Episode 1: What is Nonviolence?

Discover the concepts of nonviolence through the lens of prominent thinkers like Henry David Thoreau, Étienne de La Boétie, Jean Paul Lederach, and global scholars. With co-hosts, Layal & Alisha, explore how these diverse perspectives converge on the principles of love, truth, and justice to achieve social and political transformation without resorting to violence.

Listen to the episode here, or check out the transcript below.

Intro, Layal: Hello everyone and welcome to the Nonviolence Now Podcast, brought to you by Pace e Bene, where we explore the principles of nonviolence, where it all started, and how it shows up in today’s digital world.

Layal: Hello everyone and welcome to the first episode of the Nonviolence Now podcast. It feels so great to be here with you today.

Alisha: Yeah, so excited to be here, Layal. We are going to have some great content for you all. We’re gonna have some guest speakers from all around the world, in all sorts of fronts of work that relate to nonviolence, and we’re gonna be doing some deep dives into a lot of research to inform this podcast and make it really informative and exciting for y’all.

Layal: Right, before we dig in to everything we have prepared for you, Alisha I think it would be great for us to introduce ourselves

Alisha: I agree, but maybe we can do this a bit differently than usual: how about I introduce you, and you introduce me?

Layal: Well go for it!

Alisha: Alright, cool. So Layal is a Lebanese activist. She advocates for education accessibility, cultural preservation, and social justice issues. She is the founder of a youth-led initiative called “Lebanon is mine” that emerged after the explosion of the Beirut port in 2020. She is currently based in Paris where she completed her master’s degree in human rights and humanitarian action. 

Layal: And now it’s time for you to tell me if I’ve been listening properly. Alisha is a young environmental activist who pursued a bachelor's degree in environmental studies. They bring this knowledge to many grassroots organization issues such as labor justice and the anti-war movement. They are currently the Environmental Project Coordinator at Pace e Bene, which is a nonprofit organization that promotes nonviolence education, community-building, and nonviolent action. And it’s thanks to Pace e Bene that we have this opportunity to use this platform and talk about nonviolent movements

Alisha: We have this whole podcast called Nonviolence Now, but now… what is nonviolence? So nonviolence as sort of a solution-oriented thing, it’s rooted in this idea that true and lasting change can only be achieved by rejecting violence in all its forms, and instead using strategic and morally grounded methods to create a more just and peaceful society. So it’s not necessarily just about how you interact one-on-one with others, but it’s how does the whole society interact with its individuals and with itself?

Layal: Nonviolence is usually taken for granted, and people assume that it’s just the weaker alternative when actually it does offer various methods of resistance that not only avoid the harm and the destruction associated with violence, but also directly challenge the structural and cultural forces that sustain oppression. Another important factor to really understanding nonviolence promotes longterm societal change by addressing the underlying causes of conflict rather than just the symptoms.

Alisha: The way that we frame nonviolence in, say, the mainstream media—if you’re in a country that’s going to war, they’re not going to tell you about all the sort of destruction and the parts of it that are a loss for the people. They’re going to talk about it in terms of the patriotism, the “this is why you should be excited that we’re in this war and you should want us to win.” They are not going to talk about these underlying causes. They are going to talk about the symptoms and they are going to posit themselves as the solution. And I think this podcast, among many other things, is a way that we can push back against that narrative. So, how can nonviolence be perceived? Because in the mainstream media, it almost isn’t perceived at all. But what can we say that adds some more to the conversation?

Layal: From an academic viewpoint, we look at nonviolence methods in terms of, first of all, what can nonviolence methods be used for? Can it just be used for the political? Just for the social? Just for the environmental? Just for the just causes? It can be used for anything and everything. We need to consider that we are looking at three dimensions. The first one being the holistic, or if we were to say the ethical dimension. This is where nonviolence is about personal transformation. When we talk about personal transformation, it’s the overall view of the world. What are my moral decisions, and what are the steps that I as a single individual human being want to take to leave this world a better place? Because it’s not just about so long as I exist, life is okay. But it’s also, what kind of footprint am I leaving behind? That’s the first layer.

The second one, we have the tactical force, or what we also call the strategic side. This is where nonviolence is actually used as a tactic to achieve political goals. This might not always focus on personal transformation, but it’s more about the bigger picture. When we look at sit-ins, when we look at peaceful protests, boycotting particular brands because of the way they treat their workers, or calling on labor rights, helping the labor strikes so that they can get better payment, calling for LGBTQ rights by marching on the street—these are the kind of tactical or strategic nonviolent actions that can happen that will also mobilize for policy changes.

