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Not to take anything away from Gene Sharp, but per CNN: He's been called the father of nonviolent struggle. Should Gandhi be the father of nonviolent struggle,

by yumraj 14y ago

Not to take anything away from Gene Sharp, but per CNN: He's been called the father of nonviolent struggle. Should Gandhi be the father of nonviolent struggle, or someone before him.

keeptrying 14y ago
Well Gandhi never wrote it in book form that could be read by others and implemented. Gandhi could be the father and Gene could be the "Engineer" of non violent struggle ... :)
- locopati 14y ago
  Gandhi was a prolific writer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Literary_works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Literary_works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Primary_sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Primary_sources
- bgilroy26 14y ago
  Henry David Thoreau - On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849) http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Thoreau/Civil%20Disobedience.htm http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Thoreau/Civil%20Disobedience.h...
gaius 14y ago
Well, Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else - any other imperial power than the British Empire would simply have shot him and massacred his followers. You couldn't do it in China for example (remind me what happened to the guy in the photo in Tianenmen Sq, standing in front of the tank). By the time Gandhi started his movement, the British had learnt the secret that had eluded everyone else: empires are actually more trouble than they're worth, how do we get out of here?
- yumraj 14y ago
  That wasn't my point. My point was simply regarding calling someone the father of something, when clearly there were others who had been-there-done-that. Technique has nothing to do with it. In other words, there is clear and documented prior art. Regarding the rest of your comment Britishers would have left India for sure, its just that things would have been a lot more bloody without Gandhi's non-violence movement.
  - mythealias 14y ago
    True, but it is not the important focus of the article. Most of these people would not care as to whether they are being called the Father-of-whatever. Instead of focusing on who gets the credit for the idea, it should be more on implementation and outcome of the idea.
- gruseom 14y ago
  Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else People frequently say this (right down to the cliché about how lucky he was to be facing the British), but it's obviously untrue. Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct. (Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent.) That some authorities massacre people doesn't refute it. Let's not forget that Gandhi's techniques were considered ridiculous and guaranteed to lose by most people at the time. It was only once he won that the "obvious" position had to be revised to "well of course it worked in that situation, but..." Gandhi didn't invent these ideas but he demonstrated their practicality in a shockingly counterintuitive way. If his techniques truly weren't generalizable to anything else, they wouldn't have worked for him either.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    It requires an opponent who is capable of being shamed. Hitler wasn't shameable, nor Stalin. America wasn't in fighting the native tribes in the 19th century, or the Philippines at the turn of the 20th. The Japanese at Nanking and elsewhere. The Ottoman Empire in Armenia (a matter Turkey to this day will not acknowledge or discuss), in Greece, in Assyria, and Kurdistan following WWI. China in Tibet. Britain/Australia and the aboriginal populations. Guatamala (1968-96). Pakistan (1971). Burundi (1972 & 1993). North Korea. Equatorial Guinea. Indonesian in East Timor. Agentina (1976-1983). Rwanda. Cambodia. Nonviolence is a tool. It's not the only tool. It is frequently, but not always, disproportionately successful.
    - mythealias 14y ago
      Nonviolence is a simple idea. It works when majority of people stop working, enough to cause loss to a company or the ruling party. It requires that the ruling party gains it power from the working class, which was the case in British ruled India and similarly in Iran. It will fail if one nation is attacking another. It would have worked against Hitler if the German people had revolted (I guess they did not because they believed in Hitler's ideas, few minority that did not could be got rid off). Nonviolence would not have worked if British people used it against Hitler. Being shameable is not necessary (but is helpful). For example, the occupy movement in America, even though nonviolent is not successful because the companies (or the top 1%) are not losing anything. There is not enough critical mass to the movement to affect the profits (enough that they take notice).
- unhappyhippie 14y ago
  While I don't agree with the parent comment, arguing about 'Father of X' is bound to be futile, but I disagree with you. Gandhi's techniques are generalizable to some extent. Here's a simplistic outline of his technique: 1. Pledge not to endorse or resort to violence no matter what. 2. Travel around, survey the problem: understand core factors which allow the injustice to continue, despite mass discontent. 3. Cripple those core factors by means of non-cooperation and/or civil disobedience still adhering to rule no. 1 In summary: Maintain moral higher ground to gain popular support and attack the institutional machinery. Behind the legend surrounding Gandhi people tend to forget that, unlike the man who stopped the tank in Tiannenmen, he was a statesman. By the time his movement gained momentum, even if he would have been assasinated, he had already infected a good segment of the population to the point of being overzealous with his program. >By the time Gandhi started his movement, the British had learnt the secret that had eluded everyone else: empires are actually more trouble than they're worth, how do we get out of here? This is wrong. For example Winston Churchill, 1931[1] and any of his speeches as late as 1945 he vehemently opposed the idea of an independent nation. It was Gandhi that made the empire economically unfeasible, and not until then were Churchill and others ignored. [1]http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/105-our-duty-in-india http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-w... A Quote: "I am against this surrender to Gandhi. I am against these conversations and agreements between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi. Gandhi stands for the expulsion of Britain from India."
- photon137 14y ago
  remind me what happened to the guy in the photo in Tianenmen Sq, standing in front of the tank He became a legend. Dissenters in China have that image burnt firmly in their mind regardless of however hard the government tries to erase it. Sharp's (and Gandhi's) thesis holds in this case - the Chinese government has popular support (probably because people are ready to sacrifice long-term social freedom for short-term economic gains - that's a problem in India as well with different effects, though - but, in the long term, as Keynes said, we're all dead) - and that's primarily because everyone has links to the CCP or the PLA. Remember, their government has ultimate authority because it has the largest military in the world under its control. But the members of that military also have family members - whose welfare is paramount to them (except for, maybe a few ideologue nutcases) - if civilian support for the government ever went away, the army would soon follow.

