of nonviolence is divided into nonviolence in principles, strategy, methods and lifestyle. 
The principles are the heart of the nonviolence body. The heart is the symbol for our values and our conviction. These principles, or lack of them are what steer our actions. As with the rest of the body, the heart has the ability to develop continuously. Within the nonviolence movement a number guiding nonviolence principles have been developed. Some of these are presented below:
Strategy is the brain of the body of nonviolence. The brain is needed to analyse the situation work out a good strategy for non-violent action. There has to be a clear picture of what shall and can be done in the course of events. One must also create a careful analysis of What one wishes to change and which method of nonviolence would be most suitable for the action? To overcome an unjust system one must sometimes deploy a whole series of non-violence methods. It helps to work out what could happen in different scenarios when different methods are used so that you are ready for different reactions and results from your environs. Training is the backbone of the body of nonviolence A football player who wants to succeed does not only play in matches. He or she trains all the different skills so that when they are needed they are ready to use. A player can spend a whole morning just kicking the ball with his left foot so that he/she know she can. When you practise enough the result comes automatically, straight from the spinal chord. It is the same with nonviolence. It is important to train how non-violent methods can be used in violent situations so that they come automatically when needed. This can be achieved by training an action by simulating it before doing it. Just as important is the need to train nonviolence in everyday life. How do I manage a conflict at my workplace or in school in the most non violent way? How can I express criticism without insulting or worsening the situation? One can train all these things in a nonviolence workshop. Methods are the hands and feet of the body of nonviolence Methods of nonviolence can be used on a daily basis in our meetings with people giving respect and help even to those we have difficulty relating to. It ca be a question of intervening in a violent situation or mobbing. Methods of nonviolence can be used in political actions. The unjust laws and rules of society are often challenged. Gene Sharp has created three categories in political action: protest and persuasion, non collaboration and intervention. In the book “The Politics of Non-Violent Action” he counted 198 methods of nonviolence. Below, Sharps three categories are presented with examples of each, illustrating what they imply. The book was written in 1973 so the number of nonviolence methods has greatly increased. New methods are always evolving.
Demonstrate – many express what they want by walking together to public places. For example 15th February 2003, which was the largest anti-war demonstration ever. In London alone, over 2,000,000 people protested. Protests were held at the same time in over 600 towns all over the world. Protest lists – to sign a list to express discontent with a political action. Protest lists against Sweden’s weapon export to the UK and USA during the Iraqi war.
Boycott – refusing to buy goods or services in order to indicate dissatisfaction with the products or service on offer. For example, South African products were subject to boycott under the apartheid regime. The boycott was initially carried out by individuals and organisations, after which it spread to whole countries. Strike – refusing to work. A strike in Poland was the beginning of a non-violence movement which eventually toppled the communist regime. Examples of political non-collaboration can be refusing to do military national service or refusing to carry out the expulsion of political refugees. Refusal to collaborate – during the Second World War, Norwegian teachers refused to follow the Nazi educational program. They were sent to concentration camps for their “crimes”, but most were soon returned to their schools as the Nazis realized that the teachers would not give up.
Blockades – a sit down strike on a road. Israelis did this to prevent bulldozers destroying Palestinian houses. Preventive presence – International presence for the protection of exposed people in areas of conflict. This method utilizes the fact that the third party, the peace observer, is not a part of the conflict. There are peace observers in Mexico, Israel/Palestine and Colombia as examples. Plowshare actions – destroying weapons openly and being willing to take the consequences. To start disarmament yourself, when politicians refuse. To destroy atomic submarines in Scotland Methods of nonviolence are not just about injustice and oppression in the world. It is about building up that which is good. Gandhi called the Constructive Program. An example of this can be working with fair trade through world shops. It can also be buying environment friendly products, starting a nonviolence group or growing your own garden products. These four components; principles, strategy, training and methods can up to a point work independently. A boycott, a nonviolence method, was affected against Iraq during the decade 1990 in the form of UN sanctions. The sanctions resulted in over a million dead Iraqis. This result shows that obviously, the action did not follow the principle of nonviolence. The hand and feet did not follow the heart. Often, nonviolence methods are used without a strategy and as a result they are much less effective and often cause more suffering than is necessary. In this case hands and feet do not follow the brain. That which is perhaps the most usual scenario is that we are filled with nonviolence principles and do not act on them. Hands and feet do not listen to the message of the heart. ”We do the talk but not the walk.” If this is the case then the blood which connects the body parts is missing. This takes us to the last part of the nonviolence body. A nonviolence lifestyle is the blood of a non-violent body The blood is the connection between the parts of our body and is life giving. Blood also gives life to the term nonviolence. Non-violent body parts can be independently strong, but the more integrated the non-violent body parts are the stronger the nonviolence. When integration of the body parts begins, the process of a lifestyle of nonviolence becomes a fact which influences our whole life. The motivation to this lifestyle may be religious, philosophical or political or a mixture of all three. For nonviolence leaders such as Gandhi and King this process grew gradually in their lives. They put together words and actions more and more, making mistakes along the way and leaving and returning to nonviolence. The body develops at its own rate in the same way as nonviolence in our lives. Often nonviolence starts as a little seed which has the potential for growth if looked after properly. Sometimes it has begun to grow without us realising “The threat is not the president who wants war, but the peace movement that chooses total submission.”
