Background Nonviolent resistance becomes a “force more powerful” to the extent that it takes away a regime’s capacity to assert control. To succeed, a nonviolent movement cannot simply take a principled stand for “nonviolence.” It has to devise a strategy for action. In turn, this strategy must broadly communicate goals, mobilize people, and select sanction to punish opponents. To shift the momentum of conflict in their favor, nonviolent resisters must diversify the scope and variety of these sanctions, defend their popular base against repression, and exploit their opponents’ weaknesses and concessions. In this way they undermine the regime’s claim to legitimacy. Those who lead an authoritarian or unjust system will then lose support inside and outside the country. When they see they can no longer count on repression to maintain control, they will begin to realize that their prospects for staying in power are no longer favorable. The result may be that they surrender, or compromise with the nonviolent movement, or even forswear oppression and cede power to the resisters. Any outcome will ultimately have to be conformed by the nonviolent movement. Many times in the twentieth century, movements that spoke for the people had occasion to choose between violent insurrection and nonviolent resistance as the way to seek power. Many were seduced by the romance of revolutionary violence, believing (in Mao Zedong’s famous words) “power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Although violence can instill fear for a time or destroy lives and property, it cannot force people to give its users their consent—something they need to maintain their position. In the stability and endurance of democracies, the political philosopher Hanna Arendt saw a superior idea of power: “when…the Romans spoke of the civitas as their form of government, they had in mind a concept of power and law whose essence did not rely in the command—obedience relationship.” In the eighteenth century the leaders of the political revolutions in America and Europe resurrected this same idea in their republics, “where the rule of law, resting on the power of the people would put an end to the rule of man over man.” By dissolving the people’s consent to authoritarian rule, nonviolent resisters throughout the twentieth century not only neutralized repression. They also established democratic rule in country after country. Thanks to their efforts, a robust alternative to violence as a way to advance great causes and overturn injustice exists in the twenty-first century. In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “When people decide they want to be free…there is nothing that can stop them.” When we look at protest movements (such as those at the political conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the demonstrations at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, Washington or the IMF meeting in Washington, DC) at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we must ask ourselves, “Are the goals and values of nonviolent conflict and civil disobedience a viable option for changing a perceived unjust society into a just one?
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:30:50 +0000
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