Nelson Mandela on Resistance

4. The choice was not whether there would be violence but what form it would take. Mandela's argument is that violence was already occurring, in spontaneous outbreaks by people with no organisation and no discipline, and that it would grow. A controlled campaign directed at chosen targets was, on this reasoning, less destructive than the terrorism or civil war that unorganised anger would produce.

5. Sabotage was chosen precisely because it was the least destructive option. The four forms considered were sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism and open revolution. Sabotage was selected because it damages installations, communications and the economy rather than people, because it could be undertaken without loss of life, and because it left open the possibility of relations between the races afterwards. Instructions were given that no life was to be taken.

The moral structure of the argument. Mandela does not claim that violence is good, or that the ordinary presumption against it is weak. He claims that the presumption was overcome, states exactly what was tried before, names the alternatives considered and why the least destructive was chosen, and accepts the legal consequence in a court. That structure is what makes it an argument rather than an excuse, and it is what a student should be able to set out.

What Mandela shares with Gandhi and King

More than students expect, and an answer that notices it is a better answer.

Openness and acceptance of consequences. He did not deny the acts. He explained them in open court, on the record, at the risk of his life, and served the sentence.

Discipline. The instruction that no life be taken is the counterpart of King's self-purification stage: a rule imposed on the participants to keep the campaign within limits.

The opponent remains a person. Mandela's insistence that the aim was a shared future, not the expulsion or destruction of any group, is why the later negotiated transition was possible at all.

Exhaustion of lawful means. The first two steps of his argument are precisely the condition Gandhi and King both require, and his case rests on being able to show that it was satisfied over half a century.

Where he departs, and why it matters

Non-violence as tactic against non-violence as principle. This is the central difference and the source of every other.

Who bears responsibility. Gandhi holds the resister responsible for the means they choose. Mandela argues that the government which closed every lawful channel bears responsibility for what its opponents were left with.

The role of the audience. Gandhi's and King's methods work by appealing to the conscience of the opponent and of the watching public. Mandela's argument implicitly reports that this had been tried and had failed: a government prepared to legislate away every peaceful avenue is not one that non-violence can shame.

This is the single most important criticism of the two previous chapters, and it comes from the case itself rather than from a theorist. The Gandhian method requires an opponent with a conscience and a public capable of shame. Mandela's evidence was that neither existed in his situation.

The criticisms of Mandela's position

An answer should give these, because the topic is set to be argued rather than admired.

Where does the argument stop? If a movement may turn to force once it concludes that lawful means have failed, the judgment of failure is made by the movement itself, and every violent group makes exactly that claim. The answer has to lie in verifiable conditions rather than in sincerity: how long, what was tried, what was closed, and what limits were imposed on the force used.

Violence rarely stays where it is aimed. A campaign restricted to property may become something else, and the discipline that holds it depends on leadership that can be arrested.

Gandhi's reply would be available. That the means shape the end, and that a movement trained in force will govern by it. Mandela's own later conduct is the strongest evidence against that particular prediction, which is worth saying, but the prediction is not absurd and has often been borne out elsewhere.

It cannot be generalised from. Apartheid closed every avenue: no vote, no lawful organisation, no free press for the affected population, no court able to strike down the legislation. Very few situations are like that, and a movement in a constitutional order with an independent judiciary cannot claim the same premises.

A worked example

Compare three situations that look similar and are not.

A group protesting a discriminatory municipal rule in India. It has the vote, a free press, a lawful right to organise and assemble, and a court that can strike the rule down. Mandela's own reasoning does not license force here, because his first two steps cannot be established: the channels are open. On his argument as much as on Gandhi's, the lawful route and open civil disobedience are what is available.

A group in a state that has banned its organisation, jailed its leaders and criminalised its assemblies, but where courts still function and the press still reports. Some channels are closed and some remain. Mandela's argument is engaged and not concluded, because the remaining channels have to be shown to be ineffective and not merely difficult.

A population denied the vote entirely, whose organisations are outlawed, whose protests are fired on, and whose grievances no court is competent to hear. This is the Rivonia premise, and it is rare.

