Toward a Global Ethic of Nonviolence

9 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence Charles P. Webel and Soia Khaydari Introduction About 80 years ago, at the height of the Great Depression, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud engaged in one of the twentieth century’s most famous epistolary exchanges, commencing on 30 July 1932, when Einstein addressed ‘the most insistent of all problems civilisation has to face …: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?’ Both Einstein and Freud, who were ‘congenital paciists’, agreed that the selish and rapacious instincts of political and economic elites contribute signiicantly to warfare, and, to mitigate this, a supra-national organisation with the power to tame these belligerents should be created. In 1945, the United Nations came into existence in San Francisco, and central to its peace-making and peacekeeping mission was the Declaration of Universal Human Rights, based in part on the assumptions that non-violent means of conlict resolution are preferable to violence, and that there exist global human values all nations and transnational organisations need to airm and institutionalise.1 Unfortunately, despite the creation of the United Nations, humanity has not been delivered from its bellicosity, and a ‘global ethics’ in general, with non-violence at its core, is far from realisation. To understand the desirability but seeming fancifulness of a ‘global ethics’ with non-violence as one of its cardinal values, it is helpful to examine the theoretical and empirical foundations, as well as the possible shortcomings, of global values in general and non-violence in particular. his can aid our understanding of human potentials that are everpresent but unseen in ordinary circumstances, in part due to the mass media’s obsession with ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ events and their consequent neglect of the many successes of non-violent resistance, revolution and related forms of peacemaking. Since our framework for addressing these questions is generally from the ield of Peace and Conlict Studies (PCS), we will begin by explicating the utility of PCS for global ethics in general and the value of non-violence in particular. 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 153 17/02/2015 13:42 154 Solidarity Beyond Borders 1 Framing a global ethic of non-violence through the lens of Peace and Conlict Studies Peace and Conlict Studies (PCS) investigates the reasons for and outcomes of largeand small-scale conlicts, as well as the preconditions for peace. PCS allows one to examine the reasons for and prevention of wars, as well as the nature of violence, including social oppression, discrimination and marginalisation, or what Johan Galtung and others call ‘structural violence’. hrough the rigorous analysis of peace and conlict, one can also learn peacemaking strategies. PCS accordingly analyses individual and collective violent and non-violent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms underlying social conlicts in order to understand and transform those processes that might lead to a more peaceful planet. In this way, the ield is explicitly value-oriented, since it assumes and provides evidence for the claim that peace is (almost always) preferable to war, and the job of peace researchers is not merely to understand the dynamics of war and peace, but also actively to promote the latter. Peace and Conlict Studies also addresses the efects of political and social violence, the causes of this violence and what can be done to resolve conlicts peacefully. People concerned about violence are turning to peace education as a means to heighten awareness about the roots of violence and to promote non-violent alternatives to violent means of conlict resolution. Central to peace studies, peace education and peace research is a concern not just with understanding the world but with changing it. his is a bone of contention for academics who espouse ‘value neutrality and scientiic impartiality’, especially by such more conventional disciplines as political science, international relations and strategic or security studies. PCS is thus normative (or prescriptive) and analytic (or descriptive). As a normative discipline, it oten makes value judgments, such as peace and non-violence are better than war and violence. But it makes these judgments on the basis of both ethical postulates (i.e. humans should resolve conlicts as non-violently as possible) and analytic descriptions (i.e. most violent eforts to resolve conlicts in fact result in less social stability than non-violent means of conlict resolution). he explicit value commitment of peace studies to peace requires another value central to the very deinition of PCS – that violence is undesirable and almost always unethical, and that where the same human goods can be achieved by them, non-violent means are preferable to violent ones. Accordingly, what distinguishes PCS from most academic ields are principally its subject matter – peace, violence, conlict and power – its multi-disciplinary methodology, and its aim of identifying, testing and implementing many diferent strategies for dealing with conlict situations. When Gandhi said that the theory and practice of non-violence was at the same level as electricity in Edison’s day, he was probably right. ‘Peace by peaceful means’ has taken the irst step on the long road from being a slogan to becoming a reality. In part, the dream of peace is synonymous with the globalisation and legitimation of non-violent means of conlict resolution and transformation. To this end, a global 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 154 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 155 ethic of non-violence is a necessary but insuicient condition, since action as well as theory is required to pacify the planet. 2 Global ethics? he idea of a ‘global ethics’ is as old as philosophical and religious ethics, and dates back to at least the ith century bc. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, among others, asserted the existence of such universally desirable values as virtue, fortitude, compassion, temperance, self-control and integrity, among others. What the Greeks and Romans called ‘virtues’, unlike some Asian spiritual traditions (most notably Buddhism), did not explicitly include non-violence, but assumed that ethical values were universal, not subjective, and that reason and deliberation were almost always preferable to passion and wilfulness, especially when seeking fair and equitable means of conlict resolution. Christianity and Islam may be interpreted in text and in deed as preaching similar virtues, but in practice, like their secular equivalents, bequeathing a mixed legacy lasting to the present. he obstacles, inner and outer, to ‘practising what one preaches’, especially tolerance, love and doing no harm, are many. Aristotle’s notion of ‘weakness of the will’ (akrasia) captures the diiculty at the individual level, while recent social scientiic work highlights situational and political constraints on ‘virtuous’ activity as well. Millennia ater what the German philosopher Karl Jaspers called the ‘Axial Age’ (roughly the eighth century to the second century bc in the Greek-speaking, Indian, Persian and Chinese communities), and despite many sceptical, relativist and empiricist challenges and political obstacles, the idea of a global ethics has undergone something of a revival. he great wars, cold and hot, of the twentieth century, and the persistent problems of poverty, injustice and -isms of all stripes, have spurred the creation of such transnational organisations as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, TRANSCEND and other NGOs dedicated to non-violent social transformation, and the like, whose oicial missions include the reduction of inequity, poverty, disease and related ills, and the promotion of social justice and world peace. In addition, philosophers, spiritual leaders, many political activists and numerous social and biological scientists have increasingly addressed the ‘practical’ (i.e. ethical, empirical and political) applications of such values as justice and equity. his has led to a proliferation of scholarly and non-specialist discussions of the existence and viability of a global set of values,2 moreover, one that, while disseminating what the Scholastics might have called ‘cardinal virtues’ (prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude for homas Aquinas), none the less promotes respect for most, but not all, cultural diferences and practices, especially decrying as unethical and illegal under international law such crimes against humanity as genocide, ethnic cleansing and violence against women and children. What is usually called ‘globalisation’ has played as key role in both revitalising and inhibiting global ethics. Here, we take globalisation to denote all those processes 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 155 17/02/2015 13:42 156 Solidarity Beyond Borders by which the peoples of the world are becoming incorporated into a single, global society. Since its inception, the concept of globalisation has spawned competing deinitions and interpretations, with antecedents dating back to the movements of trade and empire among Europe, Asia, Africa and the ‘New World’ from the iteenth century onwards. Due to the complexity of the concept, people oten focus on a single aspect of globalisation – cultural, economic, political, ethical and/or technological. Globalisation is the contemporary guise of what Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, Niklas Luhmann, Jürgen Habermas and others have called rationalisation. Most individuals and cultures are now subjected to the advantages and stresses of an increasingly rationalised, interconnected and disenchanted world. Contemporary capitalism, communications technologies and social media, and liberalism are examples of globalisation operating at the macro level, while making elaborate excuses and living in bad faith in order to defend oneself and to get by in everyday life demonstrate micro-level rationalisation in a globalised world. he spread of such Western values as pluralism, democracy and the (in principle) rule of law throughout the world has been interpreted as imperial overreach in some quarters (particularly by sectors within Islamic, Latin American and indigenous cultures) or as political, economic and social rationalisation by its proponents. But just as economic and technological globalisation have advantages (heightened trade and exchange of ideas) and disadvantages (uprooting of indigenous traditions and homogenisation of cultures), so, too, does what will be called ‘ethical globalisation’ have beneits and possible harms. Regarding the globalisation of ethics and the ethics of globalisation, if the dissemination of ‘Western’ values and institutions maximises equity, tolerance and non-violence and minimises injustice, discrimination (including sexism, racism and ageism) and violence, then from utilitarian, deontological and paciist moral philosophies, globalisation produces more beneits then harms. Is this, however, the case? More empirical research is needed to answer this question, just as the assumptions that there either are or are not ‘global values’ need further validation.3 3 Non-violence as world-preserving value Violence does not mean emancipation from fear but discovering the means of combating the cause of fear. Nonviolence, on the other hand, has no cause for fear … It is nonviolence only when we love those who hate us. I know how diicult it is to follow this grand law of love. But are not all great and good things diicult to do? No man can be actively nonviolent and not rise against social injustice no matter where it occurred. (M. K. Gandhi)4 Non-violence is a word found in many contexts. In English, it consists of two words most people regard as negative: no(n) and violence.5 he irst known use of ‘non-violence’ in English was in 1920. Non-violence has two related and sometimes reinforcing meanings: 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 156 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 157 (i) It can refer, irst, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of ethical or religious principles (e.g. ‘She believes in non-violence.’). his is called principled non-violence. (ii) It can also refer to the behaviour of people using non-violent action (e.g. ‘he demonstrators maintained their non-violence.’). his is called strategic non-violence. Non-violence can also be understood from two related perspectives. First, it denotes the idea of non-participation in violent activities because of one’s ethical and/or religious principles. Second, it refers to the active and constructive participation of people involved in non-violent action to resist an unjust political or social order and to transform the violent status quo into one that is more equitable and peaceful. here are also two paciistic traditions that conceptualise and operationalise non-violence. Absolute paciists maintain that there is no goal in the world that could justify killing human and other living beings. Pragmatic paciists become involved in non-violent actions if they are important and eicient for political tools, such as means of communication, social movements (e.g. ‘peace’ and/or ‘antiwar’) or systems of civilian-based defence. Non-violence is oten misunderstood as mere passive resistance, as an accommodating and non-threatening response to an initial action that is, as Johan Galtung might put it, based on direct, structural and/or cultural violence. However, two of the most prominent twentieth-century advocates and practitioners of non-violence, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., believed non-violence to be an active ‘force more powerful’, ethical and eicacious than violence. Gandhi, for example, considered non-violence and truth to be probably the most active forces in the world and deinitely much more ‘active’ than social and political movements based on the use of weapons. His non-violence is the non-violence of the strong and courageous, not merely passive consent by the weak and cowardly to existing political power. he most important and well-known Gandhian concept is Satyagraha, which means ‘soul-force’ or ‘soul-truth.’ he pursuit of truth does not imply violent actions towards one’s opponent, but instead suggests patience, compassion and the inliction of sufering on oneself. Gandhi also believed it is important not to comply with laws that are unjust. However, by doing so, one should not break the heads of the lawmakers and their security and police forces. Rather, if one chooses not to obey the laws, one should accept all the penalties coming as a result of acts of civil disobedience. Hence, political Satyagraha entails civil disobedience, passive resistance and non-cooperation. he Gandhian notion of Satyagraha is closely related to his idea of Ahimsa, or ‘doing no harm’, which is non-violent love requiring deep sympathy, kindness and absolute respect for all living creatures. Ahimsa implies the willingness of each individual to take the responsibility for reforming the planet and, if necessary, to sufer in the process. he idea of sufering (or Tapasya) is central to all the concepts developed by Gandhi. Unless one is ready to sufer, his or her commitment to non-violence is not strong or deep enough. It is important not to shit the burden of sufering to anyone 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 157 17/02/2015 13:42 158 Solidarity Beyond Borders else, but to bear it oneself with dignity. he necessity of sufering is very diicult for many people to understand and accept. Yet the concept is not altogether foreign to Westerners, particularly to those in a Christian paciist tradition. Importantly, Gandhi rejected any doctrine in which the ends ‘justify’ the means. For Gandhi, violence is reactionary: the more violence in the world, the less possibility of revolution. Violence provokes violence by building the foundations for additional injustice and hatred. Violent political extremists oten make moral compromises based on the idea that their ‘better’ vision of the world justiies any means. his concept is in no sense related to Gandhi’s view of the relationship between means and ends. Gandhi thought it would be considered foolish and ignorant for one to say ‘I want to worship God; it does not matter that I do so by means of Satan.’6 For the Dalai Lama, the problem of violence is basic to our condition, and so far it has not been solved, either by universal education or by material progress and technology.7 Science and technology are capable of creating a certain level of material comfort, but they cannot replace spiritual and moral values, which have shaped the world we know today. he Dalai Lama believes that humanity has to focus on these humanitarian values in order to bring about important political, social and economic changes. Compassion should be regarded as essential for world peace, and each individual has a universal responsibility to reform political and social institutions so that they serve human needs. he Dalai Lama assumes that all beings primarily seek peace, comfort and security. he idea of happiness is a combination of inner peace, economic development and, importantly, world peace. It is, therefore, necessary for people to develop a sense of universal responsibility and concern for all human beings, irrespective of their colour, gender or nationality. he happiness of one person or group cannot be achieved at the expense of others. he Dalai Lama suggests that a universal humanitarian approach to world problems, based on compassion, is the only real path to world peace. For the Dalai Lama, true compassion should be a response to sufering, and it is based on altruism, not personal attachments. We should advocate and practise a kind of wider love, which also spreads to our enemies. If we consider that in the long-term everyone wants to be happy and to avoid sufering, it becomes important to share what we possess with others, as the individual ‘I’ is relatively unimportant compared to the countless ‘We’s’. We should also maintain calmness and presence of mind in our day-to-day lives. Like many great spiritual and religious thinkers, the Dalai Lama believes that all the world’s major religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and Taoism, aim at leading their followers away from the negative path of ignorance and towards the path of moral goodness. All religions are essentially similar because they advocate the necessity of controlling undisciplined minds and focus on a spiritual state that is peaceful, ethical and wise. In order to achieve world peace, all religious practitioners have to promote better interfaith understanding, so that a feasible degree of unity among all religions is created to bring about a global consensus on common basic spiritual values that enhance general human happiness. Finally, according to the Dalai Lama, since all countries are becoming 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 158 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 159 more economically interdependent, due to globalisation, our understanding should go beyond national boundaries and should embrace the international community at large. From within the Western philosophical tradition, Immanuel Kant contributed greatly to the ‘liberal idea’ of peace in general, via his analysis of the preconditions for peace between nations, as well as to the global framework needed to institutionalise what he called ‘perpetual peace’. First, Kant states that ‘no treaty of peace shall be held to be such, which is made with the secret reservation of the material for a future war.’8 Kant believes that this would be just a postponement of hostilities, not enduring peace, for peace means the end of all hostilities. He also argues that ‘no state having an independent existence, whether it be small or great, may be acquired by another state, through inheritance, exchange, purchase, or git.’9 For Kant, a state is not a possession, but a society of independent and free men. To incorporate or grat one state into another is to transform