This live academic webinar was presented on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, by Robert Press, associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is also the author of “The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent,” published in 1999 by the University Press of Florida. This book was cited as one of the best 40 books published by any university press in the United States in 1999-2000. He also authored “Peaceful Resistance: Advancing Human Rights and Democratic Freedom,” which was published by Ashgate in the United Kingdom in 2006.

This webinar will present the findings of the newly published book Ripples of Hope: How Ordinary People Resist Repression Without Violence. Amsterdam University Press 2015 that focuses on nonviolent resistance in challenging repressive regimes in Africa. The webinar presentation will include discussion of how ordinary people wage  civil resistance in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Kenya from the 1970s through the 1990s. Unlike more recent struggles in the Arab world, civil resistance in the analyzed case studies occurred before the use of Facebook and Twitter. Activists stayed in touch through informal channels. External forces such as international pressures, or sometimes military intervention played an important part in the regime changes. But without the organized nonviolent grassroots pressure, it is unlikely that change would have come as soon as it did. The webinar will present the analytical framework for understanding civil resistance in the repressive settings, will discuss in details individual and small groups’ acts of resistance where, given the risks, hardly any opposition was expected and reflect on challenges and opportunities of doing research on civil resistance in Africa.

You can follow us on Twitter directly (@nvconflict) or by searching for #ICNCWebinars. We will be live-Tweeting the webinar with Robert Press so come join us to ask questions for the presenter!

WATCH THE WEBINAR BELOW

WEBINAR CONTENT:
00:00 – 01:04 Introduction of the speaker

01:05 – 30:52 Presentation

30:53 – 56:10 Questions & Answers
Robert Press is an associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is also the author of The New Africa: Dispatches from a Changing Continent, published in 1999 by the University Press of Florida in 1999 and cited as one of the best 40 books published by any university press in the United States in 1999-2000; and Peaceful Resistance: Advancing Human Rights and Democratic Freedom, published by Ashgate in the U.K. in 2006.
Previously he was a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, based in Kenya for eight years, covering much of East and West Africa. It was during his travels reporting around sub-Sahara Africa that he first became aware of and met many of the people engaged in nonviolent resistance against non-democratic regimes. Prior to that he worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Morocco and Tanzania. After that he and his wife, Betty, hitchhiked and flew around the world for two years. He was a Visiting Professor at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois and an Adjunct Professor at Stetson University, in DeLand, Florida.

This live ICNC Academic Webinar was presented on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015.

This academic webinar was presented by Dr. Jason MacLeod, lecturer on nonviolent resistance at the University of Queensland.

 

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the Speaker: 00:00- 01:00
2. Presentation: 01:02 – 39:00
3. Questions and Answers: 39:29 – 58:50

 

Webinar Summary

In this webinar, Dr. MacLeod will talk about why civil resistance praxis is clear that unarmed civilians can go outside conventional political processes to overthrow dictatorships and usher in policy change. But the evidence is less encouraging when it comes to anti-occupation and secessionist movements, which this webinar collectively refers to as self-determination struggles. When comparative data on success rates of civil resistance struggles against states is de-segregated, self-determination struggles fail far more often than they succeed. This is not good news for people waging anti-colonial struggles in places such as West Papua, Palestine, Tibet, Kanaky (New Caledonia), Bougainville, Maohi Nui (French Polynesia), Nagaland, Western Sahara and elsewhere.

What would it take for self-determination movements to increase the likelihood of success? Drawing on 14 years of action research with the West Papuan struggle for freedom, Dr. McLeod explores a framework for nonviolent self-determination struggles. While the webinar draws on the specifics of the West Papuan struggle, the generalised framework will be of great interest to activists, leaders, strategists, educators and researchers of other self-determination movements.

You can follow us on Twitter directly (@nvconflict) or by searching for #ICNCWebinars. We will be live-Tweeting the webinar with Mary King so come join us to ask questions for the presenter!

 

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s Question: My country Cameroon actually is made up of English speaking and French speaking Cameroonians due to colonialism. Actually the English speaking part of the country feel they are economically marginalized even though they possess 90% of the country’s resources and think self-determination is the best way to resolve this issue. But the ruling French government is very aggressive and always reacts with violence to any action that tries to call for any secession. Due to this, most of those who try to talk about this issue are only those in the diaspora. Can this struggle be a success in which only those in the diaspora can speak out?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: Thanks for your question. I know very little about the situation in Cameroon so I am reluctant to say much. But you have roused my curiosity and I am interested in learning more. French colonialism is also a big problem in the Pacific and the countries of Kanaky (New Caledonia) and Maohi Nui (French Polynesia) are also struggling to free themselves from French rule. Perhaps there might be value in linking up with activists from those struggles and sharing knowledge and learning?

Certainly a deep understanding of the context – including the history as well as geo-political and socio-economic conditions – are essential for any effective civil resistance movement. A struggle may begin with the diaspora. The diaspora might also play an important leadership role in the struggle for liberation. But at some point people inside the country will need to take the lead. If repression inside the country makes speaking out difficult then addressing people’s fear will be a key place to start. See my recent article in the Journal of Resistance Studies for dealing with repression (MacLeod 2015). Of course there will also need to considerable debate about different approaches to change. The pros and cons of armed struggle, unarmed resistance, diplomacy, and terrorism may need to be debated at length, and if necessary, more clarity sought about the pros and cons of different approaches to change. It is clear to me the most promising way forward, at least for the West Papuan struggle, is a combination of civil resistance and diplomatic/conventional political work at different levels. People will need to talk about what they want, what stops that, as well as discussing vision, goals and strategy. For sure, the diaspora, with a greater degree of freedom, can play an important role in that discussion. People from Cameroon who live outside the country, particularly in France, will also play a very important role in influencing public opinion inside France, which I imagine is key source of the French government’s power in Cameroon. However, I don’t see any evidence to support the claim that the diaspora by themselves, or with minimal involvement from people inside the occupied territory, can win a self-determination struggle. It is people inside the occupied territory who really need to drive the struggle. At the same time the movement needs to build power inside the territory of the occupier and in the international community focusing in particular on countries that support the occupier elite or places where the occupier elite is trying to extend their sphere of influence. But in summary, the active participation of the majority of the indigenous population inside Cameroon will be essential to craft a finely grained strategy and tactics.

