At the outset I hasten to caution that any initiation of violence against people would be at odds with an important goal of dialogue – the achievement of desirable humane engagement in relation to human interdependence. Human co-existence – irrespective of the diversity of cultures, religions, ethnicities and nationalities – is desirable if people want to enjoy security, non-violence, non-discrimination and peace. Hence the desirability of any type of education, whether in Western institutions or the Islamic madrassahs, to cultivate understanding, reason, non-repression and non-discrimination.
The importance of dialogical action for non-violence is based on an understanding that any distorted or unfavourable human situation can
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only be resolved through argument – that is, giving a justifiable account of one’s reasons and finding others’ reasons persuasive after having gone into systematic controversy with some of their reasons, which might result in rejecting, adjusting and modifying one’s own reasons (MacIntyre, 1999). The problem is that one might not always be willing and prepared to evaluate one’s reasons on account of the arguments others have to offer. This situation of not considering the reason of others as convincing enough has the potential to result in an impasse. Of course, this is not necessarily bad, because people can again reflect on their reasons in relation to the reasons of others and then, at a later stage, come up with better arguments (Benhabib, 1996). Yet even such a reflexive approach to the articulation of reasons might not always result in desirable agreement – I say desirable, because it might enhance the chances of improving human interaction. In this situation, deadlock would in any case result in an undesirable situation, since people would by then have exhausted most pathways to gaining some common understanding in terms of which human interaction and interdependence could be enhanced. For instance, during the Rwandan civil conflict in the 1990s, genocide could possibly have been prevented through desirable human engagement amongst Hutus and Tutsis. Yet the genocide took place, which suggests that somehow other potential pathways to argument and speech had not been explored, which in turn resulted in violent military United Nations intervention in order to prevent genocide. The point I am making, is that violence might not have been necessary in order to remedy an undesirable situation. So it seems as if violent action has been used as a temporary response to defuse an undesirable situation (NATO intervened violently to curb the genocide of Bosnian Muslims on the part of the Serbs; the Allied forces took temporary violent action against the Nazis to halt the Jewish holocaust).
What I have argued for thus far is that the use of violence in order to resolve an undesirable situation might not have been necessary, since not all potential pathways to argument and speech had been explored. I agree with Arendt, who claims that ‘the practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world’ (1969:80). In this sense, although the temporary use of violence had been justified, it does not make violence legitimate. Why not? In the first place, the use of violence against people can have the effect of
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innocent bystanders losing their lives. This means that the perpetrators of violence disrespect the lives of others who might not necessarily have been responsible for an undesirable situation. I cannot imagine that all people in the New York Twin Towers, the London tubes, the Oklahoma World Trade Centre, and Baghdad were responsible for an undesirable situation which some people found offensive and worthy of violent self- destructive actions, that is, ‘suicide bombings’. And, seeing that those who were subjected to violence and who suffered such human indignity, torture and aggression were innocent, the use of violence cannot be considered as legitimate. In support of this view, Hannah Arendt (1969:52) posits that:
Violence can be justifiable, but it never can be legitimate. Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future. No one questions the use of violence in self-defence, because the danger is not only clear but present, and the end justifying the means is immediate.
What seems to be important to bear in mind is that violence as an act of aggression perpetrated against people might be justifiable, but its legitimacy can be questioned on the basis that the very act of violence aims to annihilate, destroy, hurt, and cause some sort of discomfort to people whom one might find unwilling as partners to engage in dialogical action. In other words, the act of causing physical and emotional harm to any people cannot be legitimate, because violence is meant to let the other experience suffering and pain. I say this, because legitimate action has some connection with what others agree should happen to them. In this way, by not agreeing to be violently assaulted, their human dignity somehow remains intact. This kind of violence is different from violence used in self-defence, as noted by Arendt. If I defend myself against those who perpetrate violence against me, then my violent retaliation or defence becomes legitimate only if I am willing to cease my defence once the perpetrator of violence against me decides to end the violence. In other words, legitimacy only has currency if I defend myself against violent acts and restrain my actions once others have ceased their violent ones. Consequently, the argument that violence can never be legitimate is a conditional one: self-defence against acts of violence is justifiable and legitimate when I restrain myself after the initial perpetrator of violence
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has ceased all acts of violence against me. For instance, when the armed wing of the African National Congress (Umkhonto we sizwe) defended itself against the political killings of the apartheid state, their violent self- defence was only justifiable, and hence legitimate, until the apartheid government ceased the perpetration of violence against members of the liberation movement.
What follows from this, is that if institutions encourage people solely to use self-destructive ways of ending the lives of others to instill fear in the hearts and minds of those left behind, then such use of violence becomes illegitimate. This is so because fear, control and compliance are the intended ends of such violent acts that are undesirable for any form of human interaction and interdependence, and to which very few people would agree. If they do so for the sake of self-defence against a violent perpetrator, then their responses become conditionally legitimate. Therefore Arendt is correct when she states that ‘violence is by nature instrumental; like all means, it always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues’ (Arendt, 1969:51). In this way, the use of violence in itself remains illegitimate, but its use as self-defence makes it conditionally legitimate on the grounds that self-defence will end once acts of violence perpetrated against one have ceased. For instance, Umkhonto we sizwe ended its violent campaign once the apartheid state agreed to enter into dialogue with its ‘enemy’. This brings me to a discussion of what some have perceived to be the circumstantial use of violence and the desirable use of dialogical action.