Nonviolence also "works" when there is a violent group that makes change necessary, which your movement can then be used to undercut. Like socialists being used to undercut leftists, or MLK's liberal civil rights being used to undercut the black panthers' marxism.
Think your timeline is a little off. Youre thinking of malcolm x not the panthers. They came later.
King was also coming around pretty steadily.
also CIA and FBI had a big hand in orchestrating how those movements ended up. FOI in recent years shows just how much manipulation was going on in the background to try and prevent any social changes and if they were to succeed, damage control them to levels that are reversible (like we see today)
Amm.. That means British Monarch in India had conscience, when Mahathma Gandhi was promoting non-violence and hunger strike. Which I don't think is true.
In India it worked because British was sure that if they use force against someone promoting non-violence the retaliation will be uprising of a violent mob. Atrocities in India reached a high were majority of the people were affected by it and fed up by it. Like the modern times it was not possible to sway the public opinion through media of any kind.
Gandhi was a saint in practice, but more than that he was shrewd politician, who identified the weakness of British monarchy in India.
I don't know much about American History. But I believe that America not having a conscience could be one of the reason why the non-violence will not have worked. I am not sure if that is the primary reason. Can someone with more knowledge in American History provide an elaboration on this point? I feel there will be some missing context.
Non-violence was successfully used in the US during the civil rights protests. The quote feels correct for those protesting because change is slow and there are certainly some people without conscious. The non-violence movement displayed very clearly the oppressor and the oppressed and it eventually swayed public opinion enough to lead to lasting political change.
I don't think the civil rights movement was at all "non-violent". just not "mass violence".
outside the white washing it's gotten. there was lots of violent and "silent violence"(using paint "bombs") to disrupt and force attention to the needs of the many. from the desires of the few.
The Minnesota nurse getting executed in the street did far more to hurt the trump administration than if he'd pulled out his gun and shot the agents first.
In fact, the latter would've been a major boon to the fascists.
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