• N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Peaceful protests were meant to be a compromise to warn that something worse was coming. Black Panthers. Weather Underground. IRA and Sinn Fein.

    Effective peaceful movements had potentially violent components. The more radical elements disappeared and peaceful protests became useless.

    Unions were a compromise. Before unions, you’d drag the factory owner into his front lawn and exact justice.

    • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I think this guy hit the nail in the head.

      Peaceful protest only works if politicians and financial elite has fear and/or respect towards the commond man/woman. Too much elitisms strips away the respect, too many years of peaceful protests takes away the fear. Sometimes ivory towers need to come down, but violence has a tendency to spread and spiral out of control. It’s a balance trick.

    • JayDee@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Nelson Mandela was released on the terms that he would preach peaceful protest, as the movement he had formerly been leading was a serious threat to the South African Government.

      Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was a proponent of peaceful protest, though it could be argued he was losing faith in it near the end when he was assassinated. right after his death, the Holy Week Uprisings occurred, which saw immediate action from the federal government to pass the Civil Rights Act.

      At the same time, acts of violence lie on a spectrum, and I think there is a fair amount of conversation to be had about what degree of violence and what type of violence are most effective.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Martin Luther King Jr was able to succeed with his peaceful protests because the threat of Malcolm X was looming directly over his shoulder. One requires the other. Either of them alone would not have made nearly the progress they did.

        • JayDee@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I would say that both Malcolm X and MLK ultimately failed at their end goals, personally.

          My bigger point was that the holy week uprising was able to progress things forward more in one week than either movement could do in the many years they were active. To be fair, I do not think the level of vigour and organization shown in the holy week uprising could have happened without the many liberation groups’ prior work.

          Ultimately, the use of violence is complex and how to effectively use it is just as complex. We should be discussing how to use all tactics and methods available, and not view violence as the only important component.

        • Venator@lemmy.nz
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          2 months ago

          Ghandi was partly successful because of the British governments violence towards thier peaceful protests.

    • Alex@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yea only under the threat of violence has power ever changed hands. You need both peaceful and violent components to any movement to make any change last though.

      • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Also: we’ve got where we are under threat of violence. Charlottesville and Jan 6 in the USA, the recent gammon riots in the UK, everything Putin does, etc, etc. The Authoritarians have weaponised both peace and violence against us.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    The people saying “Violence isn’t the answer” are the people who don’t want to see anything change

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Violence ends when non-violent reforms are able to succeed. The real value of violence is that it makes the non-violent option palatable to the political center.

      • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        The doctor was against violence as a principle but he famously uses tons of violence (I guess in the form of trickery) but as a last resort.

        House: “fear me, I’ve killed hundreds of time lords”

        The Doctor: “fear me, I’ve killed all of them”

      • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The problem here is that the war already started but just one side is really fighting it.

        I would be in favour of not starting it too, but it’s too late now.

  • PineRune@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Violence is not the answer” says country that won its place in the world through violence.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      The USA would still be a colony of Britain if it wasn’t for a violent revolution.

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The Native Americans would have been much better off if they had simply strangled Columbus and all his crew the moment they made landfall…

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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            2 months ago

            I get the humor in what you say, but it’s worth noting that the Native American civilizations were collapsing due to disease brought by earlier European visitors by the time Columbus set sail.

            Granted, history probably would’ve been largely the same if Columbus’ expeditions were unsuccessful, given the English, French, Dutch and Spanish appetites for empire building

            • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              There’s a saga that is about “what if Columbus arrived to America but never got back to Europe?”. It’s “the tale of the feathered serpent”.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    There are PLENTY of examples where violence wasn’t the answer. Those moments made gradual changes that didn’t have epic struggles with heroic figureheads, so they’re boring, they’re not obvious, and nobody talks about them.

    There are a lot more examples in history where violence was used as a tool to oppress, threaten, conquer, destroy, or completely wipe out, by great and powerful entities.

    Violence is sometimes the answer, if used by cool heads on specific targets with plans on what to do afterwards.