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>> Gandhi: "Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong" Gandhi has a romantic allure to people in the west, but the reality is he won because the alternative was mu

by ajays 16y ago

>> Gandhi: "Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong" Gandhi has a romantic allure to people in the west, but the reality is he won because the alternative was much worse. It was the end of the WW. The British were tired. And there were 100s of 1000s of Indian soldiers, just returned from years of fighting, who were ripe to be recruited by the radical elements in India. This was enough for the Brits to throw in the towel. >> You break a bad regime by doing better, not by becoming like them. You must get out and experience the real world. I like how you think, and in an ideal world, this would be the way to go. But the reality is, dictators don't got away quietly; they are driven out by violence and threats of violence.

jacquesm 16y ago
> You must get out and experience the real world. I'll bet you that I've seen more of 'the real world' than you have, from communist Poland before the wall fell to Colombia, and plenty of other places both in times of relative quiet and in times of unrest, living there, not holidaying. If I count the countries that I've visited I come to 22 countries on 3 continents, I've probably spent more time outside of the country that I was born in than in it. Unrestrained calls for violence and torture are simply stupid and will actually decrease the chances of success, violence is best applied with restraint by a steady hand and a clear mind pursuing concrete goals. Gandhi played his cars very smart making the British look like murderers of innocents while at the same time showing a way out with their hide intact. Speak softly and carry a big stick.
- ajays 16y ago
  >> I'll bet you that I've seen more of 'the real world' than you have,... No need to get into a pissing match. I've spent more than half of my life abroad too. Do you really think people can just walk up to Gadhafi and say, "we protest peacefully, so please give us power"? Do you think Saddam could have been deposed peacefully by his people? Since we geeks love to categorize and form patterns, I'll put this forward: the difference between the erstwhile empires (like the British, French, etc.) and these despots is that those empires weren't cults of personality; there wasn't 1 person brutalizing the public, like you have here (Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gadhafi (who's shitting bricks right now)). So when the push comes to shove, the employees of the "empire" can walk away and allow for peaceful transition of power; but the servants of these despots are too closely tied to their masters (sometimes it is tribal loyalty), and don't go away quietly. And finally: even though one may say that Gandhi's "revolution" was peaceful, don't forget the million people killed in the subsequent blood-letting known as the "Partition", where India and Pakistan were split from one.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    > No need to get into a pissing match. Agreed, so don't start them :) > Do you really think people can just walk up to Gadhafi and say, "we protest peacefully, so please give us power"? No, but I do think that if they cripple the country for an extended period that he'll find himself without a police force and an army to do his bidding. (see for instance Poland) > Do you think Saddam could have been deposed peacefully by his people? Saddam Himself would not have survived any turn but he did not have much foreign support, Mubarak on the other hand still has a lot of foreign support. > Since we geeks love to categorize and form patterns, I'll put this forward: the difference between the erstwhile empires (like the British, French, etc.) and these despots is that those empires weren't cults of personality; there wasn't 1 person brutalizing the public, like you have here (Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gadhafi (who's shitting bricks right now)). So when the push comes to shove, the employees of the "empire" can walk away and allow for peaceful transition of power; but the servants of these despots are too closely tied to their masters (sometimes it is tribal loyalty), and don't go away quietly. I'm with you there, and I think that some blood will flow. But it had better be the right blood, to incite unarmed protesters to take on heavily armed riot police and military is a great way to get a lot of people killed and to go back to the status quo afterwards. Plenty of times this recipe has been tried and has failed plenty of times as well (it did occasionally succeed, but those were unfortunately the exceptions rather than the rule). > And finally: even though one may say that Gandhi's "revolution" was peaceful, don't forget the million people killed in the subsequent blood-letting known as the "Partition", where India and Pakistan were split from one. Yes, that was very ugly, and effectively it has not even stopped today, and I don't think it will stop in the foreseeable future.
logjam 16y ago
First of all, this is binary thinking. There are infinite gradations between turning the other cheek completely (as curiously, most of the world's religions suggest we confront our enemies), and the kind of violence you and the OP seem to be advocating, which include using the same unconscionable tactics used by the oppressor. And you are simply wrong about nonviolent revolutions in the face of dictatorship not working. There is a long list of successes - there would no doubt be more if nonviolence as a response to violence were simply tried more often. Certainly violence as a response to violence has had more than its share of horrors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution

by ajays 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

> You must get out and experience the real world. I'll bet you that I've seen more of 'the real world' than you have, from communist Poland before the wall fell to Colombia, and plenty of other places both in times of relative quiet and in times of unrest, living there, not holidaying. If I count the countries that I've visited I come to 22 countries on 3 continents, I've probably spent more time outside of the country that I was born in than in it. Unrestrained calls for violence and torture are simply stupid and will actually decrease the chances of success, violence is best applied with restraint by a steady hand and a clear mind pursuing concrete goals. Gandhi played his cars very smart making the British look like murderers of innocents while at the same time showing a way out with their hide intact. Speak softly and carry a big stick.

ajays 16y ago
>> I'll bet you that I've seen more of 'the real world' than you have,... No need to get into a pissing match. I've spent more than half of my life abroad too. Do you really think people can just walk up to Gadhafi and say, "we protest peacefully, so please give us power"? Do you think Saddam could have been deposed peacefully by his people? Since we geeks love to categorize and form patterns, I'll put this forward: the difference between the erstwhile empires (like the British, French, etc.) and these despots is that those empires weren't cults of personality; there wasn't 1 person brutalizing the public, like you have here (Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gadhafi (who's shitting bricks right now)). So when the push comes to shove, the employees of the "empire" can walk away and allow for peaceful transition of power; but the servants of these despots are too closely tied to their masters (sometimes it is tribal loyalty), and don't go away quietly. And finally: even though one may say that Gandhi's "revolution" was peaceful, don't forget the million people killed in the subsequent blood-letting known as the "Partition", where India and Pakistan were split from one.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > No need to get into a pissing match. Agreed, so don't start them :) > Do you really think people can just walk up to Gadhafi and say, "we protest peacefully, so please give us power"? No, but I do think that if they cripple the country for an extended period that he'll find himself without a police force and an army to do his bidding. (see for instance Poland) > Do you think Saddam could have been deposed peacefully by his people? Saddam Himself would not have survived any turn but he did not have much foreign support, Mubarak on the other hand still has a lot of foreign support. > Since we geeks love to categorize and form patterns, I'll put this forward: the difference between the erstwhile empires (like the British, French, etc.) and these despots is that those empires weren't cults of personality; there wasn't 1 person brutalizing the public, like you have here (Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gadhafi (who's shitting bricks right now)). So when the push comes to shove, the employees of the "empire" can walk away and allow for peaceful transition of power; but the servants of these despots are too closely tied to their masters (sometimes it is tribal loyalty), and don't go away quietly. I'm with you there, and I think that some blood will flow. But it had better be the right blood, to incite unarmed protesters to take on heavily armed riot police and military is a great way to get a lot of people killed and to go back to the status quo afterwards. Plenty of times this recipe has been tried and has failed plenty of times as well (it did occasionally succeed, but those were unfortunately the exceptions rather than the rule). > And finally: even though one may say that Gandhi's "revolution" was peaceful, don't forget the million people killed in the subsequent blood-letting known as the "Partition", where India and Pakistan were split from one. Yes, that was very ugly, and effectively it has not even stopped today, and I don't think it will stop in the foreseeable future.

logjam 16y ago

First of all, this is binary thinking. There are infinite gradations between turning the other cheek completely (as curiously, most of the world's religions suggest we confront our enemies), and the kind of violence you and the OP seem to be advocating, which include using the same unconscionable tactics used by the oppressor. And you are simply wrong about nonviolent revolutions in the face of dictatorship not working. There is a long list of successes - there would no doubt be more if nonviolence as a response to violence were simply tried more often. Certainly violence as a response to violence has had more than its share of horrors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution