 What
is nonviolent conflict?
In a nonviolent conflict, disruptive actions such as strikes and boycotts
are used by civilians, who are part of a movement struggling for rights
or justice, to constrain and defeat their opponents. Protests such as
petitions, parades, walkouts and mass demonstrations mobilize and intensify
the people’s participation. Acts of noncooperation such as resignations,
refusal to pay fees and taxes, and civil disobedience help subvert the
operations of government. And direct intervention such as sit-ins, targeted
acts of economic sabotage and blockades can diminish an arbitrary ruler’s
ability to frighten and subjugate his people. These are the weapons
of nonviolent conflict.
How is nonviolent conflict different from “nonviolence”
or passive resistance?
Most of those who have used nonviolent action have not been primarily
motivated by a desire to be nonviolent for its own sake or to make peace.
They wanted to fight for their rights or interests but chose means other
than guns or bombs – either because they saw that violence had
been ineffectual or because they had no violent weapons at their disposal.
Gandhi called nonviolent action “the greatest and most activist
force in the world.” When a nonviolent movement follows a strategy
aimed at rousing the people and undermining their opponents’ pillars
of support – especially the loyalty of the police and military
– it has the potential to wield decisive power and achieve victory.
There is nothing passive about marshalling that kind of power.
How often has nonviolent conflict happened in history?
 More
frequently than is commonly realized. The British gave up their occupation
of India after a decades-long nonviolent struggle led by Gandhi. The
Nazis were resisted nonviolently by Danes and other occupied nations
of Europe in World War II, raising the costs to Germany of its control
of these nations and helping to strengthen the spirit and cohesion of
their people. African Americans opted for nonviolent action to dissolve
segregation in the United States in the 1960’s. Polish workers
used strikes in 1980 to win the right to organize a free trade union,
a historic first in communist countries. Filipinos and Chileans resorted
to nonviolent campaigns to bring down dictators in the 1980’s.
The nonviolent civic movement in South Africa employed boycotts and
other sanctions to weaken the apartheid regime, forcing it to negotiate
a different political future for the country. At the end of the 1980’s,
East Europeans and Mongolians rapidly mounted civilian-based protests
to put unbearable pressure on communist governments, crumbling their
hold on power. And Serbs ousted Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 after a nonviolent
student-sparked movement helped co-opt the police and military and divide
his base of support.
Must the leaders of nonviolent movements
be charismatic, such as Gandhi or the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Not necessarily. Gandhi’s success with the Indian people did
not rely on personal charm or booming oratory, but on his persistent
campaigns that enlisted Indians at all levels of society to take control
of their own lives and then gradually separate the British from control
of the country. Martin Luther King, jr. was an inspiring speaker, but
that talent would have made little difference had he and his lieutenants
not identified shrewd ways for African Americans to put pressure on
the system of segregation and undercut its economic and political support.
And the leaders of the Danish underground resistance to the Germans
in World War II were entirely anonymous. Leadership is crucial, but
it depends on clear strategic thinking and wise decisions in the course
of a conflict. The Chinese students who led the protest in Tiananmen
Square had sensational personalities, but their movement collapsed when
it failed to organize broadly to bargain intelligently with the regime.
Does nonviolent power work only against humane
opponents or only in a society that allows some degree of political
space for organizing?
Not at all. Some of the 20th century’s harshest oppressors were
removed through nonviolent conflicts. There was little that was humane
about General Pinochet’s practice of torturing and killing dissidents,
but a nonviolent strategy toppled him. The apartheid regime in South
Africa forbade public assemblies in black townships and tried to silence
or even assassinate nonviolent organizers, but those who resisted were
still able to drain away its internal and international support. And
Solidarity opened up political space in Poland where little existed
before, both before and after the communist regime imposed martial law.
Those who do not understand nonviolent conflict tend to dismiss its
achievements, but millions -- who no longer live under communism, under
military dictators, or under other oppressive systems destroyed by nonviolent
strategies -- would not agree.
Why has the successful use of nonviolent strategies
to take power not been more widely appreciated?
Because the news and entertainment media – through the decisions
of editors, producers and reporters, and the opinion leaders whose views
they mirror and ventilate – are preoccupied with violent incidents
in what they air, write and talk about. That fosters the mistaken impression
that history-making political changes require or entail violence. And
that in turn reinforces the wrong belief that violence is the ultimate
or even the exclusive form of power, in conflicts with dictators, invaders
and other rights-violating rulers. Yet the truth is that over the last
hundred years, bloody tyrants and even military forces have been neutralized
and overcome through the use of strategic nonviolent conflict.
Have the foreign policy and diplomacy of the United States and
other major powers taken into account the potential of nonviolent conflict to promote
democracy and human rights by overturning repressive regimes?
Not often and not consistently. In the 1990s, for example, the U.S.
relied on diplomacy to end Slobodan Milosevic’s aggression in
Bosnia, but it declined to provide much support to his democratic opponents
inside Serbia when they were using nonviolent action to oppose him.
When Milosevic later began ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO bombed Serbia
until he stopped, but he remained in power. Finally in 1999, U.S. and
European agencies gave modest but well-targeted support to nonviolent
pro-democracy groups in Serbia, and they brought Milosevic down. What
negotiating and bombing had both failed to do – end Milosevic’s
terrorism once and for all – nonviolent resistance accomplished.
Fortunately some policymakers in a number of national capitals are awakening
to the realization that nonviolent campaigns usually produce democratic
results, which in turn contribute to lasting peace. This is likely to
change the nature of peacemaking itself.
Is the anti-globalization movement that has taken
to the streets of Seattle, Goteborg, Genoa and other cities likely to
achieve its goals?
Not unless it unites behind a few clear objectives, which are explained in
terms of the everyday concerns of ordinary people, because they choose the rulers
who underwrite the global institutions which the movement opposes. But to do that,
the movement must first dissociate itself unambiguously from the violent fringe
that its street actions attract. Nothing weakens a nonviolent movement more than
the sporadic use of violence by people on its side of the barriers, because that
discourages civilians from joining the ranks, justifies repression, and distracts
the media and the public from the injustices that the movement wants corrected.
Where are significant nonviolent conflicts happening
in the world today?
There are several active nonviolent conflicts and nascent civilian-based
movements that may lead to regime changes, new democracies and greater
social justice for tens of millions of people. The Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi is leading a longtime nonviolent movement against
the brutal military dictatorship in Burma. Nonviolent, pro-democracy
forces opposed to the authoritarian ruler of Zimbabwe, Roberto Mugabe,
are making business as usual impossible for his regime. Nonviolent resistance
to the Chinese occupation of Tibet continues to endure in that mountain-ringed
land. Democratic opposition groups in Belarus and Ukraine are gathering
strength for new challenges to the repressive rulers of those nations.
A number of courageous Palestinian civilians are trying to shift the
resistance to Israeli occupation to nonviolent mobilization. Student
protesters and other civilian dissidents in Iran continue to stage periodic
mass nonviolent demonstrations against the arbitrary clerical rulers
of that country. Pro-democracy dissidents in Cuba have refused to give
up in the face of Castro’s repression. In none of these nations
is it certain that the regime will be able indefinitely to suppress
the people’s aspirations for genuine self-rule and democracy
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