Participant’s Question: One of the greatest challenges for anti-occupation struggles seems to be the power imbalance between the occupied and occupying populations. For example, in the Tibetan self-determination struggle, the size and power of China creates a hopelessness among Tibetans that is the greatest obstacle for us. Is there a way to turn the power imbalance into a strength for the resistance, by some kind of political jiujitsu or reframing the discourse? Is there a way to transform this weakness into a weapon?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: I am so pleased to read this question. I agree with your analysis 100%. The power asymmetry you describe in Tibet is exactly the same challenge for West Papuans. And that sense of hopelessness and being overwhelmed by the power and numbers of the occupier state you describe is also present in West Papua. Actually, it is one of the factors that drove this research. People need hope and a sense of how to move forward. As you describe a key challenge is how to win over support from key social groups inside the occupier state, which in the case of Tibet is mainland China and in the case of West Papua is Indonesia. And I think you are right reframing the discourse and developing campaigns around intermediate goals is one way forward.

In the case of West Papua, Papuan university students studying in Indonesia regularly talk about the need for allies. They often complain that progressive Indonesian students will support protests against the Freeport mine, a massive gold and copper mine jointly run by Freeport McMoRan (a US based company), Rio Tinto and Freeport Indonesia. Papuan students also talk about how Indonesian students will join with them when they call for demilitarisation but will not join them in demanding a referendum for independence. Papuan students regularly bemoan the fact that Indonesian students do not seem to care about historical injustices that happened in the 1960s. And of course, psychologically it will always be difficult for Indonesian students to support Papuans wanting to address historical grievances or campaign for independence. Their understanding of history is too different from Papuans. The emotional attachment to a unitary Indonesian state of even the most progressive Indonesian student runs deep.

So what to do? How do movements build power inside the occupier state in order to undermine support for the occupation? One Papuan leader I spoke to in the course of the research urges Papuan students to find out what Indonesian students are passionate about. ‘Perhaps it is the environment, or corruption, or anti-militarism. Find this issue and then work together,’ he said.

Of course, this highlights a strategic conundrum for Papuan activists. There is a perception that working for intermediate objectives – anything less than full freedom – means ‘selling out’ the long-term goal of independence. Yet to build Indonesian support for West Papuan aspirations and to apply pressure on the government requires framing campaigns around intermediate objectives like freedom of expression, environmental protection, cleaning up corruption, sustainable development, universal access to education and health services, accountable government and human rights. This does not mean giving up on larger goals like independence, but rather looking to a process of Papuans building their power through reaching out to potential allies and winning more limited campaigns. Such campaigns can simultaneously strengthen Indonesian democracy and build Papuans’ international reputation. Winning intermediate campaigns will leave Papuans in a better position to realise larger aspirations.

I am not sure what framing, issues and intermediate objectives would work in the case of Tibet but I think you are right, finding shared interests between Tibetans and Han Chinese and building joint campaigns of nonviolent action around will help build support for Tibetan aspirations inside mainland China. So in that sense, yes, I think that challenge you talked about can be turned into an opportunity. That is difficult and essential work.

Participant’s Question: Would tagging to other issues, such as the current fires burning and creating toxic hazes in Singapore, be a useful means of gaining media or support from other nations in the area?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: In the case of West Papua, sure. There is also an opportunity for Papuan leaders to link the two issues: climate change (exacerbated by massive forest fires which for the first time are raging in West Papua) and an end to the occupation of West Papua in order to reach and draw in new audiences and resources. That link can be made given the Indonesian military and police forces’ role in legal and illegal logging and palm oil plantations.

Participant’s Question: How does diaspora population have an impact on self-determination when the country or part of the country is occupied. I assume some members of West Papua campaign live in Australia. Also, how can, for example, the Australian diplomacy help the West Papua movement?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: Another great question. Yes, there are many Papuan leaders based in Australia. Two of them, Mr Jacob Rumbiak and Mr Rex Rumakiek are part of the 5 member executive of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua. Sadly, in recent times both sides of politics have backed the Indonesian Government. In fact the Australian Government is actively supporting repression in West Papua. For example, they arm, train and fund Detachment 88, a counter-terrorist police unit, responsible for the extra-judicial killing of scores of unarmed Papuan activists. However, that can change. In the late 40s the Australian government supported West Papuan to be part of the South Pacific Community. Into the 1950s they were encouraging a process that would lead to self-rule. In the case of East Timor the Australian government went from aiding the Indonesian occupation to actively supporting the referendum and then peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding operations. In other words, the Australian government’s is pragmatic and their position will change in relation to geo-political environment and domestic pressure. For solidarity activists based in Australia the task is to build a powerful solidarity movement that compels the Australian government to support freedom in West Papua. Self-determination movements need to wage the struggle in three domains: inside the occupied territory, inside the territory of the occupier and in the international community.