Plowshare activist and author T
Every day, people die standing up for their rights. All such brave actions do not lead to positive change. To achieve such change there is a need for many people to act. We would like to inspire a discussion about methods of nonviolence with the example below. In a country not so far from our own a person goes up to another person and offers a flower10. There is nothing violent about that… During the night, a military coup occurs in the country and all forms of public acts of affection are strictly forbidden, particularly giving flowers to each other. Despite knowledge of the risk the same person goes to his beloved to give a flower. When the soldiers see this they beat up the person who gave the flower. Nonviolence resistance has begun…
The nonviolence battle has begun… On the morning of the next day, the soldiers see four people carrying a stretcher with Zoe, (whose name means life) in a plaster of Paris cast. Next to her on the stretcher is a flower. The soldiers are dumb with surprise. Her friends carry the stretcher to the soldiers and with a smile Zoe offers the flower. The soldiers do not know what to do. The rest of the day people everywhere are giving each other flowers and to the soldiers who put them in the gun barrels. Nonviolence revolution is a fact. Questions about the flower of nonviolence What does the story above tell us about how nonviolence works? What is the difference between what the woman does on different days? What is, according to the story, important in nonviolence? What does the woman need to be able to and dare to do what she does? What would we need? Does the story tell us anything about what nonviolence is not? Nonviolence – an expounded academic definition
Nonviolence can be understood as being built up with the two main dimensions “without violence” and “anti violence”. Nonviolence = Without-violence + Antiviolence ( fig. 1 – ed. note) The point is that both of these meanings have to be present at the same time for us to be able to speak about nonviolence. Nothing becomes “non-violent” just because we do not use violence – for example to be out for a walk. It is not either non-violent because one rejects violence – as with UN soldiers patrolling a border to monitor a ceasefire. A group of unarmed guards that walk along a border and try to prevent fighting can however be said to practise nonviolence. It is just the combination of a rejection of violence in such a way that one does not use violence that is “nonviolence” The nonviolence movement as a social and an idea historical phenomenon which combines its group’s different ideologies, methods and questions into two general and distinct traits of character of nonviolence. 1: Without -violence as an idea that “something else” of higher value exists or can be achieved: different forms of violence and oppression are problemised and questioned, both in society and in ones own life, at the same time as one seeks “something else”, freedom from violence /oppression for example “The Kingdom of God” or “self fulfilment”. This something else is a utopian belief, hidden reality or realistic possibility. 2: Antiviolence as a social antithesis: where violence and oppression are undermined by resistance and competition from nonviolence institutions and methods. Occasionally the basic idea of the nonviolence movement is described with the words “there is no road to peace, peace is the road”. A more exact summary of the nonviolence project is: To try to use the nonviolent future in the present as an alternative to and resistance against the present society’s violence and oppression. The one side of the coin, “without-violence” should be understood as an emphasis of life/action without violence. Here one can imagine that we people have an innate ability to act without violence or that we must practise or construct this without-violence ability. Without-violence becomes an attempt to achieve liberation outside the domain of violence, to exceed the bounds of violence. The other side of the coin,”anti-violence”, should be understood as an emphasis on resistance to violence. Counteraction is actualised as soon as violence threatens the group one lives in. Seen in the extreme, this means that a resistance to violence should be sought out where it is and resisted there, not wait until it comes to you. In resisting violence, it is the violence which is the problem, not who (for the moment) is affected. Anti-violence becomes an attempt to undermine the domain of violence. Both without-violence and anti-violence varies, depending on which phenomenological domains of violence and oppression are accountable (see fig. 3) and which social domain shall/can be liberated from violence (see fig. 4).
Without violence is a nonviolence construction (of the increased ability to act without violence) and anti-violence a non-violent resistance (against the violence which occurs despite the nonviolence construction) Nonviolence construction is the training, supporting or building of the ability - individually and collectively – To act and live without violence. Depending on the view of what violence is and the view of whether people have an inborn capacity to act without violence, the level of ambition varies and the methods of non-violent construction. Nonviolence resistance for example civil disobedience is an undermining, transforming, obstructive or dissolving of”violence” or “oppression”11 (unjust power conditions) where activists in their action try to avoid using violence or oppression themselves. What is contained in nonviolence resistance can be seen to vary in accordance with how strict different individuals regard what “violence” or “oppression” is (fig.3). Some activists, as did Gandhi, see thoughts and feelings as more or less non-violent, while others see as being enough, not to (on purpose) kill people. For some, colonialism or patriarchy is oppression, for others it is eating meat or free abortion. Both dimensions – without-violence and anti-violence create an opposition between violence and it’s (often indefinite) opposite. Both without-violence and anti-violence therefore influence the meaning one puts into “violence”. Among words suggested as opposites to the word violence are, “peace”, “justice”, “fairness”, “love” “truth”, “basic needs” “self-fulfilment”, “Gods Kingdom”. The significance of the twin term nonviolence – violence is allowed in this way to remain open to discussion within the nonviolence movement. Whether or not one sees violence as coercion, denial, need, manipulation, injurious, killing, evil, threat, or anything else, the two separate dimensions of nonviolence relevant. As we can see below in fig.4, the domains of violence can be more or less all embracing. Even the domains of nonviolence can be more or less extensive (depending on which violence is accounted as relevant).
