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.

This academic webinar was presented by Alejandro Vélez, Editor-in-Chief, Nuestra Aparente Rendición (Our Apparent Surrender).

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the Speaker: 00:00- 01:27
2. Presentation: 01:29 – 30:45

Webinar Summary

Enforced disappearance has been used by undemocratic and democratic regimes as well as violent groups for decades. It is considered one of the most severe crimes because it consists of simultaneous violations of various interrelated human rights norms and has widespread pernicious psychosocial effects on the society. Despite the terrible impact, enforced disappearances have not necessarily led to civic disempowerment.

On the contrary, the relatives of the disappeared persons have often engaged in strategic collective actions as a way to resist nonviolently the crime and its demobilizing effects. Those most affected have created solidarity groups or mutual aid associations to help victims’ families, confront perpetrators and raise awareness about disappearances. Various nonviolent actions of defiance mobilized people, made violations visible not only on a domestic but also an international stage and, in some cases, imposed costs and constraints on governments that resulted in the adoption of search protocols, passing new anti-disappearance legislation, or acknowledgement of crimes committed by responsible authorities. Arguably, in some cases these efforts have even been successful in preventing further disappearances.

This webinar will present various examples of nonviolent organizing and actions against forced disappearances and their role and impact.

Presenter

Alejandro Vélez is the editor in chief of Nuestra Aparente Rendición’s webpage. He has a B.A. in Political Science and a Ph.D. in Humanities. In his Ph.D. research he sought to make visible the pernicious effects on peace and human rights that originated in the global securitarian response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He came back to Mexico in 2012 and he enrolled the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitan-Xochimilco Social Psychology Faculty for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship where he did research on the catastrophe of enforced disappearance in Mexico. Along with Lolita Bosch he edited the book Tú y yo Coincidimos en la Noche Terrible (You and I Concur on the Terrible Night) that collected the life stories of all the journalists and media workers that have been murdered or disappeared since 2000 in Mexico. He likes to dwell in the triangle between academia, journalism and human rights defense.

Additional Resources

• Exposición Fotográfica Geografía del Dolor. Vimeo video, August 11, 2014. Available Online
• Knapke, Margaret. “Colombia: Remembering as Resistance.” Nonviolent Activist, Winter 2005. Available Online
• Longoni, Ana. “Photographs and Silhouettes: Visual Politics in Argentina.” Vol. 25, Afterall, Autumn/Winter 2010. Available online
• Reyes, Cristina. Embroidering for Peace: Women Sewing Aesthetical and Political Narratives against Violence in Mexico. YouTube video, June 11, 2014. Available online
• Salaburu, Santi. Homenaje a 33 Años del Golpe Militar – “Ausencias” de Gustavo Germano. YouTube video, March 18, 2014. Available online

This ICNC Academic Webinar was presented on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015 by Juan Masullo Jiménez, Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (EUI).

Watch 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

In this webinar, Juan will tell us the compelling story of a community of ordinary campesinos (farmers) who have lead a longstanding, sustained and organized effort to nonviolently resist armed opponents in Colombia’s longstanding civil war. The case study of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado (PCSJA) leaves us with an important message regarding the scale at which ongoing peace efforts in Colombia can be advanced. National peace negotiations usually take place between high-level representatives of warring parties, without involving authentic grassroots peacemakers such as the PCSJA.

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s question: What role, if any, did international accompaniment play into the struggle?

Juan Masullo Jiménez: The role of international accompaniment is central to the Peace Community struggle. In fact, many villagers highlight that they are where they are thanks, to a large extent, to their international support network, which includes, but goes beyond, international accompaniment. I would qualify, however, by noting that its role is less important when it comes to understanding the emergence of the Community than its persistence and developments over time. During the process of consultation and coordination prior to the creation, as well as when the community was declared in March 1997, there was no international accompaniment as such (in the form of physical accompaniment, at least). The day of the public declaration there was presence of international actors, but it would be a somehow inaccurate to call it “accompaniment”. In fact, the first accompaniment the community had (in the form of “unarmed bodyguards”) was national. International actors that today play a central role, such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Operazione Colombia and Peace Brigades, came into the picture later through an interesting process of brokerage and coalition formation. Today, the first two have constant presence in two of the Community’s settlements and the third has its office in the capital of the Municipality and is constant communication with the Community.

Participant’s question: How did you get involved in nonviolent resistance?

Juan Masullo Jiménez: I have been interested in the Colombian civil war in particular and in the phenomenon of civil war in general for many years now and have conducted different types of research on related topics. In doing so (and influenced by the work of other scholars), I felt we were missing something important as most of the work being done on the topic (at least in the fields of political science and sociology) focused on armed groups as the main actors (leaving civilians aside) and violence as the central interactions (leaving nonviolent ones aside). Not happy with this narrow (although understandable) focus, and also having a strong interest in the study of social movements and collective action, I decided to study other actors and other types of interactions that also take place in civil war. Being Colombian and knowing about the existence of the Peace Community and other experiences of the sort, it was an almost natural step to do research on nonviolent resistance. This goes without saying that, beyond my academic interests, since I heard about the Peace Community and other resisting communities in Colombia and abroad, I have deeply admired what they do. I was fascinated by the mere fact of seeing people defying heavily armed groups without resorting to any type of violence. This resonated well with the teachings and preachings on (principled) nonviolence coming from Easter philosophy and religion that I have been studying and following for a long time.

Presenter

Juan Masullo Jiménez is a Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (EUI).  He is also an honorary member of the Consortium on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) and an associated researcher at the Jaweriana University (Bogota, Colombia), and holds Master’s degrees in International Relations (International Peace and Security) from the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) and Political Science (Comparative Politics) from the Central European University (CEU). Juan was awarded the ICNC Research Monograph Award in 2014.

 Additional Resources

“The Power of Staying Put: Nonviolent Resistance Against Armed Groups in Colombia” by Juan Masullo Jiménez (free PDF download)
Purchase a hard copy on Amazon (US$6.75).
Download a Spanish translation: “El Poder de No Desplazarse: Resistencia No-violenta Contra Grupos Armados en Columbia“

This ICNC Academic Webinar was presented on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2015 by Tenzin Dorjee, Activist and Writer, and former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet. 

 Watch webinar recording below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the Speaker: 00:00- 00:56
2. Presentation: 01:00 – 34:44
3. Questions and Answers: 35:20 – 56:23

Webinar Summary

This webinar will take parts of Tendor Dorjee’s ICNC Monograph and use that to analyze the strategy and history of the civic struggle in Tibet over the last six decades. Contrary to a perception, fueled by Chinese propaganda during the 2008 Tibetan uprising, that the Tibetan struggle is heading toward extremism, this webinar will show that since the 1950s, the movement has moved toward a tighter embrace of nonviolent resistance. The webinar will examine this evolution, analyzing central themes, purposes, challenges, strategies, tactics and impacts of three major Tibetan uprisings over the last six decades. Tibetans are now waging a quiet, slow-building nonviolent movement, centered on strengthening the Tibetan national and cultural fabric via what Dorjee calls “transformative resistance.” This is happening in an immensely repressive political environment, which shows that there is a way to mobilize people power against even one of the most ruthless regimes in the world.

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s question: Can you say more about Lhakar’s effectiveness? I am asking because the documentary “Tibet in Song” shows how Beijing cracks down on any assertion of Tibetan identity. Also, has the protest against mining been replicated elsewhere, and with the same success?

Tenzin Dorjee: Lhakar has been one of the most effective homegrown campaigns we’ve seen in Tibet. It’s true that China clamps down on almost every assertion of Tibetan identity, as you saw in the film “Tibet in Song,” but there are still small pockets of space for action that one can find within China’s repressive system. When Tibetans assert their identity in simple and personal ways, such as eating Tibetan cuisine, writing in Tibetan script, or refusing to speak Chinese at home, it is hard for Chinese authorities to punish these acts even if they would like to. Regarding the question about mining, there have been some successful campaigns in other places. Recently, Tibetans in Dzatoe and Kyegudo have waged anti-mining campaigns with some measurable success so far. But it is hard to tell whether these two campaigns were directly inspired by the success of Markham.

Participant’s question: You’ve mentioned a common vision, which we know is critical for success of a nonviolent movement. Can you talk a little bit more about where this stands for the Tibet movement, how it’s being developed with all the challenges of repression and diaspora and dispersion of activists, and next steps?

Tenzin Dorjee: In recent years, articulation of a common vision for Tibet has become increasingly tough. The Tibetan government in exile pursues autonomy for Tibet as its goal while many Tibetans outside the establishment advocate independence, the former advocates a highly conciliatory diplomatic approach while the latter wants to push for a more confrontational grassroots approach. But this doesn’t mean that a common vision cannot be developed. One area of commonality is the fact that both camps emphasize the use of nonviolent methods and the rejection of violence, and this commonality can be turned into a foundation for united action. It is hard to dismiss the debate between independence advocates and autonomy advocates as unimportant, because the debate is absolutely necessary and also a result of both camps caring deeply about the cause. Nevertheless, we could say, let’s continue the debate in a more civil and less hostile fashion, but let’s also start working together on more immediate and achievable campaigns around, say, environmental issues, political prisoners’ release, anti-mining mobilization, etc. Focusing on these concrete campaigns rather than remaining trapped in a never-ending ideological tug-of-war will make the Tibet movement more united as a force, and therefore more of a challenge to China.

Participant’s question: How has the Chinese government’s responses to these protests changed from the 1959, 1989 to 2008 protests?

Tenzin Dorjee: The Chinese government’s response to Tibetan protests has been consistently ruthless and brutal. But after each successive uprising and crackdown, the Chinese authorities’ methods of repression become more sophisticated. Especially in 2008, the Chinese government made strategic use of its media and information monopoly over Tibet, especially CCTV footage captured on surveillance cameras. For days and weeks, it circulated to domestic and international media images of Tibetans rioting in the streets of Lhasa, while censoring all images of the mass violence used by Chinese authorities on Tibetan protesters. They also immediately expelled all foreigners from Tibet in an attempt to prevent any reporting other than its own. In the 1987-88 uprising, many foreigners documented and broadcast Chinese brutalities against Tibetans, causing China a huge loss of face. In 2008, China wanted to make sure foreigners didn’t get the opportunity to do that, and proceeded to lock off the entire region from foreigners and reporters. So it is clear that Chinese government response to the Tibetan protests are getting more sophisticated.

Participant’s question: In Egypt and other recent nonviolent movements, technology has played a huge part. How is the Tibet movement embracing technology as a tool in this nonviolent movement?

Tenzin Dorjee: Technology has played an unexpectedly important role in the Tibet movement. In the past, Tibetan elders used to worry that the advent of technology, and all the flash and seduction it comes with, would distract the youth from our traditional heritage and undermine the movement to protect Tibet’s cultural as well as political identity. However, once Tibetans began to overcome their fear of technology and put it to service, we quickly realized that it could serve multiple purposes. In the ‘90s, radio stations such as VOA, RFA and Voice of Tibet, which were the only alternative sources of information in Tibet, became a lifeline between Tibetans in Tibet and those in exile. In the last ten years, thanks to advancing digital and information technologies, news and information from Tibet travel to the outside world much faster. Until a few years ago, it used to take up to a month for exiled Tibetans to learn about the arrest of someone in Tibet, but now real-time communication over tools such as email, Skype, QQ, and Wechat allows exiles to get such news within hours, even minutes. All this is changing the landscape of the political movement, opening up new possibilities for organizing and mobilization.

Participant’s question: How could Tibetans reach out to other groups in China, such as Uyghurs or Chinese workers, farmers and Chinese intellectuals to create a diverse and multi-ethnic coalition for greater political rights? Is this possible, and how?

Tenzin Dorjee: I think it is possible, but it won’t be easy. There are many barriers between Tibetans and Chinese that prevent them from working together even when there are common grievances. Many of these barriers are cultural and have existed for centuries, while other barriers are political and created by the government. However, in the meantime, Tibetans might find it easier to reach out to non-Chinese groups such as Mongolians and Uyghurs, who are undergoing many of the same existential problems as Tibetans. For example, both Tibetans and Mongolians have a huge nomadic population who are being driven to the edge by the Chinese government’s ethnocidal policies. Although difficult, it might not be entirely impossible for Tibetans and Mongolians to start a joint movement against policies such as relocation of nomads from their ancestral grasslands.

Presenter

Tenzin Dorjee is an activist and writer, and the former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, a global network of students and activists dedicated to advancing Tibetan freedom and human rights. His writings have been published in various forums, including the Huffington Post, Global Post, Courrier International, Tibetan Review, Tibet Times and the CNN Blog. He is a regular commentator on Tibet-related issues on Radio Free Asia, Voice of America and Voice of Tibet. Born and raised in India, he is a graduate of the Tibetan Children’s Village and Brown University. He worked at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., before moving to New York to work at Students for a Free Tibet. He is pursuing a Master’s degree in political science at Columbia University. Dorjee is a recipient of the 2014 ICNC Research Monograph Award.

Additional Resources

The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis (English) by Tenzin Dorjee

The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis (Tibetan version) by Tenzin Dorjee

This ICNC Academic Webinar was presented on Thursday, March 19, 2015 by Barry L. Gan, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Nonviolence at St. Bonaventure University.

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar content:

1. Introduction of the Speaker: 00:32- 02:00
2. Presentation: 02:04 – 23:45
3. Questions and Answers: 24:26 – 50:41

Webinar Summary

The concept of civil resistance presumes the notion of a large-scale struggle as a means to initiate a sustained political change. These struggles must be multilayered, in that they should not aim primarily to disrupt an adversary’s business but rather to transform a society as a whole. Additionally, they should be multidimensional, consisting of direct as well as constructive nonviolent actions. But the typical actions by which civil resistance has been practiced in recent years, most notably in the Arab Spring, have been aimed at power at the top, an approach that ignores a key principle of nonviolent action-that power resides in the masses. They seem to have neglected that the emotions of people who sit on the fence, who are neither with the power structure nor opposed to it, play a major role in power shifts.

Ultimately, a change merely in power at the top means no real change in the institutional structures that oppress people in the first place. Meaningful change requires a longer-term approach directed at changing the mind-sets of the masses of people and at changing institutions, not necessarily the officials in those institutions. In the end, it is a continued development of new understandings of power, wielded from the bottom up, developed democratically, practiced over time, understood by many, that will change an oppressive culture.

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Participant’s Question: The presentation alluded to the idea that change should take the form of what Gene Sharp called “conversion,” which is a force that reverses the adversary’s views using moral persuasion. However, scholars of civil resistance generally agree that this type of mechanism of change (conversion) has been marginal to the success of nonviolent resistance. In other words, it is an ideal that everyone would like to aspire to, but it is not a practical instrument to bring about change in the real world of popular uprisings. This contradicts some of the main points of your presentation which has to do with bringing the opponent to your side by moral example. Could you comment on this seeming contradiction and effectiveness of moral persuasion versus economic and social disruption in undermining brutal dictatorships?

Barry L. Gan: The presentation did indeed allude to the concept of conversion, but by conversion I did not mean necessarily the conversion of one’s adversaries.  More important is the conversion of the masses of people at the bottom of the pyramid who initially believe that they have no stake in the struggle.  It is nonviolence and the suffering that is imposed on the grievance group that wins over, that converts, the masses of people who sit on the fence.  Leaders are not likely to be converted to their opponents’ points of views.  I agree.  But masses of people who are initially indifferent are much more likely to be converted by observing nonviolent activists than by observing violent ones.  Furthermore, to the extent that nonviolent activists are seen as disruptive rather than constructive in their engagement, they are less likely to convert those who are initially indifferent, those who sit on the fence, those who are neither opponents nor collaborators.

