Non-violence Under the Right Conditions
There are many people who consider non-violent protest to be ineffective and they have a point. Many recent non-violent protests have either been stifled quickly or have had such little support that they just faded away. However, under certain circumstances non-violent resistance can be very effective and even successful; on the other hand, if these circumstances do not present themselves then the resistance will probably fail. If it was the authoritarian body, or military force that was being violent to the peaceful protestors then the resistance would surely gain much needed momentum and recognition. Being aggressive towards non-violent protesters would inevitably make spectators start to feel sympathy …show more content…
Another successful non-violent protest that was successful due to authoritarian violence was the five day long non-violent protest of the Bishnoi villagers in West India in the 1700’s. The Bishnoi peoples’ religion strictly forbids harming of trees and animals. So when the King of that region sent his men out to clear, or fell, the woods near the Bishnoi people’s home, the Bichnoi peacefully resisted. The resistance was started by a female villager named Amrita Devi. Devi, who could not withstand watching her sacred trees being cut down, literally started to hug the trees to protect them from being cut down. Devi even said “A chopped head is cheaper than a felled tree” (“Bishnoi Villagers Sacrifice Their Lives to Save Trees” 16-17), meaning that the trees, being sacred to their religion, were worth more than the Bishnoi peoples’ lives themselves. Many of …show more content…
When it comes to violent versus non-violent affairs, news stations almost always show the violent protests, after all, that’s what most viewers would rather see. In Birmingham and Fruitvale, news picked up and spread the happenings of both the protests. The difference however is the fact that MLK’s protest remained non-violent while the Fruitvale riots were violent, leading to the military crackdown of the protesters. Another reason that non-violent protests got more attention is because, back then, they were still a commodity and was very rare up to that point. As non-violent protests became more common, news stations started to make them less of a priority in the news. For example, there was a non-violent resistance in the Palestinian territories in 2014, where several thousand of the Palestinians were engaged in non-violent struggle against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Mubarak Awad served as a preacher for the resistance and was often called “the Palestinian Gandhi” or “the Palestinian Martin Luther King Jr.” (The Palistinian Gandhi Who Still Thinks Nonviolence is TheAnswer). Much like Gandhi, Awad preached non-violent protest. He told resisters to eat only local plants, like the followers of Gandhi did. Plant olive trees in land occupied by the Jewish settlers and above all, do not take up arms. The problem for them was that fact that they did
There are many people who consider non-violent protest to be ineffective and they have a point. Many recent non-violent protests have either been stifled quickly or have had such little support that they just faded away. However, under certain circumstances non-violent resistance can be very effective and even successful; on the other hand, if these circumstances do not present themselves then the resistance will probably fail. If it was the authoritarian body, or military force that was being violent to the peaceful protestors then the resistance would surely gain much needed momentum and recognition. Being aggressive towards non-violent protesters would inevitably make spectators start to feel sympathy …show more content…
Another successful non-violent protest that was successful due to authoritarian violence was the five day long non-violent protest of the Bishnoi villagers in West India in the 1700’s. The Bishnoi peoples’ religion strictly forbids harming of trees and animals. So when the King of that region sent his men out to clear, or fell, the woods near the Bishnoi people’s home, the Bichnoi peacefully resisted. The resistance was started by a female villager named Amrita Devi. Devi, who could not withstand watching her sacred trees being cut down, literally started to hug the trees to protect them from being cut down. Devi even said “A chopped head is cheaper than a felled tree” (“Bishnoi Villagers Sacrifice Their Lives to Save Trees” 16-17), meaning that the trees, being sacred to their religion, were worth more than the Bishnoi peoples’ lives themselves. Many of …show more content…
When it comes to violent versus non-violent affairs, news stations almost always show the violent protests, after all, that’s what most viewers would rather see. In Birmingham and Fruitvale, news picked up and spread the happenings of both the protests. The difference however is the fact that MLK’s protest remained non-violent while the Fruitvale riots were violent, leading to the military crackdown of the protesters. Another reason that non-violent protests got more attention is because, back then, they were still a commodity and was very rare up to that point. As non-violent protests became more common, news stations started to make them less of a priority in the news. For example, there was a non-violent resistance in the Palestinian territories in 2014, where several thousand of the Palestinians were engaged in non-violent struggle against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Mubarak Awad served as a preacher for the resistance and was often called “the Palestinian Gandhi” or “the Palestinian Martin Luther King Jr.” (The Palistinian Gandhi Who Still Thinks Nonviolence is TheAnswer). Much like Gandhi, Awad preached non-violent protest. He told resisters to eat only local plants, like the followers of Gandhi did. Plant olive trees in land occupied by the Jewish settlers and above all, do not take up arms. The problem for them was that fact that they did