International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

Russian protest artist stripped of Havel Prize over support for ‘partisans’

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Photo Credit: RFE/RL

By: Tom Balmforth, RFE/RL, July 8, 2016

Russian protest artist Pyotr Pavlensky has accused the organizers of the Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent of essentially “acknowledging their support for police terror” by withdrawing the award after he pledged to devote the $42,000 in prize money to the legal defense of convicted police killers in Russia’s Far East. “They have signed their support of state terror over society,” the 32-year-old critic of Russia’s political establishment told RFE/RL on July 8, after confirming that the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF) had informed him it was rescinding his prize.

Latin American citizen defenders of the environment on dangerous ground

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Photo Credit: Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos

Author: Robert Soutar Source: openDemocracy Date of Publication: June 29, 2016

A record annual toll of 185 murders of environmental activists was recorded across 67 different countries in 2015 with the highest concentration of killings in Latin America. The figure represents a 59% increase on the previous year. Brazil (50), the Philippines (33), Colombia (26), Peru (12) and Nicaragua (12), make up the top five most dangerous countries, says the report. However, the numbers are likely an underestimate of the true extent of the problem, given the suppression of monitoring efforts by civil society groups and the media in some countries.

Papua New Guinea: Women standing up against world’s biggest gold mining company

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Photo Credit: Langan Muri

By: Hilary Beaumont, Vice News, July 1, 2016

Six months after new allegations of rape and violence surfaced at a mine in Papua New Guinea, locals and human rights advocates are accusing the largest gold mining company in the world—owned by Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining giant—of using “delay tactics” to ignore their claims. About 150 locals and human rights advocates marched to the mining company’s office in Porgera last week, demanding an immediate response. Canada does very little to regulate mining companies that operate abroad, meaning complaints of human rights abuses in developing countries continue to stack up against them.

Zimbabwe: A rare strike shakes the government of 92-year-old Robert Mugabe

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Photo Credit: (AFP/Getty Images)

By: Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2016

It began on YouTube in April. Wrapped in the national flag, railing against the country’s problems, Pastor Evan Mawarire broke a spell that had kept Zimbabweans silent for years, too fearful to protest their anger over government failures and abuses. On social media, his hashtag #ThisFlag has become a rallying point for citizens angry over the economic and political crisis gripping their country and dire shortages of food and currency. The hashtag was used to organize a general strike Wednesday as workers in the private sector and many civil servants stayed home to protest government corruption, the failure to pay civil servants’ wages on time and the country’s economic collapse.

Civil Resistance Against Coups: A Comparative and Historical Perspective

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By Stephen Zunes
Date of publication: December 2017
Series editor: Maciej Bartkowski
Volume editor: Amber French
Free Download: English | Thai
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Nations are not helpless if the military decides to stage a coup. On dozens of occasions in recent decades, even in the face of intimidated political leaders and international indifference, civil society has risen up to challenge putschists through large-scale nonviolent direct action and noncooperation. How can an unarmed citizenry mobilize so quickly and defeat a powerful military committed to seizing control of the government? What accounts for the success or failure of nonviolent resistance movements to reverse coups and consolidate democratic gains?

This monograph presents in-depth case studies and analysis intended to improve our understanding of the strategic utility of civil resistance against military takeovers; the nature of civil resistance mobilization against coups; and the role of civil resistance against coups in countries’ subsequent democratization efforts (or failure thereof). It offers key lessons for pro-democracy activists and societies vulnerable to military usurpation of power; national civilian and military bureaucracies; external state and non-state agencies supportive of democracy; and future scholarship on this subject.

 

Stephen Zunes

stephen-zunes-photo-smallDr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He also currently serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of Tikkun, and as an academic advisor for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He is the author of scores of articles for scholarly and general readership on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, strategic nonviolent action, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and human rights. He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and co-author (with Jacob Mundy) of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010).

Watch the Webinar Recording of “How Can Civil Resistance Work Against Violent Coups,” by Stephen Zunes, offered by the ICNC Webinar Series on December 7, 2017, on the occasion of the release of this monograph.

Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century

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By Michael Beer
Date of Publication: March 2021
Free Download: English | Farsi | Russian | Spanish | Turkish
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Description:

Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is studying or practicing nonviolent action.

