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Everybody should read this article over at Makezine.org (thanks to Rosa for linking to this site on ya blog, it rocks), on decoding non-violent rhetoric. It sums up eloquently and concisely the problems with the "non-violent protest good / violent protest bad" dichotomy, where I usually just end up getting inarticulate and shouty. This paragraph is especially key, I think...
quote:The pacifist-identified activists I’ve argued with have all had a serious problem with failing to take a critical perspective to what gets called violence and what doesn’t. They often make the argument that we must resist any opportunity to start violence, because once we “bring it to that level” there is no turning back and we justify violent response from the state. These arguments rely on an assumption that violence isn’t already present and integral the global situation, that it isn’t already at “that level.” They are forgetting or missing the fact that people are already dying in this struggle: starving, being made homeless, having their lands and cultures stolen and stripped, being raped, killed, enslaved, tortured and imprisoned, being denied healthcare, etc. When people who do not directly experience, and may in fact benefit from, the US government’s war on the poor and people of color domestically and worldwide suggest that activists taking up arms initiates violence, they rely on an unacceptable denial of how violence permeates life in this country. This is particularly troubling when it comes from activists who are familiar with current life-threatening and life-taking actions of the government and private sector, but selectively forget when they admonish their fellow activists not to respond with violence or property destruction. |
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