or some, it might means peace. For others, war. Is it for peace-nuts, revolutionaries, prophets or out-of-touch persons? Is it a possible reality or just a dream? 

Our own experiences tell us that it is possible to live a nonviolent lifestyle, and not only because of people following Christ. When we hear Gandhi, Dali Lama, Dorothy Day, Paul VI and so many others uniting their energies, joining their voices, and proclaiming with their lives that “Nonviolence is possible!”, then we believe it is a universal vision, a dream dreamed throughout the whole world.

But how hard is it to practice “nonviolence?” Does it mean receiving more harm from the people who don’t like you and let them “walk over you?” We think not. Nonviolence is a possible way of life, a way to bring about changes.

What do we understand by the word “nonviolence?” 

Our feelings and responses on this “way of life” are many and contradictory. Authentic nonviolence does not harm, but it does know when to hiss. It hisses loud and long at every system and structure that trod the weak and powerless underfoot. It hisses so strongly and with such persistence that governments topple and dictatorships dissolve. Consider these real life stories:

- When the Filipino people – armed only with rosary beads – toppled the Marcos government by kneeling in front of tanks, that was a hiss!

- When tens of thousands of students poured into Tiananmen Square bearing this placard: “Although you trod a thousand resisters underfoot, I shall be the on-thousand-and-first – that was a hiss!

- The Solidarity Movement in Poland with its strikes, slowdowns, boycotts, prison hunger strikes, marches and 500 underground presses calling Poles to nonviolent resistance, was a hiss!

- “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. was a hiss, and a powerful one!

Nonviolence, then, is the essence of courage, creativity and action. It requires a passionate endurance and a commitment to seek justice and truth.

What’s left for us?

We are increasingly aware of our responsibility to “promote” nonviolence in our age and in the ages to come. Promoting is “taking a stand”; nonviolence is courage, action. It is teasing someone, committing ourselves to seek justice and truth, no matter the cost.

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” 
Dorothy Day

Yes, history betrays this vision: “We recognize that in the history of the human family, people of various religions, acting officially in the name of their respective traditions, have either initiated or collaborated in organized and systematic violence and war.” (Universal Declaration on Nonviolence, Apr. 2, 1991, at Santa Fe, NM).

Non violence is not passivity, but the active violence of the peaceful.