For scholars of civil resistance: This monograph updates Gene Sharp’s 1973 seminal work The Methods of Nonviolent Action, reworking Sharp’s classifications to include 148 additional tactics (methods).

For trainers and teachers: Brief yet comprehensive, this overview explains the mechanisms by which nonviolent tactics succeed and allows students to differentiate the immense field of nonviolent action from institutionalized lobbying, electioneering, legal fights, and armed conflict.

For activists: This resource, in conjunction with Nonviolence International’s voluminous Nonviolent Tactics Database and Organizing & Training Archive, enlarges the activist toolbox and focuses on the central role of tactics in organizing strategic campaigns for success and power.

This monograph will serve as a foundational text not only “in the field” of action, but also in classrooms studying nonviolent action, civil resistance, peacebuilding, and creative conflict resolution around the world.

About the Author:

Michael Beer serves as the Director of Nonviolence International, an innovative and respected Washington DC based nonprofit promoting nonviolent approaches to international conflicts. Since 1991 he has worked with NVI to serve marginalized people who seek to use nonviolent tactics often in difficult and dangerous environments. This includes diaspora activists, multinational coalitions, global social movements, as well as within countries including: Myanmar, Tibet, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Palestine, Cambodia, East Timor, Iran, India, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and the United States. Michael Beer has a special expertise in supporting movements against dictators and in support of global organizing for justice, environment, and peace. Michael co-parents two teenagers with his patient life partner, Latanja.

2016 Research Monograph Awardees

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 This year’s awardees include:

Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. He serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of Tikkun, and a member of the academic advisory council for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He is the author of scores of articles for scholarly and general readership on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, strategic nonviolent action, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and human rights. He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), the author Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and co-author (with Jacob Mundy) of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, 2010.) He also authored an ICNC Monograph (2017) entitled Civil Resistance Against Coups: A Comparative and Historical Perspective.

Abstract: 

Nations are not helpless if the military decides to stage a coup. On dozens of occasions in recent decades, even in the face of intimidated political leaders and international indifference, civil society has risen up to challenge putschists through large-scale nonviolent direct action and noncooperation. How can an unarmed citizenry mobilize so quickly and defeat a powerful military committed to seizing control of the government? What accounts for the success or failure of nonviolent resistance movements to reverse coups and consolidate democratic gains?

This monograph presents in-depth case studies and analysis intended to improve our understanding of the strategic utility of civil resistance against military takeovers; the nature of civil resistance mobilization against coups; and the role of civil resistance against coups in countries’ subsequent democratization efforts (or failure thereof). It offers key lessons for pro-democracy activists and societies vulnerable to military usurpation of power; national civilian and military bureaucracies; external state and non-state agencies supportive of democracy; and future scholarship on this subject.

 

Michael Beer has been the Executive Director of Nonviolence International since 1998. Michael is a global activist for human rights, environmental justice, minority rights and against war and casino capitalism.  He has trained activists in nonviolent action in many countries, including Burma, Kosovo, Tibet, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, India, USA and Zimbabwe.  He is a frequent public speaker on nonviolence and has been broadcast on C-SPAN, CNN,  and other major media. Michael is the co-parent of two children along with his life partner, Latanja. Previous articles include “Violent and Nonviolent Struggle in Burma: Is a Unified Strategy Possible, in Nonviolent Social Movements.

A tentative title: Revisiting the Methods of Nonviolent Action

Abstract: Revisiting the Methods of Nonviolent Action adds new methods of nonviolent action to the list of 198 methods categorized by Gene Sharp in 1973 in his book, the Methods of Nonviolent Action. This monograph inspires readers that nonviolent action encompasses a big category of human activity and that new and old tactics are employed daily. It also analyzes strengths and weaknesses of Dr. Sharp’s typologies and updates his work by documenting additional methods of nonviolent action and new scholarship from the fields of civil resistance, human rights defense, and social change.

The monograph surveys the work of scholars and activists who have contributed alternative nonviolent typologies. Methods documented by other scholars are gathered, organized and added to Dr. Sharp’s list of methods. The monograph also documents undiscovered methods and proposes helpful new categories of nonviolent action.