Participant’s Question: What is the boundary between development and resistance as you have defined it? Those in the development community sometimes criticize actors using civil resistance as being disruptive, thus discouraging the use of extra-constitutional organizing. Your arguments seem to align themselves with those held by the people from the developmental community that emphasize the importance of dialogue and negotiations over nonviolent direct actions in bringing about change. The issue is that no dictators have been toppled because of simple dialogue and negotiations without a real people power movement – often in the form of contentious actions –that stood behind them. Resistance in that sense seems to be a positive feature of nonviolent actions and is the very element that distinguishes nonviolent organizing from processes such as economic development. Dictators love to talk about the latter to stress the necessity for stability and peace that guarantee their rule.  I would like to hear your perspective on this in the light of some parts of your presentation that had a critical view on civil resistance.

Barry L. Gan: Major political change is not an either/or proposition.  It’s not a matter of civil resistance versus development.  More importantly, civil resistance should not be the aim of those seeking political change.  Political change should be the aim.  And civil resistance is but one tool, and not even always a necessary tool.  Stephen Zunes documented much positive political change in three countries in the webinar that followed this one.  And none of the political change that he documented involved massive disruption and resistance to bring down a dictator.  Au contraire.  See the response to Question 1 above:  to the extent that those who sit on the fence see efforts for major political change merely as reactionary resistance instead of positive development, they are less likely to get off the fence, less likely to add to the power of a movement, which might best not be called a resistance movement but an alternative movement.

Participant’s Question: Among scholars who study civil resistance, this term is used to describe a large variety of actions other than demonstrations and protests. In your presentation, however, you criticized it saying that it is not necessary to bring about a successful outcome for a movement. Instead of defining civil resistance with such a narrow scope (e.g. disruption, obstruction), shouldn’t the criticism be directed toward those that rely upon physical actions in the street, rather than those that advocate and practice civil resistance in its entirety (for example, a landless people’s movement in Brazil or for that matter, a number of anti-communist movements in Central Europe)?

Barry L. Gan: I have no issue with widening the concept of civil resistance, but I hesitate to call all forms of opposition to existing policies as resistance, a needlessly belligerent term.  A constructive programme can be construed as resistance, and indeed it is likely to be construed as resistance and thus crushed if those who pursue the constructive programme call it resistance.  But if it is simply called a constructive programme, a new way of doing things, then it is less likely (1) to be targeted by an oppressive regime in its early stages (2) more likely to succeed in its later stages, and (4) less likely to attract the sorts of people who enjoy antagonizing, and (4) more likely to attract the kinds of people who want a constructive alternative. Similarly, I take issue with the use of the term obstructive, just as I have some issue with the term resistance.  In a sense, the term civil resistance or at least the term civil obstruction is almost—I say almost—an oxymoron.  Obstruction for obstruction’s sake,  resistance for resistance’s sake, are ultimately counterproductive to building a power base.  One must always be open to dialogue, which need not cede one’s growing power.  The resistance must be a resistance of conscience, not something aimed at harming another.  If it is aimed at harming another, then it’s not nonviolent.

Participant’s Question: One might say that two different types of self-reliance exist. The first kind could be called “egoistic” or “selfish” self-reliance, in which people are indirectly in cahoots with a ruling government or their community’s adversary for their own enrichment and well-being. They value stability and economic prosperity over systemic change and are thus aligned with those who want to preserve status quo. The other kind- “selfless self-reliance” – is more similar to what Gandhi advocated: communitywide self-reliance. This type of reliance involves thousands or millions of local actors who work to develop parallel instutions, ruling structures, and/or other capacities so that they can function outside of the boundaries set for the rest of society. How does one encourage the use of community/selfless self-reliance while simultaneously discouraging egoistic self-reliance?

Barry L. Gan: This is a good question, and I’m not sure I have a good answer for it.  All I can say is that (1) it may not be an either/or proposition when it comes down to actual practice.  That is, one may find both sorts of people engaged in self-reliant activities, various motives and aims in any population.  And (2) the power of example will prevail unless so much power is aligned against it.

Participant’s Question: What if self reliance is not possible in that sense? Take for instance Palestine or South Africa where if you look at the progression of the nonviolent movements self-reliance was sadly never an option as water sources, electricity was nationalized by repressive regimes they fought against. With Gandhi it was a lot easier to become self-sufficient as it was very localised whereas on a macro level to change an entire system of racism it is in that sense harder to do. What is your view on this?

Barry L. Gan: It is not my place to counsel Palestinians, who have suffered since the inception of the State of Israel, on being patient.  Their struggle is a long one, to be sure, and many have been born and died during the course of that struggle.  The same holds true for South Africa.  However, we can look back at South Africa and see that, in the end, nonviolent action prevailed.  And in the end, I am confident that nonviolent action could prevail in Israel/Palestine.  Until recently, the Palestinians have had a difficult time publicizing their nonviolence, and, as in Burma, the nonviolent movement has not been helped by activists who engage in violence.  The violence has been most counterproductive to an earlier coming to terms between the parties.

Participant’s Question: I am originally from Tajikistan but I live here in the USA. What would be your advice to those people who live outside but still want to see their parents, friends, people in free and fair society?

Barry L. Gan: First, what do your parents, friends, and others in Tajikistan want?  Do they want to leave, or do they want to stay?  If they want to leave, you know what to do since you have left.  If they want to stay, then the answers are the same as in the presentation.  Your parents, friends, and relatives should work to build alternatives that initially do not threaten the powers that be.  Develop power that makes the leaders irrelevant.  Heed the advice of Srdja Popovic, one of the Otpor leaders and the author of “Blueprint For Revolution.” I quote him at length in one chapter in my own book Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction. He speaks of the difficulties facing Syria shortly after war erupted there.  His advice was sage: boycotts, especially economic boycotts not active violent struggle, are a very effective tool against repression and a better option than violence against an oppressive regime. But from the outside, you might work to develop micro-loans, not just for friends and family but a much larger program that builds power in the base. Work to develop exchange programs—student exchange programs, professor exchange programs.  Work to foster as much interaction as possible between people from home with those in other countries.  Educate others like myself, who are generally ignorant of the situation in Tajikistan, about Tajikistan.  Do this on a one-to-one basis.  Do this on a larger scale.  Writing letters to representatives in Congress is less effective than writing op-ed pieces, which they are more likely to read and which will reach many more people.

Presenter

Barry L. Gan is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Nonviolence at St. Bonaventure University. He is also an ICNC Academic Advisor and the author of Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction. He is co-editor with Robert L. Holmes of a leading anthology on nonviolence, Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, now in a third edition; and he is editor of The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society. For two years he served as program committee chair of the oldest and largest interfaith peace group in the United States, the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

He has taught at St. Bonaventure University for the past thirty years since receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from the University of Rochester in 1981 and 1984, respectively. Prior to that he taught high school and junior high school English for six years. He is newly married to Miaoli Zhang, a trainer in microscopic photography for Olympus of China. He has a daughter who is a writer and works at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and he has a son who has recently been graduated from college. To read more about Dr. Gan, click here.

Additional Resources

• Albert Einstein Institution (homepage)
• “Collective Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electric Book).” New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes. Available online
• Gan, Barry. Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013.
• Global Nonviolent Action Database (homepage)
• Holmes, Robert L. and Gan, Barry L. Nonviolence in Theory and Practice. 3rd edition. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, 2012.
• Lakey, George. “Strategizing for a Living Revolution.” History is a Weapon, n.d. Available online
• Moyer, Bill. “The Movement Action Plan: A Strategic Framework Describing the Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements.” History is a Weapon, Spring 1987. Available online

This webinar was presented by Pastor Cori Bush, Kingdom Embassy International; Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Civil Rights Activist and Distinguished Senior Scholar-in-Residence at Emory University; Dr. David Ragland, Visiting Professor at Bucknell University; and Barbara J. Wien, Professorial Lecturer at American University.

Watch the webinar below:

Introduction of Speakers (3 minutes) View on YouTube 

Police Militarization and Brutality (22 minutes) View on YouTube

Movement Strategy, Tactics, and Nonviolent Discipline (26 minutes) View on YouTube

From Selma to Montgomery to Ferguson and Beyond (14 minutes) View on YouTube

Live Q&A with Webinar Attendees (25 minutes) View on YouTube

Webinar Summary

Police brutality and militarization have reached crisis proportions for people of color in the United States. Youth, students, clergy, educators, lawyers, civil rights leaders, and hundreds of community grassroots coalitions and national organizations have come together to nonviolently resist repressive violence and a lack of accountability through mass organizing, rallies, teach-ins, protests, speakouts, and marches. Consciousness and mobilization are spreading and scaling-up, particularly on college campuses.

