Why not both?? Brought to you by a radical flank theorist.

Imagine a group of people that is perceived as violent agitators. Lets assume they have demonstrated that they will escalate their violence if their demands aren’t met. However, the people in power do not want to negotiate with terrorists, do not want to legitimize violence and their only answer to it is oppression. Now imagine a second group of people that has adjacent demands but obeys to non-violence principles and to methods generally regarded as civil disobedience. This second group will point at the violent radicals and position themselves as a reasonable alternative. The people in power will see them as a way out of the violence and will be willing to negotiate with them.

Overall, the first group might not get all it wanted, but there will be compromise and change towards their demands.

This can only work with people in power who eventually, bottom down, have a conscience and semblance of ethics. Dictators don’t care about repressing their own people and will avoid the false dichotomy by lumping both groups together and send them to prison camps.

In practice it is also really hard to navigate as the opposition to the people in power is de facto divided, creating double opportunities to tank each group with various techniques like media manipulation, attacking leadership with lawsuits, blocking funding etc.