The monograph concludes with a summary of lessons learned and how they are relevant for practitioners, educators, and scholars of civil resistance. Recommendations are made for further application and research.

 

Webinar Discussion: Anti-Corruption Struggles & Latin America’s New Wave of People Power

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LatinAmericaDiscussionWebinarBannerThis live ICNC Academic Webinar took place on Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 12 p.m. EST

This special ICNC webinar discussion featured:  Lucia Mendizabal from Guatemala, one of the leaders of #RenunciaYa; Alejandro Salas, Regional Director Americas, Transparency International; Shaazka Beyerle, author, Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice; and moderated by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, ICNC’s Senior Director.

 

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the speakers: 00:00 – 01:27
2. First Poll: 02:48 – 03:24
3. Moderator’s Introduction to the discussion: 03:30 – 05:55
4. Discussion: 05:57 – 46:30
5. Second poll – 47:22 – 47:30
6. Questions and Answers: 47:34 – 1:17:19

Response to First Poll

These graphs show the results of the polling that was conducted during the webinar among the webinar participants. The first one was conducted at the beginning and the second one at the end of the webinar.

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Response to Second Poll

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Webinar Summary

The webinar will discuss the role and impact of popular civil resistance struggles against corruption,  look into why and how people rise up against corruption and impunity, discuss successes and setbacks of civil resistance fight with graft and abuse and highlight the differences but also synergies between bottom-up and top-down efforts to undermine corruption.

The webinar discussion will also address the nonviolent people struggles against corruption in Latin America.  Last September Guatemala captured international headlines for a nonviolent victory over corruption and impunity that forced the resignations of the cabinet ministers, Vice-president and the President. The struggle led by the grassroots #RenunciaYa movement began after the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) uncovered a massive fraud. Inspired by their Guatemalan neighbors, after an investigative journalist uncovered ruling party theft from the public health care system, thousands in Honduras rallied to demand the creation of an international anti-corruption body similar to the one in Guatemala. In Brazil, in the wake of the three-year Ficha Limpa (Clean Record) movement to clean up the Congress, an active citizenry has been targeting political corruption, elite impunity, and state mismanagement. At the same time, students in Paraguay mobilized over corruption and nepotism in universities (#PYnotecalles) and empowered communities to monitor local use of the country’s social investment fund.

Whether in democracies or nondemocracies people mobilize and resort to civil resistance to fight corruption and impunity. Similarly to the fight with unjust, repressive or undemocratic rule the nonviolent anti-corruption struggle is not risk free, as the assassinations of the Honduran indigenous, human rights and environmental leaders, Berta Cáceres and Nelson García attest to. The challenges for the anticorruption activists are great though thousands around the world remain determined to carry on their grassroots mobilization and fight.

This webinar will shine light on the brave women and men, their strategic acumen and nonviolent struggle for better, more accountable and transparent governance in their countries.

 

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s Question: How can civil resistance campaigns and movements tackle corruption during democratic transition or after the fall of a regime?

Alejandro Salas: This is a key moment where the efforts of civic movements against corruption can move from complaint and anger into a stage of proposing to set new rules of the game that can prevent corruption from happening again. Campaigns and movements need to join forces with relevant institutional and civic actors (among others, reform minded politicians, universities, think tanks and NGOs) that have already worked and designed reform proposals, or that have the capacities and resources to devise new law or oversight and control mechanisms. Depending on the specific country situation, one could push, for example, to have a multi-stakeholder commission that, after consultation with broader groups of population, can design a national anticorruption plan or a similar, broad based, commitment that will be adopted by the new authorities. This happened in Peru, for example, after the fall of the Fujimori regime in the year 2000 and the creation of the National Anticorruption Plan promoted by the Consejo Nacional Anticorrupción. Each country has its particular characteristics, but the idea is the same, continue the broad movement and the pressure it generates on elites to deliver while, at the same time, channel proposals for institutional change through multi-stakeholder bodies and engage the new authorities.