The narrative and discourse about policing and laws are changing in cities and towns across the nation. What is the vision of this peaceful civil resistance movement? What strategies, goals and methods are being tried in the Ferguson-St. Louis area of Missouri? How can the movement ensure nonviolent discipline among its participants? What is this movement seeking as redress against police repression and overreach? What is the movement’s real adversary? How must the movement define its interactions with the police? What cutting-edge, long-term solutions will keep our communities safe and united?

This webinar will aim to address these questions in addition to discussing community dialogues and truth telling hearings (see http://www.thetruthtellingproject.org/) that have been organized in St. Louis, Missouri for March 13-15th, 2015, following a historic 50th Anniversary march on the bridge in Selma Alabama.

Download Presentation Slides

Further Participant Questions

Questions not addressed during the webinar recording itself.

Re: Police Militarization and Brutality

Follow-up question from a viewer: Dr. Ragland raised an interesting point about scapegoating of the police.  To what extent do you think the movement should be trying to win over police as allies?  In what ways is this possible, and in what ways do relations with police need to be more antagonistic?

Response: Many officers are already allies and are trying to participate in peacemaking and restorative justice circles, community conversations and peace dialogues. The fact that 84% of U.S. police say that have witnessed excessive use of force by their fellow officers, but were afraid to speak up (according to U.S Dept. of Justice study), indicates that police want to change their own culture.  Citizen oversight advisory boards can help.

Follow-up question from a viewer: How can we best reach those in the United States who are unaware of civil rights conflicts/police brutality?

Response: Through discussions and trusted friendships, by requesting your local newspapers and TV stations carry more information, and by getting involved with your community and local police force for oversight and accountability.

Follow-up question from a viewer: How can we utilize social media as a conflict intervention for the current civil rights conflict and exposing police brutality (with the target audience being those that aren’t aware of the conflict)?

Response:  Speak the truth in a straightforward, respectfully manner in as many venues as possible so that unaware citizens can relate and understand.  Make it a question of fairness.

Re: Movement Strategy, Tactics, and Nonviolent Discipline

Follow-up question from a viewer: Does the movement have a serious power analysis? Is non-violence a principle or a strategy for you all?

Response: Yes, we have a serious power analysis.  Among the major pillars holding up police brutality and militarism in the U.S. are – – greed and profits; fear of “the other”/racism; an ideology or cultural belief system in the U.S. which says violence “works”; patriarchal control & male domination,; habit; ignorance; and lack of critical consciousness across the society.

Follow-up question from a viewer: What ideas/experience do you have about working with police to thwart violence and police provocateurs, and to change to nonviolent tactics that we could use?

Response: One idea is to deploy unarmed civilian peacekeepers (using models from Nonviolent Peaceforce, Gandhi’s Shanti Sena approach). We are using such nonviolent tactics and strategies in U.S. inner cities.  We have peace teams on the ground in Washington D.C. who bear witness and stand in solidarity if Black youth are stopped by police.   I was part of peace patrols in my neighborhoods in Harlem and Columbia Heights D.C. to befriend youth, organize midnight basketball, help teens find jobs, and make the streets safe for kids.

Follow-up question from a viewer: What has been effective in roles of peace team groups such as unarmed civilian peacekeepers, like the Michigan Peace Teams, Meta peace teams, Metta Center for Nonviolence Shanti Sena peace teams, and the Nonviolent Peaceforce?

Response: The answer to this question takes a long time. Here are just a few of the ingredients for successful peace teams #1 Longevity and permanence.  Teams need to stay for a long time to build trust. They cannot be a flash in the pan, here today, gone tomorrow; #2 They must conduct a thorough analysis of the forces driving the violence in order to apply an effective intervention; #3 Training and extensive preparation of the peace teams; #4 Communication with a wide variety of area residents and community members.

Re: From Selma to Montgomery to Ferguson and Beyond

Follow-up question from a viewer: Living far away (Norway) from most of the grave breaches of human rights in the world, I wonder what sort of solidarity is the most useful. How can we help from far away?

Response: Reach out to friends, family, co-workers and anyone you know in the U.S. who trusts you, but is unaware of the disproportionate number of unarmed African-Americans being killed by police.  Share the recording of the ICNC webinar with them.  Spread information.  Please educate everyone that there are many of us in the U.S. standing up against violence and brutality.

Follow-up question from a viewer: How can I, as a college student in DC, create truth telling sessions in my area?

Response: We will help you with resources and protocols for living room dialogues being used currently in the St. Louis area, and we will send you the report from our St. Louis conference after March 15th, 2015.

Follow-up question from a viewer: How can use education as a tool to spread awareness about the civil rights conflict?

Response: Use materials from Teaching for http://www.teachingforchange.org/ and the Southern Poverty Law Center (Teaching Tolerance  http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/teaching-tolerance)

Follow-up question from a viewer: It seems like anger is an appropriate response to killing unarmed Black men. Could radical/confrontational nonviolent actions be a way to channel this anger more effectively than burning and looting? Have you discussed more forceful actions for those who need more than marching with signs?

Response: If you mean by forceful action – boycotts, strikes, walk outs, law suits, and more, Ferguson residents have been doing all those things for 20 years. They have shut down the interstate surrounding the city on numerous occasions.  They have called for special independent prosecutors.  Citizen protestors are not the ones burning and looting. White supremacist groups operate in the area and try to frame the Ferguson residents. The pastor for Michael Brown’s family received 71 death threats and then his church was burned down.  See the following Washington Post article for further evidence of that http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-brown-familys-pastor-tries-to-make-sense-of-fire-that-gutted-his-church/2014/11/28/15520f3e-7711-11e4-a755-e32227229e7b_story.html

Just suffice it to say that peace and anti-violence works has many, many allies.  Those who work to stop child abuse, wife beatings, rape, sexual violence, environmental destruction, war, poverty, economic exploitation of immigrants, corruption, human rights abuses, and police brutality are all part of a worldwide peace movement.  If we connected the dots, we would be greater than the sum of our parts.

Presenters

Pastor Cori Bush – Born and raised in the St. Louis Missouri area, Cori is the pastor of Kingdom Embassy International, events chairperson of Better Family Life Inc.’s Membership Association, part of Ferguson’s Women’s Caucus, and an active Ferguson frontlines activist. Pastor Cori is a registered nurse, supervising nursing services for several mental health facilities in St. Louis city that serve the homeless, underserved, and uninsured. She has been on the frontlines of the Ferguson citizens’ movement as a protester, as clergy, as a medic and as a victim of police assault on the day of the announcement not to indict Darren Wilson. She has been interviewed numerous times by several local and national media outlets. Pastor Cori plans to continue to stand along side the youth of today in the fight for justice.

Dr. Bernard Lafayette – The Rev. Dr. Lafayette, an ordained minister, is a longtime civil rights activist, organizer, and an authority on nonviolent social change. He co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960, and he was a core leader of the civil rights movement in Nashville, TN, in 1960 and in Selma, AL, in 1965. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration Project in 1962, and he was appointed by Martin Luther King, Jr. to be national program administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and national coordinator of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.

Dr. David Ragland grew up in North St. Louis, a few miles from Ferguson, Mo. Dr. Ragland is the co-director for the Truth-Telling Project in St. Louis, Mo and a Visiting Professor at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA.   Dr. Ragland’s research focuses on School Violence (the school to prison pipeline), Peace Education, Philosophy of Education and Critical Race Theory.  Dr. Ragland is also on the board of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and Serves as the United Nations Representative for the International Peace Research Association.