Participant’s Question: How did the people of West Papua decide on nonviolent struggle as a means of working for self-determination?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: That is a great question. My short answer is to buy my book J, I have a whole chapter on that very question (all proceeds go back to the movement, by the way). It is not so much that West Papuans decided collectively to pursue nonviolent struggle, although young urban based actors have definitely actively embraced civil resistance as a strategy of choice, primarily because it is more effective and enables more people to participate in the movement than armed struggle. Having said that there has been a range of mechanisms at work underpinning the transition from armed to unarmed resistance, a process which is still ongoing. Within the movement – both armed and unarmed groups – these mechanisms include:

• A strategic reassessment of how to wage conflict by a number of key leaders
• Aging leadership of the armed struggle and growing fatigue over the high cost of armed resistance
• Pressure from social allies (church leaders and from human rights activists)
• Civilian-led diplomacy to armed groups, particularly by ELSHAM, the Institute for the Study and Advocacy of Human Rights in West Papua

Then there were a range of external factors outside the West Papuan movement’s control. These included the democratic transition in Indonesia precipitated by the fall of Suharto in May 1998 and a momentary opening up of political space inside West Papua which was seized by unarmed civilians.

The Indonesian state has also negatively and positively affected transitions in West Papua. In some cases, like the assassination of Kelly Kwalik or attacks on the National Federal Republic of West Papua, repression has led to renewed armed resistance (Goliat Tabuni’s group for instance). In other cases repression has led to a deeper commitment to civil resistance.

At the international level there has also been a lack of foreign support for armed struggle. No state is willing to provide Papuans with either training or sanctuary. In fact state sponsorship of armed liberation struggles has been steadily declining after the end of the cold war.

Simultaneously Papuans are searching for new allies. They are also emulating successful international models, including East Timor as well as struggles in Thailand and South Korea, pro-democracy struggles that received prominent coverage inside Indonesia.

Finally, there has also been cross-border transmission of skills and knowledge about civil resistance.

Participant’s Question: Who are some of the key allies around the world in the West Papuans’ struggle?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: At the moment the states that openly support West Papua are Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. There has also been significant support from the FLNKS (the Socialist Front for National Liberation of Kanaky), a group that has full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which is an important sub-regional fora that is part of the Pacific Island Forum. There is also growing support from within Polynesia and Micronesia.

Through the International Parliamentarians for West Papua there are a growing number of parliamentarians who support the struggle. Encouragingly that now include a cross-party group in Westminster. Then there are a range of non-government and civil society allies. A key one is the church. The regional body, the Pacific Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches have also taken up the issue. So too have parts of the Catholic Church. Solidarity groups around the world certainly play a vital role. These are growing in strength in the Pacific, Europe and the United States.

Participant’s Question: How did they find/develop those allies?

Dr. Jason MacLeod: Another good question. It depends on the group. Sometimes an external ally played a critical role in drawing in others into the struggle. For instance in the Solomon Islands the Pacific Conference of Churches hosted a workshop that re-invigorated solidarity in the lead up to the 2015 Melanesian Spearhead Group meeting in Honiara. At the MSG Leaders’ Summit the Melanesian countries (Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the FLNKS) accepted the United Liberation Movement for West Papua as Observers. In Europe, the United States, and Australia, the presence of West Papuans seeking protection and who have continued to struggle in exile, have stimulated significant solidarity. In other cases visits either to West Papua or from West Papuans have energized people’s activism.

—-

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the webinar. I presented some of what I have learnt from the West Papuan struggle for liberation. In doing so I am mindful that I didn’t tell many stories about that struggle. With the benefit of feedback, next time I will begin by telling something of story of the movement then, through narrative, illustrate the draft conceptual and practical framework for self-determination that has emerged from working with the movement. I think my nervousness about presenting got in the way of telling more of the story. For those who want to hear more about the recent struggle please read my article at Waging Nonviolence. ‘A new hopeful chapter in West Papua’s 50-year freedom struggle’ at http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/new-hopeful-chapter-west-papuas-50-year-freedom-struggle-begins/. You can also – shameless publication warning coming up – buy my book, Merdeka and the Morning Star: civil resistance in West Papua.

I also want to acknowledge West Papuans who have contributed to the research and many other people around the world who have stood in solidarity with the West Papuan struggle for freedom who also contributed to the research process. My involvement in the movement over the last 14 years has been primarily as an active participant accompanying West Papuans in their search for justice. Throughout that time it has been a privilege to be trusted as a receiver of stories, analysis and knowledge from Papuan friends, colleagues and interlocutors, who I thank deeply. I have tried to make sense of these gifts as best as I have been able. To what I have received I have added my own analysis, insights from the literature, and my own research. The webinar is one small part of a process of presenting the results back to the movement. Another part is through writing and speaking about the movement. The major work of contributing to the movement I have been studied has been through capacity strengthening work with the movement that I have undertaken with my colleagues from Pasifika, the West Papuan Project and the wider solidarity movement. That work continues.

There are many Papuans inside the country who have assisted the project who I can’t name because they live inside the country and it is not safe to name them. These include not only interviewees and participants in workshops but also people in government, civil society organisations and the resistance movement who enabled the research through their contacts, encouragement and practical assistance. In addition a number of Papuans from the diaspora helped: Andy Ajamiseba, Benny Wenda, Herman Wainggai (who participated in the webinar), Jacob Prai, Jacob Rumbiak, the late John Ondawame, John Rumbiak, Leonie Tanggahma, Octo Mote, Om Zachi, Nicolas Jouwe, Nancy Jouwe, Oridek Ap and his family, Paula Makabory, Rex Rumakiek, Ronny Kareni, Seth Rumkorem, and the late Viktor Kaisiepo. I also want to express my appreciation to John Rumbiak and Benny Giay who have been important friends and mentors to me and remain a source of inspiration.

