Non-violence is the theory, the ideology or the philosophy, or however the culture of those who consider that human relationships must be run without the use of violence, without the use of guns and avoiding aggression and war.
The theory has been proposed, in different forms, in ancient epochs too, but it became of general knowledge in the 20th century, especially with the famous political success of Mahatma Gandhi in India. It is related to the way of life advocated by Jesus Christ, by Gautama Buddha, and to the notion of ahimsa in Jainism.
Basically, it is a political method: "non-violents" prefer to consider that social and political results can be achieved by a dialectical debate rather than by a contraposition of (eventually military or military-like) forces. In front of an eventual dispute with dominant forces or entities, they prefer talking about "resistance" rather than about "conflict".
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump