Nelson Mandela's Use Of Non Violence

In the 1960s, many of the colonial nations of Africa were gaining independence. The ANC was encouraged and campaigned for democracy in South Africa. They were mild campaigns at first, but as the government became more hostile, so did ANC protests. In November 1961, a military branch of the party was organized with Mandela as its head. It authorized the limited use of arms and sabotage against the government, which got the government’s attention—and its anger! Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. It was a sad day for black South Africa.

While when discussing the history of the world’s power forces, violence makes for stimulating discussion, other tactics were put to good use, one of these alternatives being non-violence. With the guidance of three worldwide heroes - Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela - with contagious optimism and high spirits, it became apparent just how much of a difference could be made carried out through non-violent terms. Mankind was introduced to another way to resolve major problems just as effectively, if not more, than violence could.

Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist and writer who would lead the independence movement of India to free the country of British rule (“Mahatma Gandhi,” 2017). He would prove that a single person could change the course of history and take on the entire British Empire. Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience are attributed to his success in gaining independence for India. The act of passive resistance allowed Gandhi to generate more support for his movement for independence while making it difficult for the British to find reasons to arrest them. He argued that although violence could be more effective than peaceful

In order to counter-act the pervasive actions the British were enacting onto the Indians, Gandhi began one of history’s most influential movements. Termed the "Salt Satyagraha", this prodigious struggle for independence had fundamentally changed the England's influence over India forever; a march which, although having minuscule beginnings, swelled to over 100, 000 humans whom all desired one thing- freedom from British oppression (MapsofIndia, 2015) Culturally, this campaign was of utmost importance as it was within the realm

Non-violence is a peaceful strategy people used in the 1900’s to revolt against the government. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mohandas Gandhi had the most success in changing the way we live today. How did they get nonviolence to work? Well they were very disobedient, disciplined, and determined to make a change in society.

He outed the moral and political philosophy of satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance, which he had developed while in South Africa. His message to Indians was simple: develop your own resources and control the instincts and activities that encourage membership in colonial economy and government, and you shall achieve swaraj or self-rule. Faced with Indian self-reliance and self-control pursued nonviolently, Gandhi claimed, the British eventually would have to leave. When the Depression struck India in 1930, Gandhi asked for his people not to use salt showing his new way of civil disobedience. Salt symbolized tasked the Indians' defeat to an alien government. To break the colonial government's control, Gandhi began a 240-mile march from western India to the coast to gather sea salt for free. With him were seventy-one followers representing different regions of India. Thousands of people met around and encouraging them to hold independence from British rule. (Pollard, Rosenberg, Tignor 2015 Pages

“My ambition is no less than to convert the British people through nonviolence, and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India”(Doc D). He never resorted in using violence even in the times where it seemed like it was needed. “My newspapers became for me a training ground in self-restraint…”(Doc M). He led the Salt March on March 11, 1930 to protest against the tax the British had put on salt. Mandela used a nonviolent methods to protest because that was the only way, he thought, he would see results.

M.K. Gandhi was an Indian who protested successfully against Britain and ultimately influenced future events around the world. Gandhi’s most successful tactic to gain Indian independence was “Satyagraha” or passive resistance because the majority of society would disagree with the opponent, they will continue to protest no matter what, and it was successfully used in the Salt March. Firstly, using this tactic, about 80 Indian citizens were publically brutalized by British authorities which greatly influenced the world against them because an eyewitness wrote and sent thousands of newspapers, talking about British police brutality, around the world. For example, in Source 3 the text says, “Webb Miller’s eyewitness account was published in over a thousand newspapers around the world.”

The salt march which is nonviolent was most successful in helping India gain independence. First, before the protest against Britain’s Salt Tax law, Gandhi wrote a letter to Lord Irwin. For example, in the letter it said that salt are one of the most important thing for the poor people. Also, not be able to buy salt because of the high tax are burdensome on the poor people. “... when it is remembered that salt is one thing he must eat more than the rich man” (source #2).

