This brings up the classic idea of Gandhi and MLK as icons of peace, and the idea that this peace brought about respect and change.

This is only barely true. It's a very selective reading of history, that is very much in the benefit of people who would love it if we all believed in the ideals being espoused.

Furthermore, the statement that societies that are freed by violence then succumb to it, skips a very large part of the equation. Saying it sounds real nice and slots in very nicely with ideals many people want to hold, but it's just not true. Many factors play into the evolution of peoples and regions, and just laser-focusing on the violent means of freeing oneself, leaves behind the impression that only peaceful protest can work. Which never has been the case.

It blames the victims for trying to free themselves in a way that's not beneficial to the oppressor.

Let us not fall into the trap of thinking that peaceful protest actually achieves anything, which leads us nicely into MLK.

I refer everyone to this book: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how...

People often remember MLK's campaign in Birmingham. Lesser known and barely brought up is the campaign before that, in Albany, Georgia. A 9 month civil disobedience campaign, that achieved nothing, except getting a lot of peaceful protestors thrown in jail for arbitrary reasons. Then people got fed up, and got violent. Riots happened, and after 1 night the police completely retreated. This teaches people: nonviolence doesn't work. It clearly didn't. And violence clearly _did_.

The oppressed should not count on the goodwill of their oppressor. For the oppressor should not exist at all. If the oppressor exists, it is because the individual chose to become the oppressor. They didn't fumble into this without realizing. They did this because they wanted to, because it is in their interest. Miracle stories of historical figures abandoning their way are exactly that: miracles.

Go and tell a poor oppressed person: "tough luck for you, wait for a miracle, I guess".

The same thing happened in Birmingham. Peaceful protest was met with beatings by the police. People got fed up, and things turned violent. After 2 days, Birmingham agreed to desegregate, and the president backed this up with federal guarantees.

Again, counting on the goodwill of your oppressor, gets you nowhere. They have no interest in freeing you. Instead, they have great interest in abusing you. This gains them money and goods.

Same thing with Gandhi. Gandhi is paraded about as a grand example of peaceful protest eventually winning.

I'll just quote the book here:

> We realize this threat to be even more direct when we understand that the pacifist history of India’s independence movement is a selective and incomplete picture-nonviolence was not universal in India. Resistance to British colonialism included enough militancy that the Gandhian method can be viewed most accurately as one of several competing forms of popular resistance. As part of a disturbingly universal pattern, pacifists white out those other forms of resistance and help propagate the false history that Gandhi and his disciples were the lone masthead and rudder of Indian resistance. Ignored are important militant leaders such as Chandrasekhar Azad,[6] who fought in armed struggle against the British colonizers, and revolutionaries such as Bhagat Singh, who won mass support for bombings and assassinations as part of a struggle to accomplish the “overthrow of both foreign and Indian capitalism.”[7] The pacifist history of India’s struggle cannot make any sense of the fact that Subhas Chandra Bose, the militant candidate, was twice elected president of the Indian National Congress, in 1938 and 1939.[8] While Gandhi was perhaps the most singularly influential and popular figure in India’s independence struggle, the leadership position he assumed did not always enjoy the consistent backing of the masses. Gandhi lost so much support from Indians when he “called off the movement” after the 1922 riot that when the British locked him up afterwards, “not a ripple of protest arose in India at his arrest.”[9] Significantly, history remembers Gandhi above all others not because he represented the unanimous voice of India, but because of all the attention he was given by the British press and the prominence he received from being included in important negotiations with the British colonial government. When we remember that history is written by the victors, another layer of the myth of Indian independence comes unraveled.

And end by saying the significant part again: "we understand that the pacifist history of India’s independence movement is a selective and incomplete picture"