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Forum Post: How Non-Violence Can Topple the Greatest of Empires

Posted 12 years ago on March 7, 2012, 8:10 a.m. EST by GildasSapiens (266)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

"When Jonathan Schell’s 'The Unconquerable World', a meditation on the history and power of nonviolent action, was published in 2003, the timing could not have been worse. Americans were at war -- and success was in the air. U.S. troops had invaded Iraq and taken Baghdad (“mission accomplished”) only months earlier, and had already spent more than a year fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Schell's book earned a handful of glowing reviews, and then vanished from the public debate as the bombs scorched Iraq and the body count began to mount.

Now, 'The Unconquerable World's animating message -- that, in the age of nuclear weaponry, nonviolent action is the mightiest of forces, one capable of toppling even the greatest of empires -- has undergone a renaissance of sorts. In December 2010, the self-immolation of a young Tunisian street vendortriggered a wave of popular and, in many cases, nonviolent uprisings across the Middle East, felling such autocrats as Tunisia's Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak in mere weeks. Occupations, marches, and protests of all sorts spread like brushfire across Europe, from England to Spain to Greece, and later Moscow, and even as far as Madison, Wisconsin. And then, of course, there were the artists, students, and activists who, last September, heard the call to "Occupy Wall Street" and ignited a national movement with little more than tents, signs, and voices on a strip of stone and earth in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park."

Read more: http://www.alternet.org/world/154363/How_Empires_Fall_%28Including_the_American_One%29/?page=entire

15 Comments

15 Comments


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[-] 4 points by beautifulworld (23767) 12 years ago

Thanks for this excellent post. Something positive.

[-] 2 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

@ 'GildasS' : GR8 Post ;-) & also 'fyi' :

fiat lux ; fiat pax ; fiat justitia ruat caelum ...

[-] 2 points by XenuLives (1645) from Charlotte, NC 12 years ago

good stuff

[-] -2 points by BlackSun (275) from Agua León, BC 12 years ago

This makes no sense at all.

[-] -2 points by Carlitini99 (-167) 12 years ago

seems like Muslim Terrorist are popping up everywhere. From the Canadian National Post March 6 A Canadian Muslim youth organization has been stripped of its charitable status after a Canada Revenue Agency investigation linked it to a Saudi-based group that allegedly financed Islamist terror campaigns.

An audit of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth revealed the charity had developed ties to a number of organizations that allegedly helped fund al-Qaeda operations around the world and failed to comply with a number of standards required for charities to maintain their status.

In a warning letter to the Toronto-area organization last summer, CRA director-general Cathy Hawara said “our analysis of the Organization’s operations has led the CRA to believe…[it] was established to support the goals and operations of its parent organization, located in Saudi Arabia, which has been alleged to support terrorism.”

[-] -3 points by Carlitini99 (-167) 12 years ago

This just in....Occupy Wall Street is not a national movement. is a .5% movement of 'the few, the liberal, the Occupy.'

[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 12 years ago

i heard the Republicans are down to two candidates

what are they talking about?

[-] 3 points by GildasSapiens (266) 12 years ago

I think they mean Dumb & Dumber.

[-] 2 points by GildasSapiens (266) 12 years ago

This just in....Carlitini99 is a Neocon, Zionist Troll, warmonger & hatemonger!

[-] -2 points by Newspeak1 (39) from Mt Shasta, CA 12 years ago

That's al you have. Isn't it?

[+] -4 points by Carlitini99 (-167) 12 years ago

oh hi, ms muslim terrorist. Have you seen the light yet and converted to Christianity?

[-] 3 points by GildasSapiens (266) 12 years ago

Have you seen the light yet & converted to humanity?

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

LOLOL !!! ~{:-o)

[-] -3 points by Carlitini99 (-167) 12 years ago

yes thank you I have. And i can see radical Islam as the enemy of humanity and the occupy movement.

[+] -4 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 12 years ago

Excellent post. That is the thing about wisdom - often times it takes people looking back and considering to see the truth.