Barbara J. Wien is a peace educator, human rights activist, author, and trainer. She has protected civilians in war zones, led 8 peace organizations, and taught at 6 universities.  From 2003-2008, Barbara directed Peace Brigades International, which walks side-by-side with villagers as “unarmed bodyguards for human rights” to stop massacres in Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, and 12 other areas.  From 2001-2003, Barbara worked for the playwright Eve Ensler at the V-Day Foundation to end sexual violence against women.  She organized labor delegations to El Salvador to stop the killing of priests, teachers and union activists by the army in the 1980s. Barbara was awarded for her moral courage by 4 foundations and academic societies.  She is named in Amy Goodman’s book Exceptions to the Rulers, and The Progressive magazine for speaking truth to power. She is the author of 23 articles, study guides and books and was interviewed by the National Public Radio, The Washington Post, NBC Nightly News, Australian Public Broadcasting, Defense One, and Nuclear Times magazine.

Further readings on civil resistance in the U.S.

• Bloch, Nadine.”The Art of #BlackLivesMatter.” Waging Nonviolence, January 8, 2015. Available online
• Boyd, Andrew. Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution (Pocket Edition). OR Books: London (2013). Buy the book
• Conser, Walter H. “The United States: Reconsidering the Struggle for Independence, 1765-1775.” In Recovering Nonviolent History: Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles. Maciej Bartkowski, ed. Lynne Rienner Publishers: Boulder, CO (2013). Learn more
• “Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign.” Children’s Defense Fund. Available online
• Dey, Andrew et al. “Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns” 2nd edition, War Resisters’ International. First edition. Second edition
• Driver, Alice. “Freedom Summer and the Unfinished Work of the Civil Rights Movement.” Al Jazeera, June 25, 2014. Available online
• Engler, Mark and Paul Engler. “When Martin Luther King Gave Up His Guns.” Waging Nonviolence, January 15, 2014. Available online
• “Fighting Police Abuse:  A Community Action Manual”, American Civil Liberties Union, Dec. 1, 1997. Available online
• Harris, Fredrick. ”Will Ferguson be a Moment or a Movement?.” Washington Post, August 22, 2014. Available online
• Madar, Chase. “Why it’s Impossible to Indict a Cop” The Nation, November 24, 2014. Available online
• Mothers Against Police Brutality (webpage)
• Schneider, Nathan. “The Future of Protest According to Vice.” VICE, January 15, 2015. Available online
• Sun, Rivera. “Nonviolent Activists Shape American Identity.” CounterPunch, February 16, 2015. Available online

This live ICNC Academic Webinar took place on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014 at 12 p.m. EST.

Based on a newly-published edited book Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation. Transitions from Armed to Nonviolent Struggles (Routledge August 2014), this webinar will provide some insights on the interplay between civil resistance, armed insurgency and conflict transformation. Particular focus will be placed (both conceptually and empirically) on the phenomenon of armed groups shifting their conflict-waging strategies from violent to nonviolent means, especially in contexts which cannot be resolved by force but are also ‘unripe’ for conventional de-escalation methods such as negotiation and political integration. Relying on evidence from such various settings as South Africa, Palestine, Western Sahara, West Papua, Mexico, Colombia, Nepal and Egypt, the webinar talk will review the dynamics of organizational and strategic shifts from armed to unarmed conflict and factors inducing such transitions – from a change of leadership and a pragmatic re-evaluation of the goals and means of insurgency in the light of evolving inter-party power dynamics, to the search for new local or international allies and the cross-border emulation or diffusion of new repertoires of action.

Watch the webinar below:

Presenter:

Dr. Véronique Dudouet is senior researcher and program director at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin. She has been coordinating participatory action research, training and policy advice activities on resistance and liberation movements in transition’ since 2005. She holds an MA (2001) and PhD (2005) in Conflict Resolution from the Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK, as well as an MPhil in International Relations and Security and a BA in Political Science from the Institute d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse, France.

Her current research interests include transitions from armed to unarmed insurgencies, the role of external actors in nonviolent resistance, negotiation and third-party intervention in asymmetric conflict, inclusive post-war governance. As a scholar-activist, she has been involved in several anti-war and nonviolent campaigns, including as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Palestinian territories. She also carries out consultancy projects for various civil society organizations, state and international agencies (EU, OECD, UNDP).

Besides numerous publications in the fields of conflict transformation and peacebuilding, she has published numerous book chapters and academic articles on civil resistance, as well as a co-authored report (with Howard Clark, 2009) for the European Parliament on Nonviolent Civic Action in Support of Human Rights and Democracy, and an edited book on Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from Armed to Nonviolent Struggle (Routledge 2014).

Véronique Dudouet, Senior Researcher and Program Director, the Berghof Foundation
Wednesday, November 12, 2014 / 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Based on a newly-published edited book Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation. Transitions from Armed to Nonviolent Struggles (Routledge August 2014), this webinar will provide some insights on the interplay between civil resistance, armed insurgency and conflict transformation. Particular focus will be placed (both conceptually and empirically) on the phenomenon of armed groups shifting their conflict-waging strategies from violent to nonviolent means, especially in contexts which cannot be resolved by force but are also ‘unripe’ for conventional de-escalation methods such as negotiation and political integration. Relying on evidence from such various settings as South Africa, Palestine, Western Sahara, West Papua, Mexico, Colombia, Nepal and Egypt, the webinar talk will review the dynamics of organizational and strategic shifts from armed to unarmed conflict and factors inducing such transitions – from a change of leadership and a pragmatic re-evaluation of the goals and means of insurgency in the light of evolving inter-party power dynamics, to the search for new local or international allies and the cross-border emulation or diffusion of new repertoires of action.

Véronique Dudouet is Senior Researcher and Director for the Programme ‘Agents of Change for Inclusive Conflict Transformation’ at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin. Since joining the Berghof research team in 2005, she has been coordinating various research projects and peer-support projects on/with ‘resistance and liberation movements in transition’. She has also been carrying out consultancy activities for various state and international agencies (including UNDP, EU Parliament, Norwegian Foreign Ministry), and facilitates training activities on peace negotiations and political capacity-building. She teaches modules for students and practitioners on various topics linked to non-state armed groups, civil resistance, conflict transformation, DDR and post-war governance. Véronique currently edits the Berghof Transitions publication series. She has published two edited books, several peer-reviewed articles and numerous publications in the field of conflict transformation. She has an MA and PhD in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford, UK, as well as a BA in political science and a postgraduate research diploma (DEA) in International Relations and Security from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse, France.

This ICNC Academic webinar took place on Tuesday, October 7, 2014, and featured Michael Davis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong; Victoria Tin-bor Hui, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame; and was moderated by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, Senior Director, Education and Research, ICNC.

Watch the webinar below:

Webinar Introduction

The Beginnings of the Movement

Civil Resistance and the Rule of Law

Role of International Community

Social Media

Nonviolent Discipline

Leadership

Judiciary

Demographics of Protests

Backfire

Coalition Building

Repression

Read speakers’ responses to follow-up questions submitted by viewers

Webinar Summary

This webinar analyzes the unfolding “umbrella revolution” in Hong Kong. International media have reported on how hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong protestors have maintained nonviolent discipline and order. International observers see images common to nonviolent movements around the world: strength in number, determined faces in front of riot police, slogans, songs, and more. Beneath such broad strokes of similarities, Hong Kong is unlike other cases given the constitutional structure of “one country, two systems” agreed to between Beijing and London. While Hong Kong has only semi-democracy, people are free to protest. While the police sometimes make arbitrary arrests, the independent judiciary inherited from the colonial era routinely releases activists. This constitutional structure presents a very open political space unseen in the rest of China and yet makes it difficult for activists to mobilize the largely contented population. Against this backdrop, the unprecedented use of riot police and the firing of tear gas seemed to have galvanized popular support for the protesters fighting for genuine democracy and increased sympathy for their nonviolent actions.

Presenters

Michael C. Davis, a professor in the Law Faculty at the University of Hong Kong, has held visiting chairs at Northwestern University Law School (2005-06) and Notre Dame Law School (2004-05), as well as the Schell Senior Fellowship at the Yale Law School (1994-95).  His publications include Constitutional Confrontation in Hong Kong (1990), Human Rights and Chinese Values (1995) and International Intervention: From Power Politics to Global Responsibility (2004), as well as numerous articles in leading academic journals in law and political science. Professor Davis has as public intellectual contributed to the debate over constitutional reform and human rights in Hong Kong for over two decades.

