South Africa's Violent Outbursts "We are becoming a nation of killers", wrote Aggrey Klaaste in The Sowetan, 7/3/90, referring to the violence in Kathlehong. As the lid of the South African pressure cooker begins to lift, following Mr de Klerk's turning-point speech to Parliament on 2nd February, so steam hisses out. Some is able to blow off in peaceful marches, and some of it scorches with burning heat. The so-called 'forces of law and order' either have instructions to let it happen, or are themselves the cause of it, or are at times unable to control it. Some of this scorching violence is the frustration caused by generations of repression; some is the legacy of imposed apartheid structures as in the homelands; some is a new struggle for power; and some is just the natural greed of us humans trying to climb the money ladder. It is reciprocal violence, an eye for an eye. It feeds on the doctrine that self-defence is justified even at the cost of the enemy's life. We think it has no cure except violent victory by one side, or superior violence from outside, or total exhaustion of the antagonists. But there may be another cure - far less costly - nonviolence by one side, or nonviolent intervention by a third party. After the nonviolent liberation of India, a much deeper tension between Moslem and Hindu, that had been held down by the British Raj, came to the surface. It killed Gandhi and many hundreds of thousands of others. Moslem leaders feared Hindu majority rule and forced the partition of India and Pakistan. From the ashes of these events rose the conception of a peace army, carried forward by Vinoba Bhave, a follower of Gandhi, that would make the military defence of India unnecessary. It was the seed of the civilian defence concept (See Nonviolence News for the First Quarter 1989). It got as far as the formation of "Shanti Sena" (Peace Army) set up within India to deal with communal strife in a nonviolent way. Its handbook sets out in detail the kind of movement, not dependent on top political leaders, that can handle ground-level division, mistrust and violence. Also relevant in present times is the experience of Will Warren in Northern Ireland's conflict. He went on a one person mission to Londonderry in 1971 to understand, negotiate and intervene for peace, often at great risk to himself. He visited South Africa in 1978/9 and his experiences are entitled An Experiment in Nonviolence. The first paragraph reads; "I am writing this account of six years spent in Derry, Northern Ireland, because it tells of the experience of an ordinary man. I believe it might encourage other ordinary people to try to do something constructive in violent situations." Eds Note: This article was taken from "Nonviolence News", first quarter, 1990. It is a double-sided roneoed A4 sheet and is published quarterly by the Rev. R.J.D. Robertson, of the Division of Justice and Reconciliation, South African Council of Churches, 85 Princess Street, Mayfair 2092, Johannesburg, South Africa.