On Thursday, November 18th, Lieutenant John Pike of the UC-Davis Campus Police made the choice to pepper spray several nonviolent protestors on the UC-Davis Campus. As you can see, the response to this action by those who observed it was immediate and emphatic, but remained nonviolent, finally culminating with the growing group of people chanting, "You can leave! You can leave!", to which the security forces oblige.
Many have called for the resignation of UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi for authorizing the clearing out of the protestors without a real understanding of how the orders would be carried out. Katehi has herself called the actions "chilling".
Then, on Friday, as the blog Second Alarm recalls:
A pretty remarkable thing just happened. A press conference, scheduled for *4:00pm* between the UC Davis Chancellor and police with local press on campus, did not end in an hour, as planned. Instead, a mass of Occupy Davis students and sympathizers mobilized outside, demanding to have their voice heard. After some initial confusion, UC Chancellor Linda Katehi refused to leave the building, attempting to give the media the impression that the students were somehow holding her hostage.
A group of highly organized students formed a large gap for the chancellor to leave. They chanted “we are peaceful” and “just walk home,” but nothing changed for several hours. Eventually student representatives convinced the chancellor to leave after telling their fellow students to sit down and lock arms (around 7:00pm).
These have instantly become powerful moments in American history showing clearly how effective nonviolent protests can be by shedding light on how (and how not) to treat each other and resolve our differences. UPDATE: Katehi apologizes Thanks to the students of UC-Davis who have participated in these actions of nonviolent protest, whether standing up and chanting or sitting in silence, your actions are being felt far and wide! Thank you for your example and your active part in the Nonviolent Revolution!
Occupy Wall Street has been a growing movement for a couple of months now, and duringthe past few weeks we have seen example after example of violence by law enforcement all over the country using force in an attempt to crush the spirits of the protesters. From Zucotti Park in New York City to Occupy Denver to Occupy Oakland, American citizens with weapons are using violence against unarmed American citizens (an 84 year old woman?) simply attempting to have their voices heard. However, this show of force by the powers that be seems to have only galvanized the movement, while also leaving many wondering what to do next, but knowing with a certainty that the movement must continue. Regardless of what happens next, whether action is taken through continued protesting in the streets, voting, or choosing to hit Corporate America in the pocketbook, one thing is for sure.... for the Occupy Movement to continue to be taken seriously by the mainstream and ultimately succeed in it's goals it MUST be committed to nonviolence!
Why is nonviolence so crucial if the Occupy Movement is to truly be a revolution?
Randall Amster also evokes 'People Power', weighing in gracefully with an article entitled, 'Power To The Peaceful':
"No amount of force can deter people seeking survival, meaning, and the natural longings of hope for the future. “Holding one’s ground” becomes the operative premise — not in an aggressive way that replicates state power but with a presence of body and mind that demonstrates the unshakable force of “people power.” There is no single way to manifest this spirit; for some it is standing firm on the front lines, for others it is rebuilding after a sweep, and for still others it is remaining peaceful and compassionate even and especially in the face of extreme provocation. All are equally powerful tacks.
Holding space, inner and outer, is the fulcrum. In the wake of systemic assault, seemingly coordinated at the highest levels and indicative of the elites’ concern about the widening impact of the movement, the spirit of resistance is demonstrated with small acts of bravery and large mobilizations of open defiance. Individually and collectively, the movement bends but refuses to break, absorbing the system’s blows and transforming them into stimuli for evolutionary growth, popular support, and bonds of solidarity.
Successful movements throughout history have understood this. It is the essence of nonviolence, to “win over” undecided observers and even antagonists by virtue of courage and compassion. It does not mean that everyone in the movement agrees on tactics or that a pledge of nonviolence ought to be imposed, but rather that the movement as a whole is in fact nonviolent in seeking to overcome the structural violence of a dehumanizing and despoiling system based on avarice and aggression."
Amster is also quoted in an article in the Mercury News regarding Ramos-Stierle:
"There was an intentionality to what he was doing," said friend Randall Amster of Arizona. "He was attempting to bring peace to a space that had a lack of peace for the past couple weeks."
Amster called his friend a "very strong nonviolent activist" and a "force of love" involved in causes ranging from nuclear disarmament and environmentalism to immigrant rights and nonviolence in Oakland's Fruitvale district, where he lives.
