Peace, non-violence and conscience

Peace. Non-violence. Conscience. Three overwhelmingly present terms in the discourses of the big majority of groups aiming to end conflicts.

The errors in these narratives are blatant. These appear at first in the presumptions that the narratives depart from. Peace is seen as canonical, as an intrinsic part of human nature. Peace equals normality, war equals exception. History however shows the exact opposite.

The fact that these groups are calling for the conscience of people – that is to show them facts (violence and its evils) and expect them to react “consciously” about it, expecting people to reject violence as an inevitable evil in the platonically-good-by-nature human – gives their message an aspect of education slightly similar to the rhetoric of the French colonialism: educating the savage people of non-civilized countries on the virtues of the French Enlightenment.

Another point would be the universalized meaning of violence. Violence becomes any act of aggression. Violence becomes a universal moral judgment. One often forgets that violence is a social construct, it is violence because it is defined as so. Acts that are labeled violent in a certain social, cultural or civilization-al context are not necessarily so in another. There is no act that is inherently violent – even the most atrocious of acts.

Peace, however, is this state of being when belligerent forces reach a certain balance. This balance is not equality, or rarely so. Peace and war are two terms that depend upon each other. There is no peace without war, like there is no war without peace – of course in linguistic terms. Peace is therefore a position whereas the power relations reach stability. Peace is imposed not chosen. Peace must be a necessity; it needs to be sustained by interest and power. This does not imply violence in the simplistic meaning of the term – at least not necessarily. This implies strategy. Peace is a strategic goal, and needs strategies that will make such a goal a necessity for both conflicting parties, a necessity that is at the same time in their interests.

Calling for the conscience of people is not the best of strategies. As Nietzsche so explicitly puts it, humanity is violent by nature. “Without cruelty there is no celebration: this is what the long history of man teaches us.” (Translation is unfortunately mine – La Généalogie de la Morale, 71)

Non-violence if it is to become a strategy of resistance must go further than to target the conscience of people. It must use non-violence as a force, not as a rejection of using force. Non-violence must substitute the force of weapons with one that is stronger, more imposing. Non-violent struggle is a struggle that is equally aimed at overcoming a system. It is a struggle that should – rather it must – become more disrupting than armed struggle. And in a more proper use of the word violent, it must become more violent than violent struggle.

Painting: Caravaggio, David with the head of Goliath