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Research Essay

There has been numerous revolutions held recently involving Middle Eastern countries which have been seen around the world as massive groups of individuals protest and demand change within their own political structures. The stunning factor to take in with these heavily oppressive dictatorships in the Middle East was the minimal accounts of violence committed during these revolts and rallies. The iconic turning point could be said about non-violent revolutions was Gandhi's movement in India in order to separate from the British Empire which has set a platform and model for future revolutions to follow. While non-violence is preached, Malcom X a man who established a movement for the black population in the United States in order to gain more rights and freedoms as the felt oppressed and unequal in their country. His attitude towards his movement was the need to fight and retaliate for what has been done to them in order to achieve their rights and freedoms. With these two brief examples of the classical ways of determining the right method of a revolution in terms of the use of violence to achieve the result desired by the people. Violence cannot be justified in order to achieve freedoms and justice for the oppressed population as it often does not have long term positive effects on the nation, mainly in economics and finance as after violent revolutions the consequences after have mostly been currency depreciation, increased poverty and unemployment. This has mainly been due to lack of coordination of a replacement political party after the revolution as the main concentration is to oust the present head of state. The discussion will continue with the foundation of justifying violence through Ghandi and Malcom X visions along with the present effects of recent European revolutions and present ones in the Middle-East which will compare levels of violence used in the revolutions and the results in order to justify that violence is not a legitimate strategy to achieve political change.

The movement in India conducted mainly by Mohandas Gandhi was a non-violent revolution in order to achieve Indian independence from the British Empire. The non-violent revolution was based on the idea of passive resistance which he describes as "a method of securing rights by personal suffering, it is also the reverse of resistance by arms" (Gandhi. Pg.122). He believed that this was the only justifiable way to truly obtain rights and freedoms while also ousting the British from India. There is also a valid reference to a violent revolution that occurred in Italy as they were motivated to become independent from Austria, even though societies were similar. The master mind of this plot to put Italy in arms was Mazzini, and the results ended with Austrian troops withdrawing and Italian leader Mazzini to take charge. But with this feat achieved, "Italy still did not become free, as the state was still subject to slavery and the poverty of the working class was not dealt with which sparked more revolts" (Gandhi. Pg.175). This reflects back to the point that when a violent revolution occurs it is mostly concentrated on removing the power in hand rather than thinking about what happens after the goal is accomplished, this was seen in Italy's violent revolution as the reforms that were promised or thought to be addressed never were. Ghandi saw that India could not be able to take arms against the heavily militarized British Empire, as even if this was possible it would take a significant amount of time to accomplish. Which is why this non-violent revolution by Gandhi has shed significant light on how future revolutions can organize for success with both the dismantling of the head of state and the structure for society politically and economically. The revolution in Italy gave Gandhi the insights to plan for life after revolution and a solution for real change when a new political system was installed. This prompted Ghandi's vision to establish "constructivist programmes, which were aimed developing a decentralized network of self-governing communal villages which rejected the western capitalist fundamentals" (Braatz. Pg.10). Now these ideas by Ghandi may not be the most ideal to have a thriving economy but the main factor to consider is that there is action taken to create real change for the people after revolution in terms of rights, stability and freedom.

There is another side of the classical spectrum that takes a different take on violent action in protests and revolts, which is preached by figures such as Malcom X in the United States as he was advocating for the rights and freedoms for the African American population who felt that they were not being protected or treated fairly at all from the government and that they were being oppressed by the white population of the nation. The motivation behind this revolt was the will to "fight" for peace where the threat of violent action is very evident. This revolt is fueled by anger and hate which is a recipe for violent action against the white population, where the black population feel retaliation is justified due to what the white population has done to them as the black population feels "that the government has not protected us, so they will do whatever is necessary in order to protect themselves" (Malcom X. pg.173). These actions they feel are justified due to that white population has done the same, which is not a logical attitude playing a game of seesaw where each side goes back and forth trying to one up each other which could cause a state of a civil war. But Malcom X has placed these ideas in the black population's minds for such as they feel "not a single white person in America would allow what they have done to the black population happen to them" (Malcom X pg.171). This revolt is based in revenge, and is not a justifiable action to take to achieve demands from the government as this will only create more tension between the two parties. In order to achieve the goal of rights and independence of the black population, Malcom X created his own Organization of Afro-American Unity, which can be seen almost as his own rebel group or militia. The main goal of this group "was to address their problem to the UN and provide defense units in every area of this country where workers are seeking voting rights" (Malcom X pg.). With all this being done by the leadership of Malcom X to take aggressive action in order to achieve independence for the black population, it seems like a positive movement and may be successful, but again the common problem of violent revolutions exists with this one as "one of the biggest obstacles is that many Negro leaders live on undemocratic terms, which will then lead to totalitarian control which damages the middle working class of the people as political institutions are not stable which will then cause unemployment and poverty" (Malcom X, Pg.177). This is almost a similar situation which is what happened with Italy's revolution as with a violent revolution, there is often no solution for political structure after the revolutions main goal has been completed. Why this attitude of hate and revenge among the black population is not justified by leaders such as Malcolm X is because of the risk of continued violence and history of negro leadership in the past as by threating government with violence can cause government structural violence and also "there needs to be the avoidance of creating a militant group which is what Malcom X did (OAAU) and instead focus on advancing civility and humane government to remove the hatred between races" (Malcom X. pg.179). That statement again specifies the main idea of this report is to focus on building economic and politically stable structures after revolutions in order to achieve true success as these threats of violence and creation of militant groups by Malcom X do not justify gaining independence and rights for the black population, nonviolent measures can be used to achieve this.
After reviewing these classical ways of justifying violence in revolution by Gandhi and Malcom X. Violence is not justifiable for Malcom X and his revolution as there is no imminent threat or physical attack happening on the black population which maybe would justify the use of violence in terms of self defense. But instead this has been carried out by the use of propaganda and preaching of leaders to establish hate to fuel a revolution to achieve rights but little no thought of structures of society if the feat were to be achieved. Gandhi takes a more peaceful road to achieve his goal as when facing a larger more powerful regime, violence is not the most logical choice, instead passive resistance is used to make their voice heard for independence, which there was harm done to Gandhi and his protesters there was a considerable amount of progress being made with his movement than Malcom X. If organized and executed with precision a non-violent revolution can indeed achieve beyond what a violent one can to break the political structures of an oppressor, but the main factor which many revolutions do not take in is the after math after the climax. There must be plans to establish stable and political and economic structures. A non-violent revolution is more justified for this as it leans away from another dictator stepping in to power and continuing again an oppressive state.
While looking at these two examples by Gandhi and Malcom X in history that have influenced political movements to this day. We can use the classical views of justifying violence in revolutions in recent history such as the one that has happened recently known as the "Arab Spring" where Egypt has gotten lots of attention and also ones in the late 20th century where the struggle for many eastern European countries tried to break free from the Soviet communist regime to install forms of democratic structures. When comparing the results and outcomes of these more recent revolutions we can then analyze and compare with the classical methods and see if Gandhi and his non-violent teachings can be an effective and establish that violent revolutions are not a justified method of achieving political requests or establishing change in a nation. There must also be evidence for political structures to be established after the change has taken place in order to escape an authoritarian government along with the short and long term structures for the economy to remain stable for the working class, as most revolutions are started from the middle working-class.

The Arab spring has taken the middle-east by storm in the past five years where we have seen dictatorships that have lasted for over thirty years crumble in a matter of days due to the protests and demands of thousands of citizens in these countries who are crying for democratic structures to be implemented. The Arab spring revolutions were predominately non-violent as were most in recent history as "from 1900-2006, non-violent revolutions against authoritarian regimes as they twice as likely to succeed compared to violent movements" (Cheonoweth. Pg.1). Civil resistance is very similar to the strategy of Gandhi where a collective group of diverse people come together and act in non-violent matters to protest and obstruct government activities. This method of civil resistance is seen "as the best strategy to achieve social and political change, as the large diverse group of protesters puts unsustainable costs on the regime" (Chenoweth. Pg.2). With all these good things being said about these revolutions, again similar to some violent revolutions in the past, the main idea of the revolution is to overthrow the dictator "which is the triumphant moment of any revolution, but surveys have shown that many of these revolutions omit plans for what happens after this feat" (Braatz. Pg.5). This seems to be a theme for many revolutions, but if there is a significant amount of effort that goes in to establishing a takeover political party with economic and political structures ready to go, non-violent revolutions have all the tools to work almost every time. Now this does not mean that the tables have turned and now violent revolutions are the best ones, non-violent revolutions are still the most effective ones and violent ones are still not justified by any means. Getting to the question of whether non-violent revolutions can create an escape for the people instead of being doomed to existing political structures, and the answer yes, the key for these revolutions to work is that there must be a high number of people which are all diverse by any means such as age, gender and occupations which will be discussed further.