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Jewish World Review Sept. 6, 2000 / 5 Elul, 5760

Nat Hentoff

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Consumer Reports


The power of nonviolence


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ON SUNDAY NIGHTS, September 18 and 25, the Public Broadcasting System will air a remarkable, historic documentary, "A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict." Narrated by Ben Kingsley, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Mohandas Gandhi in 1982, the program covers the courageous, perilous careers of Gandhi; the Rev. James Lawson, an American civil rights leader and teacher; and Mkhuseli Jack, a South African leader of nonviolent anti-apartheid actions.

Another part of "A Force More Powerful" focuses on Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa; Sergio Bitar, a key force in Chilean opposition to the murderous regime of Augusto Pinochet; and the extraordinarily brave Danish resistance to Nazi occupation.

I know something about the often-misunderstood subject of direct-action nonviolence. It is not passive pacifism, as the examples of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King have so compellingly demonstrated. My own knowledge comes from having written a biography -- and edited the letters -- of A.J. Muste, a Christian minister who was a key strategist of the anti-Vietnam-War movement and also advised Dr. Martin Luther King in his nonviolent but very direct-action campaigns.

Dr. King told me that he became interested in the strategy of nonviolence when he heard A.J. Muste lecture at the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where King was a student.

As A.J. Muste used to say -- and as this television documentary makes dramatically and reverberatingly clear -- "Peaceableness does not mean trying to disturb nothing or glossing over realities. It is the most profound kind of disturbance we seek to achieve. Nonviolence is not apathy or cowardice or passivity." Steve York, who produced and wrote this two-part, three-hour documentary, points out: "Nonviolent movements often form in response to out-and-out tyranny; but rather than subduing people, repression often energizes them. It rouses public sentiment from the center, the core. The moderate middle won't act until the extremes are cast into dramatic relief.

"The tide turned in Nashville, for example," York goes on, "when the home of a prominent black lawyer was bombed. Such acts fueled the nonviolent ranks of the civil rights movement, rallied the African-American community, engaged the white community, and caught the attention of media and government because the contrast was devastating."

The contrast is between violent hatred and the nonviolence of determined resistance to that hatred. During the Vietnam War -- influenced by A.J. Muste; Dorothy Day, the Catholic speaker of truth to power; and others -- I committed civil disobedience in front of a draft registration center, along with hundreds of others that day.

Based on my knowledge of American leaders of nonviolent direct action -- including A.J. Muste and Martin Luther King -- Peter Ackerman, editor of this television series, is exactly right when he says that "leaders in these conflicts themselves are often reluctant leaders and even more reluctant heroes. They're not power-mad; they're not looking for glory. Some of them don't especially want to be leaders; they just want to stop the tyranny or the inequity."

There is a companion book to this documentary, published by St. Martin's Press. The title is the same: "A Force More Powerful." Sen. John McCain, who is well-experienced in direct action that is not nonviolent, says of the book: "I recommend it to anyone who believes that power only flows from the barrel of a gun."

There are added values to a PBS series like this one. The television program will be distributed to libraries and schools, and videos can be purchased for home use. Moreover, the Albert Einstein Institution will see to worldwide dissemination of videocassettes and study guides for classrooms and libraries.

In a time when there are so few authentic heroes (none of whom are currently running for president on the major-party tickets), "A Force More Powerful" shows all of us -- young and old alike -- people who take principled risks far beyond their own self-interest.



JWR contributor Nat Hentoff is a First Amendment authority and author of numerous books. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

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