Journal articles on the topic 'Views on nonviolence'

AbstractIn December 1961, Albert Luthuli, leader of the African National Congress (ANC), arrived in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Journalists in Norway noted how apartheid crackdowns failed to poison the new laureate's ‘courteous’ commitment to nonviolence. The press never reported Luthuli's acceptance that saboteurs in an armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK or Spear of the Nation), would now fight for freedom. Analyzing recently available evidence, this article challenges a prevailing claim that Luthuli always promoted peace regardless of state authorities who nearly beat him to death and massacred protesting women, children, and men. We uncover his evolving views of justifiable violence, which guided secret ANC decisions to pursue ‘some kind of violence’ months before his Nobel celebration. These views not only expand knowledge of ‘struggle history’, but also alter understandings of Luthuli's aim to emancipate South Africa from a system of white supremacy that he likened to ‘slavery’.

This paper is based on interviews conducted in India in the summer of 2007 with seven lay Jainas from Jaipur and Delhi: three men and four women, with ages ranging from early twenties to late sixties. The questions I am interested in are: what is the main Jaina value or values according to my interviewees? In particular, what is the place and status of ahimsa (nonviolence) among contemporary notions of value, and is ahimsa repositioned or redefined in the contemporary context? Do Jaina values impact the social sphere and if so, how? In what ways does a particular form of conduct result as a consequence of those values? What does this say about the ways contemporary Indian lay Jainas imagine society? In analyzing the positions of my interviewees, I note similarities to and differences from the position of a group of Terapanthi nuns, whom I also interviewed. By means of my ethnographic material, I demonstrate that Jaina normative moral theory, though rooted in ahimsa, nevertheless exhibits flexibility based on individual and socio-historical contexts.

The fact that spiritual development is needed both on an individual and social level is an issue all traditional societies were acquainted with. The laic and materialistic contemporary world is a mere historical, de-ontologized background which, while promoting individualism and competition, puts aside the trans-historical spiritual values, that have always defined man as a humane and human being, either in religion, or culture. This paper describes the motivation which was provided for man’s spiritual development in Yoga and Christianity, which had, on the one hand, a socializing, integrating function, and on the other hand, a compensatory one. Gandhi’s politics and policy founded on nonviolence and truthfulness is contrasted with man’s nihilistic nature, if not trained to develop his spiritual traits. Today’s redefinition of culture and education, which neglects man’s spiritual values, is the reason why, by contrast, we provided a large space for explaining Gandhi’s views and Yoga, which might be models to be followed even in a laic world, in which personal development should be backed up by man’s spiritual growth, if we want to survive as human beings.

The article addresses the following question: Can a people change their form of government and law and bring them permanently under their shared democratic authority by nonviolent, participatory democratic means? It examines this question through the example of the nonviolent Egyptian Spring. It also addresses the questions of whether this is a new form of the right of self-determination of peoples as well as an alternative to the current models of transitional justice. The means used to address these questions are adapted from the methods of legal and political pluralism, the politics of nonviolence and participatory democracy. Its objective is to place the nonviolent Egyptian Spring in the broader context of nonviolent and democratic regime transformation since Decolonization.

What effects do violent protests have on social movement mobilizations? In recent decades, the field of nonviolence studies has popularized a strategic nonviolence framework to understand activist tactics. This framework is problematic in two ways. First, dominant theories argue that violent protest actions demobilize nonviolent protest. However, there is less empirical support for this claim than often assumed. Current quantitative findings on the demobilizing effects of violent protest rely on a false dichotomy between violence and nonviolence that obscures the effects of low-level violent actions. Through statistical analysis of protest trends in the US over 72 years, I show that riots have an overall mobilizing impact on nonviolent protests. Second, the strategic nonviolence framing encourages an instrumental view of tactics that is prone to miss the symbolic and emotional aspects of different types of actions. Through qualitative interviews with participants in the black bloc tactic, I explore the experiential effects of the riot, and find that rioting can have deeply empowering emotional impacts on participants, with lasting effects that sustain activists’ political engagement. In combination, these results demonstrate that low-level violent actions interact with movements in more dynamic ways than dominant theories have understood. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2021 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]

This article puts political philosopher Judith Butler in conversation with Gandhi, on the topic of nonviolent resistance. More particularly, we compare them on a systematic philosophical level. Although we focus on Gandhi’s more activist side, by delving into the ontological presuppositions that Butler and Gandhi share, we can do some justice to how his activism is firmly rooted in a faith-based understanding of the world. We discuss four themes in each of which they complement each other: namely, the ontological roots of the nonviolent imperative; their rejection of an instrumental view of violence; nonviolent resistance seen as communicative action; and nonviolence viewed as a way of life. This discussion shows that while they have very different starting points and vocabularies, and while some tensions remain, there is much scope for cooperation, solidarity and alliance between religious and nonreligious practitioners of nonviolent resistance.

- In this shortened version of her plenary lecture given at the IAGP Conference in Sao Paulo in July 2006, Suman Khanna Aggarwal reflects on the idea that the welfare of every single individual or group is indissolubly intertwined with that of others and that peace is the common goal of all people and all groups. Since we are all individuals who have differing points of view, conflict often occurs at all levels of human interaction though conflict per se is not a problem; the problem is the method of conflict resolution which can be either violent (bad) or nonviolent (good). It is thus important to understand why we must choose nonviolence to resolve conflict. Gandhi maintains we must choose it because, ‘The Law of Nonviolence which is The Law of Love is the Law of Our Species'. This lecture analyses what constitutes love and transfers this analysis to nonviolence. Once we see how they are related we can start connecting effectively with others.

Christian views on the education of man are considered. Christian pedagogy is the science of the formation of the spiritual and bodily life of man on the basis of absolute values, which is filled with Christian culture. It is based on universal moral law of humankind that is Ten Commandments of God and Two Fundamental Commandments of Christian Love and on Seven Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, Evangelical Counsels and Beatitudes. Christian pedagogy helps a person to realize his dignity and value as a person created on the image and likeness of God. A special feature of Christian pedagogy is the close connection between spiritual and moral education. By means of Christian pedagogy moral and theological virtues are formed. The most important virtue in upbringing is love, as a struggle for the good of your neighbors, regardless of yourself. Love to God and to others is the basic law of Christian pedagogy. In the Christian upbringing of youth, the most important tasks are the formation of: the mind in which faith will reign; the will in which love will dominate; feelings in which hope will work. Principles of Christian pedagogy are nonviolence, timeliness, unity of pedagogical influences, the principle of personality, anthropological principle (respect for human dignity). Christian education is an alternative to a society that surrounds our youth. It creates a sensible conscience, calls for the avoidance of sins, and to live according to the commandments of God.

AbstractSocial psychological aspects of the East Timor peace and liberation movement were studied by in-depth interviews of key liberation leaders, using 20 open-ended questions in Tetum, the local language. Activist-leaders shared common beliefs: liberation as a prerequisite to development, unity, and possibility of peace through peaceful means. They told stories of acute self-suffering during imprisonment and torture; of their hopes, and courageous moments in the struggle. Human rights and Catholic faith ranked high in their shared values. Peaceful demonstrations, intergroup diplomacy, rallying international support, political and peace education towards consciousness transformation and housing refugees were liberationist nonviolent activities. Four important lessons were learned: advocacy to conscientise the people, practice of nonviolence, involvement of different sectors of society, and engaging the international community.

