Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: One, two, three, four. It is four questions, but it’s just one, right? So between non-violent resistance and arm struggle where do we go? And what is effective? What’s the right thing to do? And do we need a biodiversity of resistance? So arm struggle and non-violent resistance, the last sentence, do we need a biodiversity of resistance? Is an arm struggle? Is that resistance? I go to my brothers of the Mayans, at the Zapatista territory in Chiapas, Mexico, who are now arm resistance of non-violence. Their unresistance to the North American free trade agreement that privatizes their land and unlike Hamas, who’s also not a terrorist group, but a group of resistance. They’re standing up in the resistance of what is happening in their world? However, their resistance is one of a proactive might. Earlier last month, a Mayan village in the Highlands of Chiapas was burned, homes burned, people killed. This is the Mexican military coming in and doing this act. 30 families, it’s very small, right? Life’s changed. The Zapatistas, they did not launch bombs. They did not do it the Mexican military wanted them to do, which was to fight back. Because once they fight back, they may have a reason. They have a reason to come in, and really do what they want to do to the movement in which is destroy it because it is a movement, as the other campaign of the indigenous rights in a very politically corrupt nation. They hold their arms as a symbology to protect themselves and that they have power. They have a non-violent resistance, and over the 12 years of resistance, please count on your hand how many people have died from the Mexican military? We need everyone’s hands in this table and in this crowd. The Zapatistas hold up your hands and you can count.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: In some situations, we have to fight. And those situations when there is a genocide that is happening, the world need to react. You cannot be passive. And I think we have examples around the world where there's conflict that really eliminated entire numbers of population, and everyone is so passive about it. So we need to really change our mentality. We need to really do the right thing. And the right thing would be dependant on what happened on every occasion. Some people mention that in some way or the other there's a classes concept of conflict. Because if you're killing some people of some race, probably you have a stronger reaction of the international community. If it's people from other race, international community would let it go. They don't care. So I think we have to eliminate this perspective. And what we have to bring on the table is that every human lifes in the world is valuable. Every person, every little person in this world. Big person, small person, are important, in terms of entire body that we can call humanity.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: Armed struggle usually has an enormous number of negative consequences, so I have trouble believing that’s very often the recipe for change. We’ve seen in the collapse of the Apartheid system in South Africa and in the collapse of the Soviet block in the peaceful transition to democracy across eastern Europe and even hopefully a sustainable in Russia that if we’re patient this change is possible even without a war. So I think what we need to do is to try to find ways with education and using economics and innovation to make the change in the world that we want to make and to do it in a way that uses armed struggle as little as possible because of all the terrible precedents it sets for those in power to use their power to achieve their needs and their objectives through propaganda and through force. The truth may take longer to win, non-violence may take longer but it seems to me it’s a better non-violent economical ethical way of struggling than to resort to violence.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: I just answered similar question, there I will add following to it. I don’t know what can be efficient in our straggle. If we hold to the above mentioned principles, we will always be barehanded, weak, and sometimes in small numbered. Last year I was in my ex-country Serbia, in the Belgrade a 2 million people city. Big part of them are holding to there pitiful government, big part is cowardly keeping silent and endures the hardship. Only one center called “For The Decontamination Of The Soul" performs: discussions circles, conferences, subjects oriented circles, literal readings, exhibitions, theater plays and so on day to day. This center gathers only some few hundreds of people, but still it is a point beaming with the freedom, intelligence and most important with the hope. Similarly there is an unique Magazine issued in the Croatia in the city Split and called "Feral Tribune", this magazine has tight spin and is being hindered with deferent tricks even though journalisms in the Croatia is free. Still honorable and intelligent people read this magazine as rare delight. So there is always possibility to do something.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Wow! Well, this is a great question from [Arundhati Roy], a very fine lady. The biodiversity of resistance. Well, let’s think about this. Actually, the tradition in India, if we go back into the deep history of India (and [Arundhati Roy] comes from India), there is this classic account of the dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjun, who was one of the greatest warriors of his time. Arjun, for those of you that might know, was an archer. Archery, of course, was in a sense an allegorical notion. It was a metaphor for human being. The bow representing the body, the string the mind, the arrow the thought, and he was the greatest archer of his day. He was the master of thought, but he couldn’t master his condition. So anyway, Lord Krishna on the battlefield of life comes to consult with Arjun. Arjun is in this impossible situation between two families about to go to war together; conflict over his karma to fight injustice, and his dhama to uphold his family. It turns out his family were those that were actually at fault, so he had to fight his own family. He could not do that. So anyway, how do we deal with this business of resistance and struggle, arm struggle? So this was Krishna’s advice to Arjun and it’s so beautiful. Faced with this impossible situation Krishna says, “[Mr. Gun Bavan Arjun], be without the three gunas, Arjun.” In other words, go beyond the problem; go beyond the impulses of activity; the three gunas. Einstein said to Remer that “You can never solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.” So this was the instruction. “Transcend the conflict” – step one. Then, Krishna says, “[yoga stakuda golani]” – established in yoga before match. What is yoga? That state of union within. So established in yoga and established in the place beyond conflict; perform action. This is a great teaching. It’s one of the most beautiful teachings from Lord Krishna. So, what action to take? Shift your consciousness; then it becomes clear. In Arjun’s case, his action was very clear. He went out to fight, but what was he actually fighting?

