H. Patricia Hynes: Soldiers of Peace: How to Wield the Weapon of Nonviolence With Maximum Force

H. Patricia Hynes reviews Soldiers of Peace: How to Wield the Weapon of Nonviolence With Maximum Force.

Chappell lays out five questions to ask when people might want to consider using violence to overthrow an oppressive regime or system, using examples from history. Ultimately, though, he returns to the wisdom of Gandhi and King that nonviolence is a more powerful tool than violence. “Violence can kill the liar, the racist, the terrorist”; but it does not kill the “lies that sustain an unjust system, racism, or terrorism. …” He underscores his advocacy for nonviolence with recent landmark research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan that concludes, “Nonviolence is more likely than violence to defeat a militarily superior adversary.” Their study of movements from 1900-2006 to overthrow dictatorships, expel foreign occupations or achieve self-determination found that nonviolent resistance campaigns were more than twice as successful as violent insurrections with the same goals. And the trend is increasing even in extremely brutal authoritarian conditions.

Emphasis Mine

We kill the lies that sustain the system by educating ourselves. In doing so, we develop our proletarian consciousness.