Arundhati Roy
What kind of resistance is effective?
“Non-violent resistance movements are given a lot of air time, a lot of publicity, a lot of space. But it’s also because it makes the state comfortable. It makes the comfortable, comfortable.”
A powerful question. I think an obvious, generic answer is to validate the use of all manners of resistance, though to complicate things, the question is of when.
Non-violent resistance it great for raising awareness without scaring people outright. Sit-ins, hunger strikes, #occupy, have done a great job in getting peoples’ attentions without immediately alarming them they a bombing would, for instance. It also serves to appeal to observers emotionally. Non-violently resisting the system, non-violent reaction to violent overtures, paints the resister as the victim, the authority as the villain, and validates the resister’s cause.
However, there is a limit to how far mere passive resistance should be carried, as #occupy has also demonstrated. Carry on for too long and people become desensitized, start to question the motives, the resolve of those resisting. Indeed, passive resistance hits a wall against against an authority that, even after taking notice, remains intransigent.
It is then that passiveness should be abandoned and favor of progressively more aggressive measures.
Well said, I agree! :)
(Source: solitaryforager, via solitaryforager)
