(Trigger Warning)
This was written months ago, sometime in October 2020, but I never hit ‘Publish’.
Today, I want to talk about violence.
For the past few days (months, years, decades), there has been a stream of protests against police brutality in Nigeria. I watched a video on ‘Twitter’ of a crowd of people running towards policemen who had run out of bullets; the video ended with the crowd running, towards the policemen, and I was left to wonder what happened to the policemen on the other side - did the mob beat them, seize their guns, break their cars? Anyway, this made me think about my pessimism pertaining to issues like racism, police brutality etc. in the form of the question - ‘Is there revolution without violence?’
I guess violence has always been an interesting topic to me, my references for violence, my violent references, the books, ideologies and events that have most informed my knowledge or piqued my interest in violence are - the French revolution, Michel Foucault’s ‘Discipline and Punish’, colonisation and slavery. During the French revolution, the ‘Terrors’ was a period where there was a series of public executions and massacres which could be seen as the period of the shift in power and control; in short, heads were rolling. ‘Discipline and Punish’ is a book all about the connectedness between power, life and death. Colonisation and slavery are well, colonisation and slavery.
Firstly, I want to discuss the demonisation of violence. That might sound like a strange thing to say but- obviously, violence causes harm, it is very volatile and in a lot of instances, not an effective way of solving problems. However, that, as I already said, is the obvious. When we think about violence and violent people, we are conditioned to think of poor people, black people and the mentally ill (usually men). Extensive stereotypes about all these categories of people are filled with their alleged violent mannerisms and acts of violence committed by them, whatever they may be, are not tolerated. Aside from this, violence is generally frowned upon by the masses- a push towards peaceful protesting and violence being viewed as primitive and uncivilised and immoral.
The demonisation of violence is interesting to me because it is often pushed on the oppressed, those fighting for their rights are told to resist the urge to be violent but also not be scared to receive it from those who oppress them. All this to say that those on top, the oppressors have always been violent and their violence is seldom frowned upon. For example, if I said I wanted to kidnap and forcibly detain people, who I had perceived to have done something wrong, in cages, this would be seen as violence, a violent thought. But ICE isn’t generally looked at as *pure* violence, those who believe it is wrong, regard it as inhumane, cruel, so many other things than just pure violence. And those who believe it is right, well they know the significance of violence in society.
‘Discipline and Punish’ details violence throughout, from Medieval Kings sending citizens into war to the modern prison system, violence as a means of control. Historically, punishments like crucifixion and other ‘punishment mechanisms’ (think, hanging, burning at stakes etc) were displayed overtly — potentially as a means to discourage retaliatory violence. In a modern-day parallel, (albeit not a direct comparison) when George Floyd was murdered, it was in a physically violent but more overt manner with constant reshares on social media publicly displaying the death of a black person. Interestingly, Foucault wrote that the public nature of death (and violence) became less overt because, in more modern times, the relationship between life and death became ‘make live and let die’ whilst in the past, sovereigns — (think Royalty (who were frequently ordained), the Judiciary etc) had the ‘right to kill’ the relationship between life and death was ‘take life and let live’ which is interesting now that death, as well as violence, particularly towards black people, has become more overt again.
Those who have been the most violent, the colonisers and enslavers, white supremacists, the police, robber barons (the historical Jeff Bezoses’ and Elon Musks’)have and continue to have the upper hand, while the rest are discouraged from violence.
Policemen shoot, suffocate and beat black people to death, but looting is demonised.
Those who colonised threatened the masses with images of unending hellish suffering, but our religions are demonised.
Black people are put in cages for free labour and then denied access to jobs when they are eventually released, but (black people) selling drugs is demonised.
Is there revolution without violence?
PS -My reply to the question is a series of other questions — Firstly, what does (real and damaging) violence from an oppressed group look like (towards their oppressor)? Is it possible that these oppressed groups can wield violence and if not is that the reason why there hasn’t been (and arguably cannot be revolution)?
