ID: 4 panels:
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A self righteous person holds their hand up and says “Violence is never the solution.”
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Stephie replies with a smile “Oh! So you agree that we shouldn’t give weapons to the police?”
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She adds “And that we should dismantle the army?”
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Stephie is now right up behind the other person, looking angry, saying “Or did you mean that violence is only a solution when it helps maintain the status quo?”. The other person looks deeply uncomfortable.
Credit: Sophie Labelle
In 1831, a group of slaves led by fellow slave Nat Turner rebelled against the white slave owners. The command issued was simple: “kill all whites”. And they did. They killed about 55 white men, women, and children. Ten victims were 5 years or younger. The retaliation of the white slave owners was extensive. For example, in the immediate aftermath, 120 slaves were killed. The material conditions of the enslaved worsened significantly. Despite this violence, and the even more violent retribution, the abolitionists never condemned Nat Turner. John Browne goes so far as calling him an inspiration. Today, we honor Nat Turner as a hero. There’s a park in New Jersey named after him, among other things.
History is rife with examples of violent struggle against violent oppression, and it’s never pretty. The ANC (anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, party of Mandela) bombed civilians, the Hatian revolution involved the mass killing of French colonizers. Invariably, they kill civilians, and invariably, we look back on them as heroes playing a fundamental role in liberation.
Israel is an apartheid state, just like South Africa was. Gaza has been described as a concentration camp. It’s one of the most densely populated regions in the world, borders completely controlled by Israel, you cannot get out. Half the inmates are children. The regular bombings since 2008 of this concentration camp (referred to as mowing the lawn) have killed thousands. The massacres at Sabra and Shatila, directed by the IDF, claiming in three days the lives of up to 3500 palestinians, were genocide. The occupation at the end of the six day war of the Golan heights, the Sinai peninsula, the Gaza strip and the West Bank resulted in the displacement of 400,000 arabs. This is ethnic displacement.
During the march of return, a peaceful protest in 2019 in Gaza, Israel had snipers deliberately target medics, the elderly, children, and the disabled. They were aiming for the knees, maiming some for life, killing others. Thousands were injured, hundreds killed, hospitals overrun. Despite this gruesome response, the protest went largely ignored around the globe, and nothing changed for Gazans.
When peaceful resistance against a violent apartheid ethnostate does nothing, what is to be done? If there is any justice in the world, we will look back on October 7th as we do on Nat Turner’s slave revolt, or the Warsaw uprising. I hope that one day I can walk in Yahya Al-Sinwar park.
British and Irish suffragettes were quite happy to be labelled terrorists… which they were. Big up all the suffragists of the time.
What point are you trying to make?
Pressed the post button before I was done writing, sorry.
Ha, no worries you’re good.
These comics always bother me because while I agree with their message it’s clear that the author is just using them to have a bit of a power fantasy. No conservative would ever act like that in response to being challenged.
Conservatives also rarely say that violence isn’t the solution. Quite the opposite. That’s an enlightened centrist/neoliberal take.
True lol
Dont forget that women did not get the right to vote until after the Suffragette bombing and arson campaign
Yes! One of many many such examples (from fighting back against white supremacy and patriarchy, to workers rights), and one that especially demonstrates how even when we fight back, we’re given just enough to pacify us for it (equal voting rights are important, not minimising that, even though to start with it was only for rich white women, but either way, to get the opportunity to participate in a rigged piece of theatre that was designed to make the working class feel like we have a say, still isn’t giving anyone any real power over society and how its works. We’re still fighting for basic equality ffs).
(E: that is to say, it works, but we need to keep the fight going, rather than allow ourselves to be manipulated by the establishment in to accepting less than what we’re fighting for, as a “compromise” where they get to keep their power, and some of us get to suffer tiny bit less)
We should disarm the police and dismantle the army though
Unfortunately, you can only dismantle the army, if everyone dismantles the army. Otherwise you’ll get it involuntarily replaced by a foreign army and have to start over at zero. 🙁
Well yeah, and I think Sophie would agree.
Thanks haha, i guess i’m an idiot, i took it the polar opposite.
I can see how it can be a little unclear, but knowing the artist and her work helps make it clear that she doesn’t support the cops.
It drives me fucking mad when people arguing for total civilian disarmament double down with “well I think the cops should be disarmed too 😏😏😏”. My Sibling In Christ, what do you think is going to happen when you advocate for total disarmament of civilians and police? Civilians are going to be disarmed first, and then cops are going to be disarmed NEVER.
I know the comic isn’t just about guns, but this is one instance of that larger pattern.
… y’all know there’s other countries, right? And that in those countries there’s cops? A lot of those cops genuinely do not carry guns, because neither does anyone else.
Police in Iceland shot a guy for the first time ever in 2013.
Even in US-adjacent Canadia, the Parliament Hill shooting saw a mountie go back to his office, retrieve a gun from a locked safe, and return to the scene to kill the shooter.
We can have police who aren’t eternally three seconds away from putting a bullet in someone’s brain. In what universe is that less achievable than abolishing them completely?
I know the comic isn’t just about guns, but this is one instance of that larger pattern.
The comic (or this community) isn’t about civilian disarmament at all
I didn’t imply they were? I agree with the sentiment of the comic, and it triggered a rant about a specific instance that I’ve encountered.
Ah, fair enough, I misunderstood.
The actual argument is to limit violence to specific institutions - what those institutions do is perpendicular. For example, neither desegregation nor the Holocaust were “status quo,” but both relied on limiting who could threaten force.
Proliferation isn’t a safe bet, either, as shown by Mexico’s cartels. Democratic power structures at least theoretically reflect everyone’s concerns. Plain old gangs tend to assert control through merciless terror. However you feel about American power structures - you probably won’t get shot in your home for tweeting ‘man, I hate these power structures.’
Violence is the solution to violence.
The threat of defensive violence can act as a useful deterrent to prevent violence.
Nuclear weapons are massively violent. Although they have caused harm in a number of ways (offensive use in WW2, experimental use, indirect harm from the threat of use), I believe they contributed more to peace in the world today.
Open carry in the US has successfully been used to deterr police from harassing innocent people.
Open carry in the US has successfully been used to deterr police from harassing innocent people.
Or to encourage them (not that they needed any encouragement) to summarily execute Black and other marginalised people.
I generally agree with your point about the threat of violence being effective, but also feel like you’re missing the mark slightly, since the threat of, and actual violence have been held over our heads as the working class for millennia, rather than us using our combined power to hold that threat over the heads of our oppressors until there are none and threats are no longer needed.
And this is the case because the state has a monopoly on violence, and why us threatening is no longer (and has never really been) effective, only actions will be.
I agree, give all states nukes.
