So I was having a discussion with my sister the other day about Christianity and passive resistance etcc we started talking about the conflicts resolved by force and those that were solve through pacifist means…..



We talked about Ghandi- about how his passive resistance supposedly freed India, I said It was more to do with the british empire being exhausted by years of war and it simply couldn’t afford to keep running India…there had been many Indian uprisings all brutally suppressed…



We talked about the ‘battle of Algiers’ how violent résistance helped to throw off the shackles of colonial rule…we talked about how violet overt resistance helped to garner world support for the African ANC cause, I told my sister that south African black majority rule had more to do with the fall of the USSR ( the western powers thought wrongly that nelson Mandela could be part of a new pro communist African state.



We started talking about martin Luther king and Malcolm-x as opposing figure heads.

She said that the 1968 equality act was more to do with king jr’s pacifism, I said It was more to do with the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, the Weathermen and the Brown Berets scaring those moderates into thinking that millitant ethnic minorites could become a communist fifth coloumn within capitalist america,



We talked about vietnam and the over throw of french colonial rule and later the repulsion american vets ( the american public couldn’t stand to see the body bags coming home)by millitant vietnamese





I summarised by saying that sis, on the whole violent action (the type espoused by philosophers Omali Yeshitela and Frantz Fanon) did work and did help emancipate

People on the whole, and that humans will never see an end to violence as long as compulsion through the state exists….







So I have to ask your opinion do violent protests and militancy do more for freedom than peaceful protests ..

Definately and I have a belief that where violence (or at least the threat of it)was not used for liberation, there isn't really a freedom worth crowing about. I think in reality and practice it's the only way to free a group, nation, people, cause. Make the oppressor scared. Appealing to the decency of an oppressor who has shown they have none is retarded and if you think you win out on whatever conscessions said oppressor grants you, tricknology was involved strongly.

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Theres always resistance to change, therefore change is a force in itself.[/align]
[align=center]*Edditt*[/align]
[align=center]'Change is the only constant' [/align]
[align=left]Needed a reminder. niceone.gif[/align]
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Can violent action ever be justified

Are always justified by those that commit them. confused3

Can violent action ever be justified



Well a person is considered violent if they justify it themselves, not if it is justified by others i.e. self defence.

Jesus says turn the other cheek, Moses says an eye for an eye. A person who is attacked by another with fists is expected to turn the other cheek, someone who is sexually abused, violence to defend themselvesis considered just fine. Publically many christians speak to the effect, an eye for an eye. Privately there are always exceptions to the rule.

On a wider scale, if you are talking about peole earning their freedom, nowhere in history have I ever heard of a non violent person earning their freedom, even that twat Ghandi because he not only killed and hated Africans (was a fervent believer in the indian caste system) he always had plans ready if his non violence didn't work because he understood, non violence is an ideology and is not a long term solution. No way can anyone believe that they are going fight a battle against violence with non violence alone, it's not realistic and it is not ever going to bear lasting fruits.

As has been said, never has there been a people who have freed themselves by holding hands and asking the oppressor to give up their golden goose for nothing. If you ever want to taste your freedom, you need to be prepared to fight for it with the pen or the gun.

Mother nature is just about the most blood-thirsty, violent b*tch imaginable. We are nothing more than the product of nature's design - the product of violence that has no ending.

Without violencee.g the violent extinction of the dinosours and the domination of mammals on the earth through force - we humans wouldn't even exist.

Nature couldn't care less about justifications. It only cares about survival.

Therefore, in my opinion it doesn't matter whether or not violence is "justified" as such. All that matters is that we try to avoid it as much as possible - without dilluding ourselves with the idea that violence can be avoided forever.

You may walk through a beautiful jungle and see nothing but peace and tranquility. But look closer, and you will see raging violence everywhere.

Evil is a matter of opinion.

Oblivion;
There is no doubt as to the correctness of what you say; but is there more?
By that, I don’t mean the sentimentality of the goodness and love crowd, but at the same time, don’t we owe it to ourselves to aspire to a higher plane – AFTER having attained our material needs and goals by whatever method that works.

Mike,

I don't avocate violence, but I would only justify it as an act of defense.