"Nonviolence: A Force More Powerful Than Electricity" by Peter M. Loveless 1 In 1936, Mohandas Gandhi was asked if nonviolent resistance was a form of direct action. “It is not one form,” he answered. “It is the only form…It is the greatest…force in the world…It is.. a force which is more positive than electricity, and more powerful than ever ether.”

2 Nonviolence is a political force that has helped shape history. In many cases it receives less attention than violent conflict such as war or guerrilla activity. Yet is has often produced momentous change. Governments as entrenched as South Africa’s apartheid government, the British occupation of India, and communist Poland have crumbled in the face of ordinary, unarmed people.

3 How is it possible for people to bring about such change when confronting powerful opponents? There are various factors that contribute to the success of nonviolence.

4 First, it is important to understand how governments rule. Political power involves a relationship between the rulers and the workers. Local governments, schools, and businesses rely on the cooperation of the people to run smoothly. Even the most rigid states depend on this cooperation, although they may secure it through invisible forces such as fear or loyalty.

5 Sometimes people in a society are willing to obey the government due to a sense of helplessness or anxiety. Rulers can then behave as they wish. Subjects may withdraw their consent to be governed, however, and this can lead to the disintegration of power.

6 If there is widespread disobedience in a society, rulers will often inflict punishments. Maintaining control in this way requires that some citizens – often a police force or army willing to crush resistance – remain loyal to the government. In many cases, however, people refuse to give in to this kind of force.

7 Another important factor in nonviolence is the number of people willing to take action. Once a campaign of disobedience becomes widespread, it gains momentum and can become a significant force. As more people become involved in disobedience, it becomes harder for a government to control them with violence or imprisonment.

8 As author Gene Sharp writes, “The theory that power derives from violence, and that victory necessarily goes to the side with the greater capacity for violence, is false.” To attain victory

through nonviolence, however, people must understand the methods that are at their disposal. These tools can be divided roughly into three classes.

9 The first kind is symbolic or persuasive action. Protest marches, vigils, speeches, posters, banners, and the like may be used to gain support for a cause.

10 Another method is refusal to cooperate – a passive, but powerful, form of resistance. When citizens disagree with a law, they may disobey it. Workers may go on strike. This happened when Lech Walesa led the Polish people out of the grasp of Soviet control in the 1980s. By bringing an economy to its knees, strikes can result in the total collapse of a regime. Similarly, people can join boycotts or refuse to pay taxes, and government officials, police, and soldiers can all disobey orders. In the end, the entire system that props up a ruler’s power can be taken apart. Then the ruler is no more powerful than any other individual.

11 The third category of nonviolent action is intervention. People may intervene in order to disrupt a situation that they think is causing harm. Methods include sit-ins and peaceful direct action. People may act in ways that they know will lead to their imprisonment, which in turn focuses negative publicity on their opponents. One famous example of this occurred in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.

12 It is often assumed that nonviolence methods take longer to succeed than violent approaches. In fact, the reverse may be true; in some cases, nonviolence has brought about change in a matter of weeks or days.

13 As Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Violence can never destroy what is accepted by public opinion. On the contrary, public opinion need only be diametrically opposed to violence to destroy its every action.”

14 Once a path of nonviolence is chosen, it is crucial to stick to that path. To shift to the use of violence is to adopt the tools of the oppressive regime. The use of violence can dissuade ordinary people from supporting a cause. Valuable allies may turn away. And, in the face of a heavily armed opponent, violence is unlikely to succeed. In contrast, nonviolent resistance has been described as “political jujitsu.” Nonviolence uses the force and weight of an opposing regime against itself in order to bring about the regime’s defeat.

1.
As it is used in paragraph 7, the word momentum most nearly means:

power

time

involvement

adherence