Power of restraint

S. RANGARAJAN

"A Force More Powerful", directed by award-winning film-maker, Steve York, analyses how political activists used non-violent resistance as a means of struggle against their oppressors and how ordinary men and women with non-violent action have been defeated in the 20th century.

Narrated by Ben Kingsley, who acted as Mahatma Gandhi in the film "Gandhi", "A Force More Powerful" focusses on three non-violent political campaigns. The first led by Mahatma Gandhi is India's freedom struggle against British rule, the second led by the Rev. James Lawson to de-segregate lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee in 1959 and the third led by Mkhusel Jack against white South African businesses in Eastern Cape region in 1985-86.

Using vast and minute archival material and interviews with the participants in the movement, the film has turned out to be a warm and heartening tribute to the courage, dedication and determination to their cause by humble folks who rose to great heights to sacrifice their lives, facing baton and bullet.

Mr. Richard H. Solomon, President of the United States Institute of Peace, Washington D.C., which provided a grant to fund the preliminary research for the documentary, said "the documentary and the accompanying educational material and book were likely to serve as an inspiring manual for people over the world struggling for human rights and freedom against oppressive regimes.

The television version of "A Force More Powerful" was broadcast in the Washington D.C. area by the public television in two 90- minute segments. The first section was a shortened version of the film, the second spotlighted three additional cases: the Danish resistance to Nazi occupation, the Polish Solidarity Movement, and the Chilean opposition to Pinochet.

While everyone knew a lot on Mahatma Gandhi and the uniqueness of his determination to launch a struggle on a country-wide scale, the film's potent and latent strength lay in the section where Rev. James Lawson teaches students how to engage themselves in non-violent and peaceful protests while the anti-apartheid activists persuade their followers to strengthen their conviction to resort to peaceful means only and totally renounce violence. This brings into sharp focus Mahatma Gandhi's indisputable leadership in keeping the agitation free of any form of violence by his unarmed warriors and having the courage to call off the struggle at the slightest sign of followers getting emotional and resorting to meet force with force. He would take up the case again only after getting firm assurances that there would be no such repetition.

The remarkable fact that is to be noted in the Nashville episode is that except for U.S. Representative John Lewis (Democrat- Georgia), who was a college student at the time of the sit-in demonstration, most of the participants were not then, and are not now, public figures. It is as if they came from nowhere for a particular cause and once their objective was achieved, they just disappeared.

Mahatma Gandhi had a long-held spiritual commitment to non- violence and Mr. Ackerman noted that commitment slowly but definitely developed into a strategic dimension.

Further elaborating on this point Mr. Ackerman is of the view that "while there is a long tradition of discourse on the conduct of war, it seems reasonable and even imperative to apply the same logic and methods to non-violent resistance."

The expectation in this line of thinking is that ultimately the tidal force of non-violence will prove to be more powerful.

The United States Institute Of Peace was created by the Congress in 1984 as an independent, non-partisan federal institution dedicated to research, education, professional training, and policy development on matters of international conflict prevention, management, and resolution. A 15-member, bi-partisan Board of Directors governs the Institute. Its programmes are funded by an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress.

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