Now, when we want to look at the intersection of these processes, and this is what the third layer is, and it’s a very interesting perspective—it’s how you intersect these processes, when we’re talking about the holistic and the tactical. So how are we merging ethical and strategic together to create a self-evolution within the individual while also achieving political goals? And when we talk about this, we can look at the US Civil Rights Movement, or even Gandhi’s movement.

Alisha: Thank you for that explanation. I thought that went so much deeper than what we usually get to learn about the concept of nonviolence. If you have to explain nonviolence to your coworker or family member, they might not already have this understanding of nonviolence. You might have to start from the very beginning. So if we’re going to talk about a frequently asked question about nonviolence, does it have to be pacifist? Because nonviolence and pacifism often get lumped together, but they’re not exactly the same. Pacifism is more of a philosophical stance against violence and war, especially the direct kind. It’s often about you yourself—you’re going to choose not to engage in violence at all. Nonviolence, on the other hand, is active, as we saw in Layal’s beautiful description up there. It’s about using methods that might seem peaceful on the surface—and they are—but they are actually powerful tools to put pressure on these oppressive systems. It’s not about being passive, it’s not about what you don’t do—it’s about taking action in a way that avoids the cycle of violence, it’s about what you do, it’s about what you put out there into the world rather than what you take out of it.

And one interesting concept here is Gandhi’s idea of a “means as an end.” So basically, if you use violence to achieve your goals, you’re setting a precedent for future generations that can even become structural, where we see the policy response to, say, increased drug use among the population is to crack down on it with police violence. Then more funds have now been allocated to the police system, and therefore that is now an easier way to try to “solve” this problem in the future. So nonviolence, both internally to oneself and structurally, is about creating the kind of future you want to see, right from the start. And I think that really gets at that sort of layer three of where you’re both trying to think about “How do I make this strategic, but also how do I practice my ethics right here and right now?”

Layal: Do you think you might have an insight as to what we just said?

Alisha: Yeah, I think to sort of sum up here, we’ve gone over these two kinds of common ways of thinking about “How can I as a person, or as a group, how can I respond to all the problems I see in the world?” And the first one would be: there’s no way to fix this. Violence is just inevitable, so I’m gonna go along with how things are. I’ll be active, but within the system as it stands. Then you might have a sort of crisis moment and be like, “Oh my gosh, the world is so broken and there’s so much violence, I just don’t want to be a part of it at all. I’m going to disengage.” And then nonviolence is, as we’ve described, this third way where you can come back and engage with the world, but not on society’s own terms, and really try to change things for the better, but not within the system as it stands. I think that is kind of a good summary of the ways that people or organizations sort of interact with the world and its problems, and it’s maybe something for our listeners to think about. When have you reacted in each of these ways, and how can you start to almost train yourself to look for that third way?

Layal: That was wonderfully put, Alisha. I would like to comment and say that this third way of taking action can be actually broken down into two approaches, which are what we call either violent resistance or nonviolent resistance. Naturally speaking, nonviolence is—let’s take the example of the trinity, the holy trinity: the father, the son, the holy spirit. The holy trinity of nonviolence is simply the holistic, strategic, and the intersectional dimensions. And it’s basically a choice that requires personal transformation, strategic planning, and a commitment to long-term societal change. I think it would be really good to touch on—what does it mean to actively resist through nonviolence? Because the word “resistance” is a bit shaky. It’s not just about avoiding physical violence, when we speak about nonviolence. It’s more about confronting and resisting all forms of violence, including structural violence. And this concept can be summarized as: nonviolence = without violence + against violence.

Alisha: Very important for us to keep in mind when a group of young climate protesters can be labeled as terrorists when they are simply trying to protect their future, and when the companies that are out there poisoning our land and water—a very clear form of violence—are never prosecuted at all.

Layal: And the same way from a social justice perspective. We have very important aspects to touch on while looking into people preserving their rights and actively resisting towards getting justice with what is being labeled as terrorist acts. I’d like to just mention, there’s this very old and nice essay. It was written in 1849, which is called "Resistance to Civil Government." In this essay, we see that nonviolence is deeply tied to individual and moral responsibility. And this guy [Henry David Thoreau] argued that individuals must disobey unjust laws and governments, emphasizing that justice is a matter of personal conscience, not merely a majority rule. He does talk about something called “the power of disobedience,” (which was inspired by the theory of consent by Étienne de La Boétie, which is another French author that emerged in the late 1500s) which reminds us that the authority of any ruler or regime hinges on the voluntary obedience of its people. So that means when people withdraw their consent and engage in nonviolent disobedience, they undermine the regime’s legitimacy, causing it to falter. So when we look at that, we realize that nonviolence is also defined as a civilian method of transforming conflicts through all of these social, psychological, economic, and political means, simply without resorting to violence. There’s another French author called Jean-Paul Ederact. He also highlights that nonviolence involves understanding the current situation, envisioning an alternative future, and engaging in a transformative process that includes the personal, interpersonal, and socio-political change. So it’s from authors as such that we’ve been able to identify and label the different thresholds, the dimensions, and the trinity of nonviolence.

Alisha: That was a very nice list of all these people who have come before us and really laid out some of these ideas for us to take and for us to put into practice and to come up with our own ideas. This is a really good grounding in nonviolence and the ways that we can think about it. I just would like to relay a little anecdote from my own life. I live in Oakland, CA, currently, and me and my roommates went to this community dance outdoors near a lake where a local DJ was playing and there were all sorts of types of people there. Everybody was dancing, it was a really good time. And then the organizers of the event, who were the ones playing the music, suddenly stopped the music, and everybody was kind of like, “Oh? What’s going on?” And they said, “This is a safe space, we made this for the community to have a place to gather, and somebody here has brought a weapon into this space. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to stop the music until this person leaves or takes the weapon away from this space and makes it something we can continue with.” And eventually they did, and they were able to talk to the person. So 911 was not called. They were kind of using the social pressure and the space they created—the fact that people wanted that to go on—as a way of taking the threat of violence away from the space, which I just thought was very inspiring. Maybe those people didn’t necessarily know all these kind of theoretical aspects of nonviolence, but they were out there sort of practicing it and thinking creatively about how we can make our outdoor spaces safer and do that without invoking the state or what have you. I just thought that was a nice pairing with all of this really deep thought about nonviolence and all of these ways to think about it. There are versions of it already out there being practiced right now, and we can bring some more, and we can bring this sort of theoretical basis for it and really elevate it even though it’s already out there.

Layal: Alisha, thank you so much for sharing this personal experience that shows how much inner work has been done by this community of people by this set of values that they share together and the core beliefs that they carry as individuals and as a community for them to be able, in such timing of crisis, not to revoke or invoke a counter attack, but to take this nonviolent stance. And I think that’s also speaking of level one of our trinity, which is the ethical side, which also took them to level two, which was the strategic side, which they not necessarily strategized for anything, but they basically were able to elevate into the intersectionality of these processes by simply having this shared set of values—knowing that violence is not gonna solve the issue. And I’m glad that everyone’s okay and that no harm happened.

Just to wrap everything we’ve talked about today, Alisha, what do you take out from today?

Alisha: I think what really stood out for me in this conversation was the idea of nonviolence being something that goes beyond just saying no to violence in oneself. It’s this very powerful, active form of resistance and it can confront all types of violence—direct, structural, and cultural. And it’s rooted in this deep personal kind of belief in nonviolence and the fact that we don’t want violence to be our answer to problems, but it then also goes outward and can transform society and has the potential to create lasting change, not just for yourself but for others and even for future generations.

Layal: That’s absolutely true. What I take from the day, and this is something I think about on a daily basis and I’d love for our listeners to reflect on as well—whether it’s in historical movements or in the actions we take today, nonviolence remains an asset to advocate for justice and peace. And I’m really looking forward for our listeners and for us, Alisha, and our guest speakers, to be tackling the how, the why, the what, the who, the when, and the what’s next of all of these issues.

Alisha: Absolutely. We’ll get there very soon. Thank you all so much for tuning in and listening, and we’ll see you again soon. Peace.

Outro, Layal: Thank you for joining us on the Nonviolence Now Podcast. We hope today’s episode left you feeling inspired. If it did, don’t keep it to yourself—share it with your friends and community. Together, let’s spread the word about the power of nonviolent action.

Additional Resources

1. Muller, Jean-Marie. Non-Violence in Action. Les Éditions du Mouvement pour une Alternative Non-violente, October 2007

2. Atack, I. (2022). Nonviolence and Civil Resistance. In O. P. Richmond & G. Visoka (Eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77954-2_24

3. Atack, I. (2012). Nonviolence in Political Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

4. Sharp, G. (1973). The Politics of Nonviolent Action (3 vols.). Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers.

5. King, M. L., Jr. (1958). Stride toward freedom: The Montgomery story. Boston: Beacon Press. Retrieved from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu

6. Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service. (2024). Nonviolence is a way of life. Retrieved from https://paceebene.org/blog/2024/1/15/nonviolence-is-a-way-of-life

7. Said, J. (2002). The Doctrine of the First Son of Adam: The Problem of Violence in the Islamic World. Dar Al-Fikr