"All I'm saying is that perhaps we can make a revolution without violence." (Image by Roy Kerwood.)

John Lennon was famous for urging everyone to give peace a chance, but there was a moment when he seemed to flinch and curl his fist. It was during a January 1971 interview he and Yoko Ono did with the radical left publication Red Mole. To her credit, Ono wasn’t having any of the macho blather. An excerpt:

“Red Mole: Communication is vital for building a movement, but in the end it’s powerless unless you also develop popular force.

Yoko Ono: I get very sad when I think about Vietnam where there seems to be no choice but violence. This violence goes on for centuries perpetuating itself. In the present age when communication is so rapid, we should create a different tradition, traditions are created everyday. Five years now is like 100 years before. We are living in a society that has no history. There’s no precedent for this kind of society so we can break the old patterns.

Red Mole: No ruling class in the whole of history has given up power voluntarily and I don’t see that changing.

Yoko Ono: But violence isn’t just a conceptual thing, you know. I saw a programme about this kid who had come back from Vietnam – he’d lost his body from the waist down. He was just a lump of meat, and he said, ‘Well, I guess it was a good experience.’

John Lennon: He didn’t want to face the truth, he didn’t want to think it had all been a waste…

Yoko Ono: But think of the violence, it could happen to your kids…

Red Mole: But Yoko, people who struggle against oppression find themselves attacked by those who have a vested interest in nothing changing, those who want to protect their power and wealth. Look at the people in Bogside and Falls Road in Northern Ireland; they were mercilessly attacked by the special police because they began demonstrating for their rights. On one night in August 1969, seven people were shot and thousands driven from their homes. Didn’t they have a right to defend themselves?

Yoko Ono: That’s why one should try to tackle these problems before a situation like that happens.

John Lennon: Yes, but what do you do when it does happen, what do you do?

Red Mole: Popular violence against their oppressors is always justified. It cannot be avoided.

Yoko Ono: But in a way the new music showed things could be transformed by new channels of communication.

John Lennon: Yes, but as I said, nothing really changed.

Yoko Ono: Well, something changed and it was for the better. All I’m saying is that perhaps we can make a revolution without violence.

John Lennon: But you can’t take power without a struggle…”