Nonviolence Is Not Weak. It Must Be Re-imagined for This Moment
As critics question its effectiveness, the real issue is not whether nonviolence works, but whether we are willing to practice it seriously and deploy it strategically.
There is a common belief that nonviolence is too slow, too soft, or simply not enough for the world we are living in. Serious questions are being raised about whether it works, not from outsiders, but from within movements themselves. Writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates have questioned whether nonviolence alone can confront deeply entrenched systems of power. Voices like Cornel West have warned that it is sometimes used to contain resistance, asking the oppressed to remain calm while injustice continues. And thinkers such as Arundhati Roy have pointed to its limits in the face of militarized states with little accountability. These critiques reflect a real and growing frustration.
Photo: Nayef Hashlamoun Bilin, Palestine
In places like Palestine, that frustration is lived every day. In the open air prisons of the West Bank and Gaza, people are not simply navigating a conflict. They are living under a system that controls movement, resources, and daily life. Within these conditions, communities have committed to nonviolent resistance for decades—through protests, organizing, boycott campaigns, and international solidarity—yet the reality on the ground often remains unchanged. This leads to hard questions: Is nonviolence being ignored? Is it dismissed because it does not threaten power in the same way? Is the cost too high for too little change? You hear it clearly: we marched, we organized, we told our stories, and still nothing changed. If the world does not respond to nonviolence, what are we left with, militarism or international law? These questions are not rejections of nonviolence. They are demands that oppression much stop and we need answers that adapt to the realities we face today.
That skepticism about nonviolence also comes from a misunderstanding of what nonviolence actually is—and of the structures that sustain oppressive systems.If we look more closely, many oppressive systems are not sustained by internal control alone. They are upheld by external support. In the case of Palestine, Israeli policies are reinforced by powerful international alliances, particularly with the United States. This means nonviolent resistance cannot remain local. It must expand to confront the broader systems—political, economic, and ideological—that sustain injustice. The issue is not that oppressed communities are not nonviolent or strategic enough. The issue is that nonviolence has not been scaled to challenge the full structure of power. The terrain of struggle must widen.
My recent speaking tour across the United States, titled From Occupation to Empire: Rethinking Resistance, created space for these conversations from California to Florida. What became clear is that nonviolence cannot remain localized, or practiced by a few, or framed as a moral posture. It has to become a tool of the people. That requires restructuring how we engage it—grounding it in strategy, expanding its reach, and applying it not only in distant conflicts but also against the systems of violence in our own backyards that feed the violent systems in other parts of the world.
NVI’s global database of nonviolent tactics and the book Civil Resistance Tactics of the 21st Century expands our tool kit and helps us re-imagine nonviolent action to include music, visual arts, poetry, video, theatre, disruptive mutual aid, all kinds of creative interventions to unjust global trade and social contracts, non-cooperation by consumers and businesses and workers and pre-figurative resistance where we set the example today of the world we want tomorrow. Indeed riding a bicycle, in a world burning fossil fuels, is a daily act of pre-figurative resistance.
It is also important to name this clearly: systems of oppression understand the power of nonviolence. They do not ignore it because it is weak. They respond to it because it is a threat. They crush it with force when it begins to grow, and they discredit it when force alone is not enough. They frame it as naive, ineffective, or unrealistic so that people abandon it on their own. This is not accidental. It is strategy. Undermining nonviolence—through repression or narrative—is part of how power protects itself.
The question, then, is not whether nonviolence works in theory. The question is whether we are willing to invest in it in practice. The frustration many feel is real, but abandoning nonviolence is not the answer. Strengthening it is. Nonviolence is a disciplined method of struggle that confronts injustice without reproducing the same cycles of harm. It is not about being nice, and it is not about including every voice at the expense of justice. It is about building power differently—power that can challenge systems of domination without becoming them. That means treating it as a serious method of struggle—one that requires training, coordination, discipline, strategy, and long-term commitment.
Nonviolence is not the easier path. It is the most demanding one.
