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Title: How Nonviolence Protects the State Author: CrimethInc. Date: April 7, 2007 Language: en Topics: nonviolence, anti-state, Peter Gelderloos, book review, Read All About It Source: Retrieved on 8th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2007/04/07/how-nonviolence-protects-the-state-by-peter-gelderloos
“There is nothing in this world currently deserving of the name peace.
Rather, it is a question of whose violence frightens us most, and on
whose side we will stand.”
This is an excellent example of the sort of book anarchists need to be
producing to keep our ideas visible and viable in society at large. In
lucid and accessible prose, Gelderloos comprehensively debunks the
notion that non-violent activism is the only acceptable and effective
method of struggle.
Like anyone who wants to make a constructive contribution to a
discussion, and in stark contrast to ideologues on both sides of this
issue, Gelderloos makes an effort to engage with the strongest versions
of all the common arguments in favor of orthodox pacifism over a
diversity of tactics. Not that he pulls any punches or refrains from
strong statements! But to make his point, Gelderloos doesn’t have to
prove that non-violent resistance is never useful, only that a
prohibition on other forms of resistance is not always effective at
dissolving or toppling hierarchies.
Gelderloos starts from the successes famously associated with pacifism,
then sketches in the context that pacifists often leave out. Following
this opener, he sets about dissecting the insidious interconnections
between pacifism and unchallenged privilege. He argues that an
insistence on non-violence can only compromise the autonomy of
participants in resistance movements and alienate important allies; it
is no coincidence that the other book Gelderloos has recently published
is on consensus process, though this might seem strange to ideologues
who associate diversity of tactics with coercive machismo.
Gelderloos doesn’t seriously address the complexities of violent
tactics—their effects on those who use them, the most appropriate
circumstances in which to apply them, or the precedents for their
success in North America—but to do so would take at least another book
of this length. One can simultaneously find Gelderloos’s arguments
convincing and at the same time remain unsure what the alternative to
non-violent hegemony looks like.
It turns out the body text only accounts for two thirds of the book; the
rest is comprised of painstakingly detailed referencing such as would
never appear in a CrimethInc. project (ah, the virtues of opposition to
intellectual property) and an assemblage of smaller appendices. The last
of these, a heartbreaking account of the Poor People’s March at the
Republican National Convention in 2004, will resonate with anyone who
was there hoping to do more than be a number in the organizers’ head
count. It’s only unfortunate that Gelderloos doesn’t juxtapose it
against an account of one of the many times over the past decade that
similar marches have been protected from police violence because their
participants refused to abide by the orders of peacekeepers, trusting
their courage and collective power as their only assurance of safety.
It will be a shame if this book isn’t read and discussed by people who
disagree with it. If it isn’t, that will prove its central thesis—that
pacifism retains its hegemony in some circles only because people refuse
to acknowledge the possibility of other approaches to social change.
Diction Quibble: Though the text is largely readable throughout, near
the end Gelderloos explains that he hopes to “defenestrate the
stranglehold” that pacifist ideology has upon liberation movements. Talk
about mixing metaphors!