its existence as a moral community into a thing. Kant also argues that ‘standing armies should gradually disappear’, since they threaten other states with the possibility of war. heir existence impels states to strive to ight with one another with a virtually unlimited number of soldiers. Standing armies are a main cause of wars since their expense makes peace more burdensome. Kant also desires that ‘no state shall interfere by force in the constitution and government of another state.’10 Here, however, Kant admits that it would be a diferent case if one state is split into two parts, each of which, while being a separate state, would account to the whole. Interference by outside powers in the internal afairs of a state would be a violation of the rights of people struggling with their internal problems. Finally, Kant suggests that ‘no state at war with another shall permit such acts of warfare as must make mutual conidence impossible in time of future peace …’11 hese include, for instance, a state’s deployment of assassins or poisoners. For Kant, states at war must have some conidence in their enemy’s frame of mind, as no peace is possible otherwise and the conlict will last forever. Importantly, Kant also supported the idea of a federation of independent states. Such an international organisation would lead to the creation of a paciied union of all states, which would be diferent from a peace treaty in the sense that it would try to end all wars forever, not just one war. his type of union would ensure the freedom of each sovereign state as well as the sovereignty of allied states. Kant believed that this idea of a global federation can be extended to all states and can lead to eternal peace. Another important Kantian principle is the idea of universal law, which, inter alia, provides the conditions for what Kant calls universal hospitality. Hospitality implies the right of a foreigner not to be humiliated on the territory of another. According to Kant, this form of international hospitality is a human right. Despite his ‘liberal idealistic’ ethical and political convictions, Kant also claims that war itself does not require any special motivation, because it is inherent in human nature. For Kant, humankind is regarded as (a special kind of) animal species. However, our bellicose nature can, to some extent, be restrained by our rational wills, as well as by constitutional, international law, and by cosmopolitan or world law. he global establishment and (mysterious) enforcement of legal norms and duties 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 159 17/02/2015 13:42 160 Solidarity Beyond Borders is a necessary condition for eternal peace, according to Kant (and, much later, for Habermas as well). 4 he eicacy of non-violence Philosophical and spiritual justiications of non-violence as the ethical and political road to global peace would remain merely theoretical if there were no suicient practical examples of the eicacy of non-violence in political and social transformation. here is now signiicant historical and empirical evidence of the widespread, efective use of non-violent techniques. Despite the fact that the international media cover mostly violent and spectacular events, it is the rule rather than the exception that revolutionary and resistance movements use non-violent techniques. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, began to question orthodox Western liberal theology and philosophy once he became aware of the reality of sin and collective evil at every level of human existence. He still supported the ideal that liberalism is devoted to the search for truth, but he came to realise that liberalism tended to verge on a kind of false idealism in its overly optimistic view of human nature. Liberal Protestantism, according to King, tended to regard people in terms of their essential capacity for good. According to King, the problem of liberalism was that it overlooked the fact that reason alone is little more than an instrument to justify human rationalisations. At the same time, he never fully supported Christian neo-orthodoxy, which was, for King, too pessimistic regarding human nature. hus, these two theological doctrines each presented a partial truth for King, who supported their synthesis. King also believed that existentialism presented a certain truth about the human condition. It pointed to the ultimate freedom of all people and regarded human conlict as a result of obstacles imposed on our freedom. Like the young Marx of he Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the psychological dimension of Frankfurt School Critical heory, King regarded our existential situation as a result of our alienation from our ‘essential nature’ (or ‘species-being’ for Marx and Erich Fromm). King later focused on a social ethics dealing, inter alia, with racial, economic, political and legal forms of injustice. He emphasised the importance of the overall wellbeing of people, both spiritual and material. At the point when King started to search for ways to eliminate social evil, namely racial and violent conlict, he was deeply inluenced by the teachings of Gandhi. Non-violent resistance and Satyagraha became profoundly important to him. he Gandhian method of non-violence appeared to King as the most potent and ethical tool available to people in their struggles for freedom. King’s irst sustained experience with non-violent resistance occurred in 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama. He served as a spokesperson for the black movement spearheading the bus boycott, and he convinced many people, including whites, that it is more honourable to walk the streets in dignity than to ride the buses in humiliation. Non-violent principles of civil disobedience and active resistance became the guiding light of the movement. King’s later trip to India made him even more convinced of the power of non-violence. While he admitted that non-violence does not change the 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 160 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 161 hearts of its opponents overnight, it does give its followers new self-respect, courage and dignity. Ultimately, King suggested that the choice today is not between violence and non-violence, but rather between non-violence and non-existence. He remained conident that the established systems of exploitation and oppression would be replaced in the future by new systems of justice and equality. Inspired by King, the extremely inluential analyst and practitioner of non-violence, Gene Sharp, describes over 200 methods of non-violent action, which he organises into three types: protest and persuasion; non-cooperation; and intervention.12 When carefully chosen, applied