For you who wants to know more Nonviolence & Conflict Management

Political jujitsu

In political jujitsu the nonviolence activist tries to turn the opponent’s strongest weapon – violent reprisals – against the opponent (not physically). It is when this succeeds that nonviolence is perhaps at its strongest.

Political jujitsu means to dramatically swing opinion, accelerate the process of change and strengthen tendencies of defection within the opposing group. Political jujitsu arises when nonviolence activists bravely suffer the opponent’s brutal treatment and at the same time continue with transparency, nonviolence discipline and bravery to repeat their demands and refuse to give up when confronted the opponents violence. Cruelty and brutality committed against people who are obviously non-violent is regarded as inhuman and monstrous by most people. It often leads to opinion withdrawing its support from the violent party and instead giving it tot the non-violent activist. The American sociologist Edward Alsworth expresses this in the following way: “The scene where humans suffer but do not hit back is touching. This obliges the powers that be to sink to explaining and justifying themselves. The weak receive new possibilities of winning the general opinion, perhaps even world opinion” (from a free translation in Swedish).
Voluntary suffering?
But is suffering really necessary? Can one not struggle for all that is good without reprisals? Of course! There are many things to be done in the nonviolence struggle which effectively help to achieve the alternative society,

characterized by peace and nonviolence, without risking being subject to suffering. At the same time there exists a struggle without violence against violence, in relation to violence. An effective strategic nonviolence resistance will meet with reprisals and cause suffering among activists in the form of ridicule, prison, beatings,

economical consequences and so on. The struggle for a better world brings (personal) consequences… All that work with strategic nonviolence must reckon with and prepare themselves for it. Some nonviolence workers have use voluntary suffering to achieve goals with nonviolence.

Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau (1848)

Civil disobedience is a nonviolence method. It is an expression of nonviolence. Civil disobedience is, for some non-violence activists a central issue in nonviolence, but not all nonviolence activists are necessarily in agreement with civil disobedience. That which characterizes a civil disobedience action is to openly and publicly break a rule or law which one believes to be unjust. Breaking the law is carried out in a nonviolent manner after which the punishment judged is accepted. Not leaving the scene of the “crime” shows that fear of punishment which can be given is overcome. At this point the punishment loses in function. Civil disobedience can be carried out in all of Sharps three nonviolence categories, depending on which laws a land has. In some countries it is illegal to demonstrate and to carry out a demonstration and then take the punishment is an act of civil disobedience.

In the 19^th century the American Henry David Thoreau refused to pay tax. This he did because he was against his tax money being used to oppress the indigenous population USA´s attack on Mexico. He received a prison sentence for the tax offence. The point in this was not refusing to pay tax, but the fact that the punishment was an important part of the action of resistance. This insight was used by Mohandas K Gandhi and Martin Luther King. In openly breaking an unjust law in a non-violent way and being prepares to take the punishment they carried out the most powerful resistance a human being can. With regard to civil disobedience, language plays a

central role. Is one a terrorist or a freedom fighter, does one demobilize weapons of mass destruction or does one destroy material or is it sabotage? According to the non-violence principle “peace is the way” one cannot differentiate between the goal and the means. What happens if we destroy a JAS plane? What happens if we do not?

Gender and nonviolence

3% of the text and 10 – 15% of the pictures. In art and musical history women are hardly represented at all¹⁹.

Whose history is it that counts and who writes it? The purpose (in part) of this chapter is to show how nonviolence can be used on an everyday basis connected to particular subjects, in this case gender and what people, women as well as men have to win by working with nonviolence and gender. It is about power, your own and others. Another purpose with the chapter is to see how different structures belong together and to increase your knowledge in a subject makes it easier to discover other power structures connected to age, religion, geographical areas, ethnic groupings, nationality and sexual preference etc²⁰.

“Nonviolent direct action aims to create such a crisis and establish such a creative tension that a society which has

consistently refuses to negotiate is forced to confront the question. It seeks to dramatise The question to the Point where it can

No longer be ignored…”

Nobel Peace Prize 1964

Leader of The Citizens Rights

Movement in USA

This chapter has developed during the time I, Sara, participated in a course on gender and nonviolence arranged by the International Fellowship of Reconciliations program Women Peacemaker Program. It is an attempt to retell and spread the experiences and knowledge I received from all the participants and mentors. An experience which I carry with me is when I had a conversation with an Israeli and Palestinian woman that were working in the same organisation. The Palestinian woman told the Israeli woman that she could never be her friend if she introduced herself as a Jew. The Israeli woman was frustrated and hurt by that. The occurrence describes dominance and power situations in a conflict very clearly, I think. In the first place the difficulty for person dominant is shown to understand the oppressed person. In the second place, how our identity influences us and how we choose to emphasize ourselves and that part of our identity we cannot choose.

