He only wasn’t executed as is because the constant threat of violence against the empire; the Raj couldn’t even keep him in prison for more than 2 years because his importance as a leader to the civilians. Ghandi was a West-facing actor inspiring international support for the Independence of India, but the movement took 90 years - with many, many violent clashes between the citizens and the Brittish who regularly slaughtered thousands of civilians for no particular reason. It took a massive sustained effort of peaceful resistance targeting the British economy, revolutionary warfare, and local politics all working together to eventually break Brittish rule.
And even still, Ghandi supported the war against Nazi Germany saying that India won’t gain its independence from the ashes of a destroyed Britain.
One reason for advocating non-violence – and doing so loudly – is because, realistically, no political movement will be error free. But you can also think of it as keeping your own side in check. But certainly, there will demonstrations, some agitation, and what ultimately moves a cause forward may have something to do with the activities of everyone involved…
But one has to be aware that the risk is always that things will just come unglued.
I also think that what’s changing now is that the political polarisation is accelerating; I suspect some of that effect is a result of social media, and not just “echo chambers” but the amplifying effects of “likes” and “retweets”. I think this is a time in history that we ought to be very, very wary of anything other than peaceful protest.
Nazis are evil and dangerous. Like, for real. This is not up for debate. Why do you keep bringing this up as though they’re in any way comparable to other groups, over and over again? I’m really starting to wonder how you can keep ignoring that fact, and I don’t like the direction the answer is leading.
I addressed this in my first reply to you. We already have restrictions on some types of bad, offensive speech (child pornography, libel and slander, incitement to violence) because they are dangerous and worthless to society. Nazism should be among them. Tolerating it has literally no benefits to anyone who isn’t a Nazi. It’s inherently an incitement to violence. Why is this so difficult?
And the way to deal with that is to pretend that only the most righteous of actors deserve political freedom and equality before the law? That’s the politics of respectability in a nutshell there, I’d argue.
It’s not 1860 or 1968 - years that were far more tumultuous and divided.
You know the majority of sensible people who see those images think all those people rioting after a match are, well, behaving idiotically.
But there’s also another crucial difference.
Those are limited cases, generally contained to the results of the game – it’s not a political action with the same kind of stakes, that could trigger counter-action, escalate violence, and risk fracturing a society.
It’s a egregious rowdiness though, for sure.
But it’s not intended to intimidate people of differing political ideologies, or the general public at large. There may be short term intimidation. But the goal of groups like antifa is to hijack democracy through violence.
I did until I chose to study Ghandi in college and realized how (and this sounds much harsher than it means to be) small a role he played in the independence of India, and how much of it was to have a West-facing leader and the impossibly large number of normal human beings he represented. That not every Indian was a cop-killing savage with a turban.
It’s also around the time I read MLK’s autobiography, and was shocked about his perspective on his life versus what I was taught by white America.
So, you’re okay with white supremacists committing murder and getting arrested, but antifascists committing assault and getting arrested is where you draw the line?
And it’s okay for Nazis to attempt to hijack democracy through violence, but antifa trying to stop them with violence is a step too far?
It happens quite a bit, and far less people are arrested for it. And the media response is often a should shrug of boys will be boys BS. But pretty much any thing that comes from the black community or from the left is painted as a violent uprising, no matter the reality of the event or who is responsible for the violence.
Except of course in places where Soccer Hooliganism was precisely that. Let’s not forget that in the Yugoslav conflicts the militias were often made up of soccer club supporters. Sport can very much be related to political ideology.
But as others have pointed out, anti-fascist violence is often aimed at protecting people or aimed at property, not people. And there is no single political force behind that movement - it’s a coalition of groups, from progressives, to marxists, social democrats and anarchists who oppose the most dangerous political movement out there right now, fascism. So you’re entirely wrong on that. The single example of the political implementation of what groups like this generally want (which is currently being destroyed by our friends the Turks) is Rojava, which has been experimenting with some radical democratic structures. And we can only say American was really a full democracy since 1965, and then there are some real problems with our democracy, as it’s already been hijacked by the right wing racists who currently own the GOP.
What about Marxism? Would you add that to the “dangerous and worthless to society” category? I would.
But there’s another criticism here – libel and slander laws HAVE been abused to create chilling effects. That’s precisely why Trump wants to expand them in the U.S. That’s part of his more dangerous authoritarian agenda.
The threshold for “inciting violence” is actually very, very high.
As for child pornography, the sharing of images is not an act of free speech as those images document a crime, and were commissioned during the a criminal act; the images wouldn’t exist in a vacuum where someone wasn’t hurt in the making of the images.
Agreed – except that sports tends, more often, to nest the political conflict within the game. This can actually also be beneficial. Yes, sometimes things spill out of the game, that happens.
Just because something appears apolitical doesn’t mean that it is. The fact that the cops in the US, rarely come down hard on rioting football (American football) fans at the same time that they’ll violently put down a hint of an uprising in a black majority neighborhood makes it political.
You’re right, I typed too quickly – I was more referencing American sports, but I’ve commented elsewhere here that conflict nested within a sporting arena has the effect of containing the violence – or letting the stem off between contesting groups.
And I’ve also said those hooligans should be arrested for their conduct.
Entirely unsurprising. This is like when the British National Party recruited skinheads as their foot soldiers… White resentment can run quite deep and can be quite useful for the political right.
Nazis - believe in ethnic purges as a fundamental aspect to their political beliefs, and even create tiers within white people to always have a racial purge as a part of law. This also extends to sexuality, gender, and social choices. They also believe in violent expansion of their land as their fundamental right as the one true people. Against communal and private ownership of enterprise, and that the economy should be a part of the state controlled by the elite and pure members of the party.
Maxists - believe that the means of production belong to everyone, and that social class structures need to be flattened so that everyone contributing to the furtherment of society has a more equal role.
