Question:
I am a History student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. I am writing my senior thesis on non violence and how it is more effective than violence in achieving independence and change. I have a run into a bump that I am having trouble dealing with. My professor, who is constantly mocking me, continues to ask me how nonviolence would work in such situations as Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia. I have had trouble answering him. I understand the transformative power of satyagraha, but wonder, how can it be effective when the “enemy” has no shame or logic? Even Gandhi’s response seems a bit naive. Do you think nonviolence could have really effectively ended the Nazi oppression? Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully respond.
Answer:
This is always a challenging question, and one thing to consider is that violent conflict does not appear all at once but rather escalates over time. The more severe the violence becomes, the more drastic the nonviolent sacrifice has to be to counter it. If nonviolence had been used early on, when Hitler first took power, it would have been easier to de-escalate the situation than it would by waiting until the Holocaust had begun in order to start resisting. However, there is evidence that nonviolence did work against the Nazis when it was tried, during the Rosenstrasse Demonstration. The women who participated in that event had no training or organization, and succeeded against the SS. It is difficult to gauge how effective nonviolent resistance would’ve been since it was never tried on a large scale, but it would appear that to the very limited extent it was tried, it did work.
Even if an enemy appears to be without heart, without logic, by using nonviolence you invoke the residual heart and mind within them. By your humanity, you are humanizing them, to some degree. Check our blog post on mirror neurons for more information on how human beings can awaken compassion in one another.
You might also want to check out a film called Pray the Devil Back to Hell. This is a recent documentary about a group of women who successfully used nonviolence to stop the utterly brutal and chaotic 14-year civil war in Liberia.
Also please check out the most recent draft of our document, “Questions from Nonviolence Skeptics,” which we have been working on here at Metta. It addresses some of the common objections raised by such skeptics of nonviolence as your teacher; we’ve created it specifically for people who find themselves in your situation!
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By: Metta Center
We provide educational resources on the safe and effective use of nonviolence, with the recognition that it’s not about putting the right person in power but awakening the right kind of power in people. We advance a higher image of humankind while empowering people to explore the question: How does nonviolence work, and how can I actively contribute to a happier, more peaceful society?
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Since Hitler was specificially referenced in this question, it is worth noting that nonviolence was quite successfully used to frustrate and oppose the Nazis in Norway. The following is from “The Quiet Battle: Writings on the Theory and Practice of Non-violent Resistance,” edited by Mulford Q. Sibley.
“Norway had known almost no armed conflict since 1720. But on April 9, 1940, seven months after rolling across Poland to launch the armed prong of the Third Reich, the Nazi forces invaded Norway. By June 9 the Norwegian king and cabinet had ‘retired’ to England, and the little bit of armed resistance collapsed. Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling was installed as a puppet ruler.
“The the Norwegians began to resist. They refused to be dragooned into the Nazi sports programs; no students attended their sports lectures and that effort at Nazification failed. Then the Church began to resist, beginning with the refusal to incorporate and Nazi ideology–as ordered–into its teachings. The Church resisted the threat to imprison any church official by withholding information requested by the police, even if that information was obtained as a confession. The Nazis attempted to interfere with the work of Norwegian doctors and were met with similar resistance. When membership in the Norwegian Nazi Party was made a requisite for holding any government post, there was more non-cooperation. Five of the government’s leaders were arrested, and the rest resigned in protest.
“When milk workers went on strike, two leaders were summarily shot, and Gestapo terror reigned. Quisling commanded a new Nazification of teaching methods, but the teachers refused to work, leading to 1,300 arrests, with 500 sent to a prison camp.
“While the overall campaign of nonviolence led to more than 100 executions, 7,000 sent to prison camps, and 1,000 deported to work or death camps in Poland, to this day the Norwegians remain proud of their resistance to the Nazis. Their heroic efforts stalled the Nazis’ hold on the Norwegian economy and society, which helped Norway’s recovery after the war.”