Chapter Seven Promoting Nonviolence
Chapter Seven Promoting Nonviolence
In the year two thousand six, twenty-nine armed conflicts took place in twenty-five countries throughout the world amplifying military spending at more than one point two trillion U.S. dollars. Forty-one point five percent of these armed conflicts occurred in Africa and another thirty-eight percent in Asia. Up to one thousand people die each day as a result of gun violence alone.
The U.N. Millennium Project, two thousand two to two thousand six, wrote that every day, throughout the world, eight hundred million people go to bed hungry with a person dying of starvation every three point six seconds - the large majority of which are children under the age of five.
Options in the Face of Violence
Options in the Face of Violence
In the face of direct or structural violence, humans are generally faced with three response-options: one is to do nothing about it; another is to respond with violence; and last is to respond nonviolently.
To do nothing about oppression and repression encourages the perpetuation of the oppressive/repressive system. The failure to act may be due to fear, helplessness or indifference. To respond with violence perpetuates the cycle of hostility and carnage. Those who resort to counter-violence say that they are motivated by the desire to seek justice or to defend one's life or dignity. But alas, violence produces anger and bitterness on the part of the victims, setting off a dangerous cycle. Nonviolence, on the other hand, "seeks to create a situation that would liberate