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Catherine David: This is nice, the biodiversity of resistance. Normally, we can admit…, but I actually think that what we see today if we take a closer look at what we have to fight for in the world, there are different types of oppression, different situations which requires different types of resistance. From the armed resistance to the civil resistance, there is a diversity of possibilities and I think that not anything works the same way at the same place. I would be tempted to say that the civil resistance, the non-violent movements should of course be encouraged, because this is very decent. But I think that we should not delude ourselves. There are some cases that demonstrate that the armed, organised and conceptual struggle is extremely inventive and effective. I think that the last war that we were affected in, the armed struggle between the Hisbollah and the most technical, most practised army of the world which is “Zahal”, Israel’s army. I think that this can make us reflect. Yes, the armed struggle is simply possible and it follows a time-table one army less. The armed struggle following a time-table; this means that there are moments where it must stop. There are moments when they know that it stops and this definitely not found concerning a traditional army. So I think that all this makes us think about the continuation of the operations, the Hisbollah ones and the other ones.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi:

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: Not only do we need a biodiversity of resistance, but we need a biodiversity as condition of a cultural diversity, the acknowledgement of the variation of cultures in the world´s civilization. An acknowledgement of the fact that there is not only one idea of progress, in the western tradition since the industrial revolution, since the enlightment, but that there are many ideas of progress in all cultures on the world, in India, in the islamic tradition, in the cosmology of South America, in Russia in the orthodoxy. It is a shortcoming in human existence to believe that only the western idea of progress, being arguable anyway, means an expression of human existence. Our ideas of time are different. In the bolivian culture the time is directed backwards, not forwards. Our work ethics are different, e.g. in the calvinistic northamerican culture or the transcendental catholic culture of South America since the scholasticism of the 16th century. Work ethics are different. We have to extend the biodiversity to a cultural diversity and to the acknowledgement of the plurality, of the cultural and religious and historical conditions of the world´s civilization in its variation. Thus not only one modernity, a western one, but multiple modernities according to the cultural, religious and historical conditions. If we consider this, the violence will diminish. In Ghandis words, the respect of the own identity, the respect of the own religious, cultural and historical traditions makes the people peaceful. And it prevents that military and terroristic conflicts build up aggression in those states. The states that know only imported technology and not their own technologies which developed according to cultural and historical conditions. Foreign technology glamourises violence because it diminishes the human and cultural identity of the population of those nations. Think of Peru, of Bolivia, Ecuador, with 60 or 70 % of the indian/original population nowadays not being integrated into the civilization process since the time of the colonies. This is a prevention of human dignity and as well an expression and condition of violent outbursts in those nations in the last years, e.g. against the oil industry. In Nigeria, e.g., in the region of the Niger delta, there are more and more attacks agains the foreign technologies.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Cornel West: Arundhati Roy is one of the towering freedom fighters of our day that we are graced by her voice in the form of this formidable question. We certainly need a variety of forms of resistance. Arm struggle must be the last resort. It must be something that we are very, very mindful of and often time suspicious of, and yet there are conditions under which arm struggle becomes necessary. For the most part, we must deploy all forms of non-violent resistance and struggle, understanding non-violence as something active, as something that’s vital and vibrant, something that requires our sacrifice, our suffering, something that allows us to accent the best in ourselves and the best in others. And, I think when we look at the history of struggles of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi and others, we see precisely this willingness to serve, suffer and sacrifice on behalf of a grand and noble cause; and yet we also know that such struggles can be crushed by powers that be. We must be realistic about the imbalance of forces, the asymmetry of power in such situations. But, our dear sister Roy enacts in her own life and in her own works and in her own witness a level of resistance that is inspiring, that is instructive and that in the end, I think, leaves a grand legacy for each and everyone of us around this table and each and everyone of us who are listening to her words. We thank God for sister Roy.