Jason McLeod, November 21, 2015

 

Presenter

Jason MacLeod, Ph.D., is conducting research on the viability of nonviolent strategies and tactics to enlarge the prospects of the self-determination in West Papua. He teaches civil resistance at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland and in the master’s course on nonviolent action in the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University. He also taught at the University of New England, Christian Heritage College and was an honorary research fellow at Monash University. H He obtained his doctorate from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia where he examined the viability of civil resistance strategies to enlarge the contours of self-determination and political freedom in the Indonesian occupied colony of West Papua. He is author of several articles and book chapters on West Papua and nonviolent struggle.

 

 

This ICNC Academic Webinar was presented on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015 by Mary King, author, whose works include, among others: “Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement,” “A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance,” and her latest book, “Gandhian Nonviolent Struggle and Untouchability in South India: The 1924-1925 Vykom Satyagraha and the Mechanisms of Change.” King is also a professor of peace and conflict studies at the UN-affiliated University for Peace and an ICNC academic advisor.

 

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the Speaker: 00:02- 03:00
2. Presentation: 03:08 – 46:40
3. Questions and Answers: 46:41 – 01:00:52

 

Webinar Summary

In this webinar, King will talk about the main findings of her most recent book “Gandhian Nonviolent Struggle and Untouchability in South India: The 1924-1925 Vykom Satyagraha and the Mechanisms of Change.” In the Indian village of Vykom (now in Kerala, India,) a 1920s nonviolent struggle sought to open to everyone the roads surrounding the Brahmin temple there. For centuries, almost anyone could walk these roads, except for so-called untouchable Hindus. From April 1924 to November 1925, what Mohandas K. Gandhi called a satyagraha was waged to gain access for excluded groups to the routes encircling the temple compound.

As the 604-day campaign persisted, it gripped British India and beyond, while revealing extreme forms of discrimination practiced by the upper castes: untouchability, unapproachability, and unseeability. The campaign, however, suffered from specific strategic shortcomings. Leadership quandaries abounded while excessively optimistic planning left the campaign directionless. The outcome of the campaign suggests that the conversion – an important mechanism of change theoretically achievable in successful nonviolent struggles – should be redefined to reference an ideal. When civil resistance is chosen to fight deep-seated social pathologies like racism and untouchability, a “settlement” may be out of reach. Instead, strategies of management, comparable to confronting a chronic disease, may be preferable.

King’s findings stress the need to undertake research with unknown, ignored, forgotten, lost or misrepresented civil resistance campaigns or movements, as they hold important lessons for current and future nonviolent struggles.

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s Question: What were the main challenges you faced in conducting this research?

Mary King:  I appreciate this question, because I want to encourage others to undertake serious original research on past nonviolent struggles. So much has been obscured or erased. I could almost write a small book (or make a movie!) about conducting the research. I started by cleaning out everything that I could find at Oxford. Secondary sources have generally not been reliable on this struggle, but I found old collateral works that were useful on the Hindu caste system, good anthropology, and books on the Maharani. My chronicling of the 1924-5 Vykom satyagraha ultimately is based on (1) examining primary sources (original correspondence and letters, extensive police reports, correspondence between the British Police Commissioner and the palace officials, hand-written notes, minutes of meetings) in repositories and archives in Kerala and New Delhi; (2) newspaper morgues in Kerala; (3) digesting secondary sources (non-original documents, often historical analyses written by Keralan specialist historians and social scientists); (4) formal interviews in New Delhi and Kerala with a great number of Keralan and Indian historians, scholars, and journalists, and (5) circumstantial information from local people in Vykom from walking about the village, accompanied by Professor Sanal Mohan.

A major challenge was that the State of Kerala does not grant easy access to its archives, claiming the need for barriers due to alleged past theft of documents by foreign researchers. I was required to have three locally recognized historians certify my validity and character as a scholar and researcher. Directors of the archives varied in their interest and support of my purposes, some facilitating my work and others having quite another outlook. As a political scientist, I adopted a methodology based on attempting to confirm events, interpretations, and assertions through three sources, preferably from differing types of resources. This is called “triangulation,” meaning a triangle of sources. Not every researcher is so strict. Yet asking of yourself that you try to have at least 3 sources for every assertion helps to keep a firm grip and hold suppositions at bay. As my research took place long after the actual events, I could not always find three different sources that concurred (from informants, primary documents, newspaper articles and so on). In the book, I must sometimes note conflicting information encountered in historical analyses and archival records. In conducting such deep original research on an historical nonviolent struggle over a period of years, one slowly develops sensitivity to the forces at work, as the documents reveal their own truths (or gaps). So far as I know, this is the first narrative of the Vykom satyagraha constructed on the basis of scrupulous searching, made more rigorous by my own standard of seeking three sources to substantiate each element of the chronicle.

I needed insight on the role of newspapers in the princely state. Professor K. Gopalankutty of Calicut University, contextualized for me how by 1905 the Travancore Princely State had more than twenty Malayalam language and English papers, which were able to reach a public much larger than their individual subscriber base. This extraordinarily high level of literacy and interest in public affairs at that time is part of the backdrop to this fascinating narrative and is consistent with the high rankings of Kerala compared with the rest of India in these and other spheres, such as health status, gender equity, and emergence of political parties. The Mathrubhumi (Motherland) newspaper executives (who were affiliated with the Congress Party and also in some instances acted as key figures in the Vykom campaign) utilized their broadsheet to work on the problems of the princely state as they saw it, making it one of a number of small newspapers that were pro-nationalist, pro-reform, and simultaneously able to play a productive role in the Vykom engagement. Other outlets, published by the landowning classes, were in opposition. Mathrubhumi could straightforwardly support the Vykom struggle, partly because it was located in what was then the Malabar District, where a newspaper published under British India had more freedom to express an angle than would have been the case in the princely states.

This raises the question of whether the Mathrubhumi reports were objective, because of the paper’s affiliation with the Congress party. Actually, the virtue of this newspaper for this chronicling is that it had a correspondent in the village of Vykom filing dispatches and accounts three times a week, throughout the duration of the 604-day struggle. This level of constancy in a newspaper’s reportage is a precious resource for building a chronicle, although there were many gaps. The relative steadiness of the Mathrubhumi’s reporting helped me to chart a baseline for the chronology, against which I could seek verification, contradiction, or amplification from other sources. Editorials were of less interest, but sometimes helped with collateral material. I had challenges, but I also had advantages. My analysis benefited immensely from the generosity of historian Vasu Thilleri, of PSMO College, Kozhikode (Calicut), and his years of study. Professors M. G. S. Narayanan, K. N. Panikkar, and N. N. Pillai offered me unsurpassed insight and generosity. Dr. George Mathew, founder and chair of the Institute of Social Sciences, in New Delhi, offered exceptional assistance over the course of years. A wide number of journalists and social scientists were unstinting in welcoming my queries. I could not have done the book without the research assistance of Dinoo Anna Mathew, a Keralan doctoral candidate in peace and conflict studies at the University for Peace.

The biggest disappointment to me was the complete absence of primary materials written by the satyagrahis, the volunteers, themselves. Varying explanations are possible. Yet it is also worth remembering Michel Foucault’s analysis of archives as “documents of exclusion” and of archival institutions as “monuments to particular configurations of power,” which become “system[s] that establish events and things.” Jacques Derrida took this further with his conception of “archivization” as a process of making permanent a subjective perception of history, suggesting the notion of authority and dominance over memory. It was beyond my remit to investigate why I found no personal notes, minutes, or private letters by the volunteers in the archives, although I found some flyers and song-sheets. Perhaps now that the Panchayats Raj (local governing councils) have been authorized to work on local histories, some private papers, original documents, and banners may turn up. It was extremely difficult to chart what happened in the so-called solution, because the archives were bare. Newspaper accounts were vague and contradictory. Accounts reaching the Western world misrepresented the facts to an astonishing degree. Interestingly, as the twenty-month struggle moved toward its debatable settlement—termed by Professor K. K. Kusuman, to whom I dedicate the book, “a compromise, and not a complete success”—the Mathrubhumi correspondent’s reports become wobbly. Their ambiguity confirmed for me the dubiousness of the “settlement.” In the end, I needed to rely on Keralan social scientists who had known participants and possessed if not first-hand knowledge at least the comprehension that came from having heard participants’ first-hand accounts.

Participant’s Question: Your point of too much emphasis on conversion over compulsion (power) is seen even today in the differences of views on nonviolent action between two Gandhian practitioners Rev. Dr. James Lawson and Dr. Rev. Bernard LaFayette today. I’ve heard Rev. Lawson mention this disagreement a couple of times saying essentially that Dr. LaFayette, who was his student, places too much emphasis on conversion.

Mary King: Thank you for this question, as it goes to the heart of my findings. When you can, see pp. 300–301 of the book. In the Webinar, I mentioned Gandhi’s fundamental insight in 1905, while still working in South Africa: “For even the most powerful cannot rule without the co-operation of the ruled.” [Gandhi, “Russia and India” (from Gujarati, Indian Opinion, November 11, 1905), in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 5: 8.] This is a riveting, foundational discernment for the method of waging struggle that Gandhi would place on the world stage, while also developing its first codification. In the presentation, I mentioned that he deeply probed social power, but did not talk or write about it as much as he did his moral views. In his speaking and writing, he was seeking to persuade people in the present moment and was not communicating for posterity.

It is incumbent for those of us who are practitioner-analysts, or organizer-scholars, like my fellow worker in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) of the U.S. civil rights movement, Bernard Lafayette, and my first teacher of nonviolent action in SNCC, the Reverend Dr. James Lawson, to seek to grasp more profound, underlying discriminations. Doing so is complicated by a problem: societies that have won major historical achievements through nonviolent struggle have frequently, even habitually, failed to record these struggles. A worldview has thus become entrenched in which the militarized force of violence, conventional warfare, and armed struggle is overestimated; it has come to be regarded as the strongest force. Meanwhile the achievements of nonviolent action in national struggles for independence, national nonviolent revolutions, and myriad other accomplishments in social alterations are underestimated—forgotten, ignored, neglected, blotted out—even though they may have been more determinative than those cited in the chronicling of armed struggle or conventional warfare.

Glorified reports of the Vykom struggle that reached the Western world with misinterpretations of social change as occurring through “conversion” and self-suffering have done a disservice to the comprehension of the technique of nonviolent struggle. Nonviolent struggle has not been treated with its deserved seriousness in many fields until very recently, in part because metaphysical explanations and a misplaced emphasis on “conversion” and suffering have impeded understanding and posed obstacles to analysis. Gandhi and the people around him used nonviolent action practically and pragmatically. Yet in present-day India and elsewhere this dimension is frequently disregarded as moralistic and seen as not relevant today. In correcting misperceptions of the Vykom campaign and establishing a verifiable chronology for the first time, we are finally able to learn from Gandhi’s mistakes ninety years ago.

