Presented by Isak Svensson on Thursday, October 17, 2019

Webinar Content:

Introduction of Speaker: 00:00 – 04:12
Presentation: 04:13 – 31:24
Questions and Answers: 31:25 – 1:00:29

Webinar Description:

Suad Nofel, one of the leaders of the civil resistance movement against ISIS in Raqqa, Syria (WNV/Nofel).

In this webinar, we explored how people living in jihadist proto-states organized by groups like ISIS have used civil resistance —including acts of popular disobedience, non-cooperation, protests and public defiance—against such regimes to improve their lives and defend their values. These are situations where one might not expect civil resistance efforts to occur at all—when extremist, armed, and very violent Islamist rebel groups take control over a piece of territory, set up institutions resembling state-structures, and proclaim and enforce strict interpretations of sharia religious laws.  Yet, important examples exist. In this webinar, we drew insights from empirical studies looking at experiences of civil resistance in Mali, Syria and Iraq (Mosul).

Presenter:

Isak Svensson is Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden. His research focuses on religious dimensions of armed conflict, international mediation in civil wars, and dynamics of nonviolent civil resistance. He has authored or edited ten books and over 50 articles, book-chapters and books in international academic journals and presses, including Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, European Journal of International Relations, International Negotiation, Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. He is project leader of the international research project ‘Resolving Jihadist Conflicts? Religion, Civil Wars and Prospects for Peace’, as well as for the research project ‘Battles without Bullets: Exploring Unarmed Conflicts’. Svensson has written several studies on nonviolent resistance, including on the structural factors that can help enable the onset of nonviolent uprisings (Butcher & Svensson 2016), political jujitsu (Sutton, Butcher & Svensson 2014), strategic substitution (Svensson & Lindgren 2013), the role of mediation in nonviolent uprisings (Svensson & Lundgren 2018), and ethnic cleavages in nonviolent uprisings (Svensson & Lindgren 2011). Currently, Svensson is working on a book project on civil resistance in the context of jihadist proto-states. To read more about Isak’s publications, click here.

Relevant Webinar Readings:

Confronting the Caliphate (Working Paper) – Isak Svensson and Daniel Finnbogason

How Ordinary Iraqis Resisted the Islamic State – Isak Svensson, Jonathan Hall, Dino Krause and Eric Skoog

Can Political Struggle Against ISIL Succeed Where Violence Cannot? – Maciej Bartkowski

Nonviolent Strategies to Defeat Totalitarians such as ISIS – Maciej Bartkowski

Nonviolent Resistance Against the Mafia: Italy (Chapter from Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability & Justice) – Shaazka Beyerle

The Power of Staying Put: Nonviolent Resistance Against Armed Groups in Colombia – Juan Masullo

ISIS: Nonviolent Resistance? – Eli McCarthy

Dissolving Terrorism at its Roots – Hardy Merriman & Jack DuVall

When Terrorists Govern: Protecting Civilians in Conflicts with State-Building Armed Groups – Mara Revkin

Civil Resistance vs. ISIS – Maria Stephan

Defeating ISIS Through Civil Resistance? – Maria Stephan

How to Stop Extremism Before it Starts – Maria Stephan & Shaazka Beyerle

Additional Q & A:

Does Isak have any insights into the relatively high levels of comparability of participation by men and women shown in the chart presented on actions? The levels of participation were noticeably close.

One of the main features of civil resistance campaigns is that they allow for a more broad-based participation than violent insurgencies. In the context of jihadist proto-states, civilians can engage in a diverse set of nonviolent actions, such as protests, not paying taxes, working slowly, or smoking. This variety increases the potential pool of participants, allowing for people with different levels of commitment and backgrounds to engage in civil resistance.

