Passive Resistance and Nonviolence? Mahatma Gandhi dedicated his mind, body and soul to his nonviolent teachings. His main purpose was to get the world to see that violence is not the proper answer to conflicts and that passive resistance is the ultimate way to go. Gandhi addresses his teachings throughout “The Theory and Practice of Passive Resistance”, “Meaning of Satyagraha”, and also in “Religion of Nonviolence.” Personally, Gandhi’s beliefs might actually be the ideal way to go in a world without guns, planes, tanks, and bomb and where wars can be fought with words, but in today’s world, nonviolence is a practice that is meaningless and futile. Gandhi’s teachings focus mostly on achieving a passive resistance and how to resist the urge …show more content…
The American Revolution would be a great example of how passive resistance ended up back firing and where violent resistance took over and ended up giving the American colonists what the essentially wanted – freedom and independence. The Americans peacefully rejected Britain’s authority, wanting to become self-bodying states. The British however, didn’t like the idea of the colonists not being under the queen’s rule and started the Navigation Acts. These acts “were intended to regulate commerce in the British interest” (credoreference.com). Obviously these acts didn’t keep the colonists under British rule, but pushed them away further. The colonists continued to form their own ideas and rituals on life. Finally the British saw the situation got out of hand and decided to send troops over to the colonies. This pushed the colonists even further until British troops opened fire on the colonists in Boston, the first steps into the violence that followed. After the Boston Massacre, violence broke out, leading to the Revolutionary War that lasted from “1775-1783” (Wikipedia). After eight years of war, a treaty was signed allowing the colonists to have their freedom. If the colonies hadn’t united and fought against the British, today we’d probably still be living under English rule. To prove my point further, violent resistance is the better way to go; it takes less time to get to an outcome and also the end response is very rewarding. The colonials got their freedom and also their