Lucia Mendizabal: During the civil movement of 2015 many groups, now referred to as collectives, arose. This splintering happened because there was no political organization behind the movement, and none of us had been in politics before. So we started to organize the collectives a little better, and from there, we started contacting each other in order to articulate. Most civilians are not well-versed in how their laws or government works, or how it is exactly that a chain of corruption can overcome the law and allow politicians to commit acts of corruption. Consequently, the next step was to get to know the laws and government’s structure. It is important that all collectives are connected and well organized, as corruption will not be stopped simply by overthrowing the heads. Corruption takes place across different levels of government and across all branches (executive, judicial and legislative), and there are additionally corruptors outside of the government that benefit from and contribute to government corruption. In order to tackle corruption, citizens must together become very aware and involved in supervising the actions of those in government, and regularly denouncing any deviations. In Guatemala, pressure from the masses has initiated a change in attitude from politicians, and an awareness of corruption.

 

Participant’s Question: In addition to increased access to information and greater financial transparency what are some of the other broader strategies to fight corruption that are pursued on different levels of governance: local, national or even translational, and what are the linkages between these strategies as well as campaigns that take place on different levels of governance? Any concrete examples to illustrate it?

Shaazka Beyerle: The right to information is considered a fundamental human right, and access to information flows from this right. Information alone may not be enough to counter corruption and bring forth change. Information combined with action (advocacy or civil resistance or both) can be more potent. When information is not readily available, asking questions and gathering information can be initial nonviolent actions, upon which other actions follow. This can include acquiring information about such things as government budgets, spending, parliaments, powerholder assets, and public services. Thus, tactics are sequenced. In the anti-corruption realm, the social audit is an example of such sequenced activities built on acquiring information. An example of civic actions at the international level took place recently in London prior to the Anti-Corruption Summit which ended on May 12 and was mentioned in the webinar. Information about bankers, real estate agents, accountants and lawyers providing services to launder ill-gotten gains, hide assets, dodge taxes was used as creative nonviolent tactics – “klepto-tours” and a bus tour pointing out the mansions and buildings I London bought with illicit funds. Both at the local and national level, monitoring is an activity that can impact corruption. In the civil resistance field, this can be considered a type of nonviolent tactic. If one goes back to the systemic definition of corruption presented in the webinar (see below), then we can see how monitoring is a tactic that can potentially disrupt a system of corruption. “[A] system of abuse of entrusted power for private, collective, or political gain – often involving a complex, intertwined set of relationships, some obvious, others hidden, with established vested interests, that can operate vertically within an institution or horizontally cut across political, economic and social spheres in a society or transnationally”

At the grass-roots, citizens have built campaigns and community initiatives around monitoring. The aforementioned social audit is an example. After acquiring particular forms of information, citizens use it to monitor schools and education services, reconstruction and social development programs, allocation of social investment funds, etc. Examples include Integrity Watch Afghanistan’s community monitoring initiatives, MUHURI (Muslims for Human Rights) and their 6-step social audits in Mombasa, Kenya, and the originators of this form of monitoring: the MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) and the “Right to Information” campaigns in India. In a rural region of Uganda, citizens “monitored” local police officers. They texted instances of extortion demands from police to a local civil society organization, which gathered this information and publicly presented it during weekly radio programs on corruption featuring an officer, who would also have to respond to calls from people in the communities. You can find more info about these cases in my book, Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice. An excellent online documentary about MUHURI’s social audits can be found here.

At the national level, one can also find bottom-up monitoring campaigns and initiatives (also involving digital monitoring), e.g., the DHP* (Dejemos de Hacernos Pendejos) in Mexico and Mzalendo (patriot) in Kenya. In Paraguay, the reAcción youth initiative, , combines national and local by accessing information about FONACIDE (National Public Investment and Development Fund) to monitor its spending and programs in municipalities.

 

Presenters

AlejandroAlejandro Salas is a Mexican political scientist, with extensive experience in the fields of governance, development and civil society. Throughout his career he has worked in the public sector, politics, research and civil society.

As Transparency International’s Regional Director for the Americas, Alejandro leads the network of over 20 partner organisations from North, South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. Together with his team, he advises and support them in their efforts to fight corruption – from public awareness campaigns over research to legal activities. In addition, he manages the Americas related initiatives from the Secretariat in Germany.

Prior to Transparency International, Alejandro worked as a researcher and consultant at Instituto Apoyo, a think tank specialised in institutional reform and governance issues in Peru.

