International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

Gandhi’s Journey and the Power of Nonviolence

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Thursday, May 12, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

In this webinar Dennis Dalton, Professor Emeritus at Barnard College, Columbia University, examines the stages in Gandhi’s life as a political theorist and activist, beginning with his birth into an orthodox Hindu family and his observance of the traditional Hindu ideal of nonviolence (ahimsa). The webinar looks at Gandhi’s initial emulation of British culture and loyalty to the British colonial government in India (the Raj), followed by his subsequent disillusionment after an experience with racist rule in South Africa.

Gandhi’s campaign of mass civil disobedience against white apartheid shows him as an ultimate strategist in terms of his use of the media and mobilization of hitherto unpoliticized groups. Furthermore, his talents as a brilliant nonviolent strategist are exhibited through the case of the salt march and satyagraha, which are examined in depth. After the Amritsar massacre of 1919, Gandhi, in a spirit of forgiveness rather than retribution, moved to consolidate the last stage of his development, when he broke through narrow, exclusivist separatism to a broad, inclusivist embrace of human unity in a mature spirit of nonviolence.

The context and meaning of each of these stages lead us to ask the question: what led Gandhi, when Indian terrorists demanded that he resort to their methods in the face of brutal British domination, to declare famously, “an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind?” This is above all a story of an individual leader’s journey to humanity, discovering a politics of both nonviolent strategic actions as well as a true compassion together with a quest for personal and political liberation.

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The 7 Activist Uses of Digital Tech: the Case of Popular Resistance in Egypt

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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EDT

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

In this webinar, Mary Joyce, Founder of the Meta-Activism Project, presents a framework that divides digital technology into seven activist functions: documenting, co-creating, mobilizing, broadcasting, synthesizing, protecting and transferring resources.  She uses the recent case of the Egyptian Revolution to explore these functions. When thinking about the use of digital technology and social media in resistance we are often overwhelmed by anecdote.

Look at a dozen cases and you will see three dozen examples of how activists are using digital technology in their work.  This endless variety can be confusing not only to observers, but to activists themselves.  There are few guidelines for what tech can and cannot do or strategic frameworks to use in planning whether and how to use digital technology in a campaign.

Mary is an expert in the field of digital activism and travels the world training, speaking, and consulting on the topic. In 2007 she founded DigiActive.org, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use digital technology to increase their impact, and in 2008 she was New Media Operations Manager for Barack Obama’s national presidential campaign. She is also the editor of Digital Activism Decoded, the first book explicitly devoted to the topic of digital activism, to be published in the spring of 2010.

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Civil Resistance from Gandhi to Present Time

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Monday, April 4, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

Presented by: Jørgen Johansen
Lecturer and Faculty Member, Syracuse University, Strasbourg, France

This Webinar presents a short history of what civil resistance have achieved the last 90 years. This is the history of societal conflicts handled with peaceful means. How can unarmed movements succeed against states with their police and armies? What are the building blocks of a successful nonviolent strategy?

It includes a discussion on the recent development in Northern Africa and Middle East. What can be expected in the time to come and what are the main obstacles when a movement moves from ‘opposition’ to ‘position?’

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Image Management in Nonviolent Civil Society Struggles

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Thursday, March 10, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

Tom Hastings, Professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University presents on image management in civil society campaigns.  Most civil society campaigns seem to acquire an image; Gandhi’s movements, for the most part, were nonviolent, rooted in the increasing appearance of being persistent and cross-culturally Indian. Gandhi cultivated the image of civil discourse as a nonviolent challenger seeking justice. The images of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade in 1963 were of innocence attacked by brutality and responding with more nonviolence. Cesar Chavez transformed the macho Hispanic image to gentle but unified migrant workers intent on gaining basic collective bargaining rights even when their members were physically attacked and even when some were killed. Filipina nuns and Cory Aquino presented an image of moral leadership and nonviolence, sincere women determined to gain democracy. What are the possible effects of creating a certain image of a campaign waged by civil society? How important is image? How can one be created and defended? This presentation and discussion will ask what general principles can help organizers think about this aspect of struggle and how research might illuminate this component of nonviolent resistance.

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From Facebook to Streetbook: Egypt’s Nonviolent Uprising

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Thursday February 17, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Sherif Mansour, Senior Program Officer of the Middle East and North Africa at Freedom House, examines the recent Egyptian uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, focusing on the major turning points, the organizational tactics that were employed by Egyptian activists, and the early and recent manifestations of these tactics on the ground.

The Egyptian nonviolent uprising was a surprise for many. The world’s attention was primarily focused on the last two weeks. But the struggle for overthrowing Mubarak started over seven years before. Major transformations inside the pro-democracy movement from online activism to street organization mainly happened over the past three years. The breakthrough only happened in the past six months. This webinar examines some of the major turning points, the organizational tactics that were employed by Egyptian activists, and show some of the early and recent manifestations of these tactics on the ground. The webinar also highlights important logistical and moral support for the demonstrators during the uprising, and highlights some of the lessons learned and some of the critical points which can be utilized by other nonviolent struggles in the Middle East.