persistently, and supported by wise strategy and appropriate tactics, non-violent methods usually overturn any illegitimate regime. Unlike military actions, non-violent struggle can focus directly on the issue. If the issue is primarily political, then non-cooperation with the regime as well as public demonstrations and strikes can work best. Similarly, if an economic issue is at stake, then boycotts, strikes and slowdowns can be appropriate resistance methods. Sharp suggests that all non-violent methods usually go through several dynamic stages, one of which is ‘political jiu-jitsu’. Political jiu-jitsu describes the dynamic of efective non-violent action in psychological, political, social and economic domains. All governments need a replenishment of the sources of their power by the cooperation and obedience of civil society, for only then can they rule. Non-violent mass political disobedience (and not violence) can most efectively serve to deplete the sources of state power. According to Sharp, non-violence and violence operate in fundamentally diferent ways and, therefore, even limited violence during a political resistance campaign will be counterproductive because it will shit the struggle to the advantage of dictators, where they have the overwhelming military advantage. Non-violence can be successful only if maintained, notwithstanding provocations and brutalities by the state. Historical records indicate that, although there are deaths and victims of political deiance during non-violent resistance campaigns, their numbers are far smaller than the casualties caused by military warfare. Moreover, according to Sharp, non-violent types of struggle do not contribute to the endless cycle of killing and cruelty. Brian Martin also shows that there is suicient historical evidence to demonstrate that non-violence can be an efective method of social and political transformation. Examples of successful non-violent campaigns include the fall in 1986 of Philippines’ dictator Ferdinand Marcos; the collapse in 1989 of communist regimes in Eastern Europe; and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s, among others. Martin also mentions less successful examples of non-violent resistance, namely the Chinese pro-democracy movement in 1989, and the initial movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi to overthrow the Burmese military regime. Nevertheless, the track record for non-violent movements is signiicantly better than for violent ones. Martin illustrates the mechanisms by which non-violence works. He points out that it is efective not only against less ruthless opponents, such as the British in India, but also against more brutal oppressors, such as the Norwegian and Danish resistance movements against Nazi occupation. Norwegian school teachers, for example, refused 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 161 17/02/2015 13:42 162 Solidarity Beyond Borders to permit the teaching of Nazi doctrine in their schools, even though many were sent to concentration camps. Martin also examines Gandhi’s, Donald Gregg’s and Gene Sharp’s analyses of non-violent resistance. He believes that Gandhian non-violence is aimed at challenging injustice, but its operational dynamics are complicated. Gregg, for instance, introduced the important concept of ‘moral jiu-jitsu’, which is a psychological process by which non-violent activists take the moral initiative, do not become surprised or suggestible, and also refrain from anger in confronting their opponents. While Gregg’s idea of the psychological conversion of attackers is not suiciently backed by observations, it none the less spurred Sharp to develop his idea of political ‘jiu-jitsu’. Finally, Martin, following Sharp, examines the concept of political jiu-jitsu from the perspective of ‘backire’ rather than from a more traditional violence-versus-nonviolence scenario. Backires are contingent, since aggressors usually try to prevent them, while opponents try to intensify them. Martin believes that this struggle over political outcomes can be a social version of the individual struggle of how to respond to an unjust event. here are many examples of successful non-violent movements in addition to the American civil rights movement and Gandhi’s movement for Indian independence. In 1986, for example, the government of the Philippines autocrat Ferdinand Marcos collapsed due to the ‘people’s power’ of mass non-violent resistance. his was catalysed as a bloodless response to Marcos’s attempt to falsify elections results. Civilians intervened and placed themselves between the armed forces of Marcos and a small group of non-conformists. As a result, Marcos surrendered his power and went into exile when it became clear that his own military forces would not ight peaceful citizens. In 1968, during ‘he Prague Spring’, the Czechoslovakian government began establishing increased political and economic freedoms in order to create ‘Socialism with a Human Face’. In response, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. he people of Czechoslovakia mounted a remarkable campaign of non-violent resistance. here were no militant actions by the opposition, except for general strikes, work slowdowns, and non-cooperation by government employees in order to prevent the installation of a collaborationist government. Ater eight months of struggle, a compromise of sorts was reached with the signing of the so-called Moscow Protocol, which allowed most of the reform leaders temporarily to remain in power. However, this was short-lived. It took another generation ater the ‘68ers’, the non-violent ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989, inally to replace Soviet authoritarianism with a nascent version of liberal democracy. he Polish trade union movement Solidarity essentially followed a non-violent path of strikes, work slowdowns and civil resistance against the Soviet-installed government. Ater many years of struggle, in 1989 this strategy eventually resulted in the peaceful transition to a democratic Polish government. Solidarity’s strategy also served as a model for the related emancipatory movements elsewhere in Eastern Europe and in East Germany. here are also notable examples of the successful use of non-violent resistance between states. During the nineteenth century, Austria sought to dominate its trading partner and imperial subordinate, Hungary. he Hungarians realised that physical force would be useless and counterproductive since they were militarily weaker 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 162 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 163 than the Austrians. Accordingly, the Hungarians boycotted Austrian goods, refused to cooperate with or to recognise Austrian authorities, and