This can explain, to some extent, why we observe similar levels of participation in civil resistance by women and men in Mosul, despite the women facing more restrictions to access the public spaces under the rule of Islamic State. Relatively few participants engaged in public forms of resistance, being the display of anti-Islamic State slogans and banners the most common of these forms. Regarding actions of noncooperation, women avoided to pay taxes to Islamic State to a larger extent than men did, and there were no differences in regards to actions such as quitting the university (or taking their children out of school), or not going to work, which were the most prevalent in this category. In regards to everyday resistance, more men than women engaged in actions such as smoking or drinking alcohol, potentially showing cultural differences.

In sum, the results from the survey show that women and men participated to a similar extent in civil resistance against the rule of Islamic State, and it is likely that the wide set of alternatives available for civil resistance (beyond open, public actions) facilitated this similarity.

I wonder if you could expand on a case where a village has “locally” overthrown a jihadist proto-state by getting them to leave. Are there any such cases under ISIS in particular? What specific types of actions worked and why?

Civilians expelled a jihadist proto-state from their village in several cases. In our study on Syria, out of the 155 protests that demanded a jihadist group to leave their village, 13 of them were successful in forcing the group to abandon the area. That constitutes roughly 8% of them. Most of the successful cases targeted Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), with one case in which the Rahman Corps were forced to leave the territory.

For instance, in March 2015, about 1000 residents of Babella (Syria) demanded HTS to leave the area. Five days later, HTS reached an agreement with Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam and left. In another example, protesters in Atareb demanded HTS to leave the village in January 2017. The same day, after shooting at the protesters, HTS left the village. In September of 2017, about 400 residents in Kafr Batna demanded Jaysh al-Islam and Rahman Corps to leave the Ash’ari farms area, due to damage to crops. They were successful in making Rahman Corps to abandon the place the same day.

We did not find any case in which ISIS was driven out of a village through civil resistance. We are still in process of understanding the conditions that increase the likelihood of success of civil resistance in this context. For instance, it seems that previous repression by the jihadist proto-state increases the chances of success of the activists, supporting the ‘political jiu-jitsu’ explanation.

To what extent are jihadist groups responsive to civilian demands? and do they link these demands to their sustainability of governing?

Three concrete examples from our on-going research in Syria where the jihadist gave in to local protesters demand:

• In December 2018, in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, the al-Qaeda-associated rebel group Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)¹ kidnapped a medical doctor. Informed about this incident, his colleagues reacted immediately. Within hours, doctors, nurses and medical staff across different hospitals and NGOs in the province went on a spontaneous strike and refused to carry out their duties. In response, HTS yielded to the demands, and a few hours later, decided to release the kidnapped doctor.
• On the 2 of March in Atareb, protesters demand HTS to leave the village of Jeineh, and on the same the HTS convoy withdrew.
• The protest campaign in the Maarat al-Numan have reached a number of outcomes in terms of making the jihadists to change their policies and withdraw.

Hence, in some cases, the jihadist rebel-rulers seem to accommodate the protesters’ demand. Overall, of the rate at which the local anti-jihadist protests in Syria, that we have coded, were successful was 7% (44 out of 624).

There is variation in terms of how jihadist groups try to adapt to the local demands and culture. For instance, the rule of Ansar Dine, AQIM (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), and MUJAO (Mouvement pour le Tawhîd et du Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest) in Mali was perceived by the local population as alien, and protests took place against the imposition of a strict implementation of sharia law by these groups. This was also the case for Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in places such as Maarat al-Numan (Syria), whose rule was met with numerous forms of resistance by the civilians.

In the case of Islamic State in Mosul, interviews with refugees who escaped the rule of ISIS show that, initially, many residents in Mosul embraced ISIS fighters as an alternative to what they perceived as a sectarian Iraqi government (Wedeman 2016). However, this gradually changed as the ISIS governance set a priority in regulating the behavior of the populations in the areas it controlled, establishing an oppressive and punitive system based on legal foundations (Wedeman 2016, Revkin 2016).

