“Nonviolence is naïve. Humans are violent by nature.” “Violence is needed to confront violent adversaries.” “Nonviolent resistance undermines institutional means of change.” Views such as these are understandable in light of society’s socialization and ongoing elevation of violence in news, education and entertainment media. It can be frustrating to have to respond to such views on a regular basis. But if the other person is engaging in good faith, responding can also be an opportunity to deepen the conversation, learn about their perspective, and share our own. In this article, I dig deeper into some widespread assumptions about nonviolent resistance, in the spirit of reinforcing the capacity of advocates of the effectiveness of civil resistance to steer conversations toward higher ground. […]

“This is why we must break the silence on self-immolation in the field of nonviolent resistance. Whether one believes self-immolation to be an act of violence or of nonviolent resistance, oppressive regimes are eager to fill the silence and portray self-immolation as an outcome of mental illness or religious extremism. Dictatorships always seek to throw a veil of doubt over acts of resistance that challenge their power. […] Without recommending this harrowing tactic to anyone, we can still honor the sacrifice of self-immolators for rights, justice and freedom. For whether it is to die in the truth or to live in the truth, it is still the truth that is always worth pursuing…”

The reason we try to understand the succession crisis that embroils many dictatorships is rather practical: we would like to figure out ways for movements to use this opportunity to expand political space, maybe even push the regime for concessions and, further down the road, achieve substantive political changes towards democratization. The wobble that represents the “S-word”, succession, should be seen an opportunity for the movement, but one that does not automatically lead to disintegration regime. […]

In the last decade, many countries have been backsliding into authoritarian rule. Serbia, the country where I was born, is one of them. This is a scary development that prompts us to focus on the democracy crisis, and many observers do. But there is another crisis brewing, largely unnoticed: the dictatorship crisis. It may sound like a paradox but currently authoritarian rule is experiencing a resurgence and going through a crisis at the same time. The resurgence is apparent, promoted even, but crisis is not being seen as authoritarian countries are less transparent than democracies and would rather keep their weaknesses hidden. […]

Taking the moral high road as an activist often germinates as an internal commitment to a certain philosophy—the philosophy of nonviolence. Yet observing a certain set of ethics in our movement practice can also bring strategic advantages in asymmetrical conflict between oppressors and the oppressed. The two qualities are inseparable, moral nonviolence and strategic nonviolent conflict being two sides of the same coin. Over the last half-century of being a front-line activist and nonviolent resister in North America, I have begun to discern some of the finer points of civil resistance in practice. […]

J’ai pu participer au cours de mon lycée à de nombreuses manifestations et autres évènements s’opposant à l’inaction climatique de nos dirigeants. L’hiver de 2018-2019 vit l’engouement de mes camarades et ma personne exploser, chacun se targuant d’être le plus écolo et, surtout, le plus engagé. Pourtant, au bout de quelques semaines, le vent de fraîcheur et de révolte pour la planète s’était éteint, et mêmes les plus engagés se faisaient discrets. Cette vague d’engagement sitôt levée sitôt éteinte ne s’est pourtant pas limitée à mon lycée de banlieue parisienne. […]

Why does such a small percentage of human rights funding support grassroots organizing and nonviolent movements? Why and how have some donors chosen to support the work of grassroots organizers and nonviolent social movements? What can we learn from their experiences? A forthcoming, ICNC-supported special report, Dollars and Dissent opens the black box of donor decision-making. It brings to light common tensions donors have faced when considering support for grassroots organizing […]

In March 2019, following numerous community pleas to curb graft among local police that had fallen upon deaf ears, residents of Kyere, Uganda tricked a notoriously corrupt police officer into a bribery arrangement. They caught him red-handed. Emerging from their hiding places in a community market, they seized the officer and arrested him—a man who had often used the same power of arrest to extort from them! This effective sting operation occurred without any of the usual police brutality toward activists. […]

En 1973, el académico Gene Sharp estableció el estándar pionero en la clasificación de los métodos de acción no violenta, documentando 198 de ellos y dividiéndolos en tres grandes categorías: protesta y persuasión, no cooperación e intervención no violenta. Cuarenta y cinco años después, la publicación del ICNC titulada Tácticas de resistencia civil en el siglo XXI, del autor Michael Beer en Nonviolence International, asume la formidable tarea de actualizar, ampliar y reclasificar el universo de los métodos de resistencia civil. Entre sus numerosas contribuciones […]