Reflections
REFLECTIONS An Open Letter to the Antinuclear Movement Dear fellow supporters of the anti-nuclear movement: We are writing to you today in the conviction that the antinuclear movement will be...
...And we ask you to help at future demonstrations through convincing nonviolent action, so that those using violence no longer have a chance to do such great harm to our cause as they have done in the past few weeks...
...Let everyone contribute in whatever way he or she can...
...This nonviolent struggle does not mean passive acceptance or toleration...
...The actions of a handful of violent demonstrators have also taken a great deal of impact out of our justified protests against the violence used by the police and against police methods up to now associated only with inhumane dictatorships...
...At such times we feel every bit as angered and disgusted as you do...
...It gains its meaning and impact from massive civil disobedience, creatively planned and used unexpectedly...
...This escalation of violence has reduced our hopes of using these demonstrations to mobilize the support of people who, up to now, have been standing on the sidelines...
...The main victims of this have been the nonviolent demonstrators...
...Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, at the big antinuclear demonstrations in the north and south of the country, we have seen militant police squads and a small minority of violent demonstrators provoke an escalation of violence into bloody clashes...
...But those who arrive armed with steel projectiles, catapults, and Molotov cocktails cannot plead such feelings...
...We also consider it a sign of weakness and indecision, not of solidarity, that it was not felt necessary to include a clear rejection of violence at demonstrations in the final resolution adopted at that meeting...
...Of course, we are not so cold and insensitive as not to be seriously disturbed by the provocative military-like action of the police, by their brutality and arbitrariness, which we have often experienced...
...Violent demonstrators in our ranks must realize now that they are not helping us, are not aiding our cause, but are deliberately or involuntarily doing our adversaries a service whenever they act side by side with paid provocateurs as if they themselves were supporters of the nuclear lobby and of the Nuclear State...
...And because the question of violence has become such a controversial topic of discussion, our objective, the struggle against the Nuclear State, has been pushed more and more into the background...
...REFLECTIONS An Open Letter to the Antinuclear Movement Dear fellow supporters of the anti-nuclear movement: We are writing to you today in the conviction that the antinuclear movement will be successful only if it acknowledges support for complete nonviolence, thereby having a chance of winning more and more people over to its cause...
...Violent demonstrators in our ranks must, therefore, also realize that they cannot count on our solidarity as long as they are unwilling to respect the principle of nonviolence to which we adhere...
...And we can well understand the outcry against such state terror and the desire to fight back against water cannon, CS-gas, and police provocation...
...Gaining their support would enable us to come a step closer toward achieving our demands...
...We must, therefore, learn from similar situations in other countries and develop effective methods of nonviolent action to use in our country...
...Nevertheless, we are convinced that the practice of nonviolence by each one of us can be the only effective answer to all this, however difficult it may be to muster the necessary self-discipline...
...They cannot and must not be our allies in the nonviolent struggle against the nuclear and police state...
...This open letter from fifty-four German peace activists is being circulated in Europe by Petra K. Kelly and Gert Bastian, two of its signers...
...Therefore, we cannot at all understand the unclear attitude that a majority of the delegates of various groups within the antinuclear movement adopted on the question of violence at the coordinating meeting in Frankfurt on June 28...
...We appeal to you, above all, to call on the groups you belong to within the antinuclear movement to clearly acknowledge support for nonviolent protest and strictly reject violence in our resistance against nuclear power, which is a threat to the future of humankind...
Vol. 50 • October 1986 • No. 10
