African Activist Archive

Pamphlet reprinting an article from the October 1972 issue of GANDHI MARG. The pamphlet say to overthrow such enemies of mankind as illiteracy, poverty, ill-health, economic disparity, and political injustice is certainly to conduct a revolution of vast proportions; today this basic revolution is required in widespread areas of the world. The pamphlet says as a pacifist who recognizes that rapid and revolutionary political and social change is imperative today, both in America and Europe and in the Third World, I naturally bring with me a deep concern about the use of violence in waging the struggle. The pamphlet says the Defiance Campaigns in South Africa were supported by tens of thousands of people; they were well organized, and produced some tangible results, but the shooting down of defenceless people at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960 brought an end to that chapter of their struggle, not only in South Africa, but in the whole southern part of the continent; Sharpeville convinced the Africans that the forces they confront will not yield to campaigns of nonviolent resistance. The pamphlet says I believe in nonviolent revolution but I also believe that it is neither humane nor practical to urge nonviolent revolution upon others whose situation is so totally different from our own; it is up to the Latin Americans and the Africans to decide how they will wage their struggle for freedom. The pamphlet discusses Gandhi, Martin Luther King, defiance of unjust laws, Milton Mayer, hunger, poverty, land reform, education, race, creed, Kenneth Kaunda, the Zambezi River, South West Africa, Rhodesia, the imperialist rise of Western nations, Asia, Latin America, brutal practices and behaviour of the police and penal system and the injustice of the courts and legal system, Nelson Mandela, Umkonto we Sizwe, Quaker House in New York City, Jayaprakash Narayan, Upper Volta, national liberation movements, African freedom fighters, Newark, Kent State, Indochina, the Indian Ocean, Guatemala, and Watts. • Nonviolent versus violent methods • The advantages of nonviolent change • A double mandate • A dose of our own medicine • The place where white Americans must work • Conclusion

African Activist Archive

Nonviolence not first for export

Creator

Place Created

Date

Type of Item

Length/duration

Description

Publisher

Organization

Coverage Africa

Language

Digital Format

Rights Management

Collection