In the face of repression, always choose nonviolence

Fight against their anger. Don't provoke it.

June 8, 2025 | Gandhi Team

No doubt, your news and social media sources have been exploding like mine, tracking the third day of the LA protests and the administration's escalatory response to send in the national guard. If you're unsure of what this means, former US Representative Adam Kinzinger offers a great explanation. The bottom line is that as of Sunday, June 8, this is not yet martial law or the Insurrection Act, but the administration is escalating. 

In response, some groups are calling for solidarity protests. Others are investigating Hong Kong-like protest gear to counter the dispersion tactics used by law enforcement. A minority on the far left are advocating Black Bloc tactics like property damage and road barricades. 

Breathe deeply. Ground yourselves to counter the anger and fear. Our resistance movement is still building. This is only the beginning of state repression. We need patience, courage, discipline, and always nonviolence.

First, don't amplify the wrong messaging. Any response that uses violence plays into the authoritarian playbook. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes today, "Trump wants to escalate tensions. He wants a replay of the violence that occurred in the wake of the George Floyd murder... Please do not give him this. Don’t fall into his trap."

Second, decidedly choose deep inside of yourself the type of resistance fighter that you're going to be. There are many justice-driven individuals seduced by the kind of courage that dons full-body black and hurls objects at police. But that's not commitment to Gandhian or Kingian nonviolence. We need courage. We need you to fight. But not like that. 

On September 11, 1906, Mahatma Gandhi launched the concept of Satyagraha (nonviolent resistance) during a mass meeting at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. During the meeting, about 3,000 Indians called for violent resistance against discriminatory laws. They stated their willingness to fight to the death.

Gandhi famously replied, "I praise such courage. I need such courage because in this cause, I too am prepared to die. But there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. Whatever they do to us, we will attack no one, kill no one. They will imprison us, fine us, seize our possessions. I am asking you to fight. To fight against their anger, not to provoke it. We will not strike a blow, but we will receive them. And through our pain, we will make them see our injustice. And it will hurt. As all fighting hurts. But we cannot lose. They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body. Not my obedience." That is Gandhian nonviolence. 

Deploying the National Guard is just a trigger effect long anticipated by the resistance movement. We can use it to grow the momentum; to raise public awareness of the injustice, public opposition against the powerholders, and public support for the alternatives.

But we must be brave and non-violent, strong and disciplined. We must use anger against injustice to fuel our fight. But we must not succumb to that anger. Again, to quote Reich, "What is needed is peaceful civil disobedience. Americans are locking arms to protect those who need protection. Americans sitting in the way of armored cars. Americans are singing and chanting in the face of the Americans whom Trump is drafting into his handmade civil war." A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind.

Let's learn from the hundreds of successful nonviolent resistance movements over the past one hundred years, from Poland to the Philippines.  We are twice as likely to win if we hold the line of principled nonviolence as we practice the 198+ methods of strategic nonviolence action.

For those of you with lots of courage, we applaud such courage and we ask you for discipline and patience. Nonviolent resistance can also get us arrested, beaten, deported, or disappeared. That is called sacrifice. We will take it, but we will not welcome it. We will not incite or instigate it, and we will not return it. 

"I am asking you to fight. To fight against their anger, not to provoke it. We will not strike a blow, but we will receive them. And through our pain, we will make them see our injustice." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

What can we do instead of directing aggression against the police and the National Guard?  Humanize "them". Humanize us. I looked closely at the photos of the National Guard being deployed. What I see are the faces, many of them quite young, of my brothers and sisters.  I see in them deep patriotism for American ideals of freedom and democracy. I see in them the courage to serve the nation and the flag. I also see in them uncertainty about the orders they will be asked to follow in the line of duty. Orders they may not wish to execute. The vast majority of them do not want to fight us. We are their kin, mothers, brothers. 

We are not the enemy. Neither are they.  We must resist continually being used as pawns by the few powerholders abusing their power and privilege for personal gain, with experiments in social disinformation and polarization through identity politics.

Humanize law enforcement with smiles, with humor, with kindness, with love, with flowers, with cups of water, with granola bars. Kneel, sing, pray. Or stand in silent witness to the power of Truth and Justice in Peace.

As we, the Gandhi Team, wrote in an earlier blog post from March, principled nonviolence must underlie the resistance. There is a lot we can do if the Insurrection Act is invoked, as outlined by Daniel Hunter from ChooseDemocracy. Learn about both principled and strategic nonviolence. We can do this.