One of the most widely known event would be when Mahatma Gandhi employed nonviolent strategies such as hunger strikes and protest marches in order to fight oppression. In 1930, Gandhi started the “Salt March” which was aimed at the British “salt tax”- Taxing on Indian salt so the people would have to import salt from Britain. Indians were unable to both collect and sell salt because of the British salt monopoly in India. The march and hunger strikes eventually led India to independence from the Brits. Gandhi’s success in guiding his country to freedom by conducting nonviolent means has proven civil disobedience and direct action to be

These huge happenings both removed the global communist threat and freed people from injustices, which created an illusion that the entire world was listening in on South Africa, expecting a revolutionary change. From the very beginning protesters, especially Nelson Mandela himself, were influenced by Gandhi and his Satyagraha campaign in India as it was in several ways a similar fight. They both took place in countries that had been colonised by Great Britain, they both fought against the discrimination and oppression of the population and were both led by world-renowned leaders that shared fundamental ideas of unity and compassion. However, Gandhi’s philosophy wasn’t something Mandela followed meticulously. One of the major differences between their methods of ruling is that Mandela used violence at times, as it came to a point where he saw it as a necessity. It is important to note that without Gandhi’s fight in India, the protesters in South Africa may never have had motivation enough to see the potential they held, and what a difference they could make by

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.” (Mahatma Gandhi) Since Americas independence until today people try to find different approaches to defeat the inequality and the oppression. An old traditional thought is that violence can only be treated with violence, there is no room left for an analysis of the situation and try to approach it differently. Yet, there are ways like Gandhi quote states if we have to break the law and accept the consequences to counter violence by non-violence might as well accept this method; either way people suffer the consequences for “breaking the law”. On the onther hand, a nonviolence movement will shift people view on the positive side rather than the negative side; demonstrating that nonviolence method will achieve justice in a peaceful way without the consequences of violence. The best method to advocate justice is by fostering a Non-violent character to people and to stand up against the enemy with intelligence.

The definition of non-violence is using peaceful ways to get a solution and not use force. It can be used in many different ways whether it is a protest like how Martin Luther King, Jr led his non-violent protest during the fight for the african americans civil rights. i believe in vietnam a buddhist monk peacefully sat down and and burned himself to death to bring attention to how the government in south vietnam controlled the people. Which lead to a turn in the way many think. Or how i mentioned earlier when MLK,Jr first started out he asked all the people as he led the Montgomery bus boycott to peacefully not ride the busses and to just walk and although the boycott lasted for over a year they accomplished what they wanted and desegregated

Once the resistance of the non-violent act came to an end soon followed the violent resistance. It had become of the biggest bloodletting acts in 1960. Here the resistance overthrew the government with the intention to support and shelter the civilians (Engler, 2013). With Mandela trying to support and shelter the civilians this became an act of violence with the justification of bringing in peace to civilians. Power is an influence which can lead to many outcomes. Having the ability to have a quarrel where civilians are not being injured can be an extraordinary outcome but with power one must always have an approach.

Imagine being systematically oppressed from the moment you exited the womb. All your civil rights, based on the amount of melanin in your skin. Drinking from the wrong water fountain, could even get you thrown into jail. Coincidently; this was the life, of black South Africans from the moment of Dutch colonization in 1652, to the first true democratic election in 1994. Apartheid, meaning “separateness” in Afrikaans; was legal segregation enforced by The National Party (NP) from 1948 to 1994. It legally imposed preexisting policies of racial discrimination on the Majority of the South African population. The entire basis of the racist policies, was the darker your complexion the less legal rights you had. Presumably this injustice, could have continued much longer if it weren’t for all involved in the fight against the NP, however the man who arguably contributed the most, was Nelson Mandela. He ended an apartheid, with both his philanthropy and political prowess. He united a nation that used to be segregated; which seemed a daunting task at the time, but through the sweat and bloodshed he achieved the impossible. This alone exhibited his heroic characteristics, but to be more precise: both his actions and inactions lead to his success. Furthermore, Mandela was both a strong leader and forgiving at the same-time. Being in the forefront of the abolishment movement, was an extremely risky move during the apartheid. He risked his life for what he believed in, and this personal