Parsing Gandhi, one can see that he pondered deeply how to compel social change in the face of ongoing obstruction and oppression. His expressions on conversion and self-suffering, and his statements that nonviolent action will never fail are, as noted, a hazardous article of faith. If you deconstruct his writings closely you can see that he had discerned at an early stage that suffering love as the process through which he pursued conversion would be of limited efficacy. He did not express himself as often on coercion as he did on moral persuasion, which has led to misperceptions. Obviously, he was acutely aware of the power inherent in mass nonviolent action and spent years wrestling with its practice and prospective powers, but expended much less effort and exertion on its limitations.

Viewing the situation wholly as a Hindu, in Vykom Gandhi relished hope that appeals to the high-caste orthodoxy would be persuasive, and he declared in April 1924 with his tendency for overconfidence, “The [Vykom] Satyagrahis are certain to break down the wall of prejudice, no matter how strong and solid it may be if they continue firm, but humble, truthful and nonviolent. They must have faith in these qualities to know that they will melt the stoniest hearts.” [Gandhi, Young India, April 17, 1924, in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 27: 263.] Yet the fact is that literal or excessive emphasis on persuasion and conversion holds real possibilities for harm. It can lead to accepting a deplorable situation because the opponent has not yet been “converted,” resulting in acceptance of intolerable persecution. In addition, unless conversion is described as an ideal, planning and preparation could assume a probability for converting the opponent’s hearts and minds. This can lead to imputing supernatural or superhuman properties to nonviolent action, while also implying that serious, rudimentary power relationships are not included.

The historian Howard Zinn, who was a senior adviser to SNCC, often would say to us, “First we must change behavior, and let attitudes alter at a different pace.”

Social distance is additionally an important factor in assessing whether a targeted group may be amenable to the nonviolent protagonists’ aspiration for “conversion.” In this regard, see Thomas Weber, “ ‘The Marchers Simply Walked Forward until Struck Down’: Nonviolent Suffering and Conversion,” Peace and Change 18, no. 3 (July 1993): 267–89.

Although he held onto his hope for conversion, Gandhi was generally guarded in evincing this view and most certainly did not use these terms in speaking with the Indian National Congress Working Committee. The record is crystal clear that he sought adherence to the rules of action from the working committee, not beliefs, creeds, or perceptions of nonviolence as a way of life. As noted in the Webinar, by 1925 Gandhi was speaking of compel, compulsion, pressure, and public opinion. India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1930s (cited on p. 298 in my book) writes that to think of conversion of a class or nation is “to delude oneself.” He calls it an illusion to think that an imperial power will give up its domination of a country, or a class yield its superior advantages, unless “effective pressure, amounting to coercion, is exercised.”

To Nehru, Gandhi was seeking to apply pressure, but he called it conversion.

Furthermore, anticipation of being able to change an opponent’s normative values, attitudes, and beliefs can block acknowledgment of nonviolent struggle as a practical method for fighting for social justice, which might slowly, gradually, and incrementally be substituted for violence. This larger objective is why I have long been involved. Multiple forms of power are generally involved. My research on this archetypal struggle and the notion of “conversion” suggests the importance of avoiding certitude and simplistic impressions of conversion, especially as a basis for the planning and preparation of campaigns of nonviolent action. Let it constitute an ideal. The evidence is otherwise too scant. Additionally, we seriously need robust revisiting of struggles that have been poorly documented, or were, as in Vykom, badly misrepresented.

In SNCC, we viewed the sincerity of an individual’s involvement in the struggle not on the basis of words or statements, but on actions and their willingness to “put their body on the line.” By dissociating requirements of ideology, belief, or spiritual affiliation, and by not screening participants for their personal beliefs, contemporary campaigns can recruit with the widest appeal. Participants may consider themselves as realists; take their stand on the basis of philosophical idealism; or be motivated by their strong personal moral values, their religious faith, or their beliefs. In choosing civil resistance, however, they may be equally, or more so, acting from pragmatism and a quest for practical outcomes. Let us not assume that we can change the hearts and minds of the adversary, but instead seek to alter its institutions, policies, practices, and structures.

Participant’s Question: Congratulations on great research and a great presentation. My view is that Gandhi always offered ‘converting the heart’ first and that it often goes on under the surface. Would you agree?

Mary King:  Thank you for your appreciation. To a degree I have been discussing your question above. Your observation has some merits. Gandhi tended initially to speak of conversion as an objective and this is how he would speak. Yet as the intuitive strategist that he was, he organized extensive mobilizations built on his conception of satyagraha half a dozen times under varying circumstances over the course of his life after returning to India. Subject to definition, these could include indigo planters in Champaran (Bihar), 1917; peasants of Kheda, or Khaira (Gujarat), 1918; Ahmedabad (Gujarat), 1918; against Rowlett Acts, 1919; 1920–2 noncooperation movement; Vykom, 1924–5; Bardoli (Gujarat), 1928; 1930–4 civil disobedience movement; 1940 individual civil disobedience; 1942 Quit India Movement. Some of these were national mobilizations directly involving tens of thousands. They were hardly based on humble appeals.

It’s also important to understand that the passage of time and the effect on third parties can also be involved. These factors can help to bring about more elliptical long-term changes in attitudes and emotions. After twelve years of virtually unmitigated obstruction by the Travancore Princely State government, on his birthday in 1936 the last Maharaja issued a royal proclamation that opened not merely the roads around Brahmin temples, but every temple in Travancore to all. The Vykom satyagraha and Gandhi were ingredients in the circuitous process that brought this about. Other, similar, nearby struggles in 1926, 1928, and 1930 against untouchability failed and were all but lost to history because they had no Gandhi. As I see it, in endeavoring to gain knowledge and lessons from Gandhi’s own learning curve, which we can now do with regard to Vykom, we demonstrate his continuing relevance.