Victoria Tin-bor Hui, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, researches the dynamics of international politics and state-society relations in historical China and Europe. She received her M.A. in 1997 and Ph.D. in 2000 from Columbia University. She is the author of War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2005) which won the 2006 Jervis-Schroeder Award from the American Political Science Association and the 2005 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award from the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. Dr. Hui also serves on the Academic Advisory Committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Webinar moderator

Dr. Maciej Bartkowski is Senior Director for Education & Research at ICNC where he works on academic programs for students, faculty, and professionals, curricular development, and global academic and educational outreach and research in the growing field of civil resistance studies. He has taught short seminars or spoke about strategic nonviolent conflict, movement’s mobilization, nonviolent actions, civil resistance and democratization at various academic institutions around the world. Dr. Bartkowski is the book editor of Rediscovering Nonviolent History. Civil Resistance in Liberation Struggles and Nation-Making published by Lynne Rienner in 2013 that highlights relatively unknown stories of nonviolent resistance as part of the national struggles for self-rule and independence.

Additional Resources

• Davis, Michael. “Occupy Protests Breaking Law, but not Undermining Hong Kong’s Rule of Law.” South China Morning Post, November 7, 2014. Available online
• Davis, Michael. “Real Threat to Rule of Law Lies in NPC’s Reform Ruling.” South China Morning Post, October 14, 2014. View online or download article
• Davis, Michael. “Talks Between Protesters and Government Must Proceed on Basis of Trust.” South China Morning Post, October 10, 2014. View online or download article
• Hui, Victoria. “Foreign/External Forces at Work in Hong Kong?” Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, October 30, 2014. Available online
• Hui, Victoria. “The Fallacy that Nonviolence has not Worked.” Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, December 7, 2014. Available online
• Hui, Victoria. “The Umbrella Movement Already Failed or is Failing? Why do some people say that?” Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, October 11, 2014. Available online
• Hui, Victoria. “Unity and Leadership are Critical to Success.” Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, November 23, 2014. Available online

Presentation slides

Recorded discussion from live webinar conducted on April 9, 2014

An ICNC-moderated webinar discussion brought together four Ukrainian guests with backgrounds in academia, journalism, activism, and policy to talk about the political conflict in Ukraine. A number of false narratives have emerged that branded the Maidan Revolution as violent, driven by radicals and external powers. After the invasion of Crimea and its annexation to Russia some commentators suggested that the outcome of the referendum reflected the preferences of the majority of the Crimean population and the political change represented by the annexation of Crimea to Russia was in fact engineered peacefully, which contrasted with the supposedly violent nature of the Maidan Revolution that brought down the Yanukovych regime.

This webinar addressed the prevailing misconceptions that emerged around the conflict in Ukraine. It discussed the origin, goals, strategies and tactics behind the Ukrainian Maidan movement, as well as its composition and its responses to the state-sponsored repression. Webinar discussants talked about the role of a violent minority – a radical flank in the movement – and reflected on the impact of external actors in the Ukrainian struggle. How, and more importantly why was the Yanukovych regime ultimately brought down? In the final part of the conversation, the speakers offered their views on the ongoing mobilization of the Ukrainian society against Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and against a possible Russian invasion of other parts of Ukraine, as well as civic organizing to support but also pressure the Ukrainian government to implement needed reforms.

Speakers

• Nataliya Gumenyuk, Ukrainian journalist, Co-Founder of Hromadske.TV
• Olga Onuch, Newton Fellow, University of Oxford / Research Fellow, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
• Dmytro Potekhin, Trainer and consultant in strategic planning and nonviolent resistance
• Olena Tregub, Policy expert of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and a writer for Kyiv Post

Watch parts of the webinar below:

Start of the Protest in Ukraine

Maidan and its Organization

Demographics of the Maidan Protests

International Community and Sanctions

Breakdown of Nonviolent Discipline

Why Yanukovich Fell

Referendum in Crimea and Preferences of the Crimean People

Post Maidan Civil Society and Transition

Separatism and Ukraine’s Unity

Read speakers’ responses to follow-up questions submitted by viewers

PRESENTERS

Nataliya Gumenyuk – is a Ukrainian journalist and co-founder of Hromadske.TV, a Ukrainian journalist-led initiative to create public broadcasting in Ukraine. Previously, she served as Head of the Foreign News Desk INTER, one of the most influential TV channels in Ukraine. As an independent, international correspondent, she has reported on major political and social events from nearly 50 countries. During the last few years, she has focused on post-Arab Spring developments in the Arab world. Nataliya cooperates with a number of Ukrainian and international media, including Esquire Ukraine, Ukrainska Pravda, the Ukrainian Week magazine, 1+1 TV, and Open Democracy Russia. She teaches global journalism at the Kyiv Mohyla School of Journalism.

Dr. Olga Onuch (DPhil Oxon) is a Newton Fellow in Comparative Politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and is a Shklar Research Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. She specializes in the comparative study of protest politics, political behavior, and institutions, as well as in democratizing states in Latin America and Eastern Europe. An expert on protests and activism in Ukraine, she is the principle investigator of the Ukrainian Protest Project. She analyses the mechanisms of mass-mobilization in her book entitled Mapping Mass Mobilizations: Understanding Revolutionary Moments in Argentina and Ukraine (Palgrave MacMillan 2014). Her forthcoming book, The Making of Civil Society: The Contemporary History of Social-Mobilization in Ukraine, outlines the political history of activist networks and protest-events in Ukraine since the 1970s. Her research has appeared in numerous international media including Al Jazeera English, The Washington Post, AFP, El País, BBC World Service, Sky News, NPR, IBT, and Radio Free Europe. Follow her on Twitter @oonuch.

Dmytro Potekhin is a trainer and consultant in strategic planning and nonviolent resistance. He coordinated a nationwide campaign leading to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004. His training experience includes helping democracy activists in a dozen countries around the world. Dmytro described the nature and probability of the 2014 Russian aggression in Crimea in one of his 2008 publications. He holds an MA in International Relations from the Kyiv Institute of Humanities and holds a certificate with distinction in Democratic Development, overseen by professor Larry Diamond, Director of the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Dmytro has managed projects ranging from a twenty-dollar start-up to save a historical city object, to a million-dollar project to bring down a dictator. He has also been involved in launching a city FM/online public radio station, and served as correspondent for a major international TV broadcaster. Dmytro does micro-tweeting and macro-blogging. He is regularly consulted on Ukrainian and international affairs by some of the most highly-regarded Ukrainian and international media. He may be contacted at dmytro.potekhin@gmail.com.

Olena Tregub is a policy expert of the Kyiv-based Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and a US-based writer for Kyiv Post, the leading English-language newspaper in Ukraine. Olena is also the World Economic Forum’s Global Shaper and a member of Young Atlanticists’ Network of the Atlantic Council of the USA. She has worked as US foreign correspondent for the Ukrainian News Agency as well as researcher on Ukraine for The New York Times. Olena has authored numerous publications on Ukrainian domestic and international politics which have appeared in European and American media. She is also a co-founder of Global Education Leadership (www.GELead.org), an educational consulting group that offers professional internship and study abroad programs for young North Americans in the Central and Eastern European region. Olena has actively participated in pro-democracy and pro-European civic initiatives in Ukraine. She may be contacted at olenatregub@gelead.org . Follow Olena on Twitter: @olenatregub.

