As the Green politics movement was getting established during the 1970s and 1980s the conception of the Nonviolence pillar tended to be rather Gandhian. I’m in agreement with such. At the end of this article you can reference expositions of it by Jonathan Porritt (1984), Spretnak/Capra (1984), and Brian Tokar (1987).
I think in 1984 or 1987 the idea that some Greens in 2025 would be clamoring for United States weaponry to be sent into a foreign armed conflict (inflaming a situation, risking a generalized conflagration) would have been anathema.
* * * *
I’m not a pacifist in the sense of “turn the other cheek.” Personal and household self-defense is one thing. Military violence is another thing.
I don’t think Greens should support U.S military interventions or the providing of weapons to other countries, even if those countries are victims of aggression. And we should minimize our own arsenal, limiting production to only defensive weaponry.
Greens should stand consistently for demilitarization. We should strive to have our own country set an example, publicize doing so, and advocate for its adoption worldwide. Country after country should start to convey a message that the cycle of violence must end. That means: the pattern of counter-violent resistance should be renounced. Military budgets should be reduced. Countries that adhere to militarism and continue to produce offensive weaponry should become pariahs.
When there is aggression, counter-violence is counterproductive. It results in ambiguity and ambivalence in terms of sympathy, fault, and responsibility. If there are two sides fighting, outsiders either want nothing to do with the brawl or they line up as per their antipathy. Both sides invariably get blamed for atrocities. Debates about “who started it” and “who’s more atrocious” go on and on.
A professed and demonstrated commitment to nonviolent response earned Gandhi and King the broadest possible sympathy for their causes, often followed by remediative action.
Green politics must be radically alternative, consistently anti-militaristic, and steadfastly nonviolent. I believe such an ethos argues for elimination of all firearms. A gun can kill multiple people, impersonally, at a distance. For me that falls under the category of “weapon of mass destruction.” No guns. Make it a crime to produce or possess a gun. In regard to policing, even now there are a number of countries where only specially-trained officers carry firearms, and then only in limited circumstances. This fosters a culture of disdain for usage of firearms. In regard to militarism, it’s been distressing to see a recent misguided turn: European countries are being pressured by Trump to double their expenditures on armaments.
Invoking the legacies of Gandhi and King, Greens should lead movements for demilitarization and nonviolence: “Break the cycle.” It should be consciously acknowledged and justified: countries which take the lead in regard to demilitarization could get victimized by aggressive militarists. Greens should recommend employing nonviolent forms of resistance. (I’ve always wished the Palestinian resistance had been Gandhian in nature.) I believe in the outcome superiority of nonviolent resistance—less loss of life while setting a better example. That used to be a common viewpoint. Below are examples of early Green movement theorists who were in agreement:
* * * *
From Seeing Green by Jonathan Porritt (1984)
Pages 156-158
I am conscious of a gradual change going on in my own attitudes as I feel myself moving nearer a pacifist position. I suspect that this sort of gradual change is going on in a lot of people, and would therefore suggest that the prime responsibility for Greens in the peace movement is to promote this sort of change by arguing the case for nonviolent civil resistance while temporarily acknowledging that conventional defense policies have a part to play in the transition to a more peaceful world. Such policies must pose the minimum threat to others, must allow for a reduction in military spending, and must promote further disarmament initiatives. At the same time they must raise the political and military costs to any aggressor in the defense of our legitimate interests. Hence our emphasis on defensive deterrence, which would completely rule out the possibility of our being able to mount any significant offensive operation ourselves.
Despite the fact that one still encounters general resistance to the idea that defense and security can be thought of in non-military terms, there are good reasons for moving as rapidly as possible towards a strategy of civil resistance … as the central component of our defense. Any modern war is horribly destructive, and the only really effective way of reducing arms spending is to get rid of the arms. The defeat of the state does not mean the surrender of its people. The aims of civil resistance are to make the country ungovernable for any occupying power, to deny it the economic benefits it would hope to gain, to sow dissent and disaffection among its troops and officials, to maintain the morale of one’s own people whilst undermining that of the occupying power, and to encourage international sanctions against that power. Such resistance would be in the form of strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, demonstrations, and mass non-cooperation. It might also include selective sabotage of facilities, industrial plant, electronic machinery and communications. There are many examples where such resistance has been extremely effective.
The most compelling argument in favor of civil resistance is its deterrent value … The problem for any occupying power trying to impose its will would be staggering … This makes civil resistance an extremely hard-headed, logical defense strategy—but only if there has been thorough preparation in advance. A Civil Resistance Commission should be set up to prepare training manuals and develop contingency plans as an essential preliminary to shifting from conventional to civil resistance. The difficulties involved should never be underestimated, for defense of this sort will require a similar commitment and courage; the need for people to die for their country would not disappear merely because we had done away with our weapons.