American pacifists first heard of Mohandas Gandhi and his struggles in South Africa and India after World War I. Although they admired his opposition to violence, they were ambivalent about non-violent resistance as a method of social change. As heirs to the Social Gospel, they feared that boycotts and civil disobedience lacked the spirit of love and goodwill that made social redemption possible. Moreover, American pacifists viewed Gandhi through their own cultural lens, a view that was often distorted by Orientalist ideas about Asia and Asians. It was only in the 1930s, when Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian realists charged that pacifism was impotent in the face of social injustice, that they began to reassess Gandhian nonviolence. By the 1940s, they were using nonviolent direct action to protest racial discrimination and segregation, violations of civil liberties, and the nuclear arms race.

In this author-meets-critics dialogue, Douglas Allen, author of argues that Gandhi-informed philosophies and practices, when creatively reformulated and applied, are essential for developing positions that are ethical, nonviolent, truthful, and sustainable, providing resources and hope for confronting our ‘Gandhi after 9/11’ crises. Critics Sanjay Lal and Karsten Struhl applaud Allen’s demonstration that Gandhi’s nonviolence is serious and broadly adaptable to the twenty-first century. Yet, Lal poses two philosophical challenges, arguing first that the nonviolent message of the Bhagavad Gita is perhaps more essential than Allen allows. Second, Lal raises difficulties involved in placing the needs of others first, especially in response to terrorism. Struhl wonders if the Gita is not more violent than Gandhi or Allen represent it to be. Struhl also questions whether relative claims are always resolved in the direction of Absolute Truth, as Gandhi and Allen assert. Finally, critic Struhl wonders how we can restrain institutions from escalating cycles of violence once we grant Gandhi-based exceptions that would allow violence to suppress terrorism. Against Lal’s objections, Allen defends a more open-ended reading of the Gita and agrees that our service to the needs of others cannot go so far as to embrace their terrorism. In response to Struhl, Allen agrees that there are indeed problems with a nonviolent reading of the Gita, but there are resources to support Gandhi’s view. Likewise, regarding relations between our limited truths and the Absolute, Allen grants that Struhl has identified real problems but that a final defense is possible, especially when we consider motivational factors. As for limiting cycles of violence, Allen argues that a Gandhi-informed use of violence implies considerations that limit its use.

Jainism advocates the practice of nonviolence (ahimsa), combining a strict ascetic practice with a view that life pervades all beings, including elements that are considered inert in other worldviews. Many Jainas are by translating this interpretation of the world into the broader arena of ecological ethics.

Drug courts were designed as a way to provide both rehabilitation and sanction-based approaches to drug offenders. Yet studies have not directly tested a “balanced” approach to justice for drug offenders. Drawing on the work of Mears, Pickett, and Mancini, this study adapts the philosophical tenets of juvenile courts into a drug court setting. This study uses multinomial logistic regression from a sample of 575 undergraduate criminology and criminal justice students from a large southern university to assess support for sanctioning approaches for nonviolent and violent drug offenders. Findings suggest that participants support a balanced justice approach to sanctioning violent drug offenders, whereas supporting a rehabilitation approach to sanctioning nonviolent drug offenders. The findings from this study highlight the importance of the public’s differing views on sanctioning drug-involved offenders.

Scholarship on civil war is overwhelmingly preoccupied with armed activity. Data collection efforts on actors in civil wars tend to reflect this emphasis, with most studies focusing on the identities, attributes, and violent behavior of armed actors. Yet various actors also use nonviolent methods to shape the intensity and variation of violence as well as the duration of peace in the aftermath. Existing datasets on mobilization by non-state actors – such as the Armed Conflict Events and Location (ACLED), Integrated Conflict Early Warning System (ICEWS), and Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD) – tend to include data on manifest contentious acts, such as protests, strikes, and demonstrations, and exclude activities like organizing, planning, training, negotiations, communications, and capacity-building that may be critical to the actors’ ultimate success. To provide a more comprehensive and reliable view of the landscape of possible nonviolent behaviors involved in civil wars, we present the Nonviolent Action in Violent Contexts (NVAVC) dataset, which identifies 3,662 nonviolent actions during civil wars in Africa between 1990 and 2012, across 124 conflict-years in 17 countries. In this article, we describe the data collection process, discuss the information contained therein, and offer descriptive statistics and discuss spatial patterns. The framework we develop provides a powerful tool for future researchers to use to categorize various types of nonviolent action, and the data we collect provide important evidence that such efforts are worthwhile.

Mahatma Gandhi, popularly known as the Father of the nation, wasnot only a preacher but a committed practical idealist. For want of some earning he went to South Africa but totally transformed himself into a liberator of the downtrodden, suppressed Indian community. He successfully invented the weapon of ‘Satyagraha’ and retained the lost human right for the Indians in South Africa. He also did the same in India to politically liberatethe country from the British. Gandhi was a multi-faceted personality. He was a Lawyer, Journalist, Writer, Biographer, Ashram builder, great thinker, a Political leader, a spiritualist, a Constructive Worker and above all a humane person who practiced Truth and Nonviolence till his last breath.A.K.Chettiar was a Tamil Documentary Film Maker, Journalist and Traveloque writer. He ventured a priceless documentary on Mahatma Gandhi. A.K.Chettiar widely travelled in England, USA, South Africa and India. He met and filmed innumerable number of leaders like Romain Rolland, Maria Montessori, Sir C.V.Raman, Dr.S.Radhakrishnan, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, C.F.Andrews and many others. He collected about 50,000 feet (15,000 m) of film footage, edited them into 12,000 feet (3,700 m). That documentary film was released on 23rd August 1940 in Chennai. Later the Hindi Version was shown on 15th Aug. 1947 in Delhi and later the English version was shown in Los Angeles in the U.S. Without his efforts, many live pictures of Mahatma Gandhi would not have been available for us. His documentary, In the Footsteps of the Mahatma. Without him, we would not have got the opportunity to see the valuable footages of Gandhiji.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review current literature on peace leadership and youth leadership. It aims to shed a light on the extent to which peace leadership can afford youth leaders and youth peace activists to engage in peace processes and peacebuilding initiatives. By understanding how notions of peace leadership are realized in youth leadership practices, the paper hopes to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on advancing the practice of peace leadership for present and future young leaders. Design/methodology/approach The literature review explored peace leadership from the approaches of peacebuilding processes, nonviolence, and an integral perspective; expanded the current understanding of youth leadership by presenting the theoretical foundations and the role of youth in leadership that align with an advanced view of youth leadership; and described the intersection of peace leadership and youth leadership by identifying how youth leadership is related to peace leadership within three overarching contexts: political systems, schools, and communities. Findings The literature review highlights the reciprocity between peace leadership and youth leadership. It identifies nonviolence, communication, dialogue, conflict resolution, mediation, building social capital, and relationship building as practices in which youth leaders engage in to promote peaceful and sustainable change in varying contexts. Originality/value This review of the literature presents the need for further research on the intersection of peace leadership with youth leadership to help advance both areas within the field of leadership studies and understand how peace leadership for youth informs leadership theory and practice across contexts and areas of discipline.