Further readings on civil resistance in Ukraine

• Ackerman, Peter and Maciej Bartkowski. “Challenging Annexation: In Crimea, the Referendum that wasn’t.” openDemocracy, March 22, 2014. Click here
• Ackerman, Peter, Maciej Bartkowski and Jack DuVall. “Ukraine: A Nonviolent Victory.” openDemocracy, March 3, 2014. Click here
• Bartkowski, Maciej and Maria J. Stephan. “How Ukraine Ousted an Autocrat: The Logic of Civil Resistance.” Atlantic Council, June 1, 2014. Click here
• Bartkowski, Maciej and Maria J. Stephan. “Ukraine and the Logic of Civil Resistance: Confronting Russian-Fueled Insurgency.” Atlantic Council, June 1, 2014. Click here
• Chenoweth, Erica and Stephen Zunes. “A Nonviolent Alternative for Ukraine.” Foreign Policy, May 28, 2014. Click here
• Stephan, Maria and Maciej Bartkowski. “How to Beat a Russian Occupation with Flash Mobs: Why Nonviolent Resistance Might be the Best Hope for Thwarting Putin’s Adventurism in Eastern Ukraine.” Foreign Policy, April 10, 2014. Click here

Presented by: Dr. Joseph Bock, Director of Global Health Training at the Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame, and Author of “The Technology of Nonviolence”
Wednesday, December 5, 2012

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Engaging in nonviolent resistance for political transformation during Gandhi’s struggles in South Africa and British India has many similarities to more modern approaches.  Some people claim that social media is the main ingredient.  Is that correct?  What technologies are most important?  What else is needed for the success of nonviolent movements that social media cannot provide? Can’t technology also be used by oppressive governments and troublemakers?  Can’t they use the information on digital maps that everyone else can see on the internet?  And what happens when cell phone and internet services are interrupted or shut down completely?

Additional Resources

• Bock, Joseph G. The Technology of Nonviolence: Social Media and Violence Prevention. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Learn more
• Chenoweth, Erica. “Why Civil Resistance Works.” ICNC Webinar, delivered April 8, 2010. Available online
• Johansen, Robert C.  “Radical Islam and Nonviolence: A Case Study of Religious Empowerment and Constraint Among Pashtuns,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 34, No. 1, 1997, p. 64. Available online
• Just Peace International, Inc.
• Leson, Heather. “Re-Imagining Citizen Engagement.” Slideshare, February 24, 2012. Available online
  Review of Why Civilian Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, in Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward terrorism and genocide, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2012: 74-76. Available online

Presented by: Mary Joyce, Researcher & Consultant in Global Digital Activism, Editor of “Digital Activism Decoded”
Thursday, November 29, 2012, 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Gene Sharp created his list of 198 nonviolent methods in 1973. In the years since, media has become dramatically more accessible to activists. Media produced by activists can now have mass reach at low cost thanks to the ease of creating user-generated content and the multiple platforms that allow for near-free self-broadcast to a mass audience in a variety of textual and visual formats. How can the canon of nonviolent methods intelligently integrate these new capacities?

This presentation will review the initial findings of Digital 198, a crowdsourced project by Patrick Meier and Mary Joyce, that is collecting digital enhancements to the 198 analog nonviolent methods as well as new methods made possible by the peer-produced, self-broadcasted, highly attention-competitive, and near-free nature of digital me

Additional Resources

• Civil Resistance 2.0 project description
• Civil Resistance 2.0 database
• Civil Resistance 2.0 presentation slides
• Meta-Activism Blog, by Mary Joyce
• Joyce, Mary. Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change. New York: International Debate Education Association, 2010. Click here to download
• Original “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” by Gene Sharp
• Website of the Digital Activism Research Project

Tuesday, April 24, 2012
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

In the 1980s, the world was captivated as East Germans brought down the Berlin wall and the Filipino “people power” movement ousted long-standing dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  Yet other civil resistance movements during this time failed to achieve political change.  Researchers have largely focused on successful nonviolent uprisings. Little attention has been given to those movements that had great potential but did not achieve their goals.  In this webinar, Dr. Nepstad explores three cases of failed civil resistance: the Chinese democracy movement of 1989, the struggle against Panamanian dictator General Manuel Noriega (1987-1989), and the attempt in Kenya to oust President Daniel arap Moi (1985-1992).

She highlights internal movement problems that undermined resisters’ effectiveness such as divided leadership, lack of cross-group cooperation, and insufficient nonviolent discipline.  She also focuses on regime counter-strategies, including massive repression, maintaining troop loyalty, and the fragmentation of opposition groups. Additionally, Dr. Nepstad examines the impact of international sanctions, showing how they can generate new allies for authoritarian leaders and shift the locus of power from local resisters to international actors. She concludes by discussing what civil resisters can do to prevent these problems: building unity by emphasizing resisters’ shared goals; implementing careful measures to ensure nonviolent discipline, encouraging security force defections by increasing the costs of regime loyalty, and making judicious choices about international involvement.

Sharon Erickson Nepstad is Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado and did post-doctoral studies at Princeton University. She has been a visiting scholar at Notre Dame University’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.  Her areas of interest are in social movements, civil resistance, and religion. She is the author of numerous articles and three books: Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century (published in 2011 by Oxford University Press); Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement (published in 2008, Cambridge University Press); and Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement  (published in 2004, Oxford University Press).  Her book on the Plowshares movement won the 2009 Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict.

Additional Resources

•  Download Presentation slides
• Nepstad, Sharon Erickson. Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Click here to learn more.

Thursday, March 8, 2012
12:00pm-1:00pm EST

When Occupy Wall Street and the ensuing Occupy movement captured the world’s attention in the fall of 2011, the world wasn’t exactly sure what hit it. Through a series of up-close portraits of the movement in both planning and execution, this webinar will explore how it has succeeded as well as what its challenges will be in the coming months. Drawing from his experience covering the Occupy movement since the early planning stages, Nathan Schneider will focus on the role of strategizing.

The story of Occupy Wall Street, of course, is not solely one about Occupy Wall Street. This was just one among other daring attempts to mount major mobilizations in the United States that season, several of which I was covering concurrently. As the Occupy movement spread, it became ever more clear that what was taking place was one manifestation of an emerging global movement. Now, as the movement enters an election year in the United States, it faces the challenge of launching a cluster of focused, interrelated campaigns, as well as mounting successful mass mobilizations that can change the media narrative and win tangible gains.

Nathan Schneider is an editor of Waging Nonviolence, a website of news and analysis on struggles for justice and peace around the world. Beginning in July and August of 2011, he was the first journalist to be allowed to cover the planning of what would become the Occupy movement. He has since written about it for Harper’s, The New York Times, The Nation, the Boston Review, Truthout, Yes! magazine, The Catholic Worker, and more. He has also contributed to two of Occupy Wall Street’s print publications, The Occupied Wall Street Journal and Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy.

Additional Resources

• Download Presentation slides
• Schneider, Nathan. “Dreaming Big OWS Organizers Plan Spring Offensive.” The Indypendent, Issue 173, January 25, 2012. Available online
• Schneider, Nathan. “Some Assembly Required: Witnessing the birth of Occupy Wall Street.” Harper’s Magazine, February 2012.  Click here to download
• Schneider, Nathan. “Thank You, Anarchists.” The Nation, December 19, 2011. Available online
• Schneider, Nathan. “Who will occupy Wall Street on September 17?” Waging Nonviolence, September 13, 2011. Available online

Thursday, June 30, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EDT

Nadine Bloch, creative resistance and nonviolent direct action educator and practitioner, explores how some of the most impactful and memorable moments from civil resistance and nonviolent movements are sung by the masses, printed by the thousands, enacted through craft, painted in vivid color, or performed in traditional dress. This webinar takes a critical look at Creative Cultural Resistance: the broad use of arts, literature, and traditional practices in the service of protest and political and social actions.

Nadine Bloch teases out the strategic powers of cultural resistance. Through compelling examples this talk covers the immense diversity of methodologies that have been employed in resistance, from 2-D and 3-D arts, to sound/music and theater/movement arts. From literature and crafts, to documentation and delineation of space, as well as rituals and language preservation, we will look at the power of cultural work in organizing, mobilizing and grounding actions.

