[Turn] Passive resistance is a moral weapon to maintain justice

Alena 2021-12-26 08:01:01


The climax of the film protagonists and Harvard top students debate translation


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passive resistance is to maintain fair and moral weapon

- The wonderful debate in The Great



Debate (James Farmer II of

Weili University): The topic of the debate: Nonviolent resistance is a moral weapon for upholding justice. But how can resistance be moral? I think it depends on the definition of these words.

In 1919, 10,000 people from India rallied in Amissa to protest against the rule of the British tyrant. General Regino Dale trapped them in a courtyard and then let the army shoot at the group for ten minutes. 379 people died. Men, women, children... were brutally killed. Dale said he gave them a moral lesson. Gandhi and his followers did not use violence to resist, but an organized non-cooperative activity: the government building was occupied, the road was blocked by people who were unwilling to get up, and they persisted even after being beaten by the police. Gandhi was arrested, but the British were forced to release him. He said it was a moral victory.


The definition of morality: Dell's lesson or Gandhi's victory? You choose.

The opposition (Harvard University):

From 1914 to 1918, every minute the world was in the flames of war, four people fell. Think about it, every day, every night, every hour in four years, 240 brave lives fell into eternal sleep. 8,281,000 casualties in 35,000 hours. 240, 240, 240! This is a massacre, a massacre that is countless times larger than in Amissa! Is there any moral to speak of? No, except that this completely bankrupted Germany's plan to enslave Europe.

Non-violent resistance is not moral because it is non-violent. Fighting to kill the enemy for your country can be very moral. This requires the highest degree of sacrifice: life. Non-violence is a mask worn by negative cooperation to conceal its true face: anarchic justice.

The second argument of the square (Samantha Buco, Weili University):

Gandhi believed that a person must be full of love and respect for his opponents, even if they are Harvard debaters. Gandhi also believed that those who broke the law had to accept the consequences of their actions. Is this anarchism?

Passive resistance is not something we should be afraid of. In any case, it stems from American thinking. You see, Gandhi's influence did not come from Hindu scriptures, but from Henry David Thoreau. I believe he graduated from Harvard and once lived by a small pond not far from here.

The second defense of the opposing side (Harvard University): The

other side of the debate is right. Thoreau is a Harvard graduate, and like most of us, he is a bit self-righteous. He said, "Anyone who is more correct than a neighbor constitutes a majority of a person." Thoreau, an idealist, may never have known that Hitler would agree with him. The beauty and importance of democracy is that any point of view needs to be approved by a majority. The people judge moral issues, not the majority of a person.


The second argument of the square (Samantha Buco, Weili University):

Most do not decide what is right or wrong, your conscience decides these. Why does a citizen want his conscience to be controlled by the legislator? No, we can never give in to the tyranny of a majority.

The second defense of the opposition (Harvard University):

We cannot decide which law to obey or ignore. If we can, I will not stop at the red light.


My father is a man standing between us and the chaos-a policeman. I still remember that day his partner—his best friend was shot in business. The most vivid thing is that I remember the look on my dad's face: any erosion of the law is immoral, no matter how fancy their names are!


The first argument of the square (James Farmer II of Weili University):

In Texas, people lynched black people. My teammates and I saw a man who was tied up and hung around his neck and then burned to death. We drove a mob of lynchings, and we pressed our faces against the floor of the car. I looked at my teammates, and I saw fear in their eyes. What's more sad is that I saw the shame: What crime did that black man commit so that he was hanged directly in a misty forest without trial? Is he a thief? Is it a murderer? Or is it just because he is black? Is he a tenant farmer? Preacher? Are his children waiting for him? What have we become when we lie motionless? No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal, but the law did nothing.

Let us not help thinking about what the opposing defense friend said: Any erosion of the law is immoral. But in the south where the apartheid strategy is implemented, there is no law; at least when black people are denied residency rights, there is no law; when they are rejected by schools, hospitals, and when we are lynched, there is no law. Saint Augustine said: "An unjust law is no law." This means that I have the power, and even the responsibility, to resist with violence or passive resistance. You should be thankful that I chose the latter.

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Extended Reading

The Great Debaters quotes

  • James Farmer Jr.: We can't win without him!

    [Melvin Tolson]

    Samantha: You're wrong, we can't win without him.

    [as she tosses a book at Farmer]

    James Farmer Jr.: Thoreau?

  • Henry Lowe: A brilliant young woman I know was asked once to support her argument in favor of social welfare. She named the most powerful source imaginable: the look in a mother's face when she cannot feed her children. Can you look that hungry child in the eyes? See the blood on his feet from working barefoot in the cotton fields. Or do you ask his baby sister with her belly swollen from hunger if she cares about her daddy's work ethics?