Our poisoned hearts must be cured. And the most difficult battle to be won against the enemy in the future must be fought within ourselves, with an exceptional effort that will transform our appetite for hatred into a desire for justice. Not giving in to hatred, not making any concessions to violence, not allowing our passions to become blind—these are the things we can still do for friendship.

Albert Camus
Defense of Intelligence (Speech, 1945)

Rome is freezing. As of February 14th more than 600 people had perished in the crushing cold that has engulfed much of the continent. Heathrow has been operating at 50% of its capacity, and in Italy hundreds were stranded on the national railways. At least 100 people have died in Poland, and in the Ukraine the death toll has reached 131. In Russia some 215 lives have been lost to the cold and 5,500 people have been hospitalized for hypothermia or frostbite. The temperature in Moscow has dropped as low as minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 25 Celsius. The Emergency Ministry in the city has announced that temperatures are to remain dangerously low for the foreseeable future.

Since February 4th, despite the deep freeze, tens of thousands of Russians have taken to the streets in protest of an unbalanced system. Abiding frustration over fraudulent elections, lowering teacher salaries and insufficient health care have motivated the population. In September Putin announced in that he intends to return to the presidency from his current post as prime minister, essentially trading positions with his protégé Dmitri A. Medvedev. He is almost guaranteed success. What is interesting about the current movement in Russia, dubbed among many as the Snow Revolution, is that protesters realize that they are not likely to establish a political alternative. Indeed, they do not seem even to be planning to. They have no new candidate or leader to endorse. Their hope is to disembolden the leadership of the past 12 years (and possibly next 12) and to make it clear that they will not stand for anything less than truly democratic elections. For this they endure the bitter cold, cold so severe that cellphones are malfunctioning and extremities going numb after only seconds in open air. Protesters are hopping in place just to keep their circulation going. Despite their frustrations and adverse conditions, the central tenet of the protest is nonviolence. A protester, Marina Sepugova, was quoted by the Times as saying, “we want the military and the police to come over to our side. We will show our good will; we will show that we’re kind.”

In the context of the Occupy movement here in America, such a statement comes off as absurdly naïve. The enmity that exists between protesters and police seems adamantine. There is the one side and then there is the other, and never the twain shall meet. Violence against protesters has been dramatically under-reported in mainstream media. Conversely, an attitude of vitriolic provocation is undeniable in content originating from within the protest movement.

Before Occupy Wall Street, AdBusters released a now famous poster announcing the protest. The iconic Wall Street bull glares fiercely at the viewer while on its back a ballerina stands in the graceful position of attitude. Behind them both, charging through clouds of smoke or tear gas, is a group of hooded protesters dressed in black, gas masks affixed to their faces. One of them appears to be carrying a weapon.

Iconic images of violent resistance are a big draw. They capture the imaginations of a disillusioned youth and fuel a sense of purpose that inverts the widespread apathy of our age. But even the most subtle invitation to violence, regardless of intent, is not only egregiously irresponsible but counterintuitive and self defeating. This is true no matter which side it is applied to.

It seems today that the publishers of AdBusters might share that opinion, however often they elect to ignore it. In the pages of the current issue Italian activist Franco Bifo Berardi declares:

We have to distinguish force from violence. Fighting power with violence is suicidal or useless nowadays. How can we think of activists going against professional organizations of killers? …The dark side of the multitude meets here the loneliness of death. Activist culture should avoid the danger of becoming a culture of resentment.

His sentiments, though more practical than philospophical, call to mind those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose day of observance we celebrated last month on the eve of the Occupy Congress protest. In the philosophical essay “An Experiment in Love”, he tells us:

Nonviolence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding… merely a means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.

It is necessary here to state that it is not the author’s opinion that anyone interested in achieving significant social change would be well advised in effecting an idealistic campaign to awaken the conscience of the ruling class. For nearly five months now we have been shouting at the feet of their stone towers and the response has been the same icy silence we have come to expect throughout history. There will be no Ebenezer Scrooge epiphany. Donald Trump won’t wake up on Christmas morning to run down Wall Street in his nightgown pressing coins into the palms of the poor, and though the language of national politics has taken a vaguely populist tone lately, no one seems to be taking the movement seriously. At this point it seems important to ask why, and to answer honestly.

Most people are not interested. They are overworked, tired, desensitized. These are the same people who have been put out of work, lost their homes, paid the tab on bailouts. They are our neighbors, our friends, our beloved families. They are intelligent people with the cognizance to perceive an unfair and colossal system acting against their interest that they feel utterly powerless to direct. Awash in everyday responsibilities, they barely find the time to inform themselves, much less involve themselves. They are unhappy and confused, trapped between what they see as a calloused, indifferent establishment and a self-aggrandizing, undisciplined counter-culture. They, like most, will avoid conflict while they can. They cannot afford to put what little they have at risk, and they don’t appreciate being presumed stupid if they don’t see things the same way someone else does, especially when that someone purports to be protecting their rights and interests.

But there are people out there, young and old, who despite an inner ache to align themselves with a progressive effort have scaled back their sense of idealism and withdrawn. These are not people who will be inspired by a raucous cacophony of shouted accusations. They, like most people, will be moved by an appeal to that faint and unwavering voice that whispers in the hearts of all people of conscience, if only we can quiet the clamor long enough to hear. It is these yet untapped minds, this vast resource, that any successful populist movement must reach in order to achieve not only its own self-fulfillment but the higher aims of mankind, those being peace, justice, and brotherhood.

This can only be achieved through a strict adherence to nonviolent resistance, which is characterized not merely in the outward refusal to physically attack one’s oppressor but also, and perhaps more importantly, the inward refusal to hate him. Nonviolent resistance works by not only by stirring a sense of shame in one’s opponent but also by evoking the sympathies of witnesses who might originally have been indifferent, even opposed to the resistor’s plight. The first enemy of progress is not the ruthlessness of the ruler but the listlessness of his subjects.

Wael Ghonim, the Google executive credited as the social network Admin and architect of much of the Egyptian rebellion, was interviewed on Egyptian state television upon his release after 12 nights in prison one year ago this month. Among many things he said, “This is an era when people who have good intentions are considered traitors. Do you know why? Because people now believe that there is badness at the core of everything.”

There is a feeling of late that it is impossible to criticize the establishment without being branded an unpatriotic terrorist sympathizer, and impossible to criticize the counter-culture without being deemed a blind, soulless conformist. Group thinking, infused with a virulent emotionalism, has stunted the thoughtful and well-intentioned dialogue necessary to the survival of any democracy. It is time to upend this foolishness. The successful reform of our system, and by extension our very survival, depends on it.

There is a way between these opposites, and it is on that middle path that we will encounter the noble and uncorrupted mind of the common man. Until we manage to unite him to the cause of equality by peaceful and rational means, then the gulf dividing these bitter extremes will remain as wide as the chasm between what is intended by our endeavors and what they truly effect.

In the coming months Glasschord plans to develop a more immediate and socially involved dialog amongst the community of free thinking individuals we have reached over the past year, and to proliferate a meaningful conversation with future readers and contributors.

We invite writers of non-fiction, essayists, social commentators, etc. to join us in reflecting in these pages a great diversity of opinion, our only criteria for consideration of a piece being its adherence to a rule of mutual respect for the reader and for itself. We will never refuse a submission based on a difference of opinion, be it political, personal or otherwise.

If it will aid in your ability to express yourself in earnest, then send us your words under a pen name.

But be heard, whatever it takes.