Gerry Adams says Thatcher caused "great suffering" in Ireland

[Ken Burch]

63. Gandhi was a wonderfully moral man, and I admire his commitment to nonviolence.

But no one had the right to DEMAND that Gandhi and the Indian liberation movement be nonviolent, especially after such events as the Amritsar Massacre.

Nonviolence is heroic and beautiful...and it's solely up to the oppressed whether they choose it as a tactic or not. No one who is even allied to the oppressor has the right to pass judgment on the resistance tactics of the oppressed.

It didn't morally invalidate the South African liberation struggle, for example, that the oppressed there felt it necessary to choose tactics other than nonviolence...and no one was entitled to argue that the apartheid regime should be kept in power and given aid and comfort by the international community UNTIL the black majority chose tactics said international community approved of.

Nonviolence could never have worked in South Africa after Sharpeville, anyway. Once too much innocent blood has been spilled, nonviolence is probably naive and hopeless.