As noted in the Webinar, I am not saying that Gandhi never changed hearts and minds. He did, for example, with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the Muslim chief minister of Bengal. In the lead-up to India’s independence, by March 1947 the Calcutta riots had become sheer, persistent bloodshed. No one had worked more relentlessly to avert the circumstances in which India found herself than Gandhi. On August 12, Suhrawardy returned to Calcutta and went to see Gandhi. In a sincere confessional reversal, Suhrawardy asked Gandhi to stay in Calcutta and work with him. “If I stay here you will have to stay with me, and live as I live,” Gandhi responded. The two men moved into an aging mansion owned by a Muslim widow in one of the most derelict slums of Calcutta. Their personal needs were attended to by Muslim volunteers. Unguarded, they would reason with the people for protection. Upon the arrival of Suhrawardy and Gandhi, a menacing mob lunged at Gandhi, shouting that he was responsible for all the killings. “We are all responsible,” Suhrawardy replied, adopting Gandhi’s stance. For two and a half months, the Hindu and the Muslim slept on matching mats, ate the same meals, and daily walked about the streets and alleys of Calcutta, making themselves accessible. They talked with anyone, gave solace, and listened to grievances. The two allies pleaded, as August 15 neared, that the independence of India and Pakistan from the British should not be marred by carnage. On the appointed day, a doubting Calcutta awoke to a surprising Hindu-Muslim concord that would usher in independence. [I give this account in my book, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr: The Power of Nonviolent Action, orig. Paris: UNESCO, 1999, 2d edn (New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations and Mehta Publishers, 2002), in which I am indebted to Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 65, 66. An order form for Mehta Publishers for this book is on my web site www.maryking.info.]

Participant’s Question: I remember reading one of my first feminist critiques of Gandhi’s voluntary suffering approach to change in the 1980’s book “Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Nonviolence.” I’m curious to know how much of your interest and insights into the Vikom campaign came from your awareness and experience as a woman. What do you think might be some of the learning from your work that would be relevant to women’s struggles and a feminist perspective on nonviolent struggle?

Mary King:  The portal through which I significantly for my life walked at age 22 was to working in Atlanta with Ella Baker and others on a human relations project at the Student YWCA, followed by joining the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Julian Bond and I shared a tiny office, from which we worked to get out the news. This effort, called Communications, was necessary, because the southern white news media did not consider the killings of African Americans, or atrocities against them, to be newsworthy. The experience would be decisive for my life.

The Movement, as we simply called this massive nonviolent “movement of movements” involving tens of thousands, gave knowledge, experience, and proficiencies to the women participating in it. It was localized, decentralized, and organized around the specific local needs of different communities. Often it was the first nurturing of leadership skills for girls and women. SNCC especially was profoundly committed to female participation in the struggle, in large part because of Ella Baker’s influence. SNCC, particularly in the Mississippi Delta, was ahead of the rest of U.S. society in recognizing and developing the capabilities of women. In our interracial struggle, men often acted as spokespersons, yet women were in my view were the crucial force at the grass roots. Women—some black, others white—who worked in the movement would take on board insights, experience, knowledge, lessons, skills, and vision from their having learned how to organize. This in turn would allow them subsequently to move on to other justice and rights concerns.

The depth of this experience gave me a grip on the structural bases for the persistence of semi-slavery, disenfranchisement, and gross inequality of opportunity, in a nation quiescent and complacent about its institutionalized racism, in which collusion between law officers and the terror and vigilante groups that operated with impunity was silently accepted. Immersion in SNCC’s programs of nonviolent direct action also prompted some of us to ask whether there was comparability between the concerns of women and the systems of racial inequities that we were working to disintegrate.

My colleague in SNCC, Casey Hayden (Sandra Hayden), and I wrote a document titled “Sex and Caste” and sent it to 44 women across the United States who were working in freedom and peace movements. Published by Liberation magazine of the War Resisters League in April 1966, the document calls “the problems of women functioning in society as equal human beings” as being among the deepest faced by human societies. Historians now consider the document tinder for second-wave feminism. Emerging directly from endless hours of discussion among women SNCC workers and talks with the local women with whom we lived and worked, the 44 recipients in turn circulated it in small groups, soon to be so-called consciousness-raising groups. These groups would provide a broadly dispersed base for what would—with interaction from other forces—become the women’s liberation movement in the United States, soon to link to women mobilizing around the globe.

After 1970 in the United States, the label “women’s liberation” would be applied to a profusion of groups that often did not know about their predecessors. Most did not realize that women—black and white—who had been working in the civil rights movement had absorbed wisdom, specific skills, and critical thinking from their experiences organizing, and that this involvement had accelerated their moving on to make justice and rights claims for women.

I am taking too long to say that it was my immersion in a mass movement that had deliberately learned from the Gandhian struggles that brought me to ask the larger questions concerning feminism and gender, not the other way around. Splits and divisions within the women’s liberation movement would cause dispersal and decentralization. Yet broader and deeper forces were at work that would help to crystallize feminism and gender studies from its generative energy―two major worldwide developments of the twentieth century. By the turn of the twenty-first century, women’s international mobilizing had made its way into one of the last bastions: the United Nations. In 2000, the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was adopted, mandating the involvement of women in all aspects of building peace.

To your specific citing of Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Nonviolence, ed. Pam McAllister (New Society Publishers, 1982), I’ve looked again at the chapters about Gandhi that you cite. Not surprisingly, the authors are uncomfortable with his unfortunate essentialism, meaning his unsubstantiated presumptions about the “natural” attributes of men and women. Historian David Hardiman relevantly points out in his Gandhi in His Time and Ours: The Global Legacy of His Ideas (London: Hurst and Company, 2003, p. 160), “Fellow nationalists and women activists never subjected Gandhi to any strong criticism for his patriarchal attitudes. In this, we find a contrast to his other major fields of work, in which sharp differences were expressed in a way that forced him to often qualify or modify his position.”

