I know i’ve said it elsewhere, but if you’re going with non-violence, your death better matter.
The full quote is great, too. It's from this article. She went into the jungle for three weeks with Maoist Naxalite rebels in India, and loved it. Here's some choice quotes.
In any case, she says, the violence of bullets and torture are no greater than the violence of hunger and malnutrition, of vulnerable people feeling they're under siege.
Her time with the guerrillas made a profound impression. She describes spending nights sleeping on the forest floor in a "thousand-star hotel", applauds "the ferocity and grandeur of these poor people fighting back", and says "being in the forest made me feel like there was enough space in my body for all my organs". She detests glitzy, corporate, growth-obsessed modern Indian, and there in the forest she found a brief peace.
Guerrillas use violence, generally directed against the police and army, but sometimes causing injury and death to civilians caught in the crossfire. Does she condemn that violence? "I don't condemn it any more," she says. "If you're an adivasi [tribal Indian] living in a forest village and 800 CRP [Central Reserve Police] come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation."
Her critics label her a Maoist sympathiser. Is she? "I am a Maoist sympathiser," she says. :mao-aggro-shining:
Her critics label her a Maoist sympathiser. Is she? “I am a Maoist sympathiser,” she says.
:yes-chad:
Her critics label her a Maoist sympathiser. Is she? “I am a Maoist sympathiser,” she says.
:stacy:
Why would your oppressors care if you starved in protest?
They tend to work better when you have a sympathetic media to echo your message. So, Alexi Navalny doing a hunger strike appeals to western audiences. And Ghislaine Maxwell on hunger strike appeals to the Hollywood Sickos she used to be friends with.
how many situations involve an oppressor who is half-hearted enough in oppressing you to let you go like that?
The goal isn't to directly shake the nerve of the oppressor.
The goal is to (a) get your name and face in the news by doing a thing media loves to report on and (b) whip your supporters into a frenzy of activism to lobby on your behalf by appearing exceptionally sympathetic
Increase exposure of your plight and increase the sympathetic appeals to your base audience so that they will work on your behalf. You get to look like you're "doing something" to resist, which serves as inspiration to your allies. They get to hold up pictures of you in an increasingly haggard state, to inspire broader sympathy and grow your base of support.
Eventually, you hit a threshold of activism such that some politician sees a benefit in working on your behalf to capture the support you've mobilized.
Exactly. Nonviolence is a tactic just as violence is. Nonviolent protest almost always gets public opinion on the side of the oppressed, which can build your movement and potentially get those in political power on your side as well. It's not a tactic that will work in every situation - violence isn't either - but it's theater, and theater is useful sometimes.
How non-violence protects the state.
Also pacifism as pathology by ward Churchill.
God of Small things is a really good book btw, one that quietly explores unifying themes in exploitation, colonialism, and class, but then also it's nicely written. I'd recommend if you like good prose and nonlinear storytelling, but it's not strictly a leftist work or anything