by yumraj 14y ago

Not to take anything away from Gene Sharp, but per CNN: He's been called the father of nonviolent struggle. Should Gandhi be the father of nonviolent struggle, or someone before him.

keeptrying 14y ago

Well Gandhi never wrote it in book form that could be read by others and implemented. Gandhi could be the father and Gene could be the "Engineer" of non violent struggle ... :)

locopati 14y ago
Gandhi was a prolific writer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Literary_works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Literary_works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Primary_sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi#Primary_sources
bgilroy26 14y ago
Henry David Thoreau - On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849) http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Thoreau/Civil%20Disobedience.htm http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Thoreau/Civil%20Disobedience.h...

gaius 14y ago

Well, Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else - any other imperial power than the British Empire would simply have shot him and massacred his followers. You couldn't do it in China for example (remind me what happened to the guy in the photo in Tianenmen Sq, standing in front of the tank). By the time Gandhi started his movement, the British had learnt the secret that had eluded everyone else: empires are actually more trouble than they're worth, how do we get out of here?

yumraj 14y ago
That wasn't my point. My point was simply regarding calling someone the father of something, when clearly there were others who had been-there-done-that. Technique has nothing to do with it. In other words, there is clear and documented prior art. Regarding the rest of your comment Britishers would have left India for sure, its just that things would have been a lot more bloody without Gandhi's non-violence movement.
- mythealias 14y ago
  True, but it is not the important focus of the article. Most of these people would not care as to whether they are being called the Father-of-whatever. Instead of focusing on who gets the credit for the idea, it should be more on implementation and outcome of the idea.
gruseom 14y ago
Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else People frequently say this (right down to the cliché about how lucky he was to be facing the British), but it's obviously untrue. Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct. (Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent.) That some authorities massacre people doesn't refute it. Let's not forget that Gandhi's techniques were considered ridiculous and guaranteed to lose by most people at the time. It was only once he won that the "obvious" position had to be revised to "well of course it worked in that situation, but..." Gandhi didn't invent these ideas but he demonstrated their practicality in a shockingly counterintuitive way. If his techniques truly weren't generalizable to anything else, they wouldn't have worked for him either.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  It requires an opponent who is capable of being shamed. Hitler wasn't shameable, nor Stalin. America wasn't in fighting the native tribes in the 19th century, or the Philippines at the turn of the 20th. The Japanese at Nanking and elsewhere. The Ottoman Empire in Armenia (a matter Turkey to this day will not acknowledge or discuss), in Greece, in Assyria, and Kurdistan following WWI. China in Tibet. Britain/Australia and the aboriginal populations. Guatamala (1968-96). Pakistan (1971). Burundi (1972 & 1993). North Korea. Equatorial Guinea. Indonesian in East Timor. Agentina (1976-1983). Rwanda. Cambodia. Nonviolence is a tool. It's not the only tool. It is frequently, but not always, disproportionately successful.
  - mythealias 14y ago
    Nonviolence is a simple idea. It works when majority of people stop working, enough to cause loss to a company or the ruling party. It requires that the ruling party gains it power from the working class, which was the case in British ruled India and similarly in Iran. It will fail if one nation is attacking another. It would have worked against Hitler if the German people had revolted (I guess they did not because they believed in Hitler's ideas, few minority that did not could be got rid off). Nonviolence would not have worked if British people used it against Hitler. Being shameable is not necessary (but is helpful). For example, the occupy movement in America, even though nonviolent is not successful because the companies (or the top 1%) are not losing anything. There is not enough critical mass to the movement to affect the profits (enough that they take notice).
unhappyhippie 14y ago
While I don't agree with the parent comment, arguing about 'Father of X' is bound to be futile, but I disagree with you. Gandhi's techniques are generalizable to some extent. Here's a simplistic outline of his technique: 1. Pledge not to endorse or resort to violence no matter what. 2. Travel around, survey the problem: understand core factors which allow the injustice to continue, despite mass discontent. 3. Cripple those core factors by means of non-cooperation and/or civil disobedience still adhering to rule no. 1 In summary: Maintain moral higher ground to gain popular support and attack the institutional machinery. Behind the legend surrounding Gandhi people tend to forget that, unlike the man who stopped the tank in Tiannenmen, he was a statesman. By the time his movement gained momentum, even if he would have been assasinated, he had already infected a good segment of the population to the point of being overzealous with his program. >By the time Gandhi started his movement, the British had learnt the secret that had eluded everyone else: empires are actually more trouble than they're worth, how do we get out of here? This is wrong. For example Winston Churchill, 1931[1] and any of his speeches as late as 1945 he vehemently opposed the idea of an independent nation. It was Gandhi that made the empire economically unfeasible, and not until then were Churchill and others ignored. [1]http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/105-our-duty-in-india http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-w... A Quote: "I am against this surrender to Gandhi. I am against these conversations and agreements between Lord Irwin and Mr. Gandhi. Gandhi stands for the expulsion of Britain from India."
photon137 14y ago
remind me what happened to the guy in the photo in Tianenmen Sq, standing in front of the tank He became a legend. Dissenters in China have that image burnt firmly in their mind regardless of however hard the government tries to erase it. Sharp's (and Gandhi's) thesis holds in this case - the Chinese government has popular support (probably because people are ready to sacrifice long-term social freedom for short-term economic gains - that's a problem in India as well with different effects, though - but, in the long term, as Keynes said, we're all dead) - and that's primarily because everyone has links to the CCP or the PLA. Remember, their government has ultimate authority because it has the largest military in the world under its control. But the members of that military also have family members - whose welfare is paramount to them (except for, maybe a few ideologue nutcases) - if civilian support for the government ever went away, the army would soon follow.