Violence and Freedom- Exploring the Use of Violence to Liberate the Oppressed

“The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

History has a tendency to repeat itself.  One of humanity’s most popular ways of getting its point across is through violence.  When words are no longer enough to argue a point, human casualties not only directly solve the problem, but symbolically send a message to all those affected as well.  Just as the American colonies fought against the British for Freedom when their voice was no longer heard, and just as the Islamic extremists used terrorism to send an evil message to America, both V and Chancellor Sutler used violence to gain a voice in a world of chaos.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor: it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Freedom is the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants. All people have freedom from birth or even from the beginning of some type government power. On the contrary, people have been demanding for freedom on account of the higher power or government taking it away from them for their specific reasons. In Collection texts, “I have a Dream”, by Martin Luther King Jr, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, and “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela all demonstrate that freedom must be demanded.

Mankind has long accepted violence as a fair means to achieve equality. In human history, the most thorough changes are brought in by the most radical overthrow of the old structure, knocking down the walls that separated the silent majority from the minority, sweeping aside the commands of the oppressors, tearing down the chains of oppression that once trapped them away from their inherent rights of freedom, in an effort to achieve justice for themselves and their countries. Revolutions in particular illustrated that the groups that desire reform but are willing to compromise for stability, take longer to implement changes, while the groups that are more devoted to revolutionary change and are often unafraid to use violence, could implement

Violence is an unavoidable terror that has played one of the, if not the most, important roles in all of history. Without violence, lands wouldn’t be conquered, empires wouldn’t fall, and people wouldn’t have any limits or restrictions. The French Revolution is one example of a violent uprising because the people of France revolted against the rule of King Louis XVI by raiding, storming, and slaughtering for their natural equal rights. The revolution marked the end of a government ruled by monarchy and the start of the Republic of France. One important reason of why the revolution was successful in bringing political change was because it was violent.

This repeated strategy allows the reader to draw the connotation from the words into the arguments. Chavez promotes this by describing nonviolence with the words such as “power,” “support” and “justice.” These words have a strong, positive connotation, which is then applied to nonviolence. Giving his argument the aforementioned strong, positive connotation appeals to the pathos of his readers and further validates his argument. Chavez proceeds to critique violent resistance in the same way he validated nonviolence. By including words with negative connotations, such as “shortcut,” demoralization,” and “exploit,” violence resistance receives the strong negative connotation these words have. With the article published in the magazine of a religious organization, Chavez’s audience consisted of religious people devoted to helping those in need. Even when Chavez is looking to the religious component of nonviolent resistance, he includes comparisons to strengthen his argument. After Chavez describes “human life [a]s a very special possession given by God” he emphasizes that “no one has the right to take it for any reason.” These opposing positions create a clear choice for the religious readers to support, which is also Chavez’s position. When the text is examined beyond its surface appearance, the contrasting connotations support the growth of nonviolent

David Nirenberg talks about two types of violence, “cataclysmic violence” and “systematic violence”. The first part of the book discusses “cataclysmic” violence, while the second part of the book focuses on “systematic violence.”

It is amazing how easily one can use his or her power to destroy communities, families, and lives to accommodate to their beliefs and ideals. In response to Elie Wiesel, human lives are no doubt priceless because one can never replace another life after it has been lost. It has come to my attention that Elie’s quote is based on his experience of seeing the lives of his fellow ethnic group members being eradicated for a superficial ideal; moreover, I strongly agree what Elie is conveying in his words. No matter what complication violence should never be the answer, but when one is forced back against a wall then there has to be self defense whether it is a bully at school or a psychopath who planned a genocide that killed millions of people. At that moment is when all humans should pay attention to the matter.

The Europeans used violence as a tool in the initial colonization of Africa, in the World Wars against their own African soldiers and against other European countries, and in attempts to quell African independence movements (Laumann). Africans participated in the violence of many wars in the 1900’s and in freedom movements. Fidel Castro, a Cuban hero of the revolution, is a good example of colonial African violence to gain independence from Europe. He provided African nations with “Cuban military, technical, and medical assistance” as well as made contact with various “leaders of guerilla movements” (Laumann 71). Nelson Mandela is another revolutionary hero who helped free South Africa with the help of Fidel Castro. This is the primary difference in the moral argument of violence in colonial Africa, the World Wars era and the independence of African nation states. European countries implemented violence for the sake of control and power. They created a hierarchy system and placed themselves at the top while using violence to keep everyone else in line. The African soldiers, though some were volunteers, were forced into violence by the European powers. Later, they were forced to violence by the need to defend their homeland from the unjust colonization. Mandela was referred to as a terrorist in his time due to his violent tactics. Since the reasoning behind the violence on each side stems

The comparison of violence to nonviolence highlights Chavez’s argument that nonviolence is the only way to achieve positive results. Chavez characterizes violence as a temporary solution in which “people suffer.” This description of violence as a last resort that results out of frustration is in stark contrast to Chavez’s characterization of nonviolence. Nonviolence stems from oppression. It is exercised as a form of self-determination

In order to discuss the modes of violence inherent in any symbolic order, a discussion of violence must precede its effects. It is easy to observe what I will call ‘subjective’ violence; however, doing so taints an ‘objective’ assessment. By subjective violence, I mean acts that we can describe as breaking the status quo or utterly unacceptable; spewing a spit ball, punching a friend, engaging in armed conflict, and so on. Objective violence is the status quo, or systemic acts maintaining the existing order; profit schemes enabling the last recession, government institutions that motivate resistance, etc. For the sake of brevity, I only wish to note that I am conceptualizing the notion of violence in an operative sense, as, I believe, it is the only way to provide an effective critique of

“We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves as if it were normal we continue to sow destruction, pain, death. Violence and war lead only to death.” Famed human rights activist Mahatma Gandhi explains that violence has become all too mundane in the Modern Day; humans have become far too comfortable with committing atrocities. Furthermore, the path of violence is a sinister one, the end only brings suffering and death, and escape is all but impossible. Throughout history violence has been present throughout all interactions of mankind, the human race has killed millions of its own, and burned great empires to nothing more than rubble. Thus, the question arises, how does

Political violence is the leading cause of wars today. Personal agendas have led to many of the political objectives that cause violence today this has caused many problems throughout the world and will continue to do so until a solution to this issue is found. Political objectives have been advanced involuntarily dependent upon the kind of government a nation exercises. For instance, in a democratic nation political groups must worry about convincing the majority in order to advance ethically. Those who try to influence the majority through acts of violence are considered today as “terror” organizations. Though perhaps if it were not because of the recent 9/11 terror attacks that maybe such warrants would not be seen as terror attacks,

In Frantz Fanon’s text “Concerning Violence” he establishes his response to colonization and decolonization to be the simple act of violence against the oppressor. I find that Fanon’s reasoning’s for using the sole practice of violence to directly reflect his past experiences. Fanon was affected directly and indirectly by experiencing the Fascist and Colonial violence as an African man and also witnessing the atrocities of his peers while growing up in Martinique. He also witnessed the atrocities of WWII when he fought against Nazi Germany and during the Algerian War as Algerians tried to gain independence from France. His only answer to the dehumanizing violent atrocities was to fight back with extreme violence to regain freedom from the world’s

The term violence brings to memory an image of physical or emotional assault on a person. In most circumstances, the person affected due to violence is aware that a violent action has been performed on that person. There is another form of violence where the affected individual, in most cases are unaware of the violence inflicted upon them. These types of violence are termed as structural violence. Structural violence is a form of invisible violence setup by a well-defined system, to limit an individual’s development to his full potential, by using legal, political, social or cultural traditions (Winter and Leighton, 1).