Six Principles of Nonviolent Campaigns

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that the philosophy and practice of nonviolence has six basic elements.

Principle One: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people

• It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
• It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
• It is always persuading the opponent of the righteousness of your cause.
• It is only passive in its non-aggression toward its enemy.

Principle Two: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding

• The end of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation.
• The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of The Beloved Community.

Principle Three: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people

• Nonviolence recognizes that evil doers are also victims and are not evil people.
• The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil not people.

Principle Four: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform

• Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation.
• Nonviolence accepts violence if necessary, but will never inflict it.
• Nonviolence willingly accepts the consequences of its act.
• Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous education and transforming possibilities.
• Suffering has the power to convert the enemy when reason fails.

Principle Five: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate

• Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body.
• Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish and creative.
• Nonviolent love gives willingly knowing that the return might be hostility.
• Nonviolent love is active, not passive.
• Nonviolent love is unending in its ability to forgive in order to restore community.
• Nonviolent love does not sink to the level of the hater.
• Love for the enemy is how we demonstrate love for ourselves.
• Love restores community and resists injustice.
• Nonviolence recognizes the fact that all life is interrelated.

Principle Six: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice

• The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win
• Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.

This is an excerpt from The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition.