02.10.12
Repost on Black Bloc controversy and non-violence
Repost from yesterday:
Non-violence, the Black Bloc controversy, and the history of violent insurrection and the Civil War
What Progressive Criticisms of Anarchists in Occupy Don’t Understand:
A Response to Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges’ “Black Bloc” takedown is only the most recent in a series of critiques bashing anarchists within the national Occupy movement. Here’s why they’re not helpful.
I linked to Hedges’ article yesterday despite some puzzlement, and the commentary as I discover today has been considerable. I will let it speak for itself (scroll down for multiple links today), but address the more general issue of non-violence. I for one respect the tactics of non-violence implicitly, and they are probably the only strategy open to the left at this point, given the overwhelming force they confront in governmental monopolies on violence.
But, at the same time, the left needs some careful studies of the methods, history, and debates over non-violence, to put the strategic universe of discourse in context. This needs more than reverent citation of the politics of Gandhi. Despite, of course, the canonical grandeur of that legacy, along with that of MLK.
But it is important to consider the larger history here, and the relatively recent appearance of Gandhian tactics. This legacy has made any consideration of violence tabu, when the history shows that this is an extreme position.
The classic revolutions that established modernity were not non-violent, beginning with the Protestant Reformation, the German Civil War of 1525 (the triggers of modern revolution) onward to the American Civil War, one of the bloodiest and most violent civil conflicts in world history prior to the First World War. Thus the record of Gandhian nonviolence is ambiguous, or incomplete, or else still a young or recent legacy. But I have to wonder: I would not trust my liberty in the face of enslavement to the well-wishing activism of Gandhians. History shows that abolition required a long struggle, and a violent conflict. To stand in Gandhian moral judgement on this passage implies that non-violence is a higher principle than abolition, and there I dissent completely. Gandhian non-violence suceeded as a PR victory over British Imperialism. It would never have freed the slaves of the Confederacy.
I think the issue arises because violence became egregiously destructive in the first world war, this in turn influencing the extremes of bolshevik violence. That was the moment when a new strategy arose, with Gandhi.
I cannot propose anything like this for a movement such as the OWS or the Arab Spring, which have succeeded precisely because of the tactics of non-violence. It may be that governmental domination is now so total that insurrectional violence (like the phenomenon of ‘Terror’) cannot any longer succeed against superior state power. The achievements of non-violence may lie in the future. But at the same time, without in any way recommending anything like this for the current left (the Bolshevik left has severely abused violent tactics, and earlier figures invented terrorism in the nineteenth century), making a fetish out of non-violence is a recipe for failure here. A non-violent strategy can still have some rough edeges, and in any case, as I noted, I would not trust my freedom to the saints of non-violence. They will adjourn early and leave me enslaved. So I must fight for my freedom, in the end. It is a difficult question, however, because its basis has shifted over time. It was one thing to flood Paris or Moscow with demonstrations, to watch a set of kingdoms collapse in a day, it is quite another to reckon with the current state apparatus of counter-terror (greatly amplified by the false-flag fraudulent state terror used to justify repression and the finance of security apparatus) which is not easily opposed by any method, and probably not with insurrectional violence. The issues are not clear, but it seems a bit off to be haranguing the ‘Black Bloc’ for frayed-edge non-violence here.
Non-violence is Janus-faced: on the one hand a revolutionary tactic of unique potency, and on the other a gift to elites as an implicit declaration that failure is OK, and that the fight to the finish will not happen.
It is worth considering the Jain non-violence, from which Gandhi learned: it was not a political method, but a ‘fast unto death’ by Jain monks refused Samsaric existence to the point of refusing to step on insects, making simple motions in the existential field problmatical: thence their fast.
Any leftist who has the stomach for this, well, be my guest.
LZ said,
February 11, 2012 at 7:06 am
The proponents of non-violence in the West have already corrupted its meaning, with some help from none other than Gandhi.
High and mighty non-violence preaching gets lurid with the Dalai Lama, who sits in luxury in India, preaching non-violence as his country is destroyed. And Western proponents aren’t even vegetarians. So I fail to see where Hedges is coming from: is he for real, or unconsciously sabotaging the movement?
LZ said,
February 11, 2012 at 7:16 am
Say something more about these Jains. I think that the principles they adopted are religious, not political, and that we are all likely to be second-rate ‘ahimsa’ followers. And as nemo pointed out the tradition of leftist activism has never been Gandhian, witness the legacy of revolution, and the Civil War.
nemo said,
February 11, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Thanks for breaking the ice: taking on the Dalai Lama can be dangerous, and there is an immense amount of occult stuff behind him. Still, it should be ok: time to say something.
It is worth noting that Rajneesh, an enlightened sage spoke on these issues, and wasn’t a simplistic thinker on any of this.