• N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    16 hours ago

    Peaceful protests were meant to be a compromise to warn that something worse was coming. Black Panthers. Weather Underground. IRA and Sinn Fein.

    Effective peaceful movements had potentially violent components. The more radical elements disappeared and peaceful protests became useless.

    Unions were a compromise. Before unions, you’d drag the factory owner into his front lawn and exact justice.

    • JayDee@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Nelson Mandela was released on the terms that he would preach peaceful protest, as the movement he had formerly been leading was a serious threat to the South African Government.

      Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was a proponent of peaceful protest, though it could be argued he was losing faith in it near the end when he was assassinated. right after his death, the Holy Week Uprisings occurred, which saw immediate action from the federal government to pass the Civil Rights Act.

      At the same time, acts of violence lie on a spectrum, and I think there is a fair amount of conversation to be had about what degree of violence and what type of violence are most effective.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        Martin Luther King Jr was able to succeed with his peaceful protests because the threat of Malcolm X was looming directly over his shoulder. One requires the other. Either of them alone would not have made nearly the progress they did.

    • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      I think this guy hit the nail in the head.

      Peaceful protest only works if politicians and financial elite has fear and/or respect towards the commond man/woman. Too much elitisms strips away the respect, too many years of peaceful protests takes away the fear. Sometimes ivory towers need to come down, but violence has a tendency to spread and spiral out of control. It’s a balance trick.

    • Alex@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Yea only under the threat of violence has power ever changed hands. You need both peaceful and violent components to any movement to make any change last though.

      • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Also: we’ve got where we are under threat of violence. Charlottesville and Jan 6 in the USA, the recent gammon riots in the UK, everything Putin does, etc, etc. The Authoritarians have weaponised both peace and violence against us.