Definition and theory with examples
Gender is defined differently but I have chosen to define it as “a social and cultural construction”. This means that genus creates through an interplay between structural conditions and perceptions related to femininity and manliness, that is to say, not something we humans are born with but something that can change. Gender as a structure is expression of how sex is bound to power for example privileges in society. Key terms in gender research are construction, hierarchy (power order), relation and social situation²¹. The word gender (genus) comes from the Latin and means extraction, family, lineage, sex and is the grammatical term for feminine and masculine²². Gender is also time and environment dependant and therewith variable. Society decides what is expected, allowed and valued of a man or woman²³. It varies, depending on where one lives, ones religion, which class one is seen to belong to etc.

Equality means men and women’s equal responsibilities, rights and possibilities in all essential areas of life. This includes among other things equal sharing of power and influence, the same possibilities of economic independence, equal business conditions, work and development possibilities in work, equal access to education/training, equal possibility to development of persona interests, talent and ambitions, shared responsibility for home and children freedom from sex related violence²⁴.

The term “we - them” in the sense superior – inferior is perhaps seen most clearly and intensely through the division between men and women in the world. In a discriminations or conflict of justice there is a stronger and weaker part. Power is unequally divided. If we return to the iceberg and Galtungs three forms of violence we can say that direct violence constitutes violence by men against women in the home, threat of violence, degradation etc²⁵. According to UN, men’s violence against women is the most profound form of violation of human rights. It is estimated that every second to every fourth woman has been subject to physical violence of her partner²⁶. The structural violence is the difference in laws and regulations between women and men, such as different salaries for the same work, compulsory military service for men (and women in some countries) and access to public positions and so on. The cultural violence is society’s acceptance that it happens and the unfairness becoming the norm. Consciously or not.

It is a fact that 70% of the worlds poor are women²⁷and more than 99% of the worlds income goes to men²⁸. This is a clear example of structural violence. During a year, circa 30,000people die in wars around the world. During the same amount of time 3.5 million girls and women die in domestic violence.²⁹ Which question does your government prioritise?

This can be called an invisible global war which exists in all countries, irrespective of whether it is legal or not. It is an obvious structural injustice accepted by both the inferior (in this case women) and superior (men). Women can be regarded as second class citizens. There is a great demand for their work but less interest in their opinions and votes. Women are told to do as the man says. Manliness is connected to control of the woman and the home. A man who does not have control over his woman is seen as a joke and is not regarded as a “real man”.³⁰ This can create serious consequences. In Palestine, domestic violence

has increased explosively due to the Israeli occupation. The increased unemployment and the violation and degradation Palestinian men are subject to time and time again, by the Israeli border guards, destroys their masculinity as they can no longer support or protect their families. Rape and abuse in the home become a way of regaining their lost masculinity³¹.

In Sweden we have laws against domestic violence, against discrimination on the grounds of which sex one is and a culture where it is not ok to beat your partner, irrespective of sex. According to a presentation at the World Economic Forum, 2007, Sweden has the highest equality, but despite this there is an imbalance of power in Swedish society. Look at any daily newspaper and see which people are portrayed in the foreign, domestic, sport and culture articles. Who is able to voice their opinion and who decides our role? Here, cultural violence is made visible. Sweden has despite this come a long way with regard to equality, but non-violence and gender are so much more that equality and beside this, Sweden is not separated from the rest of the world.

“If it’s natural to kill how come men have

to go into training to learn how?”
Joan Baez ( 1941 -),

Singer, peace activist USA

By analysing an armed conflict or war from a perspective of gender, we are able to see people roles before, during and after the outbreak of the conflict. This increases the possibility of creating a lasting peace which includes the whole population. Traditional roles are often changed during a war as the men go out to fight the women take over the mens`s work in order to keep the household going.

I am only one; but I am one.

I cannot do everything

but I can do something.

I cannot abstain from

Doing that which I can do.

Model 1. Women and men’s roles before, during and after conflict,

Prominent Figures