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.

Religions as revolutions

By guest author Majed Ashy, Ph.D.

Moses and escape from Egypt
Israel's escape from Egypt. Image in public domain

From the time of…

  • Moses, who helped guide the Israelis out of slavery and oppression to freedom, to
  • Jesus, who preached equality and love and changed the whole human understanding of power structures, to
  • Mohammad, who fought tyranny and oppression in Arabia and preached for justice and human dignity …

… one can see that these religions were in some ways revolutions, forces against existing oppressive power structures and traditions.

No doubt, some of the followers of religions established their own oppressive power structures and committed violence, but violence and oppression can be committed by non-religious as well as religious individuals and forces.

What did any religion have to do with the 20 million people killed in WWI, or the 60 million killed in WWII?  With Vietnam, Korean, or Japanese wars, the Cambodian or Rwandan genocides, or the dropping of the nuclear bombs over Japanese civilians?  Or the oppression and killing of millions in Russia and Eastern Europe by Stalin and other dictators, or the oppression committed by military dictators in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, among many others?

Linking violence to one religion or another reflects:

  • Selective attention and reading of the history of violence and oppression that existed before and after any of these religions were established
  • Overlooking the role of religions and religious people in fighting oppression and contributing to humans’ well being in many areas of life
  • A dangerous way of offering unexamined answers that feed popular cultural prejudices and fears
  • A simplification of the problem of human violence,l which transcends race, culture, or religion

Instead of falsely attributing violence to religion, we need a serious scholarly non-ideological discussion to find the real roots of violence and the way toward greater peace.

To achieve peace, we need courage to look in the mirror and see our own faults before we point fingers at others, and we need courage in our struggle to be fair — even with those with whom we disagree.

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