established their own independent systems of education and agriculture. he Hungarians also refused to pay taxes to Austrian tax collectors or to buy or sell property from or to Austrian traders. hese non-violent resistance actions resulted in an unfavourable inancial situation for Austria and forced its emperor to consent to a kind of Hungarian independence within their imperial union. Another example of successful non-violent mass resistance to foreign invasion and occupation was Denmark’s non-cooperation campaign with Nazi Germany during World War II. Large numbers of Danes prevented the Nazis from seizing 94 per cent of the 8,000 Danish Jews and from sending them to concentration camps. By using creative methods of communication and transportation, the Danes were able to smuggle most of the possible victims of the Nazi regime to Sweden. During the Nazi occupation, in order to defy the German authorities, many Danes, including the king, also wore the Star of David, used by the Germans to identify Jews. More generally, is non-violence efective and can non-violence work at a global level? In order to answer this question, we have to understand what it means for non-violence to ‘work’. Non-violence does not always succeed in pursuit of one’s short-term political goals or as a means to transform society, though it does so more oten than violence and with far fewer victims. As to the improvement of human condition and the preservation and enhancement of life on Earth, it is evident that non-violence works in the short and medium term. Recent research by Maria J. Stephan and Eric Chenoweth demonstrates that non-violent struggles against despotism and for self-determination are more likely than violent resistance to achieve their political objectives, even against dictatorships and highly repressive regimes.13 hey studied 323 social-change campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Among their signiicant indings are: campaigns of non-violent resistance are about twice as likely to succeed as violent uprisings, even in the Middle East; far greater numbers of people from more diverse parts of society joined non-violent campaigns than violent ones. his greater level of participation translates into more people who can demonstrate for change, and withdraw their cooperation from an unjust regime. In short, numbers matter; and when non-violent movements overthrow an unjust regime, the victorious resistance groups are far more likely to establish democracies and protect human rights and far less likely to lapse into civil war than their violent counterparts. Overall, Chenoweth and Stephan found that major non-violent campaigns against brutal regimes were successful 53 per cent of the time. On the other hand, violent resistance campaigns against state oppressors succeeded only 26 per cent of the time. Chenoweth and Stephan suggest two reasons for the success of non-violent strategies. he irst is that non-violent campaigns are domestically and internationally legitimate, which encourages more broad-based participation. he second reason is that, while violent counter-attacks by the opposition may also be justiied, non-violent responses to violent attacks enhance popular support for the resistance movement by a potentially sympathetic public. 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 163 17/02/2015 13:42 164 Solidarity Beyond Borders Stephan and Chenoweth also found that non-violent campaigns are more likely than violent resistance to produce loyalty shits by security forces and civilian oicials. Also, broad-based campaigns tend to undermine the legitimacy of the opponent. State repression of non-violent campaigns oten backires. An unjust act oten results in civil disobedience by the regime’s supporters, mobilisation of the population against the regime, and international criticism of the government. Moreover, non-violent resistance campaigns make their leadership seem more open to negotiation and bargaining than the government because they do not threaten the lives or well-being of members of the regime. If resistance campaigns fail to achieve widespread and decentralised mass popular mobilisation, it is unlikely that they will evoke international sanctions, as it is more costly for the state to repress thousands of activists who represent the entire population than to deal with a few dozen violent extremists. he international community is more likely to censure and sanction states for repressing non-violent than violent campaigns, which makes it more costly for a government to repress non-violent than violent protest movements. Finally, recent work by the noted psychologist Steven Pinker and the military historian Joshua Goldstein indicates, perhaps surprisingly, that humanity is ‘winning the war against war’, principally by non-violent means, because long-term historical trends indicate:14 (i) Wars today are measurably fewer and smaller than 30 years ago. (ii) he number of people killed directly by war violence has decreased by 75 per cent in that period. (iii) Interstate wars have become very infrequent and relatively small. (iv) Wars between ‘great powers’ have not occurred for more than 50 years. (v) he number of civil wars is also shrinking, though less dramatically, as old ones end faster than new ones begin. Based on these recent trends, Goldstein concludes that, ‘For now peace is increasing. Year by year, we are winning the war on war.’ Why? Because, according to Goldstein, of the ‘eforts of international peacekeepers, diplomats, peace movements, and other international organizations’ (such as the UN, EU, NATO, the African Union, as well as other nongovernmental actors and individuals) ‘in war-torn and postwar countries …’ Bottom line: ‘World peace is not preordained and inevitable, but neither is a return to large-scale war.’ And Pinker argues that ‘believe it or not … today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence … his ‘makes the present less sinister and the past less innocent.’ His evidence for this possibly striking and counter-intuitive claim includes the following: (i) Homicide rates in Europe have declined 30-fold since the Middle Ages. (ii) Human sacriice, slavery, punitive torture and mutilation have been virtually abolished around the world. (iii) Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world (civil) wars kill a fraction of the numbers they did decades ago. (iv) Rape, battering, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse, cruelty to animals 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 164 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 165 – ‘every category of violence from deaths in war to the spanking of children to the number of motion pictures in which animals were harmed … declined.’ (v) ‘Forms of institutionalized violence that can be eliminated by the stroke of a pen – such as capital punishment, the criminalization of homosexuality … and the corporal punishment of children in schools – will continue to decline.’ Pinker believes that non-violent factors may provide the best possible explanation for these encouraging historical trends. hese are what Pinker calls our ‘Four Better Angels’, which take their roots in the best features of human nature. Our irst ‘better angel’ is the ability to sympathise with the pain and sufering of other human beings. he second is being able to restrain one’s animal and belligerent inclinations by anticipatory acts and behaviours. he third is having a moral sense, or being able to perceive good from bad, especially when violence may violate one’s humanity. And Pinker’s last ‘better angel’ is the existence of human reason, which enables us to be objective and realistic. hus, non-violence is not only efective in preventing war and other forms of armed conlict, and in replacing autocratic and dictatorial regimes with less repressive governments, but it also leads to the establishment of social justice, environmentally friendly policies, the protection of human rights and the cultivation of the best features of human beings. 5 Global peace he global application, and demonstrated success, of non-violence leads to a discussion of global peace. he superiority of peace as opposed to war as a means of conlict resolution should also be connected with equitable economic development, social justice and environmental sustainability. hese policies set the foundation for the most commonly addressed concept of peace in the West today – the notion of ‘liberal peace’.15 Global peace, or non-violence on a planetary scale, would be based on such ‘liberal democratic’ values as the welfare of individuals and society, international justice, participatory institutional development, transnationalism and globally accepted legal norms. In the context of international relations, global peace entails the gradual reduction and eventual elimination of violence, eventually leading to the development and transmission of ideals, institutions and policies culminating in self-sustaining peace, both positive and negative. Oten, peace is related to an achievable global objective, like the reduction of inter- and intra-state wars, based on such universal norms and the defence of inalienable human rights. his conceptualisation of peace incorporates diferent, but compatible, ethical and political philosophies. One is idealism, which, in the Kantian tradition, depicts peace as something complete and ‘eternal’, and, accordingly, probably unattainable. From this perspective, an enduring global peace would incorporate social, political and economic international agreements, ensured by a federated world government. Such an idealistic concept of peace does not mean, according to idealists themselves, that 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 165 17/02/2015 13:42 166 Solidarity Beyond Borders it should not be attempted. Some pragmatic idealists consider the UN’s attempts at disarmament as a possible way of achieving such a peace. Another strategy is liberal-realism, which focuses on an allegedly more realistic form of peace, one that is supported and provided by international institutions and organisations on the basis of global agreements and accepted norms. he main components of this strategy are social, economic and political rights and responsibilities, as well as transnational legal norms and institutions, and regional organisations (such as the European Union). One possible problem with this version of global peace is that it is oten restricted by geographical boundaries, as not all local actors accept the norms and frameworks produced by such globally-binding agreements. Perhaps the dominant ‘peace-making’ strategy on ofer today is Realpolitik, or mainstream political realism, which assumes the persistence of a geographicallybounded order preserved by ‘sot power’ wherever possible and by ‘hard power’ when ‘necessary’. Negative peace is possible, from this perspective, under a powerful hegemon or institution, whose mission is to manage territorial, ethnic, religious and other identity conlicts. It is achieved by balancing national interests and power in relation to military might. One of the many examples of such a negative peace is the Hellenistic world of the late fourth century bc, based on Alexander the Great’s conquest of the ancient Greek-speaking communities and the Persian Empire. A Marxian way of looking at peace is based on the prior establishment of social justice, participatory political democracy and a socialised mode of economic production. Here, negative peace, or the elimination of war, follows the globalisation of positive peace, including the abolition of hierarchical class systems and ‘bourgeoisdemocratic’ states. For Marxists, there is a clear need for a (temporary?) violent revolutionary elimination of global capitalism and the states that serve it, in order to promote and universalise the ‘true’ interests of workers everywhere. Only ater the violent overthrow of the capitalist world system can peace be either desirable or possible. Finally, Critical heory (from a Frankfurt School orientation) posits (like the ‘early’ Habermas and the ‘later’ Marcuse) an emancipatory interest in human liberation from political repression and economic exploitation. Moreover, critical theories more generally support the idea that minorities, women and children must be privileged actors and beneiciaries of ‘progressive’ legislation and ‘emancipatory’ political movements in order to actualise their individual and collective ‘identities’. Recognition of these marginalised actors has to be achieved through the removal of hegemonic practices of domination via radical reforms and revolutionary insurgencies. Critical theorists of all stripes, like their Marxian fellow-travellers, tend to conceive of negative peace as subordinate and subsequent to the positive peace they envision of a socialised global world system. 6 Conclusion: A global ethic of non-violence or no globe? A perennial question is whether global peace, both negative (the absence of widespread violent conlict) and positive (the presence of equitable and sustainable social, 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 166 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 167 political, legal and economic institutions), is possible in a ‘postmodern’, globalised world. One obstacle to global peace is the widespread and usually unarticulated ideological assumption that, irrespective of one’s culture, historical background, political or economic views – ‘human nature is the same everywhere, can’t be changed, and is inherently aggressive, acquisitive and unredeemable.’ Accordingly, from this Hobbesian or Realpolitik perspective, the concept of universal peace is contested and labelled ‘utopian’, in part because diferent actors deine it in various and ostensibly incompatible ways, depending on their personal interests, identities, political views and socio-economic resources. herefore, in practice, it seems a diicult and allegedly insurmountable challenge to connect such varied and oten conlicting intersubjective concepts from the many diferent economic, political and social environments around the world with the idea and actualisation of global peace. In order to legitimise and actualise global peace, based on the value of non-violence, social and political institutions, ethical norms, economic forms of production and distribution, and legal rules have to be applied equitably and uniformly across the globe. his will be a major task for the peacemakers of the twenty-irst century. But, despite the formidable inner and outer challenges, there is some reason for optimism, in large part based on the successes of non-violent social and political movements in overcoming tyranny and injustice and in creating emancipatory and participatory democratic forms of individual and collective governance. Given the ongoing existential anthropogenic threats of climate change and thermonuclear war, a global ethic of non-violence is a necessary precondition of our individual and collective survival. But it is not suicient. For ethics without efective political action rings hollow. And political action without an ethics of compassion and forgiveness is blind. To survive, humanity must learn both to see clearly and to act forcefully but non-violently. Notes 1 2 he UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/ udhr/PREAMBLE (accessed 30 January 2014): ‘Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Article 28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. Article 29: (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible; (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.’ Cf. C. Ryan, ‘he Dialogue of Global Ethics’, pp. 43–7; M. Ignatief, ‘Reimagining a Global Ethic’, pp. 7–19; and D. Rodin, ‘Toward a Global Ethic’, pp. 33–42, all in: Ethics & International Afairs, 26 (1), (Spring 2012). 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 167 17/02/2015 13:42 168 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Solidarity Beyond Borders Peter Singer, Ferrell et al. and Hans Küng, among others, argue that there exist global common values, or ethical universals, including but not limited to kinship preference, honesty and integrity, and justice. Only one study we could ind, however, which was spearheaded by Küng on behalf of a group of religious and spiritual leaders, explicitly includes non-violence as a global value (Towards a Global Ethic – An Initial Declaration, Parliament of the World’s Religions, http:// universespirit.org/towards-a-global-ethic-an-initial-declaration (accessed 4 February 2014); Singer (1995), passim; Ferrell et al. (2011), pp. 278–9. And while we could ind virtually no empirical documentation of these claims, neither could we ind any persuasive conceptual or empirical refutation of them. M. K. Gandhi in Barash and Webel (2014), p. 507. See Barash and Webel (2014), esp. chapter 23; Jørgen Johansen, ‘Nonviolence: More than the Absence of Violence’, in Webel and Galtung (2009), pp. 143–59; C. Webel and J. Johansen, ‘Nonviolent Action and Political Change’, in Webel and Johansen (2011), pp. 267–72; M. K. Gandhi, ‘Home Rule’, in Webel and Johansen (2011), pp. 272–84; Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Pilgrimage to Nonviolence’, in Webel and Johansen, pp. 285–8; B. Martin, ‘How Nonviolence Works’, in Webel and Johansen (2011), pp. 292–4; and K. Schock, ‘Nonviolent Action and Its Misconceptions: Insights for Social Scientists’, PSOnline. Available at: www.apsanet.org (accessed 18 February 2014). M. K. Gandhi, in Somerville and Santoni (1963), p. 503. he Dalai Lama, ‘A Human Approach to World Peace’, in Webel and Johansen (2011), pp. 111–17. Kant, ‘Eternal Peace’, in Webel and Johansen (2011), p. 89. Ibid., p. 90. Ibid. Ibid., p. 91. Cf. Sharp (1973); Sharp and Paulson (2005); Sharp (2010). See Messman (2012). Also see: M. J. Stephan (2009); and Chenoweth and Stephan (2011). Pinker (2011). Also see Lawler (2012), pp. 829–30; and Goldstein and Pinker (2011), p. 17. See Oliver Richmond’s recent books and articles on the idea of ‘liberal peace’, especially he Transformation of Peace, Peace in International Relations, and A Post-Liberal Peace, all published by Routledge between 2005 and 2011. References Barash, D. and C. Webel (2014), Peace and Conlict Studies (3rd edn), London and New York: Sage Publications. Chenoweth, E. and M. J. Stephan (2011), Why Civil Resistance Works: he Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conlict, New York: Columbia University Press. Ferrell, O. C., J. Friedrich and Linda Ferrell (2011), Business Ethics (8th edn), Mason, OH: South-Western CENGAGE Learning. Goldstein, J. and S. Pinker (2011), ‘War Really is Going Out of Style’, New York Times, December, p. 17. Lawler, A., ‘he Battle Over Violence’, Science, 336: pp. 829–30. 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 168 17/02/2015 13:42 Towards a Global Ethics of Non-violence 169 Messman, T. (2012), Discovering the Unexpected Power of Nonviolence: Street Spirit Interview with Erica [Chenoweth]. Available from http://www.thestreetspirit.org/ discovering-the-unexpected-power-of-nonviolence-street-spirit-interview-with-ericachenoweth-4/ (accessed 28 January 2014). Pinker, S. (2011), he Better Angels of Our Nature, New York: Viking. Sharp, G. (1973), he Politics of Nonviolent Action, Boston: Porter Sargent. —(2010), From Dictatorship to Democracy (4th U.S. edn), East Boston: he Albert Einstein Institution. Available from http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/ FDTD.pdf (accessed 28 January 2014). Sharp, G. and J. Paulson (2005), Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential. Manchester, NH: Extending Horizons Books Porter Sargent. Singer, P. (1995), How Are We to Live?, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Somerville, J. and R. Santoni (eds) (1963), Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, New York: Anchor Books. Stephan, M. J. (ed.) (2009), Civilian Jihad Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Webel, C. and J. Galtung (eds) (2009), Handbook of Peace and Conlict Studies, London and New York: Routledge. Webel, C. and J. Johansen (eds) (2011), Peace and Conlict Studies: A Reader, London and New York: Routledge. 9781472507952_txt_print.indd 169 17/02/2015 13:42