Nonviolent activism: Engine of change, Part 1

Recovering nonviolent history: Civil resistance in liberation struggles. Edited by Maciej J.  Bartkowski. Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2013 (US).

Reviewed by Ed AgroRecovering Nonviolent History

This volume will interest anyone who is curious about the history of nonviolent activism and its prospects as an engine of change. The book shows in some detail the birth, development, and fate of little-known (or unknown) nonviolent liberation struggles in 17 countries. The aim is to counterbalance national histories that heroize violence and discount the nonviolent activism that preceded and/or paralleled armed struggle.

The editor and chapter authors are “engaged academics” in the field of peace studies; some were intimately involved in the activism they describe or are inheritors of that activism. In the introduction Bartkowski outlines the importance of these stories for peace studies; in his concluding chapter he draws lessons for those not only studying, but also actively pursuing, peace activism.

The tactics described will be familiar to those who have read Gene Sharp’s studies of strategic nonviolence (From dictatorship to democracy: A conceptual framework for liberation). What’s new here is the explicit recognition of how culture-dependent the expression of those tactics is. In fact, the first reading of the book can be difficult, because from chapter to chapter one has to reorient oneself to different modes of expression.

All peoples desire the same autonomy and dignity; all have discovered the same tools of struggle; yet each re-forges them suitably for their own culture. For example, the description of the Egyptian struggles for a nation-state between 1805 and 1922 are, despite different times and mores, similar to tactics used in the Egyptian revolt (Arab Spring) of 2011. Astoundingly, they also read like a description of Occupy Wall Street.

These convergences are partly due to historical memory and the worldwide intercommunication of activists; but they are also due to the rediscovery of the common principles underlying nonviolent resistance and nonviolent citizenship.

From this book I get the sense that there’s hope yet.

Ed Agro is a long-time peace activist. To learn more about Ed, read his autobiographical statement, as published in Forbes Magazine.