A different case is, for example, the rule of AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) in al-Mukalla (Yemen), in 2015-2016. At their arrival to the city, al-Qaeda created civilian institutions, run by locals, to conduct everyday governance, while al-Qaeda remained in charge of the security, military operations and dispute resolution. To adapt to the local norms, they refrained from the strict application of sharia. They introduced measures such as religious courts, and a religious police force. However, AQAP was less strict in that they allowed women to stay outside after dark, interfered little with dress norms, did not force people to pray or pay a religious tax, and made no effort to ban smoking, music, or television.

I noticed from the presentation that everyday resistance is to have the highest participation rates compared to open public protest action and even noncooperation. Can you say more about what everyday resistance entails and to what extent can it achieve changes in jihadist rule?

Everyday resistance is a term coined by James Scott in his 1985 book “Weapons of the Weak”, and it refers to actions of resistance that take place within the daily, cotidian routines of people. In this low-key type of activism, the line between political activism and decision-making in the personal sphere is not always clear. In the context of a jihadist proto-state such as Islamic State, we identified 12 possible actions of everyday resistance. These are:

• attending funerals of IS victims,
• playing music instruments,
• not praying regularly,
• listening to nonreligious music,
• practicing forbidden sports,
• smoking/drinking alcohol,
• working slowly (shirking),
• delaying compliance with IS orders,
• shaving the beard (men),
• walking in public without a male company (women),
• attending beauty salons (women),
• not covering their face in public (women).

In these types of state-formation projects, disobeying the rulers’ dictates, even if done for nonpolitical reasons, can serve to undermine the legitimacy of the jihadist rule. However, it is hard to assess the impact of these subtle forms of resistance on the governance of the jihadist rulers. Future research could investigate more in detail how everyday resistance can weaken a regime and, more specifically, how this type of resistance can undermine the rule of jihadist proto-states.

¹Over the course of the war, HTS has been known under different names, such as Jabhat al-Nusra or Al-Nusra Front, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or Jaysh al-Fateh. The latter was a joint coalition with other jihadist groups that existed until early 2017. For the sake of consistency, we refer to the group as Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) throughout this paper.

Presented by Marie Dennis, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Eli McCarthy on Thursday, September 5, 2019, at 12 pm EDT.

Webinar Content:

• Introduction of Speaker: 00:00 – 4:40
• Presentation: 4:41 – 37:54
  • Marie Dennis: 4:41 – 11:32
  • Sharon Erickson Nepstad: 11:33 – 23:19
  • Eli McCarthy: 23:20 – 37:54
• Questions and Answers: 37:55 – 1:00:49

Webinar Summary:

Photograph by Pete Reyes, The Manila Times.

In this webinar, we heard from a scholar and two members of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative as they described CNI’s efforts to deepen the Catholic Church’s understanding of and commitment to “active nonviolence” with a particular focus on civil resistance as a key tool in promoting social justice. Marie Dennis introduced the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and its engagement through two major conferences with the Vatican. Sharon Nepstad gave more context on the historical role of Catholics in civil resistance movements. Eli McCarthy shared what the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is doing now to increase the understandings and skills of nonviolent resistance among Catholics.

Presenter Profiles:

Marie Dennis serves on the executive committee of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, a project of Pax Christi International. She was on the Board of Pax Christi International for 20 years and served as co-president from 2007 to 2019. She is a Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace. Marie was director for 15 years of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. She is author or co-author of seven books and editor of the award-winning Orbis Book, Choosing Peace: The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence. Marie was named person of the year by the National Catholic Reporter in 2016 and received honorary doctorates from Trinity Washington University and Alvernia University.

Sharon Erickson Nepstad is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. At UNM, she has served as both Chair of Sociology and as Director of Religious Studies. She has been a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion and at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She is the author of five books: Catholic Social Activism: Progressive Movements in the United States (2019, New York University Press), Nonviolent Struggle: Theories, Strategies, and Dynamics (2015, Oxford University Press), Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late 20th Century (2011, Oxford University Press), Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement (2008, Cambridge University Press), and Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement (2004, Oxford University Press).

