#structural violence
“A conquered population is schooled in nonviolence through its relationship with a power structure that has claimed a monopoly on the right to use violence.”— “How Nonviolence Protects the State” by Peter Gilderloos (via smarmyanarchist)
I feel like a lot of well-intentioned people make a lot of very grave mistakes because of the fundamental misconception that violence is always only discrete acts between individuals – and the related misconception that every interaction starts out with a clear slate and remains nonviolent until one individual personally physically attacks another.
Without an understanding of systemic violence, someone resisting violence is going to look like they’re initiating it.
It scales up and down. If you don’t see the environment of terror an abuser fosters, a victim resisting control looks like they’re starting fights. If you don’t understand that someone is hoarding tonnes of food they can’t possibly eat while their neighbours starve, it looks like the starving person is initiating injustice when they steal a little back to survive.
If we want to successfully survive and resist fascism, we need to educate people about the very concept of systemic violence.
We need to talk about it over and over again, until every single person has been introduced to the idea that violence can be in the background working away, that it can happen bureaucratically, that exploitation is violence and hoarding resources is violence and that championing a violent cause is already violence even before the first physical strike.
We need to educate people about what violence is, so that they have the context necessary to even see huge injustice occurring, let alone resist it in the name of reducing violence - instead of holding back out of the fear that to resist is to initiate violence.
Violence is already happening, and inaction supports it. On the understanding of that fundamental fact hinges all hope of ending it.
Με αφορμή το post της @pasta-flora με το quote του Θανάση, περί βίας, και ύστερα από το ψάξιμο του @ilios-erebus, μπορείτε να διαβάσετε το παρακάτω:
“Πώς η μη-βία προστατεύει το κράτος” - Peter Gerderloos
(eng. “How nonviolence protects the state”)
Σε ελληνικά:
https://www.scribd.com/document/399461750/%CE%A0%CF%8E%CF%82-%CE%B7-%CE%9C%CE%B7-%CE%92%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CE%A0%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B5%CF%8D%CE%B5%CE%B9-%CE%A4%CE%BF-%CE%9A%CF%81%CE%AC%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%82
και αγγλικά:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state