Rebel groups employ a number of strategies beyond violence, and these alternative tactics are often thought to improve the reputation and legitimacy of rebel actors. How powerful states (and their publics) view rebels can affect their chances of international recognition, inclusion in peace talks, and whether they are eventually successful at achieving their objectives. This study employs two experiments to test the link between rebel tactics and opinions of these rebels held by external audiences. We examine the impact of six rebel behaviors on American public opinion: (a) nonviolent demonstrations, (b) nonviolent interventions (such as blockades and sit ins), (c) social noncooperation (such as hunger strikes), (d) terrorism, (e) stone throwing, and (f) the use of local democratic practice (elections) in rebel groups. We find that the use of elections within rebel actors, demonstrations, and hunger strikes improve positive perceptions of rebels, whereas rebel use of terrorism decreases support.

In clinical assessment of violence between members of a couple, the practitioner's focus is expanded from the abusive incident and crisis stage to a view of couple dynamics during nonviolent periods. Often, couples view the noncrisis period as the norm and true state of the marriage, and violence is seen as an aberration. Issues such as emotional dependency, fear of rejection and abandonment, and shifting power balance between partners need to be addressed. The complexities of interaction and meaning surrounding the violence as well as the role of violence in the couple system allow for selective, differential use of an array of interventions.

In recent years, the rhetoric surrounding criminal justice policy has increasingly emphasized reform, rather than being “tough on crime.” Although this change in rhetoric is aimed at building public support for reform, little is known about its efficacy. To test the efficacy of reform rhetoric, I conducted an Internet experiment using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of six message conditions or to a control condition (no message) and then asked their views about eliminating the use of incarceration for select nonviolent offenses. Results from ordinal logistic regression models suggest that message frames that appeal to a respondent’s self-interest or emphasize the unfairness of the punishment (not who is punished) tend to be most effective.

This paper discusses M. K. Gandhi’s selected short writings of the early and mid-twentieth century by topics, themes and some major timely issues. Gandhi’s April 1933 advice to his readers, spelling his central moral–spiritual experiential truths, frames this writing. In an apperceptive view of Gandhi, he morally, spiritually, and socially ‘contextualized’ and ‘nuanced’ his direct, concise writings. These expressed his life’s core: ‘truth and nonviolence’. Three following topics exemplify his daily regimens in ‘food, health and hygiene’, commentaries on independence-seeking India during the troubled and violent 1940s, and his last 1947 radio speech. The two concluding sections overview how twenty-first-century 3.4 billion modern Indians still lack unity across different castes, religions and regional socioeconomic inequalities. Gandhi’s self-cultivated, disciplined moral, social, and civil bonds are needed. The drivers of such change must be the morally inspired, self-disciplined diverse younger Indians.

In this essay, Alison Kotin, Stella Aguirre McGregor, DeAnna Pellecchia, Ingrid Schatz, and Shaw Pong Liu reflect on their experiences working with public high school students to create Speak Out. Act Up. Move Forward., a performative response to current and historical acts of civil disobedience. The authors—a group of instructors from the Urbano Project with specialties in contemporary dance, musical composition, and interactive digital media—discuss their collaboration with students to draw connections between nonviolent protest and the challenges, pressures, and choices teens are faced with in everyday life. Through the use of student voices and powerful images, this reflective piece illustrates the potential of contemporary art to empower youth with a platform to work collaboratively, engage in critical reflection, and provoke and intrigue their audiences in open-ended consideration of urban young people's lived experiences and views of the world.

Previous research has shown that the public endorses rehabilitation as a core goal of corrections. Over the past decade, however, the campaign to get tough on crime has grown in strength. In this context, the question emerges as to whether support for rehabilitation has diminished or maintained its hold on public thinking. The authors address this issue by replicating a 1986 study by Cullen, Skovron, Scott, and Burton that explored attitudes toward correctional treatment. The data reveal that citizens' support for rehabilitation has declined meaningfully. Even so, the public continues to view treatment as a legitimate correctional objective, especially for juvenile and nonviolent offenders.

Abstract Can we assume that the rewriting of the Rwandan genocide from April to July 1994 may alternatively have a moralizing role in the sense of educating readers about the atrocities suffered by the warring parties ? Based on sociocriticism as the framework theorized by Edmond Cros and Pierre Barbéris, this study identifies the literary and ethical issues crystallized in Eugene Ébodé’s writing frame for the purposes of filling the gap left in memory by a reductive historical discourse. In particular, it unravels the relationship between historical characters and their literary double, with a view to postulating that the fictionalization of historical events sometimes proves to be an artistic alteration that reveals the nonviolent nature of interhuman contacts.

Relational health has emerged as a consistent factor that can mitigate the effects of trauma among children; however, less is known about relational health with adults, particularly related to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration among racially and socioeconomically marginalized men. The Exploratory Sequential Design, Taxonomy Development Model was used. Semi-structured interviews (N = 11) and narrative analysis were conducted in Phase I. In Phase II, variables approximating the key themes that emerged in Phase I were selected from an existing dataset (N = 67), and relationships were examined using bivariate associations. The sample consisted of low-income Black, Indigenous, men of color (BIMOC) in a batterer intervention program (BIP). Adverse life experiences shaped participants’ world view via mistrust in others, stifling emotions and vulnerability, and a sense of personal guilt and shame. These orientations were then carried into adult relationships where men coped using social isolation to manage challenges, negatively affecting intimate relationships. For some men, mental health exacerbated these circumstances. Significant bivariate and multivariate associations supported this narrative. This study lays the foundation for future research to examine the potential effects of social support on IPV perpetration. BIPs should consider augmenting programming to enhance men’s social networks to support their use of nonviolence after program completion.

It is still an open question whether or not Civil Disobedience (CD) has to be completely nonviolent. According to Rawls, “any interference with the civil liberties of others tend to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one's act”. From this Rawls concludes that by no means can CD pose a threath to other individuals' rights. In this paper I challenge Rawls' view, arguing that CD can comprise some degree of violence without losing its “civil” value. However, I specify that violence must not be aimed at seriously injuring, or even killing, other individuals. This would contravene the communicative aspect of CD. The main claim is that what really is important is that the civil disobedients be willing to accept the punishment following their law-breaking behaviour. By doing so, they demonstrate the conscientiousness of their civilly disobedient action. This also shows that they are aiming for future cooperation with the State, and are expecting the State to be sensitive to their concern for the principles of justice.

Since its formal approval, the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project raised public concern about environmental sustainability and security. Thanks to the systematic use of Internet and communication technologies (ICTs), the nonviolent resistance organized by the Sioux tribes of Standing Rock Reservation to oppose the planned construction rapidly attracted public attention. In view of their strategic use of online video-sharing for documentation and counter-surveillance purposes, this study aims at describing how diverse modes of user activity are triggered by two different forms of distant witnessing: online video and live streaming. To this aim, this study analyzes the user activity which took place on the Digital Smoke Signals Facebook page, one of the most widely followed information outlets of the NO DAPL movement. Findings suggest that online video and live streaming trigger different forms of connective activity. The highlighted differences reflect the ways in which synchronous and asynchronous forms of online audio-visual communication impact users’ everyday life.