Eli McCarthy teaches at Georgetown University in Washington DC in Justice and Peace Studies.  Eli has published a book called “Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and U.S. Policy,” (2012) and has a forthcoming book “A Just Peace Ethic Primer: Breaking Cycles of Violence and Building Sustainable Peace (2020). He has published numerous journal articles and published online in The Hill, Huffington Post, National Catholic Reporter, and America Magazine. He also serves as the Director of Justice and Peace for the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, which is the leadership conference of all the U.S. Catholic men’s religious orders. This enables him direct advocacy experience on influencing U.S. policy and organizing collective actions of strategic nonviolent resistance. He serves on the global steering committee of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and also chairs the CNI educational committee.

Relevant Readings:

Appeal to Catholic Church to Re-Commit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence

Advancing Just Peace through Strategic Nonviolent Action by Dr. Maria J. Stephan

2017 World Day of Peace message by Pope Francis

Peace Movements and Religion in the U.S. by Sharon Erickson Nepstad

Just Peace Ethic Handout

Additional Q & A:

In launching the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, what were some helpful aspects of getting this going and gaining traction among Catholic institutions?  Has there been pushback from the Just War crowd? How did you navigate that?

We have been quite clear that active nonviolence, which includes civil resistance, which we focused the webinar on, is neither passive nor the same as pacifism and have consistently pointed to the importance of countering structural, systemic and cultural violence as well as direct violence and of working for just and sustainable peace. We describe “nonviolence” as a way of life consistent with Catholic spirituality, a powerful way of following the example of Jesus, who actively and nonviolently confronted the injustice and violence of his times, and can be done strategically and effectively. Our emphasis has been on the diversity and proven effectiveness of many nonviolent approaches to transforming conflict, interrupting or preventing violence, protecting vulnerable communities and promoting just peace, as well as civil resistance. That seems to be helping to stretch imaginations about the potential of nonviolent strategies to help us break out of perpetual cycles of violence.

Yes, there has been pushback from those who espouse the just war tradition because they believe it should make war rare or that nonviolent alternatives are not powerful enough.. Beyond what we said in the original Appeal to the Catholic Church to Recommit to the Centrality of Gospel Nonviolence (We believe that there is no “just war”. Too often the “just war theory” has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war. Suggesting that a “just war” is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict. And the Church should no longer use or teach “just war theory”.), we have spoken about the importance of leaving the language of “just war” behind.  We have also repeatedly emphasized the value and effectiveness of nonviolent action. We invited several of those who were not happy with our Appeal comments about the just war tradition to participate in our roundtable process that attempted to articulate a new moral framework based on active nonviolence for Catholic teaching on war and peace.

We have also worked to develop a new moral framework, i.e. a nonviolent just peace ethic that can better prevent and limit war; but also do a number of other things as mentioned in the webinar. Then we ask them to consider this, if preventing and limiting war is what they also intend. Some people are ready for this discussion, while others are still defensive and often need space or to learn more about nonviolent action strategies.

Are there any other religious traditions,  Christian or otherwise,  that are following the lead of the Catholic Nonviolence initiative to cause such a shift in in orientation, values, knowledge and skills re” “active nonviolence” in general and civil resistance in particular?

Several other religious traditions have been committed to active nonviolence for a long time – the Quakers, Mennonites and Church of the Brethren, the United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ. The World Council of Churches and others have done significant work on just peace. Many other faith traditions have important teachings on nonviolence as an ethical frame and have experimented with the strategic technique of civil resistance. The CNI is focused on the institutional Catholic Church because of the size and capacity of the Catholic Church to make a difference at a macro level. We are open to collaboration with others, however.

Has there been any progress made towards getting Pope Francis to fully endorse your work within the Catholic Church by issuing an encyclical on “active nonviolence” and civil resistance—as well as rethink Just War thinking?

