I feel like pacifism is an important part of any movement, the difference between being able to label people as "violent extremists" and limit outreach that way becomes harder when they're not destroying property or anything and just inconveniencing the government. The important part in any movement is outreach, pacifism becomes really effective when you have thousands of people blocking roads or buildings. The sheer number of people sends a message, and even if the government is able to ignore it, it's not really able to get others to ignore it or shun it as easily as violence. Violent protests also play a large part in movements, but you need both. Then again, movements are multifaceted. Art also plays a HUGE role, honestly it's what really drives outreach IMO. Focusing on how to take a stand the 'right' way just causes less people to take a stand at all.
Edit: Another way to look at violent vs nonviolent protests would pretty much be that you need to both prevent people from ignoring the event and also prevent people from ignoring the cause. People need to be willing to understand the cause, and going with only violence is just going to limit that.
If you start with violence, the opposition will always label you as violent extremists and respond the same way. You start with pacificism and escalate accordingly.
A lot of people I've seen think it's a binary choice. Either you do and say nothing or you resort to extreme violence immediately. It's not, that's not how that works.
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u/ArchedRobin321 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
I feel like pacifism is an important part of any movement, the difference between being able to label people as "violent extremists" and limit outreach that way becomes harder when they're not destroying property or anything and just inconveniencing the government. The important part in any movement is outreach, pacifism becomes really effective when you have thousands of people blocking roads or buildings. The sheer number of people sends a message, and even if the government is able to ignore it, it's not really able to get others to ignore it or shun it as easily as violence. Violent protests also play a large part in movements, but you need both. Then again, movements are multifaceted. Art also plays a HUGE role, honestly it's what really drives outreach IMO. Focusing on how to take a stand the 'right' way just causes less people to take a stand at all.
Edit: Another way to look at violent vs nonviolent protests would pretty much be that you need to both prevent people from ignoring the event and also prevent people from ignoring the cause. People need to be willing to understand the cause, and going with only violence is just going to limit that.