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Choosing Nonviolent Resistance | Strategic Planning | Secrecy
Challenge Brings Repression | Suffering: the Cost of Struggle
Violence & Provocateurs | Discipline | Political Jiu-Jitsu
Conversion | Accommodation | Coercion | Defeat in Perspective
Nonviolence - Our Hope for a Future

Choosing Nonviolent Resistance

The four keys to effective nonviolent resistance are:

1. fearlessness and courage
2. nonviolent discipline (remaining nonviolent throughout the struggle)
3. persistence (the ability to withstand sanctions and keep struggling)
4. the ability to suffer (the same goes for violent struggle, although it isn't really talked about that much)

The opponent is usually will equipped to apply military and other violent means of struggle. Instead of meeting them directly on that level, where he is strong, nonviolent actionists rely on a totally different technique of struggle or "weapons system." This technique is designed to work to their advantage. According to the theories of nonviolent action, violence is removed, not by yielding to it, but by remaining firm in its face. Courage in this technique is not simply a moral virtue, it is a practical requirement of the technique.

It is important to remember that there are risks in passivity - especially in letting an oppressive regime go unchallenged - and in any type of violent action which might be taken. "Cowardice is impotence worse than violence," concluded Gandhi, "nonviolence cannot be taught to a person that fears death and has no power to resist...." Participation in nonviolent action often seems to lead to a loss of fear, which is closely tied to gaining confidence that one possesses power and can act in effective ways to change a situation.

(*notes from Gene Sharp book, The Dynamics of Nonviolent Resistance, published by Porter Sargents, 1973)

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