The Non-violence Movement and Its Contradictions in the Context of History—A Review of Non-violence: A History beyond the Myth by Domenico Losurdo

ABSTRACT

Until now, the history of the non-violence movement has been written by commentators who have no intention of hiding their sympathies for the movement. However, Domenico Losurdo’s Non-violence: A History beyond the Myth is one of the first texts to confront this topic with seriousness, using scientific methods and a comparative historiographic approach. Losurdo does not limit himself to a history of the ideas of the movement’s leading figures—from the American Christian abolitionists to Gandhi and Luther King—but instead analyses their theories, political opinions, contradictions, moral dilemmas and concrete behaviours in the context of great historical crises and transformations. Losurdo’s book also dedicates plenty of space to current events, analysing how the West today uses non-violence as a way to discredit its enemies. The delegitimation of the People’s Republic of China and the so-called “colour revolutions” demonstrate that even a noble ideal like non-violence can be easily exploited with a malicious intention. It is preferable, then, according to Losurdo, to fight for a “democratisation of international relations” that will inevitably lead to the strengthening of the front of less developed countries and to battling against the oxymoronic “humanitarian wars” or “wars for peace.”

KEYWORDS:

• Non-violence
• Losurdo
• Gandhi
• Lenin
• China

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Stefano G. Azzarà teaches history of political philosophy in the Department of Humanities at the University of Urbino. He is also secretary at the presidency of the Internationale Gesellschaft Hegel-Marx. His research deals with the great philosophical and political traditions of contemporary age: conservatism, liberalism, historical materialism. He collaborates with international reviews and is director of Materialismo Storico (Historical Materialism). He has spoken at several meetings in Italy and abroad and recently published books including Un Nietzsche italiano (An Italian Nietzsche) published in 2011; L’humanité commune (The Common Humanity) published in 2011; Democrazia cercasi (In Search of Democracy) published in 2014 and Friedrich Nietzsche published in 2015.

Leonardo Pegoraro is graduate fellow in the Department of Humanities at the University of Urbino. He has recently completed his PhD programme in philosophy with a dissertation on the links between liberal democracy and indigenous genocides. He is the author of articles and reviews on the Marxist debate and on indigenous issues including “L’approccio comparatistico nell’analisi dell’epoca di Stalin (The Comparative approach to Analysis of Stalin’s Era)” published on Marxismo Oggi (Marxism Today) and “Second-Rate Victims: The Forced Sterilization of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada” published on Settler Colonial Studies.

ORCID

Stefano G. Azzarà http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4323-0856

Leonardo Pegoraro http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0473-9980

Notes

1 In the original text, Luxemburg and Liebknecht refer to “Völkermord,” that is German for “populicide” or “genocide,” although the latter term was first coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944.