Introduction to Non-Violence | Page 9

armed resistance becomes a necessity. There are times
when not to participate in violence is in itself violence to the welfare of
the brethren. But no Christian moralist worth mentioning has ever
regarded war per se as other than monstrous, or hoped that by the use
of violence anything more could be accomplished than the frustration
of a temporarily powerful malicious wickedness. War in itself gives
birth to no righteousness. Only such a fire of love as leads to
self-effacement can advance the welfare of mankind." "Will the
Christian Church Survive?" Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 170, October, 1942,
109.

III. NON-VIOLENCE BY NECESSITY
The use of non-violent resistance does not always denote devotion to
pacifist principles. Groups who would gladly use arms against an
enemy if they had them often use non-violent means simply because
they have no others at their disposal at the moment. In contrast to the
type of action described in the preceding section, such a procedure
might be called "hate without violence." It would probably be better to
call it "non-violence by necessity."
The group using non-violence under such circumstances might have in
view one of three purposes. It might hope through its display of
opposition and its own suffering to appeal to the sense of fair play of
the group that was oppressing it. However, such a hope can exist only
in cases where the two opposing parties have a large area of agreement
upon values, or homogeneity, and would have no basis when the
oppressing group looked upon the oppressed as completely beneath
their consideration. It is unlikely that it would have much success in
changing the policy of a nation which consciously chose to invade
another country, although it might affect individual soldiers if their

cultural background were similar to that of the invaded people.[28]
An invader usually desires to gain something from the invaded people.
In order to succeed, he needs their cooperation. A second way of
thwarting the will of the invader is to refuse that cooperation, and be
willing to suffer the penalties of such refusal. Since the invaded
territory would then have no value, the invader might leave of his own
accord.
A third possibility is for the invaded people to employ sabotage and
inflict damage upon the invader in the belief that his invasion can be
made so costly that it will be impossible for him to remain in the
conquered territory. Such sabotage easily merges into violence.
In the preceding paragraphs, the enemy of the group using non-violence
has been referred to as the "invader," because our best examples of this
type of non-violent opposition are to be found in the histories of
conquered people opposing the will of occupying forces. A similar
situation may exist between a colonial people and the home
government of an imperial power, since in most cases their position is
essentially that of a conquered people, except that their territory has
been occupied for a longer period of time.
FOOTNOTE:
[28] Franklin H. Giddings said, "In a word, non-aggression and
non-resistance are an outcome of homogeneity." "The Gospel of
Non-Resistance," in Democracy and Empire (New York: Macmillan,
1900), 356. See also Case, Non-Violent Coercion, 248; Lewis, Case
Against Pacifism, 185-186.
Non-Violent Resistance to Invaders
Stories of the use of this sort of non-violence occur in our press every
day, as they find their way out of the occupied countries which are
opposing the Nazi invaders with every means at their disposal. In these
countries the vast majority of the people are agreed in their
determination to rid themselves of Nazi control. Such common

agreement is the first requisite for the success of this method of
resistance. When the people of the territory refuse to inform the police
about individuals who are committing unlawful acts against the
invaders, it is virtually impossible for the latter to check the expansion
of non-cooperation or sabotage. Similarly, if the whole population
refuses to cooperate with the invader, it is impossible for him to punish
them all, or if he did, he would be destroying the labor force whose
cooperation he desires, and would have defeated himself in the very
process of stamping out the opposition to his regime.
Hitler himself has discovered that there is a difference between military
occupation and actual conquest. In his New Year's proclamation to the
German people in 1944, he attempted to explain the Nazi reverses in
North Africa and Italy in these words:
"The true cause of the difficulties in North Africa and the Balkans was
in reality the persistent attempts at sabotage and paralyzation of these
plutocratic enemies of the fascist people's State.
"Their continual sabotage not only succeeded in stopping supplies to
Africa and, later on, to Italy, by ever-new methods of passive resistance,
thus preventing our soldiers and the