In Mexico, he worked in various areas of the Mexican public sector, including the Secretary of Social Development and the Senate of the Republic. He was also an advisor in the 1994 presidential campaign.

Alejandro holds a degree in Political Science from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and a Masters degree in Public Policy and Administration from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands.

lucyLucía Mendizábal is a Guatemalan business entrepreneur. Although she had never been involved in politics in 2015, she was the one who posted a call online urging Guatemalans to go out and protest against government corruption. Thousands of citizens, in a country silenced by fear, went out and joined a peaceful movement that forced the resignation of President and Vice-president of Guatemala and their subsequent prosecutions on charges of corruption.

The Spanish language CNN named her one of “9 women that changed the world in 2015” alongside with Loretta Lynch, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Aung San Suu Kyi, Caitlyn Jenner, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Tu Youyou and Adele. Lucia is still involved in the citizen movement, working to achieve the goals that were put forward by the movement.

In her professional life, Lucia has experience in business strategy, sales, M&E of strategic plans, and finance, having worked in the banking, small and medium business administration, and real estate fields. Since 2012 she has been building a business in real estate that by now consists of over 250 realtors within the Entre Rios Real Estate network. She has been supporting EDUCCA Association against malnourishment since 2010, where she served on the board of directors.

ShaazkaShaazka Beyerle is a researcher, writer and educator in people power and nonviolent action. She’s a Senior Advisor at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and a Nonresident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

She’s the author of, Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice (Lynne Rienner 2014) and Freedom from Corruption: A Curriculum for People Power Movements, Campaigns and Civic Initiatives. She contributed a chapter on corruption and autocracy in, “Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback?” (Atlantic Council 2015); and co-authored articles on people power to impact global financial corruption in Diogènes, corruption and extremism in Foreign Policy, and civil resistance and the corruption-violence nexus in the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare (Volume XXXIX, Issue 2, 6.2012). She wrote a chapter on corruption, conflict resolution and nonviolent action in, “Conflict Transformation: Essays on Methods of Nonviolence” (McFarland 2013). Ms. Beyerle also co-authored two chapters – on corruption and women’s rights – in, Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization and Governance in the Middle East (Palgrave 2010). She has published in numerous outlets, including Al Hayat/Dar Al Hayat; Daily Star (Lebanon); European Affairs; Georgetown Journal of International Affairs; International Herald Tribune; Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare; openDemocracy; Peace and Conflict journal (forthcoming 2016); The Independent; and State Crime journal (forthcoming 2016).

Read more …

 

Moderator

bio_maciejs_1Dr. Maciej Bartkowski is Senior Director for Education & Research at ICNC. He works on academic programs for students, faculty, and educators to support teaching, research and study on civil resistance. He is a series editor of the ICNC Monographs. He holds an adjunct faculty position at Krieger School of Arts and Sciences of Johns Hopkins University where he teaches strategic nonviolent resistance.

Dr. Bartkowski is a book editor of Recovering Nonviolent History. Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles and Nation-Making published by Lynne Rienner in 2013. His recently authored and co-authored publications include:

  • “Myopia of the Syrian Struggle and Key Lessons,” in Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback? Atlantic Council (2015), co-authored with Julia Taleb
  • “Nonviolent Revolutions, Struggles for Political Recognition and Democratic Transition,” in Hallward and Norma, Understanding Nonviolence: Countours and Context, Polity Press (2015).
  • Nonviolent Civilian Defense to Counter Russian Hybrid Warfare, Critical Policy Issue Study, Johns Hopkins Krieger School (2015). Review by Dr. Brian Martin.

His articles on civil resistance appeared in HuffingtonPost, Foreign Policy, Atlantic Council, War on the Rocks, openDemocracy, The Hill and other media outlets.

Read more …

 

Recommended readings:

 

Winning Against the Odds: Nonviolent Revolutions in Eastern Europe & Lessons For Today

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SteveCrawshawBanner-1This Academic Webinar took place on Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 12 p.m. EST.

This academic webinar was presented by Steve Crawshaw, author and human rights advocate. 

