HOW WE UNDERSTAND NON-VIOLENCE
Non-violence concerns everything that does not harm sentient people. This includes both legal actions (demonstrations, happenings, petitions, etc.) and illegal actions (civil disobedience, hacking, sabotage except fire and explosives, etc.). We see non-violence as an integral part of our strategy. Here is why.
PROBLEMS RELATED TO THE USE OF VIOLENCE (in our context)
- Lack of inclusiveness (people with disabilities or physical or moral fragility, etc.) ;
- Attraction of harmful virilist profiles for our comrades;
- Reinforcement of habits of political competition;
- Reinforcement of socio-political polarizations (rejection and/or incomprehension by the public opinion and reaction of the adversary).
BALANCE OF POWER
- We are currently in a situation of material inferiority (weapons, surveillance systems, supply network, transportation, etc.) ;
- We are currently in a situation of financial inferiority (allowing our adversaries to pay their troops, to have sufficient material, personnel, food, etc.);
- We are currently in a situation of media inferiority;
- We are currently in a situation of numerical inferiority.
VALUES
Having clear values about how we fight makes it easier to build alliances.
A person who knows our values and our course of action will be better able to determine whether an alliance with us is compatible with his or her own strategy. If these values are too vague, potential allies will not be able to identify us and will not trust us. This is why we are committed to fighting without resorting to physical or psychological attacks.
CREATIVITY
In the face of an adversary who dominates us in every way, we must use imagination and creativity to redefine the terms of the confrontation so that they are to our advantage. To do so, we must use an imaginative and multiple repertoire of actions, targets and objectives.
The violence we want to avoid only takes away three modalities: insults; murder, attacks, etc.; and sabotage with fire and explosives.
We do not question the legitimacy of violence. We make the strategic choice to avoid it given the current context.
Credit: MEDUSES PROJECT
This content was originally created by our Meduse Project partners, reproduced here with their permission and adopted by the Vegan Option Canada collective.