“Often such little small cultural experiments open up space and possibility for the bigger changes to happen. The real seeds for revolutionary changes can grow in artistic practices.”–John Jordan

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”–Bertolt Brecht

“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”–Toni Cade Bambara

Additional Resources

• Presentation slides
• Engineers of the Imagination, Welfare State International, Baz Kershaw and Tony Coult, Methuen, 1983, revised 1990
• The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the streets of Seattle, T.V. Reed, University of MN (2005)
• Cultural Resistance: A Reader, Stephen Duncombe, ed. (2002)
• Adbusters ( magazine)
• Theater of the Oppressed, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Augusto Boal

• Ruckus Society Creative Direct Action Visuals Manual
• The Activist Cookbook: Creative Actions for a Fair Economy (Fair EconoMy Press, softcover, 1996)
• 68 Methods for Puppet MakingHow to videos…
• Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits, Jason Salzman
• Wise Fool Basics

• Bread and Puppet Theater
• Washington Action Group (under construction)
• Alternative Roots
• Greenpeace International
• Cultural Survival

• The Singing Revolution
• Bringing Down a Dictator
• Salt of the Earth
• Orange Revolution
• Amandla

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.

Additional Resources

• Presentation slides
• Bondurant, Joan V. Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988
• Dalton, Dennis. Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Third enlarged edition coming 2012.
• Dalton, Dennis, ed. Mahatma Gandhi’s Selected Political Writings. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1996.
• Fischer, Louis. The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. Harpercollins, 1997.
• Gandhi. Directed by Richard Attenborough. 1982; Goldcrest Films.
• Gandhi, Mohandas. Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
• Iyer, Raghavan N. The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Lelyveld, Joseph. Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India. New York: Knopf, 2011.
• Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber and Lloyd I. Rudolph. Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma. University of Chicago Press, 1983.

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.

Additional Resources

• Presentation slides
• Ramy Raoof on Bambuser
• Offline Organizing in the Egyptian Revolution
• Mash-up Video Clip on YouTube
• FrontlineSMS
• Ushahidi Crisis Maps in Egypt

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

• Civil Resistance from Gandhi
• Johansen, Jorgen. Experiments with Peace: A Book Celebrating Peace on Johan Galtung’s 80th Birthday. Pambasuka Press. February, 2011.

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.

Additional Resources

• Hastings Presentation Slides
• Presentation slides (PDF without notes)
• Vows taken by marchers with Gandhi, 1921

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.

Additional Resources

• Download presentation slides
• Graham-Felsen, Sam.  How Cyber-Pragmatism Brought Down Mubarak. The Nation.  February 11, 2011.
• Karatnycky, Adrian & Ackerman, Peter.  How Freedom Is One: From Civic Resistance to Durable Democracy.  Freedom House, 2005.
• Mansour, Sherif.  Egypt’s “Facebook Revolution”, Kefaya, and the struggle for democracy and good governance.
• Rosenberg, Tina.  Revolution U. Foreign Policy Magazine.  February 16, 2011.
• Zunes, Stephen.  Credit the Egyptian People for the Egyptian Revolution. TruthOut.  February 17, 2011.
• Zunes. Stephen.  Nonviolent Action in the Islamic World (Webinar).

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.

Additional Resources

• Download presentation slides
• Download presentation handout
• Beyerle, Shaazka. Resisting Corruption: Recent Progress in Indonesia and Kenya
• Beyerle, Shaazka. People Count: How Citizen Engagement and Action Challenge Corruption and Abuse. July 20, 2010

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.

Additional Resources

• Presentation slides

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?

Additional Resources

• Nagler, Michael.  Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future.  Inner Ocean Publishing, November 2003.
• Nagler, Michael & Gandhi, Arun.  The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World.  New World Library, August 2004.

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.

Additional Resources

• Presentation Slides
• Aday, Sean & Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, John Kelly, Ethan Zuckerman. Blogs to Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics.
• Clinton, Hillary Rodham. Remarks on Internet Freedom. January 21, 2010
• Joyce, Mary. Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change. International Debate Education Association: New York, NY; 2010.
• Morozov, Evgeny. Texting Towards Utopia: Does the Internet Spread Democracy? Boston Review. March/April, 2009
• Palfrey, John & Gasser, Urs. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. Basic Books: New York, NY; 2008.
• Reporters Without Borders. Enemies of the Internet: Countries Under Surveillance. March 12, 2010.
• Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. Penguin: New York, NY; 2009.

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.

Additional Resources

• Presentation Slides

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.

Additional Resources

• Costs and Risks in Nonviolent Conflict

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.”

Additional Resources

• Swallowing Camels.. How the Media Misinterpret Nonviolent Struggles (webinar)

Thursday, May 13th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, Senior Director for Education and Research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict presents on the long term impact of civil resistance after a nonviolent struggle ends and a democratic transition is launched. Does civil resistance create a long lasting effect on the society and politics? Do earlier practices of civil resistance have an impact on later processes of democratic transformation? How exactly is a propitious effect of civil resistance on democratization and democratic consolidation generated and visible in practice? What analytical tools can be used to study the residual impact of civil resistance?

All the above inquiries will direct our conversation to the very essence of what civil resistance is, what kind of social capital it might help to create, and how a long-lasting effect of civil resistance is evident in a concrete case of a major nonviolent struggle. Accordingly, the presentation will focus on civil resistance and the Solidarity movement in communist Poland. The talk will illustrate a residual effect of civil resistance-generated social capital on Polish society and politics in the immediate and long-term following the 1989 changes.

Additional Resources

• Civil Resistance as a Foundation of Democracy to Be..The Legacy of Nonviolent Struggle in the Democratization of Poland (webinar)

Thursday, May 6th, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Roddy Brett, Professor at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia, presents on the role and impact of social movements in the context of Guatemala’s peace process, which was a key aspect of the country’s process of democratization to resolve the protracted and genocidal internal armed conflict (1960-1996). The presentation argues that the evolution of strategic nonviolent conflict was characterized not only by a shift in the identity of movement activists, but also a change in the strategies that movements used, as they increasingly engaged in formal mechanisms accompanying the peace process and participated in the state and political parties.

Thursday, April 8, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Erica Chenoweth, Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University looks at the strategic advantage of nonviolent struggle and civil resistance. Armed insurgency may have triumphed in the Algerian war of independence, the Chinese Revolution, and the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. These cases, among others, have convinced many observers that violent insurgency is likely to succeed. Moreover, insurgents often claim that they turn to violence as a last resort, having exhausted all other methods of seeking redress for their grievances.

Professor Chenoweth challenges both claims, arguing that nonviolent resistance has actually been more effective in the 20th century than violent resistance. She presents a new data set, which provides robust statistical evidence of the strategic superiority of nonviolent resistance, even in cases where the opponent regime is brutal. The research implies that violent resistance is seldom necessary, as many insurgents claim. Rather, civil resistance can be an effective substitute for insurgency in civil wars.

Additional Resources

• Presentation Slides

Thursday, March 25, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

This webinar is transcribed into Chinese

Dr. Lee Smithey, Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College, looks at how tactical choices and their execution are closely related to the construction of collective identities in social movements. Studying collective identity has helped social movement scholars understand why people participate in collective action, but less attention has been paid to the relationships between tactical choices and collective identity. Strategies and tactics can reflect, reaffirm, or challenge collective identities. Innovative nonviolent methods can create tension as activists work to resolve what they do with who they feel they are. However, much of the power of nonviolent action lies in the ways tactics and methods leverage culture by tapping into identities that demarcate or crosscut movements, opponents, allies, and by-standing publics.

Additional Resources

• Presentation Slides

Thursday, March 11, 2010
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, discusses the long history of strategic nonviolent action throughout the Islamic world, in the Middle East and beyond. Based in part on the social contract implied in Islamic teachings which advocate the withdrawal of obedience from unjust authority, nonviolent civil insurrections have played a major role in the struggle for freedom and human rights for more than a century. Dr. Zunes, looks at case studies from Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, Western Sahara, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others.

Additional Resources

• Presentation Slides

Thursday, February 18, 2010
1:30pm – 2:30pm EST

Dr. Les Kurtz, professor of Sociology at George Mason University and author/editor of several books including, “The Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict,” explores the “paradox of repression,” – efforts by elites to repress a movement that often end up strengthening a civil resistance movement rather than weakening it. Examining key historic cases of “repression management” by activists, he episode choose your story hack shows how repression can erode a regime’s pillars of support, promote questions if not outright defections among power elites, and often become a turning point in leading toward a movement’s success. asdf

Additional Resources

• Presentation Slides