Pace e Bene Blog

Martin Luther King's 5 points on the Alternative to Violence

July 1st, 2009 - by Jarrod McKenna

Martin Luther King, Jr asked people in his movement to “Meditate daily on the life and teachings of Jesus” when preparing for nonviolent direct action. As I prepare for a another NVDA in a couple of weeks time, I’m seeking to do just that in a way that I too can experience anew and affirm with Martin Luther King Jr., that nonviolence is “the love of God working in the lives of [us]”. As you read MLK’s 5 principles of his “Alternative to Violence”, please keep our group in your prayers. I’ll write more about the action soon.

May these words inspire you to take action that witness to Love’s New Creation, what Martin Luther King Jr. would call “The Beloved Community”. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“… the basic question which confronts the world’s oppressed is:

How is the struggle against the forces of injustice to be waged?

There are two possible answers.

One is resort to the all too prevalent method of physical violence and corroding hatred. The danger of this method is its futility. Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones…

Alternative to Violence
The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance… Five points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method…

1. This is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as is the person who uses violence. [Our] method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward [our] opponent. But [our]mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that [they are] mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually…

2. Nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win [their] friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express [their] protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but [they] realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.

3. The attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil…

4. Nonviolent resistance avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the centre of nonviolence stands the principle of Love. In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the centre of our lives…

… it means understanding, redeeming good will for all [people], an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of [us]. When we love on the agape level we love [people] not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves them. Here we rise to the position of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed he does.

5. Finally, the method of nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. It is this deep faith in thefuture that causes the nonviolent resister to accept suffering without retaliation. We know that in [our] struggle for justice [we have] cosmic companionship. This belief that God is on the side of truth and justice comes down to us from the long tradition of our Christian faith. There is something at the very centre of our faith which reminds us that Good Friday may reign for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the Easter drums… “

Source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Nonviolence and Racial Justice.” The Christian Century, February 6, 1957, pp. 165-167.