Though I cannot claim to be a Christian in the sectarian sense, the example of Jesus suffering is a factor in the composition of my undying faith in non-violence which rules all my actions, worldly and temporal.
The modern choice is between non-violence or non-existence.
Non-violence should never be used as a shield for cowardice. It is a weapon for the brave.
One individual can begin a movement that turns the tide of history. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement, Mohandas Ganhi in India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa are examples of people standing up with courage and non-violence to bring about needed changes.
What is magnificent about humans is when they decide to turn and stand. If they respond with non-violence on principle and hold their ground, they are really magnificent.
When workers fall back on violence, they are lost. Oh, they might win some of their demands and might end a strike a little earlier, but they give up their imagination, their creativity, their will to work hard and to suffer for what they believe is right.
Non-violence is backed by the theory of soul-force in which suffering is courted in the hope of ultimately winning over the opponent. But what happens when such an attempt fail to achieve the object? It is here that soul-force has to be combined with physical force so as not to remain at the mercy of tyrannical and ruthless enemy.
The ego is exploitation; love is service. And the service that flows from love, freely and spontaneously, is non-violence.
He who loves the bristle of bayonets only sees in the glitter what beforehand he feels in his heart. It is avarice and hatred; it is that quivering lip, that cold, hating eye, which built magazines and powder-houses.
We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.
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