One of the greatest woman intellectuals of eighteenth‐century Germany is Elise Reimarus, whose contribution to Enlightenment political theory is rarely acknowledged today. Unlike other social contract theorists, Reimarus rejects a people's right to violent resistance or revolution in her philosophical dialogue Freedom (1791). Exploring the arguments in Freedom, this paper observes a number of similarities in the political thought of Elise Reimarus and Immanuel Kant. Both, I suggest, reject violence as an illegitimate response to perceived political injustice in a way that opposes Locke's strong voluntarism and the absolutism of Hobbes. First, they emphasize the need to maintain the legal state as a precondition for the possibility of external right. Second, they share an optimistic view of the inherently “just” nature of the tripartite republican state. And finally, Reimarus and Kant both outline an alternative, nonviolent response to political injustice that consists in the freedom of public expression and a discourse on the moral enlightenment of man.

What do terrorists want? No question is more fundamental for devising an effective counterterrorism strategy. The international community cannot expect to make terrorism unprofitable and thus scarce without knowing the incentive structure of its practitioners. The strategic model—the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies—posits that terrorists are political utility maximizers. According to this view, individuals resort to terrorism when the expected political gains minus the expected costs outweigh the net expected benefits of alternative forms of protest. The strategic model has widespread currency in the policy community; extant counterterrorism strategies seek to defeat terrorism by reducing its political utility. The most common strategies are to fight terrorism by decreasing its political benefits via a strict no concessions policy; decreasing its prospective political benefits via appeasement; or decreasing its political benefits relative to nonviolence via democracy promotion. Despite its policy relevance, the strategic model has not been tested. This is the first study to comprehensively assess its empirical validity. The actual record of terrorist behavior does not conform to the strategic model's premise that terrorists are rational actors primarily motivated to achieving political ends. The preponderance of empirical and theoretical evidence is that terrorists are rational people who use terrorism primarily to develop strong affective ties with fellow terrorists. Major revisions in both the dominant paradigm in terrorism studies and the policy community's basic approach to fighting terrorism are consequently in order.

Gender inequalities still affect the health and well-being of young people worldwide. Given the apprehensions among government and educators in a conservative context like Panama to implement comprehensive sexual education, there is a need for other educational efforts to stimulate healthy and respectful intimate relationships between adolescents. This article examines to what extent a newly developed Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) program, Me and My New World, provides a context in which students can learn to recognize and manage emotions, to care about others and themselves, make responsible decisions, develop social awareness. The program could additionally facilitate behavioral changes of young people towards more gender equality. Specifically, we focused on equal gender roles, equal rights in relationships and nonviolent problem solving, and present the qualitative effect evaluation among adolescents in Panama. The findings suggest that SEL-based lessons might broaden views on how young people experience the process of exploring identity formation, how assumptions of inequalities can be recreated through the lessons, and that SEL can emphasize the significance of choice and decision-making in interpersonal relationships. The perspectives, needs, and limitations highlighted by the adolescents living in a conservative context are highly valuable for improving future learning strategies for the development of healthier relationships.

Constitutional democracies unilaterally enact the laws that regulate immigration to their territories. When are would-be migrants to a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? Receiving states also typically enact laws that require their existing citizens to participate in the implementation of immigration restrictions. When are the individual citizens of a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? In this article, I take up these questions concerning the justifiability of noncompliance with immigration law, focusing on the case of nonviolent—or mere—noncompliance. Dissenting from Javier Hidalgo’s view, I argue that the injustice of an immigration law is insufficient to make mere noncompliance justified. Instead, I contend that only if an immigration law lacks legitimate authority are individuals justified in breaching it, since the subjects of an institution with legitimate authority are under a content-independent moral duty to comply with its rules. I further argue that a constitutional democracy’s regimes of law regulating immigration and requiring its citizens’ participation in implementing these regulations have legitimate authority. Nevertheless, when a particular immigration law is egregiously unjust, its legitimacy is defeated.

Why do activists choose the organizational forms they do? Social movement scholars have tended to focus on activists' instrumental assessments of organizational forms' costs and benefits or on activists' efforts to balance instrumental calculations with a commitment to ideological consistency. Neither explanation is adequate. Organizational forms, like strategies, tactics, and targets, are often appealing for their symbolic associations, and especially, their association with particular social groups. The article fleshes out this dynamic through a case study of the rise and fall of participatory democracy in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Contrary to standard explanations for SNCC activists' repudiation of consensus-based and nonhierarchical decision making in the mid-1960s, I show that participatory democracy was abandoned when it came to be seen as ideological, oriented to personal self-transformation, and—no coincidence—as white. That was not the case earlier on, when participatory democracy was seen as practical, political, and black, and I account for that shift. Once established, however, participatory democracy's social associations shaped subsequent activist generations' view of the form's strengths and liabilities.

The majority of Muslims are very confident that Islamic religion teaches compassion and nonviolence to others. They know and believe that in the Qur an and the Sunnah of the Prophet, there are many commands and suggestions for a more compassionate (merciful). But the big problem is, there are still small groups of Muslims who show violent attitudes. They are often referred to as radical Islam. They did not hesitate to commit acts of terrorism to kill others. The number of followers of radical secte is small. Violence, or acts of terrorism that they did, are not routine, but only temporary. However, their action is more easily affect to the public opinion of the Islamic teaching. The world view that Islam preaches violence, cruel, and far and opposite from feeling compassion for others. View of the Islam and the Muslims are now as represented by the President of the United States Donald Trump. President Trump issued a policy prohibiting citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries to enter to the territory of the United States. The reason President Trump, the seven countries has been a contributor to international terrorists. Seven countries were Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. So, for the majority of moderate Muslims, have to continue to give enlightenment to the world, including to the Muslim minority radical groups. Enlightenment through many varieties of media, including paper media. The goal, for the world view of Islam can be changed from negative to positive view; actually that Islam is not as a terrorist, but Islam is polite and humane, compassionate Islam (love and compassion) to fellow humans. Even compassion for nature. Its flow is expected to turn into a radical polite and forgiving. Islam is rahmatan lil alamin, Islam is not la'natan lil alamin. This paper is intended as part of the provision of such enlightenment. The results of the study authors at the content of Al Qur an, apparently very many verses that contain messages of affection. Islam teaches the Muslims to compassionate to one another, not only to theirself. Not only to family and neighbors, but to all mankind, Muslims or non-Muslims. In fact, Islam ordered his people to love nature, by not doing the destruction of the environment. Prophet Muhammad SAW provide exemplary to his people a lot about patience, about how easy to forgive the enemies of Islam. And, finally, many of the enemies of Islam become a good Muslim.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a societal problem with many repercussions for the health care and judicial systems. In the United States, women of color are frequently affected by IPV and experience negative, physical, and mental ramifications. Increasing IPV perpetration and perpetration recurrence rates among men of Mexican origin (MMO) warrants a better understanding of unique risk factors that can only be described by these men. Qualitative studies regarding MMO and distinct IPV risk factors among this populace are few and infrequent. The purpose of this study was to describe IPV risk factors among men of MMO and to describe the process by which these men are able to overcome IPV perpetration risk factors. Fifty-six men of Mexican origin from a low-income housing community in far-west Texas were recruited for participation in audiotaped focus groups. Grounded theory (GT) methodology techniques were utilized to analyze, translate, and transcribe focus group data. Data collection ended when saturation occurred. Participants described risk factors for IPV. Emerging themes included: environment as a context, societal view of MMO, family of origin, normalcy, male and female contributing factors to IPV, and breaking through. Theme abstractions led to the midrange theory of Change Through Inspired Self-Reflection which describes the process of how MMO move from IPV perpetration to nonviolence. The results of the study provide insight on what MMO believe are IPV risk factors. There are implications for clinicians who provide services to MMO, and provide the impetus for future research among this population.

