In this mutli-part series, Sanat Mohanty discusses why we have to look for alternatives and what kinds of alternatives we should look for. This ninth piece of the series explores alternatives of nonviolence.

Part I: What is the point of this discussion?
Part II: Therefore Alternatives: Fundamentalism of our Societies
Part III: Therefore Alternatives: Survival of the Fittest
Part IV: Therefore Alternatives: Capitalism, Communism and Free Markets
Part V: Therefore Alternatives: Questioning Development
Part VI: Therefore Alternatives: Impact of Externalities
Part VII: Therefore Alternatives: Trickle Down Theories
Part VIII: Therefore Alternatives: What about Revolutions

Alternatives of Nonviolence
Based on our understanding of the current world, do we have any ideas regarding the basis of alternatives? What might be the nature of these alternatives? Or alternatively, what must the alternative transcend?

We have begun to recognize that any kind of fundamentalism will marginalize certain communities; that fundamentalism will always lead to violence. Thus, any alternative must transcend fundamentalism. While we often use isms or dogmas to help our own understanding of the world, this alternative society must recognize that no ism or dogma can completely describe our societies. To marginalize communities or limit their influence on decision making processes that affect their lives based on this ism is violent. The alternatives must then avoid such situations.

The alternatives must be about creating means through which we continue to better recognize our own identity and the identity of others, we continue to respect the truths of our own self and that of others even if we disagree with those truths, as well as the means to continue conversations with others (whether we agree or disagree with their truths) for this leads to our own evolution in understanding of our selves and of others.

Such alternatives are clearly, then, based on non-violence. Non-violence is a state where one individual or community is aware of another individual or community as human and is empathetic to their right to their values and worldviews and where all action is consistent with the realization of that connectedness and empathy. Non-violence is not based on an argument of sameness or of equality but of connectedness. This connectedness is recognition of the humanness of another and in that recognition non-violence allows another to find his/her humanity. Any action that limits the ability of another to search for his/her humanity is violent.

In his book, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Freire argues that action that limits an individual’s “pursuit of self-affirmation” is oppression. I disagree in that self-affirmation could be pursued by enslavement of another or through accretion of wealth by any means possible. Clearly, limiting such ventures cannot be oppression. However, none of these ventures search for ones own humanness – in fact, in as much as ones identity is tied to objects, one might tend to have less of an identity that is human and thus such ventures might in fact be counter to ones search for humanness.

It acknowledges that communities might differ in intellectual, physical, musical, and other abilities and styles. Yet, it recognizes that in being human, an individual has certain physical, mental and emotional needs that must be fulfilled and worldviews are developed by individuals and communities as ways of achieving and prioritizing these needs within the environment they live in. It does not say that all worldviews must be viewed as correct but that the right of a community to have their values and their worldviews as well as the historical process of arriving at the worldview must be acknowledged.