Following our first conference in April 2016, Pope Francis wrote his 2017 World Day of Peace message on Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace, a first major document on nonviolent action strategies for positive change. He has frequently referred to nonviolent action in his speeches and writing since then. We have a positive working relationship with the Vatican through the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and other offices. Only the Pope decides when to write an encyclical.

Since Vatican II, the Popes have been questioning and de-emphasizing just war thinking. The broader church still has a way to go in this area, though.

The pacifist/moral witness tradition within the Catholic Church often views civil disobedience as an activity reserved for a saintly few. How is CNI working to get the institutional Church to move a concern with nonviolent resistance as a strategic, mass movement approach from the periphery to the center of the Church. Do you think that Church leaders will participate directly in broad-based acts of civil resistance, as a sign that the church, as a whole institution, will resist injustice as a central part of Church activity?

CNI is working at every level  (global/Vatican, regional and local – with hierarchy/local bishops and bishops conferences, religious communities, Catholic universities, seminaries, peace activists, theologians, etc.) to move the mechanisms of education, theological reflection, diplomacy/policy advocacy, media and communications, prayer and liturgy in the Catholic Church to prioritize nonviolent approaches to promoting just, integral peace.  We are urging the Church to prioritize nonviolent relationships internally as well, changing the power-over clericalism that has too often been dominant. We want the Catholic Church to understand, promote and embrace nonviolent action as central to its way of functioning in the world. We believe that will include a broad spectrum of nonviolent practices and when strategic will include nonviolent resistance involving the whole Catholic community and Church leadership. We also try to model it in particular campaigns, such as the migrant children one in the U.S.

Does Catholic Nonviolence Initiative efforts engage with or address the widespread prejudice against LGBTQIA+ people often propagated in the name of God? Is this something that CNI takes on in any way?

We believe that a Church committed to nonviolence will experience a radical shift in practice from clericalism and exclusion to just and inclusive relationships with all people and all beings.

In some cases nonviolent civil resistance actions turn violent—at least at the margins. How can we help keep these actions focused on civil resistance strategies and tactics to increase movement effectiveness and moral clarity?

Participative decision-making about the context and the nature of an action, good training and accurate information about the effectiveness of nonviolent civil resistance (as well as about the damage done by violence even at the margins), as well as good leadership, are key to the kind of discipline needed to keep actions focused on civil resistance. For people of faith, it also helps to include attention to the virtues of nonviolent action (empathy, mercy, humility, courage, etc.), spiritual disciplines (meditation, discernment, etc.), nonviolent skills, and creating nonviolent communities to stay focused on nonviolent civil resistance.

Do you see any future collaboration or a convergence between sectors of the Catholic Nonviolent Initiative and sectors of the Catholic pro-life movement?

CNI is urging the Catholic Church worldwide to prioritize nonviolent relationships and nonviolent strategies toward just and integral peace. Nonviolent action is not an additional issue in competition with all the issues of concern to the Catholic community; rather, it is a cross-cutting methodology for how we hope the Church and Catholic people will address all issues of social and ecological justice in these times. Nonviolent action should characterize the methodology and the goal of Catholic engagement in support of integral human development, integral ecology, integral peace.

In dictatorship, it is difficult to wage even nonviolent resistance. Any attempt, to stand up to a dictatorship, can be met with a violent, iron-fist response. So, in what way could CNI help in creating nonviolent resistance, help someone agitate, organize and wage civil-resistance in a country where any kind of resistance is repressed, including non-violent one is not seen in good eyes?  

As CNI we believe that nonviolent action, including civil resistance, has to be contextually appropriate. Local people must determine the timing, nature and trajectory of any nonviolent action and carefully assess different strategies. In difficult situations where resistance is repressed, training in effective nonviolent approaches and access to the best available information on nonviolent strategies seem essential. Learning approaches from other situations where repression is common could be helpful. Recognizing the serious risks of any nonviolent action and the likely consequences of repressive violence are extremely important as well.