The article is devoted to the analysis of economic and legal prerequisites for «colour revolutions». The author shows the connection of such prerequisites with the economic way of life and legal system. The «color revolutions» going strong worsening of the socio-economic contradictions - falling living standards of nationals, the impoverishment of the population, the increasing stratification of wealth, polarization «elit» and «bottom», etc. These processes are usually accompanied by the deepening crisis in the legal sphere, the sphere of legal thinking and legal consciousness of citizens - the behavior is heavily influenced by facts the gap between people’s views on social justice and the realities of life. These determinants, in turn, linked to the poor quality of basic political, legal and economic institutions. The author touches the issue of creating the mechanisms of struggling with «colours revolutions». It is noted that there is a necessity for socio-economic and legal transformation as a guarantee of absence of «colour revolutions» in the future. Besides, the author analyses other prerequisites - active action against the political regime on the part of organized groups which are trained and financed from abroad. The methods of nonviolent protest which often transform into the stage of armed seizure of power are given in the paper. The state must quickly respond and use its legal authority to struggle with these threats.

The gender paradigm is the view that most domestic violence (DV) is maleperpetrated against females (and children) in order to maintain patriarchy. Based on functionalist sociology, it has been the prominent DV perspective in North America and Western Europe, framing criminal justice policy to DV, court understanding of DV, court disposition of DV perpetrators to psychoeducational groups, and custody decisions. Research evidence contradicts every major tenet of this belief system: female DV is more frequent than male DV, even against nonviolent partners, there is no overall relationship of control to DV, and abuse perpetrators who use intimate partner violence (IPV) for coercive instrumental reasons are both male and female. Research supporting the gender paradigm is typically based on self-selected samples (victims from women’s shelters and men from court-mandated groups) and then inappropriately generalized to community populations. The gender paradigm is a closed system, unresponsive to major disconfirming data sets, and takes an antiscience stance consistent with a cult. In this article, I compare the responses of this gender cult to other cults and contrast it with a scientific response to contradictory data.

Applying the typology of R. Niebuhr to the Protestant environment of Ukraine is nearly impossible, because despite the preserved faith statements, the level of involvement of Protestants in Ukrainian society has changed significantly. Thus, the usual classification is not efficient due to the dynamics of the social dimension of Protestants and the background of theological conservatism. Author agrees with the proposed paradigm of D. Hollinger, that in any interaction with society there are two dimensions, in the middle of which we can make a certain ranking. The impact can be individual or structural, as well as reactionary or preventive. The following vectors have become especially common among Protestants: 1. Christian relief; 2. Creating alternative Christian institutions; 3. Evangelism, not just a method to introduce beliefs to others, but also as a vehicle of structural changes in society; 4. Prophetic proclamation as a way to react on existing negative trends; 5. Political lobbying with an attempt to prevent the adoption of certain bills, or vice versa, their promotion; 6. Creation of political parties or political groups; 7. Nonviolent resistance; 8. The practice of Christian incarnation as a manifestation of faithfulness to God with the understanding that the attainability of ethical standards is possible only within the Christian community; 9. Individual impact with understanding that Christians hold views and moral (ethical) principles that differ from secular society, however Christians apply those principles, within and outside boundaries of Christendom.

Four years ago, the Arab Awakening started out auspiciously. It caught many by surprise to say the least and its inception, strength and energy have continued to shock numerous commentators. While some observers noted that this powerful process had bypassed Palestine, others have offered a completely different view, arguing that the current situation is ripe for Palestine’s enactment of the Arab Awakening. This article examines the validity of arguing the possibility or the impossibility of a Palestinian Arab Spring-style uprising. Has the spring really bypassed Palestine? Does Palestine exhibit the circumstances and capacities whose presence in other Arab countries seemed to be prerequisites for uprising? Moreover, if developments and initiatives adopted by the collective are of any indicator and Palestinians opt for a mass populist non-violent uprising, then what goals, tools and tactics would the coming Intifada adopt? While attempting to place Palestine within a broader contextual analysis of the Arab Spring, the article seeks answers to these questions and argues that nonviolent resistance is emerging as the most potent means for reforming the Palestinian house and also for defying the occupation and exposing its crimes. The article presents a framework for the description and then provides recommendations.

The article analyzes the role of the documentary form in building pronuclear narratives around the Indian nuclear project. It situates the nuclear films made by two state institutions, Films Division of India (Films Division) and Vigyan Prasar, as part of a network of expert statements, documentary assertions, and state violence that bring into being a pronuclear reality. Through the insights gained from my practice-based enquiry, which led to the production and circulation of a film titled Nuclear Hallucinations, I argue that the certainty of the pronouncements of such documentaries can be unsettled by approaching them as a tamasha. I rely on the multiple connotations of the word tamasha in the South Asian context and its ability to turn solemn assertions into a matter of entertainment or a joke. This vantage point of tamasha vis-à-vis the Indian nuclear project builds upon the strategies of antinuclear documentaries that resist the epistemological violence of pronuclear assertions. In this article, I explore the role of comic modes and irony in forming sites of tamasha to create trouble within the narratives that position nonviolent antinuclear protestors as “antinational” elements. The article also expands on how the point of view of tamasha can engender new solidarities, which can resist the violence of the Indian nuclear project by forming new configurations of possibilities.

Network science and data analytics are used to quantify static and dynamic structures in George R. R. Martin’s epic novels,A Song of Ice and Fire, works noted for their scale and complexity. By tracking the network of character interactions as the story unfolds, it is found that structural properties remain approximately stable and comparable to real-world social networks. Furthermore, the degrees of the most connected characters reflect a cognitive limit on the number of concurrent social connections that humans tend to maintain. We also analyze the distribution of time intervals between significant deaths measured with respect to the in-story timeline. These are consistent with power-law distributions commonly found in interevent times for a range of nonviolent human activities in the real world. We propose that structural features in the narrative that are reflected in our actual social world help readers to follow and to relate to the story, despite its sprawling extent. It is also found that the distribution of intervals between significant deaths in chapters is different to that for the in-story timeline; it is geometric rather than power law. Geometric distributions are memoryless in that the time since the last death does not inform as to the time to the next. This provides measurable support for the widely held view that significant deaths inA Song of Ice and Fireare unpredictable chapter by chapter.