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

 

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the Speaker: 00:00- 01:25
2. Presentation: 01:32 – 39:25
3. Questions and Answers: 39:50 – 56:53

 

Webinar Summary

It can be difficult in retrospect to imagine quite how unchallengeable were some of the unelected or repressive governments that have retreated and collapsed over the years. There are always specific economic and geopolitical factors which lead to the collapse of any given regime, and which are often foregrounded in the historical narrative. But the straightforward role of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience has frequently played a key role in changing the landscape.

Steve Crawshaw, who is now on a writing sabbatical from Amnesty International, lived in Poland in 1980 and was East Europe Editor of the Independent in 1989. He reported on revolutions throughout the region at that time. He draws connections between the events in Poland in 1980 and ‘Act Two’ across the region in 1989, including a key retreat by the East German authorities in the city of Leipzig, a month before the Wall broke open.

He looks at the implications of those huge changes for those seeking peaceful change today, and at some of the elements of successful protests worldwide.

 

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s Question: The webinar on NV in eastern Europe was excellent. My question is given the experience and level of repression by the police against the people who questioned authority in all of eastern Europe, how was it possible that the revolutions happened essentially without bloodshed all over eastern Europe except for Romania where the opposition was not nonviolent. What enabled the people to maintain a nonviolent discipline so uniformly?

Steve Crawshaw: Glad you liked it! — You’re right that the nonviolent resistance across eastern Europe was truly remarkable, I guess it can be described as a kind of benevolent virus that spread. Once one country saw that nonviolent resistance had worked, other people (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria) believed in the same thing. Romania, as you point out, was very different. The dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, was ready to use unlimited force against peaceful protesters, as became clear in the western town of Timisoara when the protests began. Then, as the regime itself split in two, you had two state armed groups — the army, now partly against Ceausescu, and the security forces, remaining loyal — fighting it out between each other. One of the most important episodes for nonviolent protest was the remarkable moment when Ceausescu organized a phoney pro-Ceausescu protest in Bucharest, broadcast live on TV — which then went wrong, when even the phoney demonstration started booing the leader, and the microphones had to be switched off. Ceausescu and his loyalists had no idea what to do — and from that moment one can argue that the regime was doomed.

 

Presenter

steve-crawshawSteve Crawshaw is international advocacy director of Amnesty International. From 2002 to 2010 he worked for Human Rights Watch, first as UK director and then as United Nations advocacy director.

He was a journalist for many years, first with Granada Television in the UK and then joining the Independent at launch in 1986. He reported for the Independent on the east European revolutions, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Balkan wars. Other stories included interviewing Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and witnessing the fall of Serb leader Slobodan Milošević.

street spiritHe is the author of Goodbye to the USSR (Bloomsbury, 1992) and of Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century (Continuum, 2004).

Forthcoming new book by Steve Crawshaw: ‘Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief’ on creativity and nonviolent protest will be published in October 2016.

 

Recommended Readings:

  • Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. (Columbia University Press, 2011)
  • Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson: Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity and Ingenuity Can Change the World (Union Square Press, 2010)
  • Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless. (Routledge, 2009), also readable online.
  • Ryszard Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs (Penguin 2006)
  • Adam Michnik, ‘Letter from Gdansk Prison’, New York Review of Books, 18 July 1985, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/07/18/letter-from-the-gdansk-prison/
  • Srdja Popovic and Matthew Miller, Blueprint for Revolution (Scribe, 2015)

 

Nonviolent Conflict News

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Nonviolent Conflict News (NVCNews.org), a project of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, was launched in 2016 as an outgrowth of the news roundups that ICNC began in 2005.

NVCNews.org was a dedicated, reliable source of news that covered civil resistance globally. The site aimed to go beyond the single protests that draw most media attention, instead providing a window into in-depth analyses of civil resistance movements, their dynamics, and the full range of nonviolent tactics that they use.

With the proliferation and wide availability of aggregative electronic sources for news, ICNC discontinued the project in 2019.

 

ANNOUNCING: The 2016 James Lawson Award

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L-R: ICNC President Hardy Merriman; MUHURI Executive Director Hassan Abdille; Rev. James Lawson; HAKI Africa Executive Director Hussein Khalid; Vice President of IRA-Mauritanie Coumba Dada Kane; and Head of IRA-Europe Abidine Merzough.

L-R: ICNC President Hardy Merriman; MUHURI Executive Director Hassan Abdille; Rev. James Lawson; HAKI Africa Executive Director Hussein Khalid; Vice President of IRA-Mauritanie Coumba Dada Kane; and Head of IRA-Europe Abidine Merzough.

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016, key organizations within two movements received the James Lawson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonviolent Conflict, in recognition of their extraordinary use of civil resistance to challenge injustices that impact millions worldwide: corruption and slavery.

In Mauritania, the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) is at the forefront of a nonviolent struggle against slavery that has led to the liberation of thousands from Mauritania’s system of coerced servitude. Despite arrests of its leadership, IRA continues its work to free slaves and end discrimination against oppressed groups in Mauritanian society.

In Kenya, HAKI Africa and Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) logohakare leading organizations that empower and mobilize communities to engage in grassroots nonviolent action to end corruption, impunity, poverty, and marginalization as experienced by regular people in Mombasa and the coastal region.

All three organizations have been subject to harsh government repression for their actions.

Watch the video of the awards ceremony below

Reverend James Lawson and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Founded in 2011, the James Lawson Award for Achievement in the Practice, Study or Reporting of Nonviolent Conflict is presented annually during the ICNC Summer Institute. It is awarded to practitioners, scholars, international actors and journalists whose work serves as a model for how nonviolent resistance can be developed, understood and explained. The 14 laureates to date represent a broad range of people with relationships to past and ongoing movements.

The award is named after the Reverend Dr. James Lawson, who in the 1960s organized and led one of the most effective campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance in the 20th century: the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, which added significant momentum to the US Civil Rights Movement. In the years that followed he was involved in the strategic planning of other major campaigns and actions and was called “the mind of the movement” and “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world” by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Specifically, the award recognizes one or more individuals or organizations who:

  • Demonstrate strategic insight and creativity in waging nonviolent struggle;
  • Capture the dynamics of nonviolent civil resistance through media and bring greater attention to this phenomenon; or
  • Provide education and teaching that generates interest, passion, and in-depth thinking about the history, theories and strategies of nonviolent civil resistance.


Past Lawson Award Laureates

2015

Iyad Burnat, Head of Bil’in Popular Committee, Palestine

2015 James Lawson Award winner Iyad Burnat

 

2014

Yorm Bopha, Cambodia, Land Rights Activist
Howard Clark, United Kingdom (posthumous), Peace Activist, Scholar, Former Chair of War Resisters International
Kumi Naidoo, South Africa, Former Executive Director of Greenpeace International
Jacques Semelin, Distinguished Genocide and Civil Resistance Scholar, France

2013

Evgenia Chirikova, Russia, Environmental Activist, Co-Founder of Defend Khimki Forest
Mkhuseli Jack, South Africa, Former Organizer of Anti-Apartheid Movement
Oscar Olivera, Bolivia, Leader of Movement against Water Privatization in Cochabamba
Jenni Williams, Zimbabwe, Founder of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise

2012

Mohamed Nasheed, Maldives, Former President, Global Climate Activist

2011

Nada Alwadi, Bahrain, Human Rights Researcher, Journalist and Lecturer
Lhadon Tethong, Tibet/Canada, Director, Tibet Action Institute
Ghada Shahbender, Egypt, Member, Board of Trustees, Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
Mary King, Distinguished Civil Resistance Scholar, Educator, Civil Rights Era Activist

Freedom Over the Airwaves (La liberté au bout des ondes), 2nd edition

by

84736100630410MBy: Jacques Semelin
French publication: Nouveau Monde 2009
English publication: ICNC Press, 2016 (forthcoming)

Description:
Originally published in French in 1998, this book is a rare account of how radio and television impacted dissidence, civil resistance and ultimately liberation in Eastern Europe in the late 20th century. Semelin examines the role of Western and Eastern bloc media in the main crises — Budapest, Prague and Berlin — of the communist bloc which, from the 1950s, destabilized Moscow’s domination of Eastern Europe. The five-year anniversary of the Arab Spring uprisings has reignited interest in the role of media and civil resistance in transitions from authoritarianism. Semelin’s research documenting successful democratic transitions in Eastern Europe therefore has newfound relevance in media, policy and academic circles.