Letters to the Editor
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Denmark and the jews
One of the reasons that non-violent resistance of Denmark was effective was that Hitler had made several edicts that the harsh methods that were used else where weren't to be used in Denmark. There were a number of reasons for this some psychological others economic.
Hitler was indulgent towards the Danes and viewed them as even more aryan than the germans and figured that the danes would "come around" to his way of thinking eventually. Plus denmark was a relatively small agrarian(sp?) society without a strategic coast and crushing it would have been more work than it was worth.
Also, as far as the Jews go, in most of the conquered countries the Nazis relied upon the local population to rat out the jews in their midst which was done without much effort. Had these countries not been so eager to rat out the jews (as the danes had) then the numbers would have been comparible to denmark, probably. The danes just weren't that anti-semetic and didn't really see much point in ratting out their friends. The Nazis had a lot of local allies in the other countries. In France, Poland, etc. it was passive assistance not non-violent resistance. I think in denmark it was insouciant indifference.
It wasn't until very late in the war that the same methods were used in Denmark as other places and even then they weren't used with all that much vigor because the people that were administering the place didn't really have their hearts in it, probably because of the above reason (more aryan than germany).
Kurlansky creates a pleasant fiction that somehow non-violence would have stopped Hitler. It is a pleasant fiction, but a fiction none the less.
(My apologies for spelling and grammar).
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Certainly not indifference.
The Danes actively thwarted and mocked Nazi edicts with regard to Jewish identification. That's not indifference.
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No pacifist
I believe the correct translation is "Thou shalt not murder". A very different statement. Moses was in no way a pacifist. Actually he was the leader of a well trained military force that wreaked havoc on its way out of Egypt. The Jews are one of histories great warrior tribes. They kicked ass for 1500 years before the Romans finally took them down. That's what makes WW2 such an anomaly. When they went like "sheep to the slaughter".
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Danes
It is easy to thwart an mock an edict if you are being indulged.
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actually that didn't come out right
I didn't mean to be flip and I didn't mean any disrespect to the efforts of the Danes and their efforts during the war but I don't think that you could compare their experience with some other countries like say czechoslovakia, for example, who were brutally suppresed.
Cz got it bad, again because of a couple of reasons, economic and psychological. Czechoslovakia had a large industrial and resource base that Germany needed for war production, so subduing the populace had higher importance than a resource poor Dk. If you want to know what Germans thought of czechs you can look at what Heydrich, the architect of the Final Solution and gauliter of prague, said about them.
Perhaps we should ask the occupants of Lidice if non-violent resistance works.
Actually, when I think of it, Lidice might be a counter example, after all, they were wiped out due to violent resistance.
Not all countries felt the jackboot on their throat with the same intensity and not for completely rational reasons. This is not a flaw in the character of the country.
This is getting off topic but I would be interested in examples of Danes coming under collective punishment from the Nazis. Perhaps I was wrong, and that per capita there were the same or more instances of atrocities in Cz as Dk, but I doubt it.
I think the lesson is that in the case of the Nazis is that, like a true sociopathic personality, non-violent resistance, violent resistance, collaboration, doesn't matter if you were between them and their goals you would be crushed.
Warmest Regards,
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We need to look and cause and effect
The problem with discussing the effectiveness of nonviolence is our inability to untangle historical cause and effect.
For example, from a nonviolence perspective it could easily be argued that Hitler is a perfect example of the likely consequence of military action.
Hitler and Nazi Germany did not appear in isolation. They arose from the aftermath of World War One. So it could be argued that eager willingness of the Great Powers to go to war over their empires in 1914 led directly to Hitler, Stalin and the Holocaust.
Therefore, for militarists to use Hitler as an example of the ineffectivness of nonviolence is a bit ridiculous. (Militarists make the mess and then wonder why nonviolence can't clean it up!)
The current war in Iraq is another example. Has military intervention solved anything? Sadaam has been removed but 40,000 Iraqi civilans are dead and the country is lurching towards a civil war which in turn lead to future deaths, wars and instabilities across the entire region (not to mention enraging a generation of muslim youth which undoubtedly led to more conflict and instability).
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Gandhi is a special case.
Non violence in India worked specifically because India was so damned large. Let's not forget that the Raj comprised at best, what? 1-2% of the population? This is the great power of Indian nonviolence. So compared to any other event in history it breaks down. Jews offering themselves up for sacrifice because it might lead, oh I don't know, to shaming the Nazis, is probably the stupidist thing I have ever heard.
BTW, why has no one mentioned the decades long dirty ruthless guerrilla war in South Africa?
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V vs. NonV
I agree with the article that Mr. Mark Kurlansky is very good at presenting “contentions [that] are rarely considered at all”. (I highly recommend his “Salt: A World History”.)
In agreement with Mr. Kurlansky, acts of nonviolence such as marches, boycotts, strikes, and sit-ins are actually quite violent in nature. They often use an intense force, are directed against existing laws, instill fear, and are many times generated by hatred. A difference between these nonviolent acts and violent ones is that violent acts result in intentional killing and maiming while nonviolent acts can result in nonintentional killing and maiming. Both violent acts and nonviolent acts strive for power and control.
In the end, nonviolent campaigns are more powerful than violent ones because they achieve a more lasting result. But the effort to initiate a nonviolent campaign is many times greater than the effort to initiate a violent one. A case in point is the relative ease needed for President Bush to launch the violent invasion of Iraq. But now, with the majority of Americans opposing the war, the nonviolent effort to stop it is floundering.