Non-violent Methods And Means To Achieve Just Ends

For the construction and maintenance of peace, the application of justice for all, to be able to cover basic needs and, ultimately, achieve full compliance with human rights, it is essential to use non-violent methods and means.

People can cause suffering to others by directly practicing violence on them or by simply looking the other way when we see others behaving violently and we do not intervene to help the victims. Harming our fellow human beings or the earth is one more way of dehumanizing ourselves, it is the failure of reason, dialogue, pact, tolerance…

Justifying violence in the name of security, social well-being, justice or protection of the State means that “everything is allowed“. The State cannot and should not override the rights of its own citizens because, in addition, it represents its most absolute discredit in the eyes of peaceful citizens.

With the practice of “eye for an eye“We will not be able to stop the violence, on the contrary, we will only achieve an increase in tension, an escalation of conflict and, on too many occasions, the suffering of others and our own. In this sense, acts as violent as the death penalty only harm the people an example of atrocity…

I do not believe that violence should ever be used under any concept, excuse or premise. Therefore the limit of violence has to be zero. We cannot tolerate any type of violence based on gender, age, religion, political ideology, sexual condition… etc.

Nothing justifies the use of violence, not even to save other lives. Violent interventions to protect innocent lives, in the face of the systematic violation of their rights, due to “humanitarian criteria”, the so-called right of interference, is, in my opinion, an excuse not to end the suffering of those innocents in other peaceful ways. Furthermore, generally these types of interventions are used only when it is of economic or political interest to the State that intervenes, that is, when the State obtains some benefit in return. In conflicts where states do not obtain any benefits, the innocent continue to suffer alone from the violation of their basic rights… history is full of examples. I would place the right of self-defense or self-defense along the same lines. Using violence to defend oneself from a violent act represents justifying it, exempting the person who practices it from his own guilt.

Fortunately, it is amply demonstrated that just ends can be achieved using nonviolent methods. Sufficient as an example is the work of the different Non-Governmental Organizations that work for equality and justice, or the environmental, feminist and pacifist movements, among many others, that are capable of continuing to fight, without using weapons or any other type of violence, to achieve peaceful and just ends.

What example, what message are we giving to those we want to save, if to do so we have had to torture or kill? I don’t mean to sound naive, torture exists and is applied all over the world today. That does not mean that I am going to stop condemning it and that does not mean that I am going to stop believing that it is possible to obtain justice through the application of peaceful methods and that what we must teach our children and young people is that violence only achieves dehumanization, not freedom or equality.

I do not believe that human beings have it in our essence to be potential torturers, on the contrary, I believe that what is in our essence is love for the other. We must abandon violence and recover respect and love for others and for our environment, for all living beings.