Wrong thinking
FAILURE-->DENIAL-->JUSTIFICATION-->FEAR-->VIOLENCE
There are historical accounts of Nonviolent resistance being used as a body of knowledge strategically applied as a science. The following are two brief historical accounts:
Highlights in the history of nonviolent resistance in the 20th century.
EXAMPLE 1: In the early 1900's the people of India gained their freedom from Britian through a technique developed by Mohandas K. Gandhi called Satyagraha, or literaly meaning holding on to truth.
EXAMPLE 2: In 1963, after Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech and the racially motivated bombing of a baptist church that killed young girls, Rev. James Luther Bevel and his wife Diane Nash developed the initial plans for what became the Selma right to vote movement. Within two months from the time that the movement began Johnson instituted the Voting Right Bills of 1965.
In a strategy of NON-VIOLENCE. there are three premises that are crucial to succes.
1- Never yield any position that is held to be the truth
2- Prepare to be persuaded by the opponent that the opponents position is the truth.
3- Not seeking one-sided triumph not victory over the opponent, but over the lie that causes the problem. This demands reconciliation.
Project C H A N G E
Rev. August 2004