The article analyzes the specifics of training future educators for work in an inclusive educational environment; the concept of inclusive educational environment is revealed; the emphasis is placed on the role of preschool institutions in the continuum (lifelong learning). Emphasis is placed on the following conditions of future professional readiness to work in an inclusive educational environment, namely the recognition of the values of inclusive education as guidelines for professional activity (equality, rights, participation, community, respect for diversity, sustainable development, nonviolence, trust, compassion, honesty, courage, joy, love, hope and beauty); the relationship of educational material of different disciplines of the professional and pedagogical cycle; inclusion of students in effective professional cooperation (pedagogical practice, co-teaching, mentoring, dialogue), improvement of professional competence of the future specialists (cognitive-motivational, reflective, communicative, multicultural, etc.). Speaking about the preparation of future educators to work in modern preschool education, it should be emphasized on the formation of students' ability to solve problems by applying the knowledge gained during the study of disciplines of the psychological and pedagogical cycle, and, accordingly, to create both in the classroom and outside it the educational environment focused on the features of future professional activity, to use their own experience during pedagogical practice, in accordance with the age characteristics of children and the specifics of the stage of their learning. The environment for the child development should be modern and contribute to the effective formation of children's competencies, skills of independent and joint activities, active interaction in society needed for realization of their own potential. Subject-spatial environment should be content-rich, ready for transformation; multifunctional; variable; available; safe. We support the view of many scholars that the worldview of educators should change, and that philosophy and principles of inclusion should become an integral part of professional thinking. We understand that it is important to analyze the experience of other countries, which has its advantages and challenges, and implement the best examples of pedagogical practice of providing support to children with special educational needs in educational process in Ukraine.

Despite its advocacy for justice and accountability in the American political system, the Movement for Black Lives is still considered controversial among groups of Americans. The in-your-face and unapologetic tone of today’s movement stands in contrast to romanticized narratives of the peaceful, nonviolent activism of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. The movement’s titular organization, Black Lives Matter, openly rejects respectability politics—the notion that individuals and groups must conform to the expectations of white mainstream norms to protect themselves from the harms of white racism and discrimination. In this article, we examine whether generational politics affect Black attitudes toward protest movements, focusing especially on the Black Lives Matter organization. We expect that protest politics are affected by generations of Black Americans who have been socialized in different eras of social and political advocacy with differing views about the actions that are acceptable for Black politics. Consistent with prior literature, we anticipate that generational differences in attitudes toward contestation, varying awareness about the political and social goals of new movements, differences in access to political information, and overall generational socialization toward respectability politics will all affect the degree to which Black Americans support the Movement for Black Lives. Using national-level data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), we find that prior theories of generational politics do not fully explain support for Black Lives Matter. Unexpectedly, we find that older generations of Black Americans are more supportive of the movement than younger generations of Black Americans. We do not find strong evidence of generational effects interacting with awareness of the movement, political opportunity structures, or respectability politics, which suggests the diminishing effects of generational differences along with traditional factors that influence support. Our results underscore the need for research on generational effects to consider the context of political socialization, which varies across generations.

The Ambivalence of the Sacred book attempts to articulate a framework forformulating specific answers, on a case-by-case basis, to three overarchingquestions pertaining to the seemingly ambivalent relationship betweenreligion and violence. First, it seeks to examine conditions under whichreligious actors become violent; secondly, the opposite circumstancesunder which religious actors reject the violence of religious extremistsaccording to the same principles of religious sanctity; and thirdly, thesettings in view of which non-violent religious actors can become agents ofpeacebuilding. The purported goal is to identify and develop means andmethods by which religion may become an instrument of conflict managementand/or resolution instead of being a source of deadly conflicts.Appleby argues that religion can be administered in such a prudent,selective, and deliberate fashion so as to allow it consistently to contributeto a peaceful resolution of conflicts. Additionally, that a new formof conflict transformation --"religious peacebuilding'- is actually takingshape among local communities plagued with violence. In this sense"ambivalence of the sacred projects an awareness that both possibilitiesof life and death reside within the holy.The book is divided into two parts. The first part (chs. 1-5) attempts toelaborate elements of a theory of religion's role in deadly conflict and toaddress the first two overarching questions above. Citing the cases of SouthAfrica and the transformations in Roman Catholic teachings, in response toboth state apartheid violence in the former, and to post-war era pressuresfor pluralism on the latter, chapter 1 examines the paradoxical and ambivalentlogic of the sacred. Chapters 2 and 3 explore the conditions underwhich religious actors legitimate violence as a sacred duty or privilege inlight of the violent forces of ethno-nationalism and religious extremism.Chapter 4 examines the phenomenon of nonviolent religious militancy bylooking at Buddhist peacemaking in Southeast Asia and by introducingtransnational NGO's that work with and among local religious actors. The ...

The article characterizes the potential of theatrical and pedagogical technologies for gender socialization of students of pedagogical higher education institutions by means of extracurricular activities. The identity of the meanings of the potential of theatrical technologies and extracurricular activities of students is substantiated: nonlinearity, indirectness, self-actualization, complementarity, cooperation, compensability, flexibility, tolerance, recreation. The essence of the concepts “gender socialization”, “theatrical technologies”, “theatrical and pedagogical technologies” is specified. Theatrical technologies are interpreted as an ordered (in time, space, methods of interaction of subjects and objects, etc.) set of means for realizing the process of activity, the leading integrative characteristic of which is theatricality. Theatrical and pedagogical technologies are defined as specific to theatrical technologies, i.e. those of them, the direct subject of which is implementation of pedagogical influence on the individual. The functions of theatrical and pedagogical technologies in the context of optimizing the sociocultural environment of the pedagogical institution of higher education from the point of view of the tasks of gender socialization of future teachers are revealed. In particular, it is determined that the use of theatrical and pedagogical technologies contributes to the approximation of the characteristics of the socio-cultural environment of the higher education institution in three essential requirements: formation and satisfaction of student needs for knowledge and mastery of egalitarian gender values and norms; creating conditions for self-realization and personal self-development in accordance with the requirements of gender equality; ensuring the transmission of socio-cultural potential free from all forms of gender discrimination. It is found out that the essential characteristics of theatrical and pedagogical technologies best correspond to the new paradigm of pedagogical education – post-classical pedagogy, which shifts the emphasis in the content of modern higher education from the translation of knowledge and values to the organization of changing conditions of cognition. At the same time, the task of forming the students’ egalitarian worldview is decisive. Value (nonviolent) attitude to the world, society, personality is determined by the core of the professional system of the teacher and it can’t be ensured by only rational and logical influence.

