The Principle of Non-Violence and Non-Violent Protest Movement--A Second Discussion

Yang, Jian-Li

2/28/2002

Since I published my speech titled as the principle of Non-Violence and Non-Violent Protest Movement? some friends have raised many good questions. Here I would like to, based on these questions, further discuss this topic and continue talking about my ideas. It is also my hope that the discussion itself could provide concrete help on our practice.

Some friend said: if the masses of people engage in non-violent protest, the authority is bond to suppress with force. Without violent resistant, people will die in vein. What Gandhi had faced were British colonists whose own country had already very civilized. In addition, the British colonists were constrained by the democratic institution of their own country. This differs substantially from the brutal character of the CCP. Therefore, in today's China, the principle of non-violence is not applicable and non-violent protest movement won't succeed.?

For any autocratic government, the first reaction to the mass protest would be suppression, not matter the protest is of violent or not. Sometimes, the authority might need some time to find or create excuse to suppress the non-violent protest. This would have made a thread of hope for the protesting side to achieve something during the deadlock period. On the contrary, for violent protest, the authority won't give it any breaking time. The CCP itself started from violence. The CCP government was gained and has been maintained by means of violent. The CCP is very familiar with and very sensitive to violence. Because of this, it would be very difficult to make any political achievement by means of violent protest. For this, Mr. Wu Jian Xiang had given a very good analogy. He said: i t is the most difficult to steal from the thief.?

Differs from the non-violent one, violent protest often forces the immediate individualized zero-summed game of life? or life-and-death fight, between the protesters and those who execute the suppression. Under such circumstances, the suppression could only be even more brutal. Therefore, there would be more bloodshed than non-violent protests. It is not difficult to imagine, had the movement in 1989 been a violent one, not only it could not be survived for fifty-six days, there would also have been more lose of lives. Same logic also applies to Fa Lun Gong. If they had protested violently, the protest could not lasted very long and more people's life would have been lost. It is not hard to understand the behavior of human being in the immediate zero summed game about lives. We cannot simply underestimate the importance of the difference between individualized conflict and policy led conflict. As a matter of fact, Mr. Jiang Zemin fully understand the subtleness between these two kinds of conflicts. When he suppressed the Fa Lun Gong, he used the method of associated punishment. In the areas where the Fa Lun Gong members participated the protest, the local officials and the police officers will suffer economic lose. I such a way, the conflict between them and the Fa Lun Gong members are no longer on the level of policy, but became very individual. Only this method made it possible for the cruel suppression of the Fa Lun Gong could continue in such a large extent.

Both violent and non-violent protests face the possibility of being suppressed. The difference is, as discussed above, there is no excuse to suppress the violent protest. Why there is no need for excuse? This is because for any government, it抯 not in the wrong to suppress violent protest. In other words, when a government suppresses violent protest, it will not lose any moral resource. Therefore the government dominant legitimacy will not only be challenged, but sometimes be strengthened. If the government suppresses non-violent protest, the result would be different. The suppression will make the government lose morally. In other words, a government that makes non-violent protest bloodshed will lose it's own blood on the legitimacy side. When the day comes when the government does not want to lose more blood, or has no more blood to lose, the political institution will be advanced significantly. As said in Sun Zi Bing Fa (Sun Military Strategy and Tactics), one cannot predict when and how to succeed a battle, or even cannot predict whether one will succeed the battle or not. The first thing for one to consider when planning a battling strategy is to make sure not to lose. The first battle of constitutional democratic movement is to put pressure on politics from outside. The principle of non-violence is exactly the right strategy to make sure this battle won't lose.

All non-violent protests have the effect of separate those on the suppressor side. This is also true for the democracy movement in 1989 as well as the protest of Fa Lun Gong. Just as said by Gandhi, non-violent protest movement is a battle to attack the hearts. This is easily understood. As the saying goes, the human hearts are made out of flesh. If one stays just a little bit further away from the immediate zero-summed game of life and interest,?one would always has some conscience and would not tolerate the brutal destroy of human lives. Surely, quite often, when the incident is over and situation change, everything will go back to normal. The sense of pity may not easily be tangible. However, the iron mark made on the heart is not easily wiped out. Moreover, substantial change could occur when conscience was emerged. Had the democratic movement of 1989 and Fa Lun Gong been violent, could they have gained so much sympathy? The June 4th substantially changed many people within the CCP. It抯 a pity that no substantial changed occurred to the political environment. This is not because of it is impossible to occur, but due to fact that we didn抰 use our strategy correctly. Or we can say, we didn抰 have any strategy at that moment.

The succeed of non-violent protest movement had occurred in countries of any kind, like US, India, Philippines, Taiwan, Chili, Poland, South Africa, etc. The objects of protects include democratic government, colonists from democratic country, Communist government, right-wing autocratic government and government with racial discrimination. Non-violent protest movement will succeed not just against the ivilized?enemy. If we think non-violent protest will not succeed because of the savage and the brutal character of CCP and therefore give up non-violent protest, we will fall into a logical dilemma and behavioral difficulty. According to this logic, as discussed above, since CCP is savage and brutal, it will suppress violent protest more decisive, more determined and more through. Therefore we cannot make violent protest movement. Other than violent protest, what is left is non-violent protest. Therefore people's protest movement is totally denied. Without the pressure from protest movement, CCP won't give you any channel to participate in the politics. Therefore, constitutional democracy movement will be in dead end.

But we should continue carrying on the constitutional democracy movement. Moreover, we should carry it on with great effort. Among others, non-violent protest movement is an indispensable important link of the constitutional democracy movement. Without the outside political pressure, which is characterized by non-violent protest movement, and political participation, which is aimed at promoting free election, the overall joint constitutional politics will not appear. Somebody might have said that I underestimated the cruelness of CCP. I am not absolutely sure what I proposed is a path leading to succeed without difficulty. However, other paths, especially the path with violent, in my opinion, will have less possibility in leading to succeed and there will be more cost to follow those paths. What I proposed was exactly based on the profound and sober understanding of the cruelness of CCP and the difficultness of democratization in China. The CCP is billows dashing to the sky and we want to stop it. What can we use to stop it? To use dash to the sky billows? No. On the one hand, this is something we cannot do. On the other hand, this will only make the heinous wave even higher. What we can do is only to use the earth to stop the water. Although the earth will scatter and disappear under the lash of water, eventually it will only be earth that can stop the water. As for how to stop, it's a question on the level of concrete methods and strategies. I willl discuss them in detail at some other time.