Workshop Reports: “Nonviolence as a Strategy, Nonviolence in the Future”

Islam & Gender Studies and Interreligious Relations in Asia and Africa project held an international workshop at the University of Tokyo, Japan.

【Report】
The workshop “Nonviolence as a Strategy, Nonviolence in the Future” was co-organized by two projects: the Islam and Gender Studies project at the University of Tokyo and the Interreligious Relations in Asia and Africa project at Sophia University.

The seed of the idea for a nonviolence workshop was planted in November 2017, when several members of the Islam and Gender Studies project attended Professor Chibli Mallat’s lecture on law and gender and saw the connection between the philosophy of nonviolence and Islam and gender studies. Islam and gender studies is a new field of study that considers various topics from the two intertwined perspectives of Islam and gender. Our project leader, Professor Eiji Nagasawa, suggested that inserting a new term between “Islam” and “gender” would open up a wider scope of academic inquiry and encourage greater consideration of all three terms.

For this workshop, we added “nonviolence” into our project: Islam–nonviolence–gender. Collaborating with the Interreligious Relations in Asia and Africa project widened our scope even further, and we began to think about nonviolence not only from the perspectives of Islam and gender but also from that of interreligious relationships in Asia and beyond.

Professor Kei Nemoto introduced us to Aung San Suu Kyi’s (1945- ) philosophy of nonviolence, “A chain of violence may be ended by nonviolent action.” The Islam and Gender project has the same overall aim: to use nonviolence to end a chain of violence against groups called “minority.” To achieve that purpose, we organize symposiums, workshops, and seminars. This nonviolence workshop was one such link in a chain of nonviolent actions. It offered an opportunity to learn about the philosophies of nonviolence, its development, and the challenges it faces.

The workshop opened with remarks by Professor Hidemitsu Kuroki, a historian who has been studying modern Syria and Lebanon. He raised a question “why did the Syrian revolution end up in a violent internal conflict?” He said he believed the concept of “nonviolence” offered a clue, and he expected to learn from this workshop and refresh his thoughts.

The workshop was divided into two parts. Part one was on nonviolence as a strategy.

The first speaker, Maki Taniguchi, introduced the insights of Gene Sharp (1928-2018), one of the most famous advocates of nonviolence. Sharp, Taniguchi argued, had outlined a set of strategic tools for grassroots resistance to dictatorship and oppression, which he called “people power.”

The strength of people power over the state was one of the main tenets of the philosophy of Jawdat Said (1931- ), a Syrian-born Islamic thinker. The second speaker, Mohammed Moussa, described Said’s theological commitment to a principled refusal to obey the state. According to Said, the hierarchy of oppression among Muslims ought to be overturned in a rejection of the perpetuation of the rotation of social groups through which the oppressed becomes the oppressor and vice-versa.

Junko Toriyama, the last speaker of the first session critically discussed Mallat (2015 and 2017)’s special focus on women, a part of “people power,” as agents of non-violence movement.  By examining the situation following “January 25 Revolution” in Egypt, Toriyama argued that in fact, women had become the target of a counter-revolution, which in turn gives special importance and credibility to women to speak up.

The second part of the workshop focused on the future of nonviolence.

Professor Nemoto showed us the contradictions of the double faces that nonviolence has worn in Burma. He explained that while Aung San Suu Kyi’s nonviolent philosophy had grown out of her conviction that “right ends will be achieved only when right means are applied,” the same was not true for the activists at the Thai-Burma border who had been using armed forces for more than 20 years For them, the adoption of nonviolent actions was a strategic measure to gain support from the international community. This example in Professor Nemoto’s lecture showed us a ray of hope for changing violence into nonviolence.

The final speaker, Professor Chibli Mallat, author of the book Philosophy of Nonviolence: Revolution, Constitutionalism, and Justice beyond the Middle East, responded to the previous speakers by sharing his analyses of the philosophy of nonviolence. He argued that a civil movement may be called a revolution only while it is nonviolent; once it gets violent, it becomes a civil war, the winner decided by which side has more arms and greater networks. He emphasized the need to consider the aftermath of nonviolent revolution. The goal of the revolution may be democracy and the creation of democratic states, but this is something of a dilemma as these states are composed of important violent elements.

In the closing remark, Professor Eiji Nagasawa pointed out that violence tends to disproportionately affect the weaker members of society, and a nonviolent action may be recognized as more successful if these members of society take the lead; this may explain the importance of women and ethnic minorities in many nonviolent movements.

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I learned a great deal during the workshop and have thought a lot since, but what struck me the most was the point made by Professor Mallat: we need to think about what follows nonviolent revolution. The same is true for any smaller nonviolent action, including my Hanan Chocolate project. We cannot just abandon the current system (e.g. the halal certification system) and go with none. We need to build new systems for which nonviolence is part of the structural design. Here, we may borrow the concept of “people power” developed by Gene Sharp or Jawdat Said. Our challenges and efforts will continue, as academics and/or activists.

(Written by Emi Goto, Associate Professor, The University of Tokyo, one of the organizers)