The lesson to write. Mandela's argument is powerful precisely because its premises are demanding. It is not a general licence, and using it as one misreads it. The right question is never "was the cause just?" but "were the channels in fact closed, and what was done before they were said to be?".

Distinctions that carry marks

What Mandela's position is NOT

It is not a rejection of non-violence in principle. He describes decades of non-violent struggle and says it was abandoned only when it had been made impossible.

It is not terrorism. The distinction he draws is explicit: sabotage was chosen over terrorism and guerrilla warfare precisely because it was aimed at property rather than people.

It is not a general licence for armed struggle. Its premises are unusually strong and are rarely satisfied.

It is not inconsistent with accepting the law's response. He made his case in court and served twenty-seven years, which is the one feature he shares with Gandhi and King exactly.

Quick revision

1. Rivonia, 1963 to 1964. Mandela did not deny the acts; he explained them from the dock, facing the death penalty, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, serving twenty-seven years.
2. Apartheid was legislation, validly enacted, which is why the case belongs to a module on unjust laws.
3. Five steps: the struggle was long non-violent; it was met with force and with more law; non-violence was a tactic and not a creed; the choice was about the form violence would take, not whether; and sabotage was chosen as the least destructive of four options, with instructions that no life be taken.
4. Shared with Gandhi and King: openness, discipline, the opponent as a future fellow citizen, and exhaustion of lawful means.
5. The departure: responsibility for the turn to force lies with the government that closed the channels, and non-violence has nothing to work on where there is no conscience to appeal to and no public able to hear.
6. Criticisms: the judgment that lawful means have failed is made by the movement itself; violence rarely stays where it is aimed; the means may shape the end; and the premises are so demanding that the argument cannot be generalised.

Test yourself

1. Why does Mandela's case belong in a module on obedience to unjust laws? Because apartheid was not lawlessness but a body of validly enacted legislation: statutes classifying people by race, allocating land by race, requiring passes, prohibiting mixed marriages, reserving occupations and removing the franchise. Everything he opposed had been passed by a parliament in the prescribed manner, so the question was not whether the state was acting outside the law but what a person owes to a legal order whose laws are unjust in their content.

2. Set out Mandela's argument for abandoning exclusively non-violent methods. That the movement had for decades used petitions, deputations, strikes, boycotts and defiance campaigns; that these were met with force and with fresh legislation criminalising the next campaign, until the organisations themselves were outlawed; that non-violence had been adopted as a tactic rather than as a creed and had ceased to be effective, so that continuing it would have meant accepting permanent inferiority; that violence was already occurring in undisciplined form and would grow; and that of sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism and open revolution, sabotage was the least destructive, being directed at installations rather than people, with instructions that no life be taken.

3. What does Mandela share with Gandhi and King? Openness, since he did not deny the acts but explained them in open court at the risk of his life. Acceptance of the consequences, since he served twenty-seven years. Discipline imposed on participants, the instruction that no life be taken corresponding to King's stage of self-purification. Insistence that the opponent remains a person with whom a shared future is intended, which is why the later negotiated transition was possible. And the requirement that lawful means be exhausted first, which is the foundation of his whole case.

4. Where exactly does he depart from Gandhi, and what follows? On whether non-violence is a principle or a tactic. For Gandhi it is bound up with truth and with the inseparability of means and ends, so it cannot be abandoned; for Mandela it was a method adopted because it was thought effective and reconsidered when it was not. Two things follow. Responsibility for the turn to force is placed on the government that closed every lawful channel rather than on those left without one. And the assumption underlying Gandhi's and King's methods, that the opponent has a conscience and the public can be shamed, is treated as a factual claim that had been tested and had failed.

5. Can Mandela's argument be used generally? Give reasons. No, because its premises are unusually demanding and rarely satisfied. It requires that the affected population be denied the vote, that its organisations be outlawed, that peaceful protest be met with force, and that no court be competent to strike the offending legislation down. A movement in a constitutional order with an independent judiciary, a free press and a right to organise cannot establish those premises, and on Mandela's own reasoning as much as on Gandhi's the lawful route and open civil disobedience remain what is available to it. The right question is not whether the cause is just but whether the channels were in fact closed.