'What if we lived in a world that had no word for war other than non-peace?' asks Mark Kurlansky who has been promoting his Non-violence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea for several weeks. 'What kind of world would that be?'
The New York Times bestselling author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World; Salt: A World History; 1968: The Year That Rocked the World and The Basque History of the World has shifted his attention this time fully to the consequence of non-violent politics.
His book, published by Modern Library, a division of Random House, has arrived just as the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's satyagraha has been marked across the country by over 100 pacifist groups led by academics, students, war resisting veterans and clergy. The Gandhian tactics of militant non-violence continues to engage thousands of activists across the nation getting increasingly wary of the war in Iraq and increasing social inequities.
Kurlansky looked with admiration at Gandhi's historic salt march in his book Salt: A World History.
In another important book, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World he looked at the conflict between non-violent and the more militant and radical protestors across America. 'The thrilling thing about the year 1968 was that it was a time when significant segments of population all over the globe refused to be silent about the many things that were wrong with the world,' he wrote. 'They could not be silenced. There were too many of them, and if they were given no other opportunity, they would stand in the street and shout about them. And this gave the world a sense of hope that it has rarely had, a sense that where there is wrong, there are always people who will expose it and try to change it.'
It wasn't just in 1968 but from the time immemorial, he argues in his new book, 'active practitioners of non-violence are always seen as a threat.'
His book, which could be read widely by campus activists and street protestors, continues to assert the conflict between authority and non-violent resistance becomes a 'moral argument.' But often, the non-violent lose by abandoning their ideal in the name of self-defense.
He sees non-violence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Non-violence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he argues, adding that is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power.
The book, which looks at the history of non-violence from the dawn of Hinduism to the rise of Christianity to the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq hails the triumph of non-violence not only against the British Raj but also in the Eastern European resistance to the Soviets. He does not mention it in his book but visitors to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin which chronicles the successful and failed efforts to escape to freedom through the infamous Berlin Wall, will see tributes paid to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
The two men are hailed in over two dozen pictures for inspiring non-violent resistance against the most authoritarian regimes such as the one led by East German communist dictators for over three decades.
Kurlansky's bestseller Cod also carried in its title: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. His newest book, one might say, is also about an idea that could have changed the world even more than it has already done.
For the author also looks at missed opportunities such as the American Revolution that need not have escalated into war; 'protest and economic sabotage,' he argues, might have forced Britain to flee from the colonies. He also asserts in his book and in his interviews that by 1774 the American freedom fighters had worn down the British by their non-violent resistance, by refusing to pay the unjust taxes. The war in 1776 might have been unnecessary had they pushed their strategy a little longer.
Arguing that the deterrence value of standing national armies and huge weapons arsenals is, at best, negligible, he adds that much of the hard work necessary to begin a movement to end war is already complete. It simply needs to be embraced and accelerated, he notes.
On his book tours, he is often asked about Hitler and if non-violent resistance against the Nazi dictator would have worked out. Kurlansky says the time to take the steam out of Hitler was not in 1939 or 1941 but in the early 1930s, when he first came to power.