For myself, I prefer to focus on another lesson that we can learn from Gandhi. We must accept that he was imbued with a deeply patriarchal worldview that painfully persists even today in India and elsewhere throughout the world, notwithstanding the fact that his experiments during twenty years of working in South Africa had led him to recognize as a fundamental concept the central involvement of women in political action. By 1921, on the eve of the Vykom struggle, he was calling for women to become involved in national political deliberations, to secure the vote, and to press for legal status equal to that of men. The hand-looming of khadi involved millions of women in this aspect of his Constructive Program; thus even if under Purdah they could participate in working toward India’s independence, as he conceived it. Unquestionably, early in the twentieth century he was placing the nationalist cause ahead of the hearth in championing women’s leadership. By the late 1920s, Indian women were in some locations leading local struggles.

The last part of your question deserves a solid answer, but the questions are incisive and I have written too long. I am delighted to say that my colleague, economist Anne-Marie Codur, and I have a chapter in a new two-volume reference work that your library should obtain (Anne-Marie Codur and Mary Elizabeth King, “Women and Civil Resistance,” in Women, War and Violence: Typography, Resistance and Hope, ed. Lester R. Kurtz and Mariam M. Kurtz, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014), 401–45.) An historical review, we also treat among other issues the concrete advantages that women possess in nonviolent direct action and we pose some questions for further research. It will say more than I can say here.

Participant’s Question:  How should we view Gandhi in the field of nonviolent resistance: as a religious figure that advanced nonviolence as an ethical and moral stance or as a pragmatic strategist that waged civil resistance campaigns as a coercive though nonviolent & constructive force? Which figure/view is more dominant in your opinion in Gandhi’s actions and writings on nonviolent resistance?

Mary King: Thank you for your question, as it gives me an opportunity to make some extremely important points. What Gandhi called the technique, method, and process of nonviolent resistance historically arises in virtually all cultures and can be located in the ancient period. His personal spiritual regimens, however, are less likely to be received as universal truths, in the sense in which some of his other insights have proved to possess.

Gandhi ought to have full acknowledgment for nonviolent struggle being chosen as the specific technique of fighting for India’s independence, about which there was nothing inbuilt, intrinsic, natural, or predictable. He had to marshall all his analytical, persuasive, and communications skills, and personal powers to persuade the Indian National Congress that this approach would be both practical and effectual. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who had held office as secretary and president of the Indian Congress Party, makes this plain. After Gandhi’s death, he told a Hungarian journalist that when Gandhi “first brought this revolutionary idea of noncooperation and all that, almost every leader in India opposed it. Even the most advanced leaders did not understand it.” [Tibor Mende, Conversations with Mr. Nehru (London: Secker and Warburg, 1956), pp. 23–4, as cited in my book on p. 263.] I can almost hear him sputtering “all that” with slight exasperation, because Nehru was not a “believer” in nonviolence as a creed and often tired of Gandhi’s religious metaphors. As late as 1928 Nehru was still willing to consider using violence to end the British Raj.

Gandhi deserves the credit for the adoption of civil resistance, but he could not have done this solely as a religious figure. What is critical for us to understand in today’s world is that Gandhi deeply appreciated and understood the impossibility of constructing a mass movement on the basis of his own personal and strict spiritual regimens. His senior colleagues and partners, including Nehru and the members of the Congress Working Committee, viewed his doctrine of nonviolence as anything but mystical, spiritual, or religious. They did not even conceive of it as an ethical principle. They saw in it a practical system for realizing their political quest for independence. This position was acceptable to Gandhi, so long as they adhered to a policy of exactingly nonviolent action.

As noted earlier, his writings are aimed at influencing people in the moment. With regard to Vykom, by March 1925, one year into the twenty-month struggle he drops his moral idioms and metaphors, and begins speaking of compulsion in pressuring the maharaja and the high-caste orthodoxy: “I ask you, the Savarna Hindus of Trivandrum and through you the whole of the Hindu community of Travancore, to insist to break down the prejudice of orthodoxy in Vaikom and to compel, by pressure of public opinion, . . . the opening of these roads to the untouchables and the unapproachables” (pp. 234–35). To compel through the pressure of public opinion discloses a refined comprehension of the social and political power being utilized for a technique. He is not emphasizing moral suasion in speaking to the Nambudiri Brahmins in the capital, even though profound ethical contemplations were involved for him. It is said that Gandhi spoke and wrote more on untouchability over the length of his life than any other topic.

 

Presenter

Mary King went to work for the civil rights movement soon after graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University, first in Atlanta and then in Mississippi, 1962-1965, serving on the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She has built her academic specialty on the study of nonviolent civil resistance and is acclaimed as a top authority on the subject. Now a professor of peace and conflict studies at the UN-affiliated University for Peace, she is a Distinguished Rothermere American Institute Fellow at the University of Oxford.

King is the author of many books, including “Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement,” A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance,” and her latest book, “Gandhian Nonviolent Struggle and Untouchability in South India: The 1924-1925 Vykom Satyagraha and the Mechanisms of Change.
King has served in the Carter Administration with worldwide oversight for the Peace Corps, and for the domestic Vista program and other national volunteer service programs.

For her work on the theory and practice of nonviolent action and in peace education, King has been awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj International Prize, the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize, and the James Lawson Award for Nonviolent Achievement. She is the recipient of honorary degrees from her alma mater Ohio Wesleyan University and Aberstwyth University, in Wales, United Kingdom, where she did her doctoral work in international politics.