Women in Environmental Nonviolent Action

Nuclear rivalry, as well as terrorism and the war against terror, exemplify the dangerous escalation of violence that is threatening our world. Gandhi’s militant nonviolence offers a possible alternative that avoids a complacent indifference toward injustice as well as the imitation of violence that leads to its escalation. The French-American cultural anthropologist René Girard discovered mimetic rivalries as one of the main roots of human conflicts, and also highlighted the contagious nature of violence. This article shows that Gandhi shares these basic insights of Girard’s anthropology, which increases the plausibility of his plea for nonviolence. Reading Gandhi with Girard also complements Girard’s mimetic theory by offering an active practice of nonviolence as a response to violent threats, and by broadening the scope of its religious outreach. Gandhi’s reading of the Sermon on Mount not only renounces violence and retaliation like Girard but also underlines the need to actively break with evil. Both Gandhi and Girard also address the religious preconditions of nonviolent action by underlining the need to prefer godly over worldly pursuits, and to overcome the fear of death by God’s grace. This congruence shows that Girard’s anthropology is valid beyond its usual affinity with Judaism and Christianity.

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Nonviolent action and world order

International Organization ◽

10.1017/s0020818300005014 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 513-533 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Samuel A. Bleicher

Keyword(s):

World Order ◽

Nonviolent Action

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Between Mao and Gandhi

10.1017/9781108933278 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ches Thurber

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Relational Theory ◽

New Wave ◽

National Data ◽

Civil Resistance ◽

The Social ◽

Nonviolent Action ◽

The Arab Spring ◽

Ability And Willingness ◽

Cross National

From Eastern Europe to South Africa to the Arab Spring, nonviolent action has proven capable of overthrowing autocratic regimes and bringing about revolutionary political change. How do dissidents come to embrace a nonviolent strategy in the first place? Why do others rule it out in favor of taking up arms? Despite a new wave of attention to the effectiveness and global impact of nonviolent movements, our understanding of their origins and trajectories remains limited. Drawing on cases from Nepal, Syria, India and South Africa, as well as global cross-national data, this book details the processes through which challenger organizations come to embrace or reject civil resistance as a means of capturing state power. It develops a relational theory, showing how the social ties that underpin challenger organizations shape their ability and willingness to attempt regime change using nonviolent means alone.

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