Even if violence is seen in a narrow concept – an irreversible and serious physical injury caused by a persons conscious action against the injured party’s will – nonviolence becomes in an absolute meaning - without and against all violence an impossible task to achieve. As soon as someone is attacked by someone else, the non-violence movement should be there, preventing and protecting (if activists are to be non-violent). As humanity consists of six billion people a clear impossibility arises in fulfilling the radical demand12. Neither without-violence nor anti-violence can free itself completely from violence. This complex problem causes inner contradictions in each of the terms. A minimal significance of without-violence and anti-violence become achievable, whereas a maximum significance is not. (See below). 
The three concentric circles are only an example of the division which can be made I several different ways, see Galtung 1960. Normally violence is named as that nearer the centre and oppression (sometimes called evil, tyranny, structural violence, injustice or unfair power circumstances) as more peripheral. The two dimensions of non-violence are never the less (conceptually) interlaced. On the one hand a non-violence activist cannot live “without violence” unless all existing violence is abolished (and in that case without-violence demands that all violence in the world is counteracted). On the other hand resistance continues ”against violence” – at least implicitly if the resistance is to be meaningful as resistance against just “violence” (and not just against war or other peoples violence) - to the actual activist avoiding the use of violence. Otherwise at least in the moment the activist uses violence (against others violence) a new violence arises, irrespective of if the violence used in the long term can be said to make the world less violent. The freedom of violence in “without-violence” presupposes analytically the resistance in “anti-violence”. “Anti-violence” presupposes “without -violence”. A difference lies in which side of the nonviolence coin is lifted. An inbuilt tension in the term; two meanings interlaced but whose radical significance is impossible to actively achieve. The practical management therefore often becomes an exaggeration of one meaning to the cost of the other.. Both without-violence and anti-violence can vary between a particular and universal character depending on how the social domain is. As a particular phenomenon “without-violence” is about how I myself as an individual or I and my friends, live a life free from violence where none of us uses violence. The particular character of anti-violence implies that one attempts to undermine the occurring violence within the group that counts. The problem for particular non-violence is about the difficulty in setting a motivated border to who belongs to this “we” (and those who do not belong). A universal character of without-violence and against-violence implies that non-violence touches all of humanity, violence occurring in groups other than the own primary group are just as important13. The maximum importance of nonviolence is that which counts humanity as “we”, violence such as that which ”prevents-self-fulfilment” and nonviolence as both maximum without-violence and maximum nonviolence14. The most minimal importance is that which concerns the primary group (e.g. the family), as with violence thinking only of killing and non-violence, practically single dimensional (either without-violence or against violence)15. Between these significances, one can create many different significance combinations, for example that “we” are a nation, all violence is injurious and nonviolence in the greater part is without-violence.
Until now, we have spoken about nonviolence in general, but what constitutes strategic nonviolence? Strategic violence is, according to Gene Sharp, more than methods and principle of nonviolence. It is the whole way of thinking, around power, fundamental human psychology and social and political tendencies and change16. Let us begin at the inspiring end. Historically, nonviolence activists have used strategic non-violence, brought down dictators, freed colonies, defended their occupied countries and achieved social justice in a number of situations and countries. Look at the chapter about historical examples of nonviolence. It is just the ability of strategic nonviolence to be flexible and adaptable which makes it a continuous relevant energy in the facilitating of social change in society. To better be able to understand what strategic nonviolence implies we need to have perspective on the following questions: How are conflicts won? And what is our goal? How are conflicts won? Change – Adaptability – Force
Force implies, finally, that the opposition’s source of power is so decimated that they could not fight us even if they wanted to. Sharp says that all struggle, including nonviolent struggle, achieves victory through the use of a combination of these mechanisms. To retain focus and be effective in our struggle for nonviolence we must therefore consciously choose which mechanism is best suited for reaching our goal. What is our goal? All competent strategies start with a goal which is well chosen, defined and understood. If, for example, total disarmament is our ultimate goal then we must ask ourselves how our struggle to achieve that can give the best result. What would work best, change, adaptability or force? In just this case, adaptability would probably be best, because if a majority of the population are not for total disarmament then weapon advocates would achieve their policy. Furthermore to achieve permanent change with the help of adaptability or nonviolent force, many activists would be needed, which we can accomplish by engaging and motivating people, (“adaptability”). Although adaptability can sound like a complicated, boring and tragically slow process, strategic nonviolence has an ability to accelerate the process of change. “It is not enough to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear.
Nobels Peaceprize and Leader of the nonviolence democratic movement in Burma
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he Flower of nonviolence9
onviolence