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: In my experience when we had a conflict when we were struggling to fight for our rights, fight for our ancestral domain in the Kalinga, a lot of people goes to the mountains to take arms to fight the government. And I decided why don’t we use the peaceful means of resistance and solve the problems in our place. And suddenly we begun organizing, organizing and organize and organize. And, fortunately, for more than 10 years of the struggle legally using an environment, we were able to achieve by convincing the government that [systems] which destroys our land, our sacred places, our environment should be stopped in each step. And arms struggle just added to the problem because they kill people and the killings bear another layer of problem. And this is why in indigenous belief, we believe that killing is not a solution for people’s problems because to kill is just to add or using arms; and if you use some, of course, you kill, just add problems to the situations. And I think we can learn from the Philippine situation. When the 20 years dictatorship of the former President Marcos was so abusive during the time, people decided to come together in the streets, offer flowers instead of arms, give flowers to the military [returns], give them food, give them something to drink; and the 20 years dictatorship of the Marcos regime was out. And this is because of the non-resistant approach that the Philippines applied in this situation.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Hello, Arundhati. I read your books with great pleasure. I think they’re wonderful, and I think I understand the dilemma you’re posing. I think both nonviolent struggle and armed resistance are defined and we know them and experienced them in our recent and distant history as something pointed to a known, to an enemy that is definable. It’s the government, the oppressive government and we as the underdog we are doing the colonial powers that we needed to fight and in that sense, its very concrete enemy. I think today, who are we resisting against? We are not resisting only governments. We are resisting dynamics that go beyond the government and certainly our part of the governments. We are resisting inches of constellations that are international, and I find it really hard to see how these, for me traditional ways of resistance, the arm struggle and the nonviolence struggle fit in all this, where the “enemy”, the one we resist against is more fluid. It’s not definable. I don’t have an answer, but I just understand the dilemma. But I think, I suppose you need global resistance to this. I think the modern resistance is to have global movements and those global movements can then in its own terms be nonviolent, but I think they would be very dangerous if they are armed struggles. One of those is Al Qaeda, so, I’m not sure about that, but I’m sure there are creative ways of creating global nonviolent resistance.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: I'm very much in favor of resistance, in my opinion we should fight those things we do not want, but I believe in the philosophical way, in a pacifist resistance. I believe in it though I saw what kind of impact pacifist resistance has. But still, it is my way I stick to because the armed wars...we've had our experiences during dictatorships and saw in the last 50, 60 years what armed war caused to the peoples. Always destruction, always brainwashing programs, traumas, so I do not agree with armed wars, I'm a pacifist person. I love peace and that's why I have been working in this project “1000 PeaceWomen across the globe”, which has been also on the nomination list for the Nobel Prize for Peace. My mind is very much in favor of these things. We also would need the media to be in favor of this, that the media would work more in this biodiversity of resistance. This biodiversity of resistance will happen one day, I'm quite sure of it and I think it would work even better if the media would be our companion in this matter, but in fact – what we've been seeing is that the media has been always in favor of those who dominate.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: I like the phrase biodiversity of resistance. Obviously, every situation is completely different and the non-violent resistance that was effective in the era of Gandhi probably would not have been effective in Vietnam in the 60s. Clearly, one prefers non-violent resistance to armed struggle, and to say which is effective, it’s really on a case-by-case basis. So, I don't think that that question can be answered. One would hope that one can create form of non-violent resistance that will be effective, and perhaps the problem is that non-violent resistance has been stuck in the Gandhi model and in the model of the Civil Rights Movement in the US in the 1960s. And perhaps, it might be worth thinking about what other forms of non-violent resistance -- what other forms non-violent resistance could take besides the sort of mass, just saying no or sit down in strikes or things like that. I think that there is a -– in a world that is so dependent on technology, it seems to me that there are forms of technological subversion against an oppressive force that would be non-violent and which would be enormously effective. In other words, instead of masses of people sitting down in the streets, one can have a few people pulling the plugs.