Christianity was the religion of spirit (and freedom), and critiqued Islam as a religion of flesh (and slavery); later, Christianity was the religion of reason, and critiqued Islam as the religion of fideism; later still, Christianity was the religion of the critique of religion, and critiqued Islam as the most atavistic of religions. Even now, when the West has critiqued its own Chris- tianity enough to be properly secular (because free, rational, and critical), it continues to critique Islam for being not secular enough. In contrast to Christianity or post-Christian secularism, then, and despite their best ef- forts, Islam does not know (has not learned from) critique. This sentiment is articulated at multiple registers, academic and popular and governmen- tal: Muslims are fanatical about their repressive law; they interpret things too literally; Muslims do not read their own revelation critically, let alone literature or cartoons; their sartorial practices are unreasonable; the gates of ijtihād closed in 900CE; Ghazali killed free inquiry in Islam… Such claims are ubiquitous enough to be unremarkable, and have political traction among liberals and conservatives alike. “The equation of Islam with the ab- sence of critique has a longer genealogy in Western thought,” Irfan Ahmad writes in this book, “which runs almost concurrently with Europe’s colonial expansion” (8). Luther and Renan figure in that history, as more recently do Huntington and Gellner and Rushdie and Manji.Meanwhile in the last decade an interdisciplinary conversation about the stakes, limits, complicities, and possibilities of critique has developed in the anglophone academy, a conversation of which touchstones include the polemical exchange between Saba Mahmood and Stathis Gourgouris (2008); the co-authored volume Is Critique Secular? (2009), by Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Mahmood; journal special issues dedi- cated to the question (e.g. boundary 2 40, no. 1 [2013]); and Gourgouris’s Lessons in Secular Criticism (2013), among others. At the same time, the discipline of religious studies remains trapped in an argument over the lim- its of normative analysis and the possibility of critical knowledge.Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Mar- ketplace seeks to turn these debates on their head. Is critique secular? Decidedly not—but understanding why that is, for Ahmad, requires revising our understanding of critique itself. Instead of the object of critique, reli- gion here emerges as an agent of critique. By this account, God himself is the source of critique, and the prophets and their heirs are “critics par ex- cellence” (xiv). The book is divided into two parts bookended by a prologue and epilogue. “Formulation” comprises three chapters levying the shape of the argument. “Illustration” comprises three chapters taking up the case study of the South Asian reformer Abul-A‘la Maududi and his critics (es- pecially regarding his views on the state and on women) as well as a fourth chapter that seeks to locate critique in the space of the everyday. There are four theses to Ahmad’s argument, none of them radically original on their own but newly assembled. As spelled out in the first chap- ter (“Introduction”), the first thesis holds that the Enlightenment reconfig- uration of Christianity was in fact an ethnic project by which “Europe/the West constituted its identity in the name of reason and universalism against a series of others,” among them Islam (14). The second thesis is that no crit- ic judges by reason alone. Rather, critique is always situated, directed, and formed: it requires presuppositions and a given mode to be effective (17). The third thesis is that the Islamic tradition of critique stipulates the com- plementarity of intellect (‘aql, dimāgh) and heart (qalb, dil); this is a holistic anthropology, not a dualistic one. The fourth thesis is that critique should not be understood as the exclusive purview of intellectuals (especially when arguing about literature) or as simply a theoretical exercise. Instead, cri- tique should be approached as part of life, practiced by the literate and the illiterate alike (18).The second chapter, “Critique: Western and/or Islamic,” focuses on the first of these theses. The Enlightenment immunized the West from critique while subjecting the Rest to critique. An “anthropology of philosophy” approach can treat Kant’s transcendental idealism as a social practice and in doing so discover that philosophy is “not entirely independent” from ethnicity (37). The certainty offered by the Enlightenment project can thus be read as “a project of security with boundaries.” Ahmad briefly consid- ers the place of Islam across certain of Kant’s writings and the work of the French philosophes; he reads their efforts to “secure knowledge of humani- ty” to foreclose the possibility of “knowledge from humanity” (42), namely Europe’s others. Meanwhile, ethnographic approaches to Muslim debates shy away from according them the status of critique, but in so doing they only maintain the opposition between Western reason and Islamic unrea- son. In contrast to this view (from Kant through Foucault), Ahmad would rather locate the point of critical rupture with the past in the axial age (800-200BCE), which would include the line of prophets who reformed (critiqued) their societies for having fallen into corruption and paganism. This alternative account demonstrates that “critical inquiry presupposes a tradition,” that is, that effective critique is always immanent (58). The third chapter, “The Modes: Another Genealogy of Critique,” con- tests the reigning historiography of “critique” (tanqīd/naqd) in South Asia that restricts it to secular literary criticism. Critique (like philosophy and democracy) was not simply founded in Grecian antiquity and inherited by Europe: Ahmad “liberates” critique from its Western pedigree and so allows for his alternative genealogy, as constructed for instance through readings of Ghalib. The remainder of the chapter draws on the work of Maududi and his critics to present the mission of the prophets as critiquing to reform (iṣlāḥ) their societies. This mandate remains effective today, and Maududi and his critics articulate a typology of acceptable (tanqīd) and unacceptable (ta‘īb, tanqīṣ, tazhīk, takfīr, etc.) critiques in which the style of critique must be considered alongside its object and telos. Religion as Critique oscillates between sweeping literature reviews and close readings. Readers may find the former dizzying, especially when they lose in depth what they gain in breadth (for example, ten pages at hand from chapter 2 cite 44 different authors, some of whom are summarizing or contesting the work of a dozen other figures named but not cited di- rectly). Likewise there are moments when Ahmad’s own dogged critiques may read as tendentious. The political purchase of this book should not be understated, though the fact that Muslims criticize themselves and others should come as no surprise. Yet it is chapters 4–6 (on Maududi and his critics) which substantiate the analytic ambition of the book. They are the most developed chapters of the book and detail a set of emerging debates with a fine-grained approach sometimes found wanting elsewhere (espe- cially in the final chapter). They show how Islam as a discursive tradition is constituted through critique, and perhaps always has been: for against the disciplinary proclivities of anthropologists (who tend to emphasize discon- tinuity and rupture, allowing them to discover the modern invention of traditions), Ahmad insists on an epistemic connection among precolonial and postcolonial Islam. This connection is evident in how the theme of rupture/continuity is itself a historical topos of “Islamic critical thinking.” Chapter 4 (“The Message: A Critical Enterprise”) approaches Maududi (d. 1979) as a substantial political thinker, not simply the fundamentalist ideologue he is often considered to be. Reading across Maududi’s oeuvre, Ahmad gleans a political-economic critique of colonial-capitalist exploita- tion (95), a keen awareness of the limits of majoritarian democracy, and a warning about the dispossessive effects of minoritization. Maududi’s Isla- mism (“theodemocracy”), then, has to be understood within his broader project of the revival of religion to which tanqīd (“critique”), tajdīd (“re- newal”), and ijtihād (“understanding Islam’s universal principles to de- termine change”) were central (103). He found partial historical models for such renewal in ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya, Ahmad Sirhindi, and Shah Wali Ullah. A key element of this critique is that it does not aim to usher in a different future. Instead it inhabits a more complicated temporality: it clarifies what is already the case, as rooted in the primordial nature of humans (fiṭra), and in so doing aligns the human with the order of creation. This project entails the critique and rejection of false gods, in- cluding communism, fascism, national socialism, and capitalism (117). Chapter 5 (“The State: (In)dispensible, Desirable, Revisable?”) weaves together ethnographic and textual accounts of Maududi’s critics and de- fenders on the question of the state (the famous argument for “divine sov- ereignty”). In doing so the chapter demonstrates how the work of critique is undertaken in this Islamic tradition, where, Ahmad writes, “critique is connected to a form of life the full meaning of which is inseparable from death” (122). (This also means that at stake in critique is also the style and principles of critique.) The critics surveyed in this chapter include Manzur Nomani, Vahiduddin Khan, Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi, Amir Usmani, Sadrud- din Islahi, Akram Zurti, Rahmat Bedar, Naqi Rahman, Ijaz Akbar, and others, figures of varying renown but all of whom closely engaged, defend- ed, and contested Maududi’s work and legacy in the state politics of his Jamaat-e Islami. Chapter 6 (“The Difference: Women and In/equality”) shows how Maududi’s followers critique the “neopatriarchate” he proposes. Through such critique, Ahmad also seeks to affirm the legitimacy of a “nonpatri- archal reading of Islam” (156). If Maududi himself regarded the ḥarem as “the mightiest fortress of Islamic culture” (159)—a position which Ahmad notes is “enmeshed in the logic of colonial hegemony”—he also desired that women “form their own associations and unbiasedly critique the govern- ment” (163). Maududi’s work and legacy is thus both “disabling” and “en- abling” for women at the same time, as is borne out by tracing the critiques it subsequently faced (including by those sympathetic to his broader proj- ect). The (male) critics surveyed here include Akram Zurti, Sultan Ahmad Islahi, Abdurrahman Alkaf, and Mohammad Akram Nadwi, who seriously engaged the Quran and hadith to question Maududi’s “neopatriarchate.” They critiqued his views (e.g. that women were naturally inferior to men, or that they were unfit for political office) through alternative readings of Islamic history and theology. Chapter 7 (“The Mundane: Critique as Social-Cultural Practice”) seeks to locate critique at “the center of life for everyone, including ordinary sub- jects with no educational degrees” (179). Ahmad writes at length about Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (d. 1988), the anticolonial activist who led a massive movement against colonial domination, and whose following faced British brutality with nonviolence. The Khudai Khidmatgār movement he built was “a movement of critique” (195), Ahmad writes, composed of or- dinary men and women, peasants and the unlettered. The brief remainder of the chapter suggests that the proverbs which punctuate everyday life (for example, in the trope of the greedy mullah) also act as critiques. By the end of Religion as Critique it is difficult not to see critique na- scent in every declaration or action. This deflates the analytic power of the term—but perhaps that is one unstated aim of the project, to reveal critique as simply a part of life. Certainly the book displaces the exceptional West- ern claim to critique. Yet this trope of exposure—anthropology as cultural critique, the ethnographer’s gaze turned inward—also raises questions of its own. In this case, the paradigmatic account of critique (Western, sec- ular) has been exposed as actually being provincial. But the means of this exposure have not come from the alternative tradition of critique Ahmad elaborates. That is, Ahmad is not himself articulating an Islamic critique of Western critique. (Maududi serves as an “illustration” of Ahmad’s ar- gument; Maududi does not provide the argument itself.) In the first chap- ters (“Formulation”) he cites a wide literature that practices historicism, genealogy, archeology, and deconstruction in order to temper the universal claims of Western supremacists. The status of these latter critical practices however is not explored, as to whether they are in themselves sufficient to provincialize or at least de-weaponize Western critique. Put more directly: is there is a third language (of political anthropology, for example) by which Ahmad analytically mediates the encounter between rival traditions of cri- tique? And if there is such a language, and if it is historically, structurally, and institutionally related to one of the critical traditions it is mediating, then what is the status of the non-Western “illustration”? The aim of this revision of critique, Ahmad writes, is “genuinely dem- ocratic dialogue with different traditions” (xii). As much is signalled in its citational practices, which (for example) reference Talal Asad and Viveiros de Castro together in calling for “robust comparison” (14) between West- ern and Islamic notions of critique, and reference Maududi and Koselleck together in interpreting critique to be about judgment (203). No matter that Asad and de Castro or Maududi and Koselleck mean different things when using the same words; these citations express Ahmad’s commitment to a dialogic (rather than dialectical) mode in engaging differences. Yet because Ahmad does not himself explore what is variously entailed by “comparison” or “judgment” in these moments, such citations remain as- sertions gesturing to a dialogue to come. In this sense Religion as Critique is a thoroughly optimistic book. Whether such optimism is warranted might call for a third part to follow “Formulation” and “Illustration”: “Reckoning.”
 Basit Kareem IqbalPhD candidate, Department of Anthropologyand Program in Critical TheoryUniversity of California, Berkeley

