Second and final essay reviewing Recovering nonviolent history: Civil resistance in liberation struggles. Edited by Maciej J. Bartkowski. Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2013 (US).
Reviewed by Ed Agro
To what extent are the lessons from Recovering nonviolent history applicable to different times and situations? The book deals with struggles against colonial overlords, compradors, or outright tyrants. The people were under-served and unrepresented; rulers had the lion’s share of military and economic power.
Yet the question for U.S. activists is not how to overthrow the “other,” but rather: Can strategic nonviolence also curb the misbehavior of democracies?
Gene Sharp’s answer to this question is “No.” In functioning democracies (that is, prior to elites taking everything), autonomy and wealth are still diffused widely. Few people will sacrifice what they already have on behalf of communal change.
Here are two of many questions that might help us get beyond that “No.”
1. What’s ordinary? A number of Bartkowski’s chapters characterize the struggle as between ordinary people and the oppressing group. While the oppressor and its aims are well-defined, we don’t get a picture of what “ordinary people” means. When supporters of a regime come over to the civil resistance, do they thereby become ordinary? Were they not ordinary before?
Assuming “ordinary people” to be self-evident hinders the understanding of how one person will go beyond mere opinion to sacrifice for the communal good while a neighbor will struggle as mightily to maintain the most bogus privilege.
2. In ignoring the stories’ contexts do we exchange the myth of war heroics for one of heroic comity? For example, the chapter on the U.S. in 1765-75 makes a persuasive argument that civil resistance might have effected autonomy, if not independence, without war. Readers unaware of the pre-war violence by the patriots could take away a picture of a population in accord on the reasons and method to effect change. Was this so? How might our understanding of democracy differ had we a fuller picture?
These are not criticisms of Bartkowki’s book, but rather tokens of its richness. Right action is not obvious, even in a democracy.
Ed Agro is a long-time peace activist. To learn more about Ed, read his autobiographical statement, as published in Forbes Magazine.