For the Occupy Movement to succeed it must take a lesson from Mr. Ramos-Stierle, whose action of nonviolent civil disobedience was one of intentionally 'attempting to bring peace' and calm energy into an otherwise tense and volatile situation .
The movement as well has to learn from the great Nonviolent Revolutionary Mahatma Gandhi, as seen below, brilliantly explaining what it takes for a Nonviolent Revolution to succeed in this inspiring clip from the film 'Gandhi':
Finally, to be a legitimate revolution the Occupy Movement must recognize that every single person involved in law enforcement is a part of the 99%! It is critical for those in law enforcement to realize that they too are being duped by agenda of the corporate ruling class... and therefore make the choice to refuse carrying out further state sponsored violence against innocent people!
Just how does a movement of 'People Power' achieve this understanding? With a continued and relentless campaign of nonviolent direct action, that's how. Indeed, it is the only way.
"The process of defection among the ruling class and security forces is slow and often imperceptible. These defections are advanced through a rigid adherence to nonviolence, a refusal to respond to police provocation and a verbal respect for the blue-uniformed police, no matter how awful they can be while wading into a crowd and using batons as battering rams against human bodies."
Quite simply, the 99% must recognize that every single police officer and law enforcement official who puts on the uniform is a human being, they have families, they have feelings, they have a need for dignity, they do not want to be dehumanized as 'pigs' or humiliated for what they perceive as doing their jobs.
For the movement to succeed, the 99% must be willing to empathize with the humanity in those they call oppressors and recognize that they are us... and we are them.
In his lecture, Chomsky calls on the idea of 'revolutionary pacifism' espoused by Nonviolent Revolutionary A.J. Muste:
"Can we proceed to at least limit the scourge of war? One answer is given by absolute pacifists, including people I respect though I have never felt able to go beyond that. A somewhat more persuasive stand, I think, is that of the pacifist thinker and social activist A.J. Muste, one of the great figures of 20th century America, in my opinion: what he called “revolutionary pacifism.” Muste disdained the search for peace without justice. He urged that “one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist” – by which he meant that we must cease to “acquiesce [so] easily in evil conditions,” and must deal “honestly and adequately with this ninety percent of our problem” – “the violence on which the present system is based, and all the evil – material and spiritual – this entails for the masses of men throughout the world.” Unless we do so, he argued, “there is something ludicrous, and perhaps hypocritical, about our concern over the ten per cent of the violence employed by the rebels against oppression” – no matter how hideous they may be. He was confronting the hardest problem of the day for a pacifist, the question whether to take part in the anti-fascist war." Chomsky then goes on to detail many examples of how because of "the violence on which the present system is based" things didn't really work out so well for U.S. foreign policy (or it's many, many victims), instead making a much worse mess with continuing consequences.
Although violence is what usually grabs the headlines, a new book by Harvard Professor Steven Pinker argues that there has never been a safer time to be alive. In a review of 'The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined' the Telegraph UK, asks, "Why has violence declined?" and answers with:
'Pinker does not need numbers for his answer. As Europe became more urban, cosmopolitan, commercial, industrialised and secular, it got safer. Perhaps as important is the increasing respect for women – “violence is a problem not just of too many males but of too many young males”.
He does not argue that there is a higher power sending our species in a beneficial direction. The human race has come to share the goal of finding ways of overcoming the universal appeal of aggression. The great social factors in reducing violence, he says, have been the end of slavery, the empowerment of women and the legalisation of homosexuality. Also, contraception has become cheaper, resulting in fewer children to unwilling parents.'
In an interview with Pinker, 'The Economist' posed the question "Is there any statistical evidence to suggest that violence doesn’t work to provoke political change?"
"A study that was published too late to include in my book by two political scientists, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen, looked at the success rate of violent and non-violent resistance movements. It found that the non-violent ones succeeded 75% of the time and the violent ones succeeded 25% of the time. So it’s not the case that violence never works, nor that non-violence always works, but that non-violence seems to have a better success rate." was Pinker's reply.
Read the Washington Post review of the book. Huffington Post posted this article, and Daily Beast has this nice write-up.
Here is a video Pinker speaking on the subject at the TED conferencein March 2007.
Let there be no doubt that the Nonviolent Revolution is constantly progressing and moving steadily forward as more and more people grow to understand that it is far more beneficial to connect, collaborate, and empathize with one another than harm and destroy each other!