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Disrupting Corruption: People Power to Gain Accountability

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Thursday, January 27, 2011
4:00pm – 5:00pm EST

Shaazka Beyerle is a writer and educator on people power and strategic nonviolent action and a Senior Advisor with ICNC. This webinar explores how empowered citizens are engaging in civil resistance to curb graft and abuse. Corruption is intimately linked to violence, human insecurity, and oppression. For the everyday person, this means the denial of basic freedoms and rights. In virtually every part of the world over the past 15 years, citizens are proving that they are not passive onlookers of elite-driven corruption. Rather, they are drivers of accountability, reform and participatory democracy. The webinar will: identify the limitations of  top-down, technical approaches to combating corruption and; present successful cases of citizen empowerment through nonviolent campaigns.

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How can movement and revolution studies inform the theory and practice of nonviolent action?

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Stellan Vinthagen, Associate Professor in Sociology and Senior Lecturer in Peace and Development Studies at Göteborg University in Sweden looks at how real world events and statistics show how civil resistance or nonviolent action movements, contrary to conventional assumptions, are very effective means to change societies. Several authoritarian regimes have fallen (e.g. Apartheid South Africa or Milosevic’s Serbia) after popular, relatively peaceful rebellions. Recent quantitative research reports have shown a great effectiveness of civil resistance campaigns (Karatnycky & Ackerman 2005; Stephan & Chenoweth 2008).

At the same time there are several conflicts in which civil resistance has yet to be successful, e.g. in Palestine/Israel, Tibet/China, Colombia or Western Sahara/Morocco. And we also see how some “nonviolent revolutions” are having serious democracy problems (e.g. Georgia or Kyrgyzstan). There are reasons to reflect on the role of various conditions and contexts when applying resistance strategies. Here nonviolent action studies have something to learn from other, more advanced, social science areas, e.g. social movement studies or revolution studies.

This presentation tries to inspire and illustrate possible improvements of civil resistance strategies. What happens when we apply e.g. political opportunity theory or resource mobilization theory, or Foran’s theory of revolutions to civil resistance practice and studies? It is argued that greater effectiveness is possible if we build strategies on some established theories and understandings of movements and social change.

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Nonviolence Today: The State of Humanity’s Most Important Art

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Thursday, October 21, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Michael Nagler, Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, gives an overview of the present state of awareness and practice of nonviolent techniques, stressing several new developments that give cause for hope despite the grim ‘realities’ of the global problématique. His presentation consists of four parts: (1) a general introduction and definition of terms: what does he mean by ‘nonviolence’ and how it is generally used in scholarly and activist discourse; similarly with associated terminology in vogue today; (2) The quantitative spread of global nonviolent action since Gandhi and King; (3) the qualitative differences in the general climate of dissent and specific advantages employed or waiting to be employed in nonviolent action today; and (4) where do we go from here?

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The Digital Duel: Resistance and Repression in an Online World

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Thursday, October 14th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Daryn Cambridge, Director for Knowledge & Digital Strategies at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and adjunct professor at American University, looks at the emerging role of digital tools and new media in impacting the way people around the world struggle nonviolently for human rights, justice, and democratic self-rule. In addition, he will look at how these communication technologies are also being used as tools of repression by the very governments and structures these movements oppose. Looking at the evolution of communication and information sharing as a tool of resistance, Daryn will expand on contemporary struggles for rights waged with the help of online, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and technologies such as cellphones and digital cameras that advance the utility of these platforms.

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Civil Resistance in Bosnia: Pressure for Truth and Reform

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Thursday, October 7th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Vanessa Ortiz, former Sr. Director for Civic and Field Learning at ICNC, and Darko Brkan, organizer for Dosta!, present two movements in Bosnia that are challenging the status quo and mobilizing citizens to action. The Women of Srebrenica is a movement that galvanized the grief of women who lost loved ones in Srebrenica, and for over 14 years, it has created pressure on the international community to not only address the issue of missing persons and uncovering of mass graves, but to identify and charge those accountable for war crimes. Dosta! (Enough!), began as an expression of citizen discontent with the current political system. It is an emerging citizens movement which has grown from 10 members to hundreds of individuals around Bosnia – across all ethnic groups. Dosta! is awakening civil society to demand an end to corruption by creating nonviolent campaigns targeting corrupt political leaders and policies, while pressing for a more accountable and transparent political system as Bosnia enters the path toward European integration.

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Costs and Risks in Nonviolent Conflict

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Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Hardy Merriman, senior advisor to ICNC, looks at how civil resistance movements engage in a contest with their adversaries. In this contest, each side is capable of imposing costs on the other. Civil resistance movements may take actions that deny their adversaries legitimacy and material resources, as well as reduce the loyalty of the adversary’s supporters. Conversely, a movement’s adversary may take actions to deny a movement legitimacy, material resources, or the loyalty of the movement’s supporters. Furthermore, like in any contest, there are certain risks inherent in one’s choice of strategy. In attempting to impose costs on the other, movements and their adversaries incur risks associated with their actions. In this webinar, Merriman frames civil resistance from the perspective of two kinds of costs–material/economic costs and political/legitimacy costs–that movements and their adversaries can impose on each other. It will also survey the risks associated with movements’ attempts to impose these costs on their adversaries.

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Swallowing Camels: How the Media Misinterpret Nonviolent Struggles

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Thursday, May 27th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Sonoma State University, uses frame analysis to analyze some of the common ways in which mainstream media coverage of nonviolent struggles and civil resistance tends to reinforce key distortions in knowledge about these struggles and even defaults to the perspective of the oppressor. She also makes suggestions for ways in which conscious citizens, activists, and media audiences can help counter these misconceptions. Key case studies are Iran’s “Green Revolution” and Burma’s “Saffron Revolution.”

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