Does Nonviolent Resistance Work? Part 3b

This is the second of three posts comprising Part III of a series of posts in which Dr. Ian Hansen shares his thoughts on nonviolence.

See also Part 1aPart 1bPart 1cPart 2aPart 2b, Part2c and Part3a.

Libya anti-Gaddafi protest, July 6, 2011
Libya anti-Gaddafi protest, July 6, 2011
Photo by Mbi3000, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Iran, Egypt, Libya, Ukraine and even Syria all reflect examples of uprisings that had a major nonviolent campaign as the lynchpin of popular revolt and managed to change the relations of power in some way.  But none of these uprisings stayed Gandhi-style nonviolent, and it seems these revolutions all had aftermaths ranging from the dubious to the disastrous.

Still, held up against totally violent revolutions that succeeded in overthrowing preceding governments–like those in China 1949, Russia 1917 (the October one), and Cambodia 1975—these dubious nonviolent revolutions look relatively good, if only because the aftermath of the violent revolutions was so hyperbolically horrific.

Even the extreme carnage in Syria (and the specter of a new Cold War between great powers over Ukraine’s Crimea) does not weigh down the partially nonviolent group as much as the Cambodian genocide, Stalin’s purges, and the Great Leap Forward weigh down the violent group.  Of course, I have just cherry-picked anecdotal examples here.  Chenoweth and Stephan (authors of Why Civil Resistance Works) try to root the contrast of more violent versus less violent uprisings in a systematically principled selection of comparison groups, but they come to largely similar conclusions.

But what about those nonviolent revolutions which Chenoweth and Stephan count as somewhat successful but after which the relations of power have hardly changed at all?  Or the cases in which the original relations of domination grew even more entrenched since that revolution?  I will discuss one of these cases in the final post in part 3 of this series and in my final series on nonviolence.

Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at York College, City University of New York. His research focuses in part on how witness for human rights and peace can transcend explicit political ideology. He is also on the Steering Committee for Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

The psychology of revolutions, Part 2: The case of Egypt

By guest author, Dr. Majed Ashy

Arab Spring collage
Arab Spring collage compiled by VOA photo/L. Bryant, Jonathan Rashad. Used under CC Attribution 3.0 Unported license. From Wikimedia Commons.

Following the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups won the first elections, due to their long history in organizing and their experience in politics compared to the other groups. They were also aided by the fact that people wanted to stay away from the previous system.

These Islamic governments immediately started to apply their vision of an Islamic state to their whole nations without taking into account or understanding the power of the other partners in the revolution and without understanding that the supporters of the previous system were working against them.

The previous system is called “deep government” in the Middle East because it created systems and cultures that are so deeply rooted that it is hard for any government or revolution to make any fundamental changes.

Thus, in the Middle East—for example in Egypt–there are several competing visions for the future. Should the Middle East become a set of religious states or modern secular civilian democracies? Or should the old system of corruption and oppression continue in some form? Could it be true, as some people argue, that the old autocratic systems are the only ones that will work in the Middle East?

The revolutions that have been taking place in the Middle East are faced at this stage with challenging geopolitical realities both inside each country and internationally. People cannot escape from their history, cultural realities, human tendencies, or geopolitical environment.

I think the Middle East needs to understand the role of culture and history in their behavior. I believe that a successful government is one that does not exclude anyone and includes all visions of society in its steps forward. I think groups in the Middle East need to understand the politics of co-existence, power sharing, and respect for human rights.

Winning an election does not mean that a small group can use its powers to change the legal system and the government in ways that will guarantee its power forever, nor does it mean the winning group can take the whole nation in its own preferred direction without respecting the wishes of the masses and various interest groups in society.

Dr. Majed Ashy is an assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Not in my name (Stories of engagement)

Our guest author, Glyn Secker, is on the executive committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) and was a lead organizer and captain of the Jewish Boat To Gaza last year.

I grew up with no faith and within no Jewish community, but with a deep commitment to human rights and justice. Searching for my cultural community, I became conscious that it had been buried by a fundamentalism that learned from history nothing but the very mindset of oppression through which it had itself emerged.

In the fight for human rights we should each choose the domain where we can be most effective. So for me, as a Jew, the title of our organization, “Jews For Justice For Palestinians” is an existential statement: its subtitle, “Two Peoples – One Future,” is a deep philosophical belief.

My family arrived in the U.K. as refugees from the pogroms in Poland and Romania. I live in London with Vanessa, who lost a generation of her family in the Holocaust, and our two sons.

I have been a lifetime campaigner for social justice and human rights:

  • Organizing and delivering printing presses to social democratic parties in Greece in 1974 prior to the fall of the military junta
  • Coordinating with social democratic parties in Czechoslovakia prior to the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the regime in 1982
  • Serving on the organizing team of the UK Anti-Nazi League in 1977 and the giant Rock Against Racism concerts in 1978.

I have been on fact-finding missions and solidarity work in Portugal in 1974, Algeria in 1978, Palestinian organizations in Lebanon in 1979, and Egypt in 1981, and I was a courier for social democratic parties in Turkey in 1982 following the military coup in 1980.

All of this prepared me to sail a boat to Gaza to breach the blockade and to say “Not in my name.” I  organized sailing our family boat to Gaza as a JfJfP boat in 2009, with hospital medical equipment provided at the ready by Conscience International, and the crew on standby.

This mission was postponed when Israel began impounding Free Gaza boats for the first time. However, in 2010, I was lead organizer and captain of the Jewish Boat to Gaza.

Glyn Secker