G8, Edinburgh, Make Poverty History, Protest, 2005, Riot.

violence will hold the campaign back.

This is a brief explanation of how violence is counter-productive in protesting.

In the early 20th century one man took on the might of the British Empire, brought it to its knees, and made it change its oppressive control of another country.  This was the birth of non-violent protest, it was built on a spiritual foundation of truth, with a methodology of focused courage, meeting physical brutality with total passive resistance.  Gandhi was the originator of what we now know as non-violent direct action (NVDA).

From small groups like families to the dynamics between countries it is known by psychologists and spiritual leaders that acts of violence are most effectively countered by acts of non-violence.  In a dis-functional family, for example, a therapist will encourage each member to act with kindness to other members of the family: The scientific research has found this to be the way to bring an end to the in-fighting.  Psychologists know that fighting war with peace is the only workable option.  This same dynamic scales up through businesses, local and national government to the global scale.  The non-violent solution works in small groups, it is studied and documented by scientists, it was proven by Gandhi, and even expounded by possibly the world’s most revolutionary campaigner - Christ.  Meeting violence with violence does not work.

Groups such as the G8 are indeed guilty of abuses against their fellow humans; using others for financial gain.  After the original wrong-doing by the G8, other people become angry at that act of badness, and a deep seated primeval urge inside drives us protestors to right the wrong.  Which is good.  But we are creatures which are still evolving and we have in us left-overs from our ape-ancestors.  Those apes solved their territorial battles using violence - if they intimidated or even killed their competitors they stood a better chance of passing on their genes.  But now humans are growing out of the swamp.  That innate feeling of anger is massively powerful and very often overwhelms the individual, who then succumbs to acts of violence.  It does indeed take far more strength to resist the inner desire to hit out; giving in to it is the weaker option.  And then, the person who was originally driven to right a wrong, has been dragged down into an exchange of punishment and suffering.  In itself that is an absolute wrong, but the downward spiral goes further than this.  Bystanders see the angry person hitting out, and then that person (who originally was fighting on the side of justice) is seen as a violent person - and a cause which was just, starts to look bad.  When