العنف واللاعنف في الديمقراطيه الأمريكية: النضال الافريقي الامريكي لنيل الحقوق المدنيه
Date
2014-01-21
Authors
عاليه محمد علي سويلم
Alia Mohammad Ali Swailem
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AL-Quds University
جامعة القدس
جامعة القدس
Abstract
Often, people tend to assume that democratic societies are inherently non-violent;
however, this presumption is not necessarily correct and may in fact be politically
problematic. Thus, this study aims to clarify the existing relationship between
democracy, violence and nonviolence. In doing so, it looks at the African American
struggle for civil rights as a case study, revealing the complex forms of intertwining
violent and nonviolent resistance in democratic societies. The African American
nonviolent civil rights struggle shows how the United States, as a democratic nation,
abandoned nonviolence and resorted to violence in many instances.
The study has two important propositions; first, there is a relationship between each of
violence, nonviolence and democracy. Second, the more democratic society is, the
more it is able to use nonviolent methods and abandons violence ones in solving
domestic conflicts. In order to prove these propositions the researcher arrived at the
following results: First, violence in the American Civil War was one of the main
tools in the foundation of democracy. Second, violence was not only practiced against
African Americans during slavery phases, but it was also practiced throughout
democratic era. Third, nonviolence is an important tool to advance and strengthen
democracy. Regarding this point, the study shows how African American civil rights
movements, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, had been successful in
advancing American democracy throughout the adoption of nonviolent strategies.
The methodology in this research is exploratory, historical, and analytical, in
approach and it adopts the historical information about the African American civil
rights struggle to explore the relationship between democracy, violence and
nonviolence.
While a good number of research done in Arabic explores violence, nonviolence and
democracy as separate issues, this research tackles the relationships between these
important concepts combined. Therefore, this study will be translated into Arabic at a
later stage to pave the way for Arab readers to realize the significance of
understanding the relationship of democracy with violence and nonviolence.
This study strongly recommends that more in-depth research should be conducted in
order to have a better understanding of this integrated relationship between violence,
nonviolence and democracy. In addition, the more research is investigated and
implemented around this topic, the more it enriches our understanding, and fills the
gap that was unintentionally missed in this thesis.
Description
Keywords
الدراسات الاقليمية , Regional Studies