Beyond Nonviolence: Anti-Violence
Nonviolence is a spectrum of behaviors that use nonviolent tools to directly confront injustice and to solve interpersonal problems. Anti-violence goes a step further; anti-violence actively opposes all violence.
You may be familiar with the distinction between non-racism and anti-racism. A White person can walk down the street in the United States and avoid racist speech and behavior. But to be anti-racist, that person must intervene when they notice racism, even in very common and mundane situations. For example, to be an anti-racist, that White ally has to speak up if they notice micro-aggressions, such as a clerk unduly keeping an eye on a person of color, or a barista skipping over a Black customer to serve a White one.
In the same way, we can be nonviolent or actively anti-violent. If you are nonviolent, you do not engage in violence and you hold political opinions in opposition of state violence. Perhaps you engage in nonviolent protest for social justice. If you are anti-violent, you cannot avoid intervening in small interpersonal violent conflicts that people may see as none of your business. On an international scale, if you are anti-violent, you vocally oppose the tool of violence whether used by a state or a resistance campaign. To be anti-violent means to stand against your own comrades in opposing what they believe to be justifiable violence.