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: Well, first of all it’s an honor to respond to a question by Arundhati Roy who is a magnificent writer and who has addressed some of these issues herself. Between non-violent resistance and armed struggle, where do we go? Well, armed struggle I think is obsolete for the human species. It shouldn’t be resorted to at all. I would like to see a world in which we had no weapons, in which we made them illegal to use on each other. I do believe in self-defense in personal situations and self-defense in anything but personal situations is of little use. So on the whole I think non-violent resistance is a better way to go. I believe with Gandhi and King that it’s a better way to go. And I believe that it can be very effective in many situations. But we probably do need a biodiversity of resistance, different ways to do it, and we can be creative about that. So the right thing to do? I don’t think the right thing to do is to use weapons on each other. I believe that as a species we should be able to grow out of our immature hostilities and into a world of cooperation, caring and sharing. Unfortunately those values have been identified as feminine and therefore discredited in the world. Now is the time when women and men have to come together as never before as equal partners because men primarily running the world hasn’t worked very well. It has led us to a world of economic inequities and instabilities when we could have a world in which everybody has enough. But we’ve got to re-enfranchise people whose lands were stolen. We’ve got to re-enfranchise political power in people from whom it has been taken away. And any way that we can do this through mass movements of people beginning in their local communities, revitalizing their local communities, practicing non-adversarial politics I think is the most important thing we can do because if you practice non-adversarial politics then no power can divide and conquer. I have a question about democracy now, whether a two-party system that’s adversarial can ever get us to a peaceful what we call democratic world. So in nature things are done more by consensus. The cells of my body find ways to reach consensus. I believe we humans can do it too especially with powerful communications tools such as the internet. And therefore building our strength as global family from the local family up I think is the most powerful thing we can do in the world now.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: What is effective can be answered in the short-term or in the long-term. That is a very pragmatic question. In the long-term and in principle, armed struggle is never indicated. It’s never the right thing to do. There are a number of ways that resistance can be effectively exercised beyond or instead of armed struggle. They need to be explored and applied wherever there is a need for resistance.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: I think time for armed resistance is gone. We must sit down and dialog and embrace each other. We must talk to each other. We must appreciate each other’s views. We must learn to work with each other. Now, in the whole world, everybody can arm themself against each other. Who benefits? I think we have – we now know everybody can fight, can resist. Maybe others will resist more than others. They will kill more than others can do that. But I think armed resistance, armed struggle, is over. We must do nonviolent resistance in whichever way. If Muslims, Christians don’t agree, I think we must come together and sit and talk. If groups inside a country, and they are divided by ethnicity, they must come and talk. Fighting is not the solution. History has taught us, we can no longer, no longer continue to fight and have armed struggles. It will not work. And I think I am reminded my own country. For a long time, the university students refused to – always resisted by throwing stones, by fighting motorists. It’s gone. And I wish – I think – I wish the world could learn from these very small changes happening isolated. There’s no more you could hear of universities in Kenya going into protest. They are no longer fighting. And I think we should try and add these small, small experiences and be able to study why are some people still resisting, and they don’t have necessarily to fight, like the students in the university in Nairobi. They are no longer any more riots. But still they are talking to their own lecturers. They are talking with their administrators. Very small and isolated cases where people have practiced nonviolence protest and resistance, let’s learn from these small experiences and be able to teach the world that there is a different way of operating. We need to start talking to each other. We need to start appreciating each other. We all need each other. And, for a fact, we cannot move anywhere by killing each other and fighting each other. It doesn’t help anyone, not, at least, for this generation and all future generation. In the past, we could. Now, we can’t.

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 1:00:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: Naturally, the biodiversity of all forms of resistance is a good thing. I think to a lesser extent of violent or armed resistance. I think of peaceful resistance, of public and peaceful mobilisation, of the invention of alternative media of debate and communication. Of course, I accept armed resistance if the ones in power or the aggression of foreign countries infringes the constitution, the individual rights, and the security of our societies. The national constitution of Argentina admits the right to armed resistance if its constitution is violated by a coup d'ètat or in the face of foreign aggressors. But I think [el desafilo] is to invent forms of peaceful resistance, to come up with events that find their way into the mass media, to conceive of forms of resistance that provoke the addressee, that provoke the great majorities, that provoke thinking, the opening of the mind, and that provoke adhesion. It is important to bear in mind that violence, in general, generates more violence, more suffering, more pain. I think the challenge is to to come up with forms of non-violent resistance and protest, that open up the mind and stimulate cohesion. Until today I think the most efficient ones are the big, massive mobilisations, the participation of intellectuals, of people of culture, of social referents, of sportsmen and scientists in these grand public demonstrations.

by Fernando Solanas