Such an approach … would offer the strongest possible deterrent: the total ungovernability of Britain. It would signal with indisputable clarity that our intention was to promote peace, not pursue war. And it would eliminate our threat to any other country, while freeing vital resources for more useful purposes.
* * * *
From Green Politics by Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra (1984)
Page 43
Petra Kelly expresses the centrality of the principle when she says: “Nonviolence is the essential ingredient in an ecological society” … In their Peace Manifesto the Greens explain their tactics by citing Thoreau: “Those who embrace nonviolent civil disobedience, committing breaches of law on the grounds of conscience, are prepared to suffer violence or punishment themselves rather than inflict violence or injustice on others or share responsibility for such acts by remaining passive … If the law is so promulgated that it of necessity makes you an agent of injustice against another, then I say to you: Break the law.”
Pages 61-63
The Greens agree that the border should be dissolved but for a far different end than that of their political colleagues: they wish to see the population organized according to regions. A means of self-defense for the regions—and also for the existing nation-states during a transition period—has been proposed by Gert Bastian in his book Create Peace: Thoughts on the Politics of Security, 1983). The series of actions he recommends are endorsed by the Greens and are being developed further by many peace researchers in West Germany. First, he would have West Germany ban nuclear weapons and reduce the level of troops. Next, it would withdraw from NATO and establish itself as a nonaligned country in what he hopes would become a bloc-free Europe. It would defend its borders with a relatively small number of active troops backed up by a large reserve army, a contemporary practice that has proved to be efficient in other neutral European countries. At first, West Germany would comprise a zone in which only defensive weapons were allowed; eventually this would become a weapons-free zone protected by social defense.
In developing the concept of social defense, Bastian, Kelly, and numerous other strategists in the German peace movement were influenced by the examples of Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King, as well as by the contemporary works of Theodor Ebert and Gene Sharp. Sharp’s work includes his three-volume historical study, The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, and The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action. Social defense protects a population from foreign or internal attacks through active, nonviolent resistance and noncooperation. It includes large-scale symbolic actions, economic boycotts by consumers and producers, social and political boycotts of institutions, strikes, overloading of facilities and administrative systems, stalling and obstructing, deliberate inefficiency, ostracism of persons, and numerous forms of noncompliance in all sectors of a society. Bastian points out that traditional defense strategy prevents an adversary from committing armed aggression by demanding a high price of entry at the border, that is, battle losses, whereas social defense sets an unacceptably high price on staying, that is, occupation. The Germans have a successful example of social defense in their own history: the Ruhrkampf, or civilian defiance of the French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr region in 1923.
Compared to the militaristic mode of defense, Bastian emphasizes, social defense demands more courage, more strength of character, and more willingness to place the individual self after the interests of the whole. He admits that such commitment could not be expected from the population today … but he believes the necessary degree of awareness and readiness could be developed. It was apparent to us that the Greens’ concept of social defense would depend on well-organized, tightly bonded affinity groups in every neighborhood who are prepared to conduct nonviolent civil disobedience [if confronted with the prospect of attempted occupation].
* * * *
From The Green Alternative by Brian Tokar (1987)
Page 121
Greens who profess a personal commitment to nonviolence as a way of life [assert]: If we are to follow our opposition to the arms race to its conclusion, we should be willing to live our own lives without the false protection afforded by any arsenals of weapons. Violence breeds violence and the ability of any occupying army, or any existing government, to control a population requires that most people passively acquiesce to being ruled. A people united in their desire for freedom and well-prepared in the methods of nonviolent resistance should, in this view, be able to mount a non-military social defense against any potential invader.
Historical precedents for this include the successful resistance of people in the Scandinavian countries to the full consolidation of Nazi control during the Second World War and the widespread internal sabotage of the Polish economy in the months following the imposition of martial law in 1981. Gandhi and his supporters developed a full-fledged plan to prevent nonviolently a German occupation of India during the Second World War. A high enough level of non-cooperation, civil disobedience, and sabotage, it is argued, should be sufficient to render any country ungovernable. The awareness that a populace is prepared to respond in this manner should discourage potential invaders, as the difficulty of mounting a successful occupation would quickly outweigh any possible benefits. Most of the repressive military regimes in the world today could not survive without constant infusions of military supplies and brutal counterinsurgency training. A Green decentralist outlook with a firm commitment to personal empowerment through nonviolence might be the key to breaking the habits of subservience that keep people from fully asserting their freedom. In the industrialized world today, nonviolent resistance is clearly the most important tool for opposing the arms race and all forms of militarism. Nonviolent action exposes the moral barrenness of the arms race in a society that believes it is committed to peace.
Nonviolence as an Ideal