King and Gandhi: two names that have come to be synonymous with nonviolence. And yet, the movements they led responded to and, in some cases with, significant violence. In a recent paper (2016), August H. Nimtz analyzes the role of violence in the movement of Dr. King, concluding that violence played a significant role in the success of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Using Nimtz’s work as a starting point, this paper analyzes King’s movement and views, comparing definitions of “principled nonviolence” versus “pragmatic nonviolence.” From there, this paper analyzes the role of violence in the struggle for Indian independence from British colonialism and Gandhi’s own views on when, if ever, violence is appropriate. This paper concludes that, indeed, violence—that of sanctioned, state-sponsored violence and that of non-sanctioned actors—has had significant roles in both of these movements. In what way, then, could these movements be said to be nonviolent? Finally, this paper asks why there remains such an impetus to identify these movements, and their leaders, with “principled nonviolence.”

Two foundations of regulatory choice, precaution and innovation, co-exist in the political system of the European Union (EU). At the conceptual level the two foundations are complementary, and are both endorsed by the EU institutions, albeit in different ways and with different legal status. In the real-life of EU policymaking processes, however, precaution and innovation often become the terrain of polarised views anchored to technocratic or populist positions that erode trust in EU governance. We propose a way forward to this state of play. Instead of seeing the two foundations as opposite, we explore their dyadic relationship. We show that a conversation between the two is possible via an original reformulation of precaution and innovation. The reconciliation of precaution and innovation, we argue, is effective only in a context of social trust about the reconciled definitions. We propose the analytical and normative framework as seal of social trust. Nonviolence can assist the EU and its citizens in the path towards innovation that is socially responsible, future-proof and accountable, and enhance precaution as internalised commitment of decision-makers as well as scientific and social communities.

The relevance of Gandhian ideas and his technique of satyagraha in resolving global problems is even greater today. The economic disparity, social divisions, ecological catastrophe and growing social intolerance are global challenges in the age of capitalist and technological globalisation. Globalisation as an economic model with neo- liberal ideology is inconsistent with Gandhian economic and political philosophy. Globalisation per se does not seem to be not be reversible as the hegemony of the global capital is deeply entrenched. However, its malaise can be better managed with Gandhian prescriptions. Gandhi stands for pursuit of truth, incessant enquiry, nonviolence, human values, dignity of labour, and respect for the plurality of views, economic and political decentralisation with substantial decrease in the power of the state. Gandhian vision stands for mobilisation of the people’s power through nonviolent active participation against all kinds of injustices and making the political power accountable in the service of the society. Gandhi had deep faith in the intrinsic goodness of individual human beings and he staunchly believed and demonstrated that truthful and moral means are superior to immoral means in redressing the social and political problems confronting mankind. Gandhian economic and political vision is for a decentralised, just and nonviolent society which is indispensable for spiritual and moral upliftment of individual human beings. Gandhian prescriptions are for common masses and practical. It only requires pursuit of truthful and moral means without any hatred and ill will for anyone in the struggle against domination and injustice. Keywords: Satyagraha, Ahimsa, Dharna, Hindu, Inter-faith, Decentralisation, Moksha, Spiritual

The sanctity of human life is the core issue in almost all religions of the world. In the present world scenario, human beings are suffering a lot. Human life is at risk. The most important and precious figure in society is human beings as it is the greatest creature of Almighty Allah. Buddhism and Islam both emphasize the sanctity of human life. The stress laid by the teaching of Islam on the sanctity and respect of human life can be understood by the fact that Islam does not allow the killing of people who are not physically involved in the war. Islam also against suicide. Similarly, the teaching of Buddha has emphasized the holiness and sanctity of human life. According to the philosophy of non-violence in Buddhism (Ahimsa), Killing of human beings is far from Buddhist’s creed even they are against the killing of insects. In Buddhism, “The nonviolence is one of the five precepts of Dhamma, which form the right action, right views and right-thinking on Eightfold Path. This article focuses on the teaching of Buddhism and Islam, a comparative study